Vera Wang Princess Night

Really? Another one? At this point, the Princess line has become this heart-shaped, sugary thing I find myself inexplicably drawn to. Like I can justify smelling its many iterations in the hopes that something about the whole lot will strike my fancy. So here goes nothing.

Princess Night

Princess Night

In Bottle:Fruity with a distinct sweet vanilla fragrance. There’s a creamy quality to it too. Smells a lot like a warm berry dessert.

Applied: Fruity opening with a slightly tart berry personality that pretty much bursts out of the bottle and attaches itself to your skin to attack you while it has the chance. The berries are rather shortlived and end up devolving into this anonymous “fruity” smell that mixes rather nicely, but also rather blandly, with the florals in the midstage. The staple jasmine, rose, and orange flower combination does what its always done–create a benign floral twist that behaves in the presence of fruits and vanillas. The dry down isn’t too much to write home about either. Sweet vanilla, layered with a hint of woods to give the fragrance a warm, sweet finish. The warmth in this one shouldn’t be confused with the warmth you might get from an amber note, this is all mild warmth. Kind of like dipping your toe in lukewarm water as opposed to wrapping yourself in a plush sweater.

Extra: Princess Night, presumably after the success of the Princess line by Vera Wang, was released in January 2012.

Design: All right, who green lighted this thing? I picked up the bottle and had glitter all over my hand the instant I came into contact with it. Now I’m not as big on glitter as some people–in fact, I kind of hate glitter. Regardless, the glitter makes the already garish bottle look even more garish. Princess Night was sitting next to a bottle of regular old Princess and the former made the latter look like a baccarat masterpiece. I’m sorry, the look doesn’t appeal to me and the glitter just turned me off completely. On more technical terms, Princess Night is shaped exactly like the rest of the Princess line with a removable ring you can wear on your finger. It’s two chief differences being the dark purple glitter that covers the entirety of the bottle and a metal tag hung from the neck to identify the fragrance.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Oriental

Notes: Red berries, raspberry, watermelon, orange flower, jasmine, rose, sugar, vanilla, musk, woods.

Kind of had to stretch to call this an oriental but what else stands out from Princess Night but it’s fruity opening and vanilla finish? Maybe the next Princess flanker will work out for me a bit better.

Reviewed in This Post: Princess Night, 2012, Eau de Toilette.


Thierry Mugler Innocent

While Thierry Mugler’s Angel didn’t hit it off with me, I was going to give Angel’s cousin, Innocent a try. I heard this stuff was lighter, easier to take, and lacked the patchouli that may have caused Angel to go foul on me.

Innocent

Innocent

In Bottle: Fruits and almond with a very smooth and very sweet personality.

Applied: Initial flare of sweet citrus. It’s a little reminiscent of juice on the initial application to me. Like a tall glass of freshly squeezed lemonade with a bit of orange added for more citrus flavor. The fragrance heads into its middle stages with a lovely almond note that plays nice with the sweet berry midstage and–I might be crazy–what smells like apricot. As things go, there’s a bit of caramel-like fragrance that seems to want to join the fray here and there. The dry down is also pleasant with a warm amber and clean nutty aroma.

Extra:  Innocent was released in 1998 and has been compared to Angel numerous times. I definitely see the connection there. Except, unlike Angel, Innocent is much easier to take. It’s all the pillowy softness and sweetness with none of the bite. So if you wanted to like Angel but thought she came on too strong with her patchouli note, then give Innocent a sniff.

Design: Bottled very nicely in a tall cylindrical shape, Innocent is one of the less oddly shaped designs from Thierry Mugler’s fragrance line. It looks slick, it looks less clunky that many of the other designs while still maintaining a unique and captivating look.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Gourmand

Notes: Bergamot, orange, blackcurrant, red berries, almond, praline, amber, white musk.

I was one of those people who just couldn’t like Angel as a fragrance. And I’m probably able to slot myself into some category of people who didn’t like Angel but like this. Innocent is basically a milder, easier-going version of Angel with a couple of tweaks, but the same base personality.

Reviewed in This Post: Innocent, 2008, Eau de Parfum.


Guerlain Cherry Blossom Fruity

A year ago when my eyes were still filled with stars for old fragrance houses like Guerlain and Coty, I would have sworn off stuff like Cherry Blossom Fruity and pretended they didn’t exist. But the truth of the matter is, Guerlain makes its bills by selling mainstream fragrances like this while, hopefully, keeping its classics alive for another year.

Cherry Blossom Fruity

Cherry Blossom Fruity

In Bottle: Smells like flowers and fruits. Kind of a funny experience when I remember Guerlain of Vol de Nuit and Jicky fame made this.

Applied: Yeah, florals and fruits. There’s a bit of tartness at the start–very little of it–with a juicy cherry fragrance and a very fruity blanket to push the cherry smell a little. The whole opening is familiar with mainstream fruity fragrances. I think the word “juicy” is a good approximation of how Cherry Blossom Fruity opens up. Don’t worry though, it gets better as the scent ages and the cherry blossom jasmine combination come into play. The florals balance out the loud juicy opening very nicely. The whole composition of the fragrance is quite sound. It’s actually one of the better fruity florals I’ve sampled in that it doesn’t just throw a punch of fruits and flowers together. There was some good thought put into this. The drydown sees a bit of taming when it comes to the fruity florals and introduces a bit of surprising dry dustiness that I want to say might be vetiver, but I’m not sure I want to commit to that conclusion.

Extra: While I have a very small sample of this, Cherry Blossom Fruity is apparently a “Glittering” Eau de Toilette. I can only assume there’s some sort of glitter or sparkles in this stuff that when sprayed can either make you look like the Queen of the Fae or a walking disco ball. I’m really not sure where Guerlain was going with this one, but there’s been some iteration of these easy fragrances out for a while. You can still get your hands on Cherry Blossom Fruity. Beautyencounter has it for a very reasonable price though the bottle is very small.

Design: I’m not wild about the look of this one. It looks particularly out of place given the rest of Guerlain’s packaging. It is what it is though. Every time I look at the bottle I get the feeling Cherry Blossom Fruity would fit in more with the body sprays (especially given the glitter in it) than the Eau de Toilettes.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Red berries, cherry, cherry blossom, jasmine, vetiver.

Please note that my list of notes is mostly an approximation. Guerlain themselves only provided two definitive notes: cherry, cherry blossom and jasmine. The rest are my guesses.

Cherry Blossom Fruity–to me–hails from Guerlain’s mainstream arm that makes fast and easy to wear perfume. It’s fast fragrance for the too-busy-to-bother 21st Century consumer who needs to spray and go. And what they want to spray is something subdued and inoffensive. Nothing wrong with that. Like I said, this stuff smells good and is fundamentally sound as an easy perfume. Though I’m not sure you want it to make you glittery if your chief concern is convenient fragrance. In the end I hope it sells (or sold) well so Guerlain can keep it’s classics in stock. Though judging by the fact that I hardly see any of this stuff on actual store shelves, I’m happy that the Aqua Allegoria line does a bit better.

P.S. Happy Valentines Day!

Reviewed in This Post: Cherry Blossom Fruity, 2006, Eau de Toilette.


V&R Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose 2011

I decided to give Flowerbomb, or rather its flanker line, a chance hoping that after the very un-floral like contraption that was the original Flowerbomb, they would add some actual flowers to the perfume so it smelled a bit less like a very expensive Pink Sugar.

Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose

In Bottle: Still smells foody though the caramel note in this one is significantly more tame than in the original Flowerbomb. I’m noticing a smooth almond note mingled with that same scent that I got from Flowerbomb. That sweet, nothing-else-but-candy scent that I wasn’t too sold on in the original.

Applied: A flare up of bergamot with sweet tangerine leading the way. It’s typical of perfumes and this citrus opener didn’t happen with the original Flowerbomb that veered right into sweet territory. After the citrus digs itself out, the original Flowerbomb scent comes through with a milder caramel note riding on the waves of an almond scent that adds a bit more foodiness to the fragrance. The florals are still largely absent behind the huge wall of obnoxiously sweet candy-like accords that add nothing to this flanker’s originality. It is, essentially, Flowerbomb with some bergamot and almond. I’m not impressed. The dry down is a similar affair as Flowerbomb. La Vie en Rose is hanging on to some sweet candy scent dotted with a scrubbed clean patchouli until it has faded completely.

Extra: So this version of Flowerbomb’s La Vie en Rose flanker was released in 2011 and toted as being the same floral fragrance everybody’s already loved. I really wish the fine folks who keep producing this stuff would stop kidding themselves and admit that there’s very few flowers in Flowerbomb. I haven’t tried any of the other Flowerbomb flankers yet so hey, maybe they managed a floral one somewhere in there.

Design: Designed much in the same way as the original Flowerbomb. Same shape. Same basic premise. La Vie en Rose has a notable deeper pink though with smaller geometric squares on the flacon’s surface. I like the design. I think it’s cute and clever. I just wish this stuff actually smelled like flowers or at least admit that it doesn’t smell like flowers at all.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Bergamot, pink pepper, tangerine, freesia, lily of the valley, almond, raspberry, red berries, cashmere wood, patchouli, amber.

Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose  irritates me a little bit. It’s like the convenience store I go to sometimes that gouges me for instant noodles. So Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose is the instant noodles. I know it’s not gourmet, I know it’s got very little nutritional value but the convenience store will still gouge me for it anyway.

Reviewed in This Post: Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose, 2011, Eau de Toilette.

PS. For all my geeky perfume lovers out there, happy Captain Picard Day!


Vera Wang Glam Princess

Glam Princess is the latest in what’s becoming a long line of sweet and floral designer perfume royalty. It’s about as competent as the other princess fragrances but at the same time suffers from a rather glaring problem. It smells really, really, really generic. Glam Princess

In Bottle: Indistinct sugar floral, a bit of a toasted sticky marshmallow note in the bottle. Weird because the marshmallow is supposed to be a base note but Glam Princess isn’t the kind of gal to go by steps I guess.

Applied: Super sweet and fruity top notes with a hint of florals. As the scent ages it digs deeper into the floral territory and the old familiar sweet foody floral from original Princess surfaces. The scent is smooth, creamy, very sweet fruity floral in the mid-stage. Not at all special or unique but it’s a pleasant enough fragrance. Glam Princess smells like a lightly flowery foody scent that, like the original, is reminiscent of cake batter. Only there’s a notable lack of the dark chocolate note in the original here. You get white cake batter in this time instead of dark chocolate cake batter. We also get sticky marshmallow that injects itself right into the teeth to save some time on the whole cavity-inducing thing. The dry down isn’t much more exciting as we get sweet floweriness until it disappears entirely.

Extra: If you liked the original Princess fragrance, you’ll probably like this one because the two are built on the same very familiar formula and they do sort of resemble each other in that they’re both sweet gourmand florals. If you loved that dark chocolate note in the original Princess, though, you might want to sit this one out. I really liked that chocolate note in the original. The lack of it in this flanker just makes it smell really generic.

Design: Bottled in the same heart-shaped thing as the rest of the Princess line, Glam Princess is adorned by a string of star designs on the glass. The bottle itself is a golden-yellow, the crown cap is gold with multi-colored jewels set into it. I’m still not a fan of the bottle design. I don’t think there’s anything you can do to a big glass heart to make it appeal to a woman in her mid-twenties with a penchant for simple aesthetics.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Floral

Notes: red berries, guava, pear, orange blossom, vanilla orchid, ambrette, marshmallow, cashmere wood.

Maybe this line of princess fragrances just doesn’t appeal to me. I can see how it’s cute and girly and stuff but the bottles just don’t speak to me and neither do the fragrances.

Reviewed in This Post: Glam Princess, 2010, Eau de Toilette.