Avril Lavigne Black Star

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Black Star is Avril Lavigne’s first fragrance (well, one that’s named after her anyway) and it’s just about as unremarkable as I thought it would be. Though my initial hope for it, upon seeing the bottle was that it would be something more interesting. Black Star

In Bottle: Smelling citrus and juicy fruity notes. Blackcurrant, I’m thinking, with plum and something smooth, sweet and flowery. Maybe honeysuckle.

Applied: Plum and citrus up front with the citrus receding very quickly. Something in this smells of apple for about ten seconds. It’s a very recognizable and familiar apple note that I swear I’ve smelled before. But it was a very fleeting note. The rest of Black Star evolves into a nice, full fruity vanilla fragrance. Highly agreeable but very reminiscent of Love Etc. by The Body Shop. The difference between Black Star and Love Etc. is the underlying notes. Love Etc. was more tart. Black Star has this very sweet, smooth vanilla-like note warming up the fragrance and cutting the tartness. Black Star dries down to a nice, soft fruity scent.

Extra: One of the things you start to realize as you get more and more into fragrances is that the press releases are often full of flowery language that doesn’t mean anything. Black Star for instance is supposed to be unique and individual much like Avril Lavigne tries to be (on the outside anyway). But there’s nothing really new going on with this fragrance at all.

Design: The bottle is a bit silly looking to me, but I’m not the target audience for it. It’s contained in an interestingly shaped glass bottle with a plastic top that has spikes running the rim of the cap. You can take the spikes off and wear it was a ring. An uncomfortable ring. The sprayer I tried was fantastic. One of the nicest, most even distribution I’ve ever seen. I know the sprayers on every bottle tends to differ a little and I probably sound like a lunatic for raving over a sprayer nozzle but that’s just how I roll.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Plum, apple, lemon, hibiscus, honeysuckle, dark chocolate, vanilla.

The PR for this fragrance was pretty sparse with the notes, only disclosing three things. Hibiscus, plum, and dark chocolate. There’s obviously more at work in this than they’re letting on so I slapped some of what I think I’m smelling up there. By no means go with my list and honestly, who cares, form your own notes list. Be a rebel. Anyway, despite the advertising campaign insisting this is an edgy fragrance, it’s really not. It’s about as tame as it can get. You say edgy and I think of the nasal assault that is Secretions Magnifique, not Black Star. Black Star is just a very pretty, girly, young, fruity fragrance that bears a pretty striking resemblance to Love Etc.

Reviewed in This Post: Black Star, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Juicy Couture

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Juicy Couture was the original that led a couple of flankers, including the sugar mountain fragrance, Juicy Couture’s Couture Couture. I notice one strange thing about Juicy Couture in that every time I smell it, it smells a bit different. My first time, it was a powdery floral. The second, a bright citrus fruity scent, and lately, Juicy has a fresh and fruity opener. So I decided to pin this one down for good this time and just review it already. Juicy Couture

In Bottle: Citrus cut with white florals and a hint of what I think is tuberose. Juicy Couture’s supposed to have a tuberose punch in it. Which, considering I’m actually expecting tuberose this time, will be a welcome sight.

Applied: Juicy Couture opens with a fruity citrus kick that mellows out soon after into a nice, fresh floral fragrance containing tuberose and a dewy lily note. There’s some very sharp lingering in the background to this fragrance too and to my nose, it smells like white musk that cleans things up a bit. The florals in this are well-mixed and quite impressive as they float in and out of the subtle sweetness left over from the fruity opener. The dry down introduces a little bit of greenery and woodsiness that helps to herald in Juicy Couture’s very inoffensive mild woodsy, patchouli last stage.

Extra: Juicy Couture has two flankers–sort of–Viva la Juicy and Couture Couture.

Design: Usually praised for their bottle design, Juicy Couture bottles this fragrance in a nice squarish package with a detailed top that consists of a plastic spire over a metal cap band. Wrapped around the cap band is a necklace you can take off and wear with  some charms on it, including a J shaped scepter, a plastic crown and a safety pin. The front of the bottle has the Juicy Couture emblem on it.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Watermelon, mandarin, pink passion fruit, green leaves, hyacinth, marigold, tuberose, lily, wild rose, caramels, powdery vanilla, creme brulee, patchouli and woods.

I prefer this fragrance, vastly, over its latest incarnation as Couture Couture. I’ve smelled Viva la Juicy on a handful of occasions and every time I end up coming away feeling pretty benign to it but Juicy Couture has a lovely well-blended mix of florals, musk and sweetness that’s very appealing to me and despite those  gourmand notes at the end, I got nothing gourmand about it. And I’m okay with that.

Reviewed in This Post: Juicy Couture, 2008, Eau de Parfum.

Lolita Lempicka

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Something about apples just draws me in, I guess. One would think an apple bottle would a bit silly but Lolita Lempicka’s designs have always had these fascinating shapes with interesting textures and line work on them. The bottle for Lolita Lempicka drew me in, the fragrance kept me around. Lolita Lempicka

In Bottle: Sweet and spicy, almost woodsy quality in a way. I can smell the licorice in this along with a very fresh, almost fruity note right up top.

Applied: I smell apple opening this fragrance. I swear I do. I don’t care that the notes don’t list it, it’s right up there to my nose. Big inertial apple. Then it disappears within seconds to be replaced with this green sweet spice scent that is anise. As the fragrance ages, Lolita Lempicka turns into a vanilla spice fragrance with that faint sweetness of licorice. Despite all the gourmand notes in this one, the scent as a whole doesn’t strike me as a gourmand immediately. It needs to settle into its heart notes before you really start to see where it’s coming from. The fragrance dries down to a soft sweet vanilla scent.

Extra: Lolita Lempicka is a fashion house by Josiane Maryse Pividal who adopted Lolita Lempicka as her pseudonym.

Design: More truly apple shaped than the Nina by Nina Ricci bottle. Lolita Lempicka’s bottle is a purple apple with leaf and swirl linework in gold and muted colors. The design is whimsical, young, fairytale-like with a nice final touch of the sprayer that resembles the thin and delicate stem of the apple. I would have preferred the sprayer to be made of more sturdy material since it is so thin and delicate but it works just fine for what it is.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Gourmand

Notes: Ivy, anise, violet, amarise, licorice, amarena, vetiver, tonka, vanilla, musk.

I don’t much like licorice, or how it smells. But Lolita Lempicka makes it acceptable for me by mixing it in with other notes. It is one of the better done gourmands out there. Sometimes compared to Angel by Thierry Mugler. I personally don’t see the connection as Lolita Lempicka is drier and less sweet to my nose.

Reviewed in This Post: Lolita Lempicka, 2008, Eau de Parfum.

Just Cavalli Her

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Am I crazy or am I starting to turn to the dark side? Dark side being spice, woods and musks because I’ve had an unfortunate string of rather uninspired fruity floral fragrances. Perhaps my nose has finally moved on from trying to decipher how a raspberry smells as opposed to a blackberry. Just Cavalli Her seems like your typical fruity fragrance until it starts to dry, then you’re in for it. Just Cavalli Her

In Bottle: Fresh, crispy fruits settled in a clean citrus topper. The sweet jasmine in this is present in a big way as it tries to push and shove its way into center stage.

Applied: Very odd, kind of unpleasant syrupy sweet floral notes on application. Like bruised flowers and some fruits drizzled with vanilla and rolled in sugar. Blackcurrant has this strange medicinal sweetness to it that I can’t say is helping the opener much in Just Cavalli Her. But wait out the opening and you’ll be rewarded with the emergence of this beautiful, very agreeable and mildly spicy cinnamon that horns in on the crazy syrup floral fruits and their little convention. The cinnamon gives Just Cavalli Her a nicer edge and a bit more complexity and helps take it back from the brink of syrupy sweet. This is a fragrance that teeters on the edge of cloying for me as I feel that cinnamon note might drop off but it is a good contender and stays until the final dry down of light woods and mild vanilla with the residual syrup.

Extra: Just Cavalli Her is discontinued? There seem to be conflicting reports of this or perhaps Just Cavalli Her was recently discontinued. Maybe I’m thinking of a different Just Cavalli fragrance because I still see this stuff being sold.

Design: Just Cavalli Her is bottled in a big rectangle. I’ve never held the item myself so all I can comment on is the textured glass is a nice touch that adds a bit of dimension to the whole design. Without it, the bottle really would be too plain.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Bergamot, apple, bamboo leaves, blackcurrant, cinnamon, waterlily, lily-of-the-valley, jasmine, apricot blossom, coffee bean, amber, vanilla,  white cedarwood, musk, tobacco.

I found this one just too sweet with not enough creaminess to cut the syrup in this and actually found it reminded me of a perfume I smelled in my childhood. I believe it was someone in the family who wore it because I remember smelling it often.

Reviewed in This Post: Just Cavalli Her, 2008, Sampler Vial.

Disclaimer: The fragrance sampler vial reviewed in this post was provided to me for free. I am not in any way receiving pay or compensation for this review. This review was written based upon my personal experience and opinions of the product.

Common Perfume Notes Made Easy

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Ever try to read out and make sense of a notes listing for a fragrance you love? Just what on Earth is muguet supposed to be? How do you even say that? And what’s this coumarin that everyone keeps talking about? And if you thought the notes list was complicated enough, just wait until you hear about the stuff they don’t list.

The following is a brief overview of some perplexing but common notes you might see in perfume.

Benzoin: Pronounced, “ben-zoh-in”, can refer to either the “benzoin resin” from trees in the Styrax genus or the organic compound, “benzoin”. Benzoin resin has a creamy, honey and vanilla fragrance.

Champaca: Pronounced, “cham-puk-uh”, is a tree from the magnolia family. It smells woodsy, spicy and green.

Coumarin: Pronounced, “koo-muh-rin”, is a chemical compound found in tonka beans, sweet grass, and a wide variety of other plants. It has a sweet hay scent.

Galbanum: Pronounced, “gal-bun-num”, is a gum resin from plants of the Ferula genus. It has a green, herbaceous and bitter scent.

Labdanum: Pronounced, “lab-dun-num”, is a resin obtained chiefly from plants of the Cistus genus. Labdanum smells sweet, dry and woodsy.

Muguet: Pronounced, “mew-gey”, is Lily-of-the-Valley. It has a light, very sheer but distinctive sweet aroma.

Olibanum: Pronounced, “O-lib-bun-num”, is frankincense. Smells like incense to me.

Opopanax: Pronounced, “oh-pop-pan-nax”, is a gum resin that smells woodsy and lightly floral undertones.

Oud: Pronounced, “ooh’d”, sometimes referred to as agarwood is the resin that is produced when an Aquilaria tree is infected with mold. Oud is said to smell dense, sweet, warm,  and woodsy.

Ylang Ylang: Pronounced, “ee-lang ee-lang”, is a flowering tree. Ylang ylang has a delicate, white floral fragrance.

The Body Shop Love Etc.

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If I had to pick one fragrance that would be the very best example of fruity floral, it would have to be Love Etc. Typical smelling, yet it gets everything right about what a fruity floral is.  Love Etc. is a perfect, generic fragrance. But one that I believe is the “standard” for its genre. Love Etc

In Bottle: Bergamot with a layer of jasmine and a fine vanilla background to sweeten up the fragrance. There is some other note in there too. I’m going to hazard a guess and say it’s berries that I think I’m smelling over a nice tangy, citrusy scent.

Applied: Bergamot with a mix of jasmine and that perpetual very nice and just-sweet-enough vanilla. The fruits in this are a mixture of tart and sweet as they mix well with the florals to create a gentle fruity fragrance that’s not too sweet or too floral. Love Etc. is a fruit salad with a dollop of cream that cuts the tartness of the fruits. I’m no good at picking out fruit notes but the pear is in there with what I’m swearing is a vibrant berry-like scent. This fragrance is like an edible platter of fruits and flowers that develops into a soft, plush, vanilla and cream dry down. It’s highly wearable, very young, but also tasteful.

Extra: The Body Shop is a bath and body company. One of its most famous fragrances, still being made today, is White Musk. When I smell White Musk, I’m reminded of the 90s because it seemed like everyone was wearing it at the time.

Design: Love Etc. is bottled in a small, squarish glass container with a metal cap on top. I love the design, mostly for its function rather than its form. As a perfume bottle, it’s kind of plain but the price point agrees with the appearance. Love Etc.’s bottle is also small and compact enough to throw into a purse and go.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Bergamot, neroli, pear, berries, jasmine, heliotrope, muguet, vanilla, cream, sandalwood, musk.

Love Etc. is probably in the running to be The Body Shop’s popular everyday fragrance. It was released some time in 2009 and just reminds me of every other fruity floral I’ve smelled. The fact that it’s generic shouldn’t be taken as a bad thing. If anything, Love Etc. is the catch-all, “if you’re unsure then try this”, fruity floral.

Reviewed in This Post: Love Etc., 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Comptoir Sud Pacifique Vanille Mokha

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Because Miskatonic University by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab let me down, I was on the hunt for a really good, really clear and simple gourmand coffee fragrance. For those days when I want to smell like coffee. And Comptoir Sud Pacifique’s Vanille Mokha is as clear an answer as I hope to get. Vanille Mokha

In Bottle: Simple dark coffee with a jolt of vanilla added in to sweeten and smooth out the fragrance a little. An absolutely delicious gourmand fragrance that makes me want to drink everything out of the vial if I didn’t know it’d make me ill.

Applied: Creamy vanilla swirling in dark coffee. This is a really rich, lightly sweet coffee fragrance that’s almost as good as the real thing. There’s no florals in here to complicate things, I can’t detect anything but two very good notes and maybe a note of sugar to sweeten things a little further. Vanille Mokha takes a page from Demeter and just smells as advertised with no frills attached. The beginning of the dry down  signals the loss of the coffee note as the vanilla note dominates the scene, it’s just sweet and creamy vanilla now. Apparently coffee notes just don’t like sticking around. This fact saddens me as I had hoped the coffee would hang out a lot longer.

Extra: Founded in 1976, Comptoir Sud Pacifique focuses on bright island colors and scents. They offer a lot of really nice and simple smelling fragrances. A lot of those being gourmands.

Design: Brushed metal bottle with a brushed metal cap. Simple design with no real frills attached. The use of metallic bottles kind of reminds me of how Montale fragrances are bottled.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Coffee, vanilla.

Coffee continues to be a frustratingly fleeting note. I don’t so much care to drink the stuff but I love how it smells and if anyone has any idea where I can get a lovely, long-lasting coffee fragrance, do let me know. This fruitless hunt is getting ridiculous.

Reviewed in This Post: Vanille Mokha, 2009, Eau de Parfum.

BPAL Miskatonic University

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Coffee has become something of an obsession of mine. Not in the drinking of it, but rather the smelling of coffee. That rich, dark, woody fragrance of coffee is the hallmark of a good morning to me. I suppose it helps that I’m not a coffee drinker so all the terrible mornings don’t sour this scent. But in my search for the perfect coffee fragrance, I’ve discovered one thing; The note does not last. Miskatonic University

In Bottle: Beautiful, creamy, rich coffee with a french vanilla twist in it. I smell a slightly fungal scent in this too that can probably be attributed to Black Phoenix’s dust note. It smells a bit like mushroom to me, but in the bottle, the mushroom is a good pairing to the coffee, making it just a little more complex than, “Here you go, your coffee smell” plunked down onto the table without ceremony.

Applied: Coffee, dense and rich and good enough to taste with creaminess and sweetness mixed into one. Miskatonic University is like a really good cup of coffee–for about thirty seconds. The coffee note in this fragrance is really fleeting on me and disappears in less than a minute. I can try layering all I want but it is not going to stick around on my skin. When that elusive coffee does evaporate it takes the vanilla and the sweetness with it. Remember that mushroom note? After  the coffee departs, the mushrooms absolutely bloom. Actually, I don’t think it’s mushroom I’m smelling but the leftover cream and the dust note mixing together to form this really bizarre tangent with the woodsy notes in Miskatonic University getting a scent that I can only attribute to mushrooms on wood polish. It’s not particularly interesting or nice. Well–that’s not true, it is interesting.

Extra: Miskatonic University is a fictional post-secondary institute located in Arkham which appears in the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Design: Miskatonic University is bottled much in the same way all other Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfumes are. It has a different label to denote its place in the Picnic in Arkham series.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Irish coffee, dust, oak.

As much as I wanted to find that one true coffee scent in this fragrance, Miskatonic University and I were just not meant to be. The coffee note is so fleeting, and I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. It is a top note for me. I just hoped it’d be one of those top notes that defied all logic and reason and hung around a bit.

Reviewed in This Post: Miskatonic University, 2009, 5ml Bottle.

Annick Goutal Petite Cherie

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Petite Cherie is one of the most popular offerings from Annick Goutal. It’s sweetness, it’s pink, it’s girly and feminine and young. And at the end of the day you’ll want to smell Petite Cherie to remind yourself that there’s still plenty of time and plenty of joy left in this world. Petite Cherie

In Bottle: Lovely sweet and clean. Petite Cherie is the classiest of the sugary scents. It’s a beautiful light pink sugar scent that’s reminiscent of other sweet fragrances such as Envy Me and Touch of Pink. What sets Petite Cherie apart from the other sweet scents is its clarity and quality.

Applied: Initial burst of pear and other sweet fruits followed quickly by a sugar sweet mid-stage that is very fast to usher in. Petite Cherie lays down the law in sugar clean territory. A territory I really wish makers of sugary sweet fragrances would explore more often. What if you want to smell like a candy and a bar of soap? Usually with sweet fragrances that are billed as clean, I get sweet, sticky and sharp. Petite Cherie is sweet, airy and freshly clean in a green and pink sort of way. It’s like a fruit juice, or a sparkling water with fruity flavors. The dry down is a pleasant pink rose with its lingering sweetness.

Extra: Annick Goutal fragrances tend to have a relatively shorter shelf life than other fragrance lines. Some might attribute this to the higher percentage of natural oils used in the fragrances. Others might venture to suggest that it’s sprayer mechanism not doing a good enough job at sealing the perfume in. Whatever the reason, if you’re going to get an Annick Goutal, be aware that it may not keep as well as other perfumes. This does not mean that it’s inferior, however, just composed a different way.

Design: Bottled in that same lovely iconic Annick Goutal ribbed glass bottle, Petite Cherie shares the same gold ribbon label look as other fragrances in this line. Petite Cherie is also available in an adorable butterfly-style bottle.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Fruit

Notes: Pear, peach, rose musk, cut grass, vanilla.

I find this fragrance to be a very nice sweet clean scent. But I am still looking out for perfumes that aren’t at all sweet. I think my sweet tooth has finally had enough and wants something sweet with more complexity. This is just a beautifully done but rather simple scent that I would pick over any mainstream sweet fragrance.

Reviewed in This Post: Petite Cherie, 2008, Eau de Parfum.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab The Unicorn

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Sometimes I put down my Guerlains and go for something simpler, something with more simplicity and clarity and during those times, The Unicorn from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab suffices. Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, The Unicorn is a lovely white floral reminiscent of what a mythological horse with a cone on its forehead would actually smell like. Unicorn

In Bottle: White and ethereal, floral with a very light powdery shimmer. This fragrance smells like a bar of lush soap and a bouquet of freshly picked linden flowers. It’s gentle, airy and a little bit sweet.

Applied: That clean white floral scent is the first thing I smell as the linden flowers start to take over the place. I can detect some mild hints of jasmine in this too, I think. It’s an understated jasmine though, just there to give the fragrance a more floral edge. As the dry down starts winding its way into the picture, The Unicorn turns from a pure clean, white floral into a greener, sweeter herbaceous fragrance. Its final stage is marked with powdery white flowers and fresh sweet greenery that smells a bit like parsley.

Extra: The unicorn in Alice in Wonderland is a play off of a folk song. If I recall correctly, the unicorn and the lion were representative of England and Scotland, much like the coat of arms of the United Kingdom today. The Lion being England and The Unicorn is Scotland.

Design: The Unicorn is bottled in the same way most other Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab oils are. Its label is the standard general catalog design.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Linden blossoms, jasmine, sweet herbs.

I tend to attribute The Unicorn as more of a soap fragrance than a personal fragrance. But I do love clean, soapy scents. There’s just something very soft and comforting about this scent that would make it a fantastic fragrance for soaps.

Reviewed in This Post: The Unicorn, 2009, 5ml Bottle.