Victoria’s Secret Bombshell

Bombshell is one of those runaway success stories of fragrance that has all the right components. Relatively affordable, accessible, and easy to love.

Bombshell

Bombshell

In Bottle: Fresh and clean with a little bit of fruity. Smells like fruity shampoo which is pretty much a goldmine when it comes to mass appeal.

Applied: I’m a little frustrated with the notes in this one because while Bombshell does smell generic, it hits that ‘just right’ sweet spot where something can smell generic but be great at the same time. This fragrance can easily go with me on whatever occasion because it just smells clean, fresh and a little bit fruity. It’s the just stepped out of the shower fragrance with it’s opening of fruity cleanness. I’m getting more than just passion fruit in this. There’s a bit of something citrus-like that I want to say is a sweet grapefruit note or a mandarin note and a bunch of other fruits that I can’t even begin to pick out. It’s nicely blended together, at least. If you let it get into the mid-stage the fruity opening turns into a soft, clean floral with a hint of vanilla. Let it dry down and you get less florals and more vanilla. It’s so straightforward and simple and uniform that it’s hard not to like this because it is what it is–your standard shampoo-smelling perfume, but the thing with Bombshell is that it does this shampoo smell so well.

Extra: Bombshell was the 2011 winner in the Consumer’s Choice category at the FiFi awards. I can see why this fragrance is so popular as it’s simply easy to love.

Design: Dressed in pink with a ribbon even. Bombshell has a pleasing enough shape though the look of her isn’t ultra luxurious, her design gets the job done. The stripes on the bottle can be a bit much but she’s a lovely bottle, very easy to hold, and equally easy to use.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Passion fruit, peony, vanilla orchid.

While I do like Bombshell a great deal, I don’t know if it was award worthy. This kind of fragrance is incredibly pedestrian but you can’t argue with the fact that it’s widespread appeal is the direct result of it being so generic.

Reviewed in This Post: Bombshell, 2011, Eau de Parfum.


Katy Perry Purr

Lovely. I get a little splodge of the most anticipated Purr by pin-up girl by day and pop star by night, Katy Perry, but I can’t get my hands on a vintage Chypre de Coty? Slap a sad face on me and let’s review Purr by Katy Perry.  Purr

In Bottle: Sweet peaches and a mix of florals that I’ve smelled pretty much everywhere by now. It’s a celebrity fragrance so I didn’t expect genius.

Applied: Initial flair of fruitiness up top. I get mostly peaches, sweet and ripe and big with a vaguely familiar synthetic apple note tossed in there with a tiny dash of tartness slathered with a thin coating of sweetness and dipped in a hint of creaminess. That creaminess sticks with the fragrance throughout its cycle. Now the peach in Purr isn’t grown up peach like Mitsouko. Actually, I can’t imagine why anyone would think they’d get any sort of Mitsouko out of Purr so I’m not even sure why I bothered to mention this in order to discern that no, you aren’t wearing this to meet the Queen. The peach in Purr is this is fuzzy peaches candy thing. Fun and girly and not at all serious. After a few minutes the fragrance takes its fruity opening and shifts into the midstage where you’re greeted by a banal blend of jasmine and gardenia. The sweetness is still lingering there. It’s a light sweetness though, not heavy and obnoxious but nothing to phone home about either. The mid-stage blandly shuffles along, smelling pleasant enough, and hits a rose note near the end of the mid-stage’s lifespan, falling headfirst into the very predictable sandalwood and vanilla base with traces of the mid-stage florals hanging about.

Extra: I don’t think Purr is anything to jump up for joy about as I didn’t expect much else from Katy Perry. Nothing to her as a person or a singer, this is just your run of the mill fruity floral celebuscent that hasn’t changed its formula since every other recent celebuscent. It’s an average fruity floral at best, with a variety of other fruity florals doing this tired fragrance genre much better justice. And as much as it pains me to say it, you’d probably get a better reaction scent from the Paris Hilton line. Me? I’ll wait and see what Lady Gaga does.

Design: Purr hasn’t been released where I live  yet so I haven’t handled the bottle, but I have seen photos of the bottle and I have to say it’s not my style. It really, really isn’t. The bottle  is in the shape of a purple cat with a heart hanging from its collar and jeweled eyes. You take the cat’s head off to gain access to the spraying mechanism as far as I can tell. I mean, it’s cute, but way beyond my demographic.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Peach, bamboo, apple, gardenia, jasmine, freesia, Bulgarian rose, vanilla orchid, white amber, sandalwood, skin musk, coconut.

Purr smells like so many different generic fragrances that I don’t think anyone should really bother with it if they’re looking for that sweet fruity floral. Unless you love Katy Perry’s work, her perfume is passable but highly uninteresting, and you are better off looking elsewhere for a fruity floral fragrance.

Reviewed in This Post: Purr, 2010, Eau de Parfum.


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.