Caron Acaciosa

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Acaciosa is one of perfumery’s greatest floral perfumes. It was released in 1924 and remains one of the most beautiful, lush jasmine and rose fragrances ever.

Acaciosa

Acaciosa

In Bottle: A big floral bouquet of jasmine and rose with a slight hint of amber.

Applied: Jasmine and rose are the stars here and the major players throughout the entire fragrance. The instant Acaciosa is applied you will smell these two principle notes that have endured the test of time and have continued to appear together in some of the fragrance world’s most popular classics and contemporary fragrances. Acaciosa does jasmine and rose proud because it plays up their authentic beauty and blends them together so well that a sniff of Acaciosa tells you immediately that you’re smelling a fantastic floral. There’s no real debate to be had, you’re smelling history and you’re smelling a floral perfume as it should be. Right from the start, into the middle, and down into the base you get jasmine and rose mingling together in a gorgeous medley. There’s a faint hint of sweetness and a jolt of tart pineapple that serves to deepen this fragrance with its mostly heady floral bouquet. The base intensifies with a warm amber quality. This amber note is present during the opening and midstages but doesn’t become too strong until you reach the base.

Extra: Caron has a fountain version of Acaciosa available for those of you who wish to experience the full on artistry of this fragrance. One of these days I’d like to see a Caron fragrance fountain for myself.

Design: The bottle pictured above is from a vintage ad dating back to the 1930s when Acaciosa was a bit easier to find. It’s a shame this fragrance is so exclusive now. I have yet to hold or even see more than a small sample of this stuff but everything Caron made back in its hey day looks beautiful.

Fragrance Family: Classic Floral

Notes: Orange flower, pineapple, jasmine, rose, amber.

I have no idea and no way to tell how old the decant of Acaciosa I have is. We can only take a blind stab in the dark that it is a vintage that could have been from the 40s, but even then we can’t be quite sure. So take the dating of my sampler with a grain of salt since I can’t guarantee its accuracy.

Reviewed in This Post: Acaciosa, ~1940, Parfum.

Hello Kitty

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I don’t know why I expected anything else but sugar and sweet from a fragrance put out with Hello Kitty’s name on it. Or expect anything from a perfume that comes out of a cartoon cat’s head. But hey, it’s just fun.

Hello Kitty

In Bottle: Sweet, candy, and quite synthetic smelling. There’s not much to this perfume aside from candy-like with a little touch of apple and other fruits to cut the tedium a little.

Applied: Initial flare of sweet fruit with an apple note that’s very synthetic. This is the apple that I smell in DKNY Be Delicious. Too sweet, a little plastic, not very attractive but it does its job as a fruity opener. The fragrance heads into its mid-stage with an equally sweet showing, amping up the sugar even more while it takes on a bit of a vanilla and fruity flowers mix. There’s no really good florals in this, just vague perfumery flower scent that smells as nondescript as the rest of the fragrance. The dry down is a typical sweet vanilla with a cleaned up white musk finisher.

Extra: Hello Kitty’s had a few perfumes named after her over the years but I believe this one is a part of the Hello Kitty beauty line that’s now available at Sephora. I never quite understood the Hello Kitty craze, though I do own a few pieces of Sanrio merchandise and remember a vague time in my tween years when I thought some of the characters were cute. I can appreciate this for the fun factor at least.

Design: The bottle is essentially Hello Kitty’s head with a balloon pump coming up the top. It’s cute at first glance but when you settle down and think about it, it’s a bit macabre. Here you have Hello Kitty, with a sprayer nozzle coming out of her head, and then you squeeze a balloon pump to get the cartoon happiness out of the bottle. The balloon pump, being what it is, is not as good as a standard push atomizer but it is functional. I would be concerned about how the balloon pump continues to function as the user uses the perfume more and more as it’s a pretty delicate piece of hardware.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Fruity

Notes: Cassis sorbet, mandarin, apple, magnolia blossom, freesia, orange flower, tonka bean, vanilla, musk.

And now I know what Hello Kitty is supposed to smell like. This fragrance lived up to my expectations of it smelling like a candy confection. If you’re looking for complex and interesting, you’d have better luck elsewhere.

Reviewed in This Post: Hello Kitty, 2011, Eau de Parfum.

Thierry Mugler Mugler Cologne

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Mugler Cologne is one of the easiest to wear fragrances for a very good reason. It smells clean, smells like good soap, and when it comes down to it, Mugler Cologne just smells good.

Mugler Cologne

In Bottle: Clean soap. Like you just stepped into the shower and grabbed a bar of soap. It’s comforting, it’s classy, and it’s definitely easy to wear.

Applied: I love my clean fragrances. I love smelling like soap and smelling fresh so Mugler Cologne is right up my alley. It’s strange that a fragrance that would otherwise be slotted in the ‘boring’ category can pull itself out of that arena and into a more sophisticated area. Mugler Cologne isn’t just ‘smells like soap’ to me. It’s a rich, complex soap scent that does very well on my skin. It’s like holding onto that freshly showered feeling for a little while longer. There’s not a whole lot I can say to separate the notes of this into a traditional fragrance pyramid. Mugler Cologne simply smells good and I’ll happily slather it on for that clean feeling. The longevity of this stuff is a bit lackluster but I expected that from a fragrance like this. I love this stuff though and even if the longevity leaves something to be desired I’ll still love this because it just smells good.

Extra: Thierry Mugler apparently based this fragrance on a soap that he purchased once. I’m not sure what soap he bought but he definitely captured the essence of what soap smells like.

Design: I’m just not a fan of most of Thierry Mugler bottle designs. Cologne’s bottle reminds me of a Dawn dish soap bottle. It comes with a sprayer that you can install yourself and for all intents and purposes, the bottle is easy to hold and the sprayer works fine.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Bergamot, petit grain, neroli, orange flower, white musk.

This stuff the middle road between Prada’s Infusion de Homme and Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs’ Wensleydale. It’s soapy but not too weak and not too strong. I just wish the longevity was better.

Reviewed in This Post: Mugler Cologne, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Givenchy Organza

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My mother owns a bottle of Organza that she’s been slowly whittling down for a number of years. I wouldn’t be surprised if her bottle was approaching its tenth birthday she’s had this for a while. Organza is sensual, classic-smelling, and a bit difficult to like at times for me. But it is beautiful.

Organza

In Bottle: Amber-like. Warm and sensual with a little bit of dirtiness in there. Organza is spicy, sophisticated, and a touch sweet layered with woods.

Applied: Citrus on the opening with a rather sudden dirty note showing up earlier in the fragrance. This smells rather personable while at the same time it projects the fact that it’s a fragrance as put on as anything else. The citrus dries off rather quickly leaving me a spicy amber coating a bouquet of jasmine, tuberose, and earthy iris. The mid-stage is where Organza’s dirty note amps up a bit more, taking this fragrance away from what normally would be a simple clean perfume to a dense, rich amber-like fragrance with florals to temper the warmth a bit. The dry down is an interesting affair. Amber is the star of the show here and the drydown is no different. It play on the amber is a powdery woodsy scent, a bit like wood dust in a way.

Extra: Sometimes I associate my mother with this fragrance but she wore No.5 before she ever knew about Organza.

Design: It’s pretty obvious what the bottle is trying to reflect here. The curve of a woman wearing a dress. There’s elements of column structure here too. I rather like Organza’s design. It’s elegant and like the fragrance itself. The soft, gentle curves and line work on the bottle remind me of Art Nouveau.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Bergamot, orange flower, gardenia, nutmeg, tuberose, honeysuckle, jasmine, iris, peony, walnut, cedar, amber, vanilla, guaiac wood.

It’s funny how tastes change over the years. When my mother first got this perfume I couldn’t stand it. It was too strong. Smelled weird. Now I can see why she liked this.

Reviewed in This Post: Organza, ~2003, Eau de Parfum.

Coty L’Origan

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Sometimes, just because I’m immature, I like to pretend that Coty only came out with the good stuff and all the stuff they’ve made that’s been terrible just simply doesn’t exist. When I think of Coty these days, the first thing that pops into my head is Lady Gaga and everybody freaking out about her up and coming “blood and semen” perfume. I won’t mention our favorite friend from Etat Libre d’Orange but I will say that the Coty of the early 1900s could have taken “blood and semen” and turned it into something beautiful. These days, I kind of hope Gaga at least gets something that isn’t a fruity-floral. Oh, Coty.

L'Origan

In Bottle: L’Origan has that classic smell that you just can’t imitate these days. It’s dense and complex with a varying, slightly discordant mixture of big honking spices and florals up top.

Applied: Spicy on arrival with a floral touch coming up. There’s a very old-world style to the way this perfume goes on and starts to age. People have compared L’Origan to L’Heure Bleue–well,  I should say they compare L’Heure Bleue to L’Origan because Guerlain’s hit fragrance was released after this one. It’s similar in that both scents trail the same sort of fragrance with L’Heure Bleue exhibiting a much colder, more melancholy personality. L’Origan, to me, is warm and much more animalic. There’s a hint of animal in the opening there and I experienced hints of animalics throughout the livespan of the scent. It’s blended very well, though, not overpowering the scent but rather giving it a bit of sensuality and added depth. Another thing about L’Origan vs. L’Heure Bleue, it’s spicier with slightly less noticeable florals and it’s ultimately a brighter scent though its uses of the  spices are very familiar. There’s a powderiness to this that tends to show up in vintage fragrances as well as a heavy dose of clove. As L’Origan approaches dry down it maintains that spiciness the whole time the florals are totally gone but what’s waiting at the bottom is this thick, rich warmness that reminds me a bit of slick metals and mosses.

Extra: L’Origan was released in 1905 and still survives today–though in an undoubtedly heavily reformulated state. As always, vintage is leaps and bounds better.

Design: The original L’Origan was bottled in a flat glass bottle of a squarish shape with the Coty seal on it. I had a warm, amber-like color and was a bit reminiscent of Chypre de Coty in appearance. The modern bottle (pictured) is reminiscent of a flower bulb with a spiky crown for a cap. I have to say I prefer the old style better.

Fragrance Family: Spicy

Notes: Bergamot, orange, coriander, pepper, peach, nutmeg, clove, jasmine, violet, rose, ylang-ylang, orange flower, benzoin, cedar, incense, vanilla, sandalwood, musk, coumarin, civet.

Somehow L’Origan comes out as the happy side of L’Heure Bleue. These two could be best friends, though probably not sisters. I have to say, despite my love for L’Heure Bleue–I like L’Origan a bit more.

Reviewed in This Post: L’Origan, ~1950, Eau de Parfum.

Calgon Hawaiian Ginger

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Hawaiian Ginger really takes me back. It’s a blast from my past. A reminder of middle school hallways, the slummy lighting in the basement floor of the school, and English class where I sat behind a girl who reeked of this stuff.

Hawaiian Ginger

In Bottle: Sweet, juicy and tropical. A hint of tangy pineapple layered with sweet, ripened melon notes. Honeydew and cantaloupe together, maybe.

Applied: If you’re looking for spicy, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Hawaiian Ginger focuses more on the tropical aspect of its name than the gingery part. You’ll get a fruity opening that smells like fruit punch, a decent enough fruity scent that makes you think it could almost be edible. The opening is very juicy, I get mostly melon notes an indistinguishable blend of honeydew and cantaloupe with a few pieces of pineapple in there to cut a bit of the sweetness. The ginger seems to be almost an afterthought as I went into the mid-stage with a marked desire to find it. Instead, I found more tropical fruits and a mild bit of sweet florals layered with the weakest sugared up ginger ever. The dry down is almost markedly underplaying this mysterious ginger note with a very sweet ginger candy-like thing making an appearance during the mid-stage’s decline into the end phase.

Extra: I wore Hawaiian Ginger for a brief time when I was in middle school having just discovered what this “amazing smell” was. Then me and this fragrance grew apart as I realized every other girl in middle school was also wearing this and I was getting a bit tired of the fragrance. Revisiting it was a trip down memory lane. I still wouldn’t start wearing it again as it is a very young fragrance.

Design: Bottled like almost every other body mist is bottled like. Tall cylindrical plastic container, plastic sprayer nozzle, sticker label. Not a perfume, quite plain, a bit ugly, but very functional.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Pineapple, honeydew, watermelon, cantaloupe, orange flower, sugar, ginger.

Again, took a stab at the notes list as I didn’t fully believe the official ad copy which tried to pawn this fragrance off as a floral fragrance. I get almost no florals out of this.

Reviewed in This Post: Hawaiian Ginger, 1999, Body Mist.

Chanel Coco

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Chanel Coco is resting near the top of my favorite Chanel perfumes list. This fragrance couldn’t be any further from its younger incarnation, the pink and bubbly Coco Mademoiselle.

Chanel Coco

In Bottle: Add in spice for warm, a wispy thread of flowers, and a delicately peeled citrus note. Coco smells warm right off the bat with a bit of citrus to clean it up.

Applied: Coco wastes no time just digging into this. It comes off spicy right away, throwing cinnamon and clove at you to warm itself up as the citrus and wispy flowers quickly give way to the midstage where we’re greeted with a delightfully clean, spicy, warm jasmine and rose complex. A lot of perfumes rely on jasmine and rose together but that never seems to make the combination any less beautiful–particularly when it’s used in such a fine tuned balanced such as in Coco. There is the smallest drop of civet in this during the later half of the midstage. The civet in Coco is so well done and well balanced. I don’t normally like it in perfumes but this civet blends really well with the overarching spicy cleanness that the note adds a depth and sensual feel to the fragrance without making it smell too harsh and alienating. The dry down is an equally spicy amber with a hint of sandalwood and a smooth layer of tonka.

Extra: Chanel Coco was released in 1984 and was composed by Chanel’s in house perfumer, Jacques Polge. It is a little sad to see that when you do a search for “Chanel Coco”, most of the results come back for Coco Mademoiselle.

Design: Like most of Chanel’s other widely popular fragrances, Coco comes in various packaging. If you go for the full service parfum concentration deal you get a glass rectangular bottle so often associated with No. 5. Coco’s bottle has a black seal band running around the neck and a black label.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Oriental

Notes: Angelica, mimosa, frangipani, mandarin, cascarilla, orange flower, Bulgarian rose, jasmine, labdanum, ambrette seed, opopanax, benzoin, tonka, vanilla.

Like with most Chanel fragrances, Coco lasts a very long, very impressive time. She’s a sophisticated lady and entirely wearable considering the era it came out in.

Reviewed in This Post: Coco, 2009, Eau de  Parfum.

Paco Rabanne Lady Million

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I was hoping Lady Million would hit it off with me a little better than 1 Million but it was a sad day as my hopes were dashed. Lady Million

In Bottle: Fruity, sweet, and slightly cloying, with a base of earthiness that draws the sweetness away from pink girly happy fun hour. Only a little though.

Applied: Ah sweet fruitiness, cloying it up in my nose upon spray with that distracting cleaned up earthiness that I wish hadn’t been introduced into the  mix as all I smell upon application is Lady Million’s very cloying dirt. I think the best part is when the opening finally fades after what seems to be an hour and goes into a slightly more sophisticated sweet, warm honeyed amber fragrance. Though I wish it had reached that point a lot sooner. The cloying note in the opening is still present here sort of ruining the honeyed aspect and just making it smell like a fruity woodsy floral. Highly depressing, though not repulsive at all. In fact, the raspberry note that keeps wading in and out with its cloying syrup-drenched fruit reminds me a bit of Guerlain’s My Insolence. A fragrance I actually liked. As Lady Million proves to be true to her counterpart as her strength clings to you with impressive stubborness. Once again I had tried to wait for fade but ended up having to wash her off. She’s a little less insistent after a shower but there were still faint traces of her the next day.

Extra: All right, so that’s two for two striking out in the million category. Lady Million’s not something I’d even consider trying again as it smells like so many other things that I have smelled before and on top of that, it does this weird and annoying cloying routine on me.

Design: Lady Million is gold on the outside with a significantly less hefty weight than 1 Million. I was actually disappointed that this thing wasn’t heavier. Its shape was reminiscent of a gem. Upon lighting my eyes on it for the first time my initial thought was, “Looks like a diamond, I guess”. So bravo for a concept well executed. the handling of the bottle is not too bad either, despite its unconventional shape.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Floral

Notes: Citron, raspberry, neroli, orange flower, jasmine, gardenia, patchouli and honey.

Honestly, there wasn’t that much floral going on in Lady Million but there was no way I could truly describe the strange, and slightly nauseating mix of syrup, raspberries, woodds, and random flowers. I am just not a fan, Lady Million. Sorry.

Reviewed in This Post: Lady Million, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Robert Piguet Fracas

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If you want tuberose, you usually don’t have to look far. The fragrance industry is inundated with tuberose scents. From the highest end to the shower gels. Sometimes tuberose is even masquerading as gardenia. But if you want a really bold, really classic, very true tuberose, you get Fracas. Fracas

In Bottle: Powerful hit of sweet tropical, juicy, slightly rubbery tuberose. Fracas is very strong. I want to come out and warn you of that right away or I would feel bad. Aside from its strength it’s a lovely thing. It smells like the times must have been like back then, elegant and classy with a bold streak.

Applied: Wet rubbery tuberose with a sweetness added to it. This smells like a giant bouquet of flowers with a dominant tuberose the size of a skyscraper. The flowers, despite all their best efforts, are secondary to the tuberose that’s so massive and appealing that it can’t really scream any louder than it does in this fragrance. Unlike most people, and you shouldn’t go by what I say, I don’t consider tuberose as a sultry flower. It smells like slick rubbery floral to me and that’s about as far as I can take it. If you do happen to think tuberose smells sultry, then Fracas is sultry in a bottle. As the scent progresses, you start to wonder if it will ever end as not only is Fracas fantastic in terms of projection, its longevity is to be complimented too. There’s a subtle spiciness to Fracas if you wait her out long enough which gives the tuberose something to talk to as up until that spiciness, all I had was a big white floral.

Extra: Fracas was released in 1948 and is a classic by all accounts and purposes. It has become the go to scent for tuberose and its reputation is well deserved. It has survived this long as a reference and a piece of history and I’d like to believe it’ll survive for a good six decades too if you never wash it off.

Design: The eau de parfum is bottled in a fairly plain black bottle with hot pink lettering depicting the fragrance’s name and house name. Not Earth shattering in appearance but you don’t buy Fracas for the bottle.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Green notes, mandarin, bergamot, hyacinth, geranium, peach, tuberose, jasmine, orange flower, white iris, lily of the valley, violet, jonquil, carnation, coriander, balsam, vetiver, orris, sandlawood, moss, cedar, musk.

If someone hadn’t pointed me to that massive list of notes, I never would have believed it. Just as a point of interest because I know someone might be looking for this, you pronounce Robert Piguet like, “Row-Behr Peeg-Gehy”. You pronounce Fracas as, “Frah-Cah”.

Reviewed in This Post: Fracas, 2002, Eau de Parfum.