Guerlain Attrape Coeur

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Les Parisiennes is Guerlain’s reintroduction of popular classics that may have dropped off the house’s roster due to unpopularity, changing times, new restrictions on fragrance ingredients, or someone having a bad hair day. Among them is the famous Attrape Coeur (Heart Trapper in French).  Attrape Coeur

In Bottle: Attrape Coeur has a fresh, lightly floral scent in the bottle. It has a certain, understated feminine charm that leads you to think it’s a mild jasmine-rosey concoction that’s easy to wear and easy to pull off.

Applied: The real heart of Attrape Coeur (heh) lies in the middle and base notes. As the top notes fade away, it unfolds to reveal a darker, muskier, more sensual scent making full use of tuberose as tuberose was meant to be used. This isn’t what I smelled in the bottle, it’s a definite morpher as she goes from light and lilting to full on oriental fragrance. The jasmine, tuberose and rose are a great compliment the smooth and musky mid-stage with its faintly sweet and dry scent. The mid-stage is especially familiar as little bits of Mitsouko waft in and out of this one. The best part about Attrape Coeur is its dry down. This fragrance falls into dense woods, bright spices, smooth vanilla, and that fantastic Guerlinade.

Extra: Les Parisiennes is an exclusive Guerlain collection that’s only available in very select locations. I found it at my local Holt Renfrew and La Signature at Epcot in Florida. If you can find a big Guerlain counter, you will probably be able to find this line. And I highly recommend anybody interested in perfumes to stop by and test a couple of them. Most of them are masterpieces that are so far above and beyond what you usually see in modern perfumery. Attrape Coeur used to go by the name of Guet Apens.

Design: Attrape Coeur, like other scents in the Les Parisiennes line, is bottled in a beautiful classic bee bottle. The bottles for these things are the real deal, not the semi-bee bottle situation you get with the Aqua Allegorias but the full-on deal. It’s complete with bee designs on the glass. Les Parisiennes are not spray bottles but splash that you will have to dab on yourself. I sometimes prefer the splash bottles to the sprays because once the fragrance is all gone, the bottle can still be reused and to not reuse a bee bottle would be something of a crime.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Rose, jasmine, tuberose, peach, spices, sandalwood, amber, vanilla, musk.

I get a little jealous every time I look at the bee bottles. They’re really excellent looking pieces that will live well beyond the point when the fragrances they hold are all used up.

Reviewed in This Post: Attrape Coeur, 2008, Eau de Parfum.

Paris Hilton Siren

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So I went and smelled a Paris Hilton perfume today and aside from the looks at the drugstore some people were giving  me, it went all right. A lot of people swear by Paris’ perfumes, if they can’t swear by her personality so I was curious.  Siren

In Bottle: Smells fruity in the bottle with a hint of citrus as is per usual for a celebrity perfume. It smells a little bit like a slicked back coconut resting on a bed of fruit salad ringed with flowers. Pleasant but uninspired.

Applied: Fruity flare-up immediately followed by sweet florals where the frangipani makes itself most known. Siren’s a surprisingly pleasant and more successful beachy, tropical fragrance than Dare Me by Baby Phat but I’m still not sure I’m entirely on board with this situation because while it smells pleasant enough, it smells pretty generic and rather dull. As the fragrance ages, its mid-stage is a decked out sweet floral with a predominant splash of vanilla that reminds me quite vividly of Viva la Juicy by Juicy Couture. The florals get a bit weaker as the fragrance wears on though and you’re ultimately left with the hallmark of the modern perfume’s drydown; soft sandalwood and vanilla.

Extra: Paris Hilton has lent her name to the fragrance game for a number of years now and her perfume are quite popular. Maybe, and I hazard to say this, as popular as Britney Spears fragrances. The ad campaign for Siren had a golden mermaid Paris shopped onto a rock with crashing waves. It was a little ridiculous.

Design: Siren’s bottle reminds me a little bit of Guerlain’s Champs Elysees. It’s just in the shape really. It’s got a weird, twisted art deco type thing going on as well that I’m not 100% on board with but the bottling is not bad. You can tell they were going for the whole mermaid tail motif with the myth of the sirens and whatnot. It accomplishes what it needs to accomplish if the imagery is a little bit heavy-handed.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Apricot, mandarin, frangipani, honeysuckle, orchid, lotus, lily, sandalwood, vanilla, musk.

I know a lot of people are put off by celebrity perfume but there’s no shame in owning or liking celebuscents. It’s a bit of a funny misconception that people think Paris actually comes up with her own perfumes. Rest assured, she did not don gloves and goggles and spend years or months mixing fragrances together into a coherent mix. I’m pretty sure perfumer, Honorine Blanc had something of a hand in formulating this stuff.

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

Roots Source Red Tea

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Roots Source, a subsidary of Roots the clothing company is all about making fragrances without all the harsh ingredients that are present in other traditional perfumes. While I don’t know if that approach is appropriate (or even possible), I am a fan of their Red Tea scent. Red Tea

In Bottle: Red Tea is a pretty generic fragrance. In the bottle it’s a mild sweetened red tea with  a soft fruity background. Nothing that would really wow me but it’s pleasant and nice all the same.

Applied: Same opening and mid-stage scent. It’s a clean, mildly sweet red tea with some berry-like application wedged in there. Really, this is a two note fragrance that works well for what it is. It smells nice. It’s a little refreshing. And it’s not anything else. The dry down simply doesn’t exist as this scent just disappears when it’s time to go. You’ll get a pleasant red tea scent out of it for about two hours and then the fragrance will just simply drop off. Red Tea has a major problem with longevity but when it is still around it smells pretty nice. Great office scent, low on the complexity and longevity meter though.

Extra: Now, I don’t know about the authenticity of Roots’ claim that this product is all natural. Especially given the monumental expense that comes with using naturals in a fragrance and the fact that a 30ml bottle of Red Tea would only run you about $20. Who knows, maybe when they said all natural, they didn’t mean the components of the scent itself but the fixative ingredients? At which point, why even bother calling it all natural if your core fragrance isn’t? This seems like one of those situations where a company sets out meaning to do good but probably hasn’t achieved that goal due to a lack of understanding.

Design: Red Tea is bottled in a pretty  ordinary glass cube with Roots Source on the glass and the name of the fragrance and it’s other important details affixed to the bottom on a sticker. The cap is a plastic ring that can be placed over the sprayer. Pretty utilitarian but it is a pleasant thing to look at.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Rooibos tea, acai berry, mango, melon, red tea leaf.

Red Tea makes a good fragrance if you want to go light on something and don’t mind reapply throughout the day. The lack of base notes on this stuff is a bit frustrating and it doesn’t help that it’s drop-off into scent oblivion happens so quickly either. Regardless, this is a good simple, clean, refreshing scent. It also makes a great room scent.

Reviewed in This Post: Red Tea, ~2009, Eau de Parfum.

Amouage Lyric for Women

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Amouage is a luxury niche fragrance house base based in Muscat. Most famous for their very expensive and very decadent Attars, Amouage is well known as one of the most artistic and luxurious fragrance houses in the world. Lyric for Women, released in 2008 is one of their newer fragrances. Lyric for Women

In Bottle: Big kick of spicy citrus upon first application. It immediately reminded me of a BPAL oil. I cannot put my finger quite on which one but I’m going to tentatively say it reminds me of a more complex Lear. At least, that’s what my mind flew to first.

Applied: Lyric for Women only vaguely resembles BPAL’s Lear for the first ten seconds. It starts to smooth out and become more floral, softer, definitely more feminine as the initial spice gives way to a lovely bouquet of jasmine, rose and angelica flowers. The rose is the star in the mid-stage, vibrant but not overbearing. It’s kept tame by a fantastic and very well-done incense note. It’s a beautifully blended fragrance with a clear and fascinating progression as Lyric for Women dries down into a complex medley of clean incense woods and smooth spicy vanilla.

Extra: Amouage is a world famous, luxury niche fragrance house with roots in the Sultanate of Oman. It’s most famous fragrances are the Attars, rich and decadent scents that can run you upwards of $400 for 12ml. Lyric for Women is not one of these Attars but it is beautiful just the same.

Design: I love the bottle. Deep red glass, has a fantastic feel to it. Has a good amount of weight, is easy to hold, and very pleasant to look at with the Amouage seal on the bottle’s glass and the fragrance’s name running along the circumference of the neck.

Fragrance Family: Floral Oriental

Notes: Bergamot, spicy cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, rose, angelica, jasmine, ylang-ylang, geranium, orris, oakmoss, musk, wood, patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood, vanilla, tonka bean, frankincense.

Now, while I love how Lyric for Women smells, I’m not so sure about the cost of the fragrance itself. Running at $300 for a 100ml bottle, if I were to drop some serious cash on an Amouage fragrance, it would be going into an Attar instead.

Reviewed in This Post: Lyric for Women, 2008, Eau de Parfum.

Aquolina Pink Sugar

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Pink Sugar is as simple as its name. It’s a sweet fragrance made for younger perfume consumers that’s not ashamed of admitting that it’s just a candy-like confection for people who like to smell sweet. And that’s about it. I can respect that. Pink Sugar

In Bottle: Sugar, caramel, and strawberry. Very reminiscent of Miss Dior Cherie but much more tolerable due to the lack of patchouli and the toning down of the strawberry note. This smells like the pink cotton candy you buy at carnivals and little strawberry hard candies.

Applied: Dominating the opener is the cotton candy and strawberry hard candies. If Pink Sugar were a food–it’d be aptly named. As the scent ages, it stays the same but for a caramel note coming up. The caramel note has been toasted a bit too much, smelling burnt. I have a suspicion there’s really only one caramel note shared between this fragrance, Miss Dior Cherie and Flowerbomb and it’s Burnt Caramel #2990. A pox on you, Burnt Caramel #2990! I’m convinced that due to this mysterious caramel note that these three fragrances are related in some smelly conspiracy. But they aren’t the same, Pink Sugar lacks the extreme sweetness and harshness of the patchouli and strawberry. The burnt caramel in Pink Sugar is more muted than in Flowerbomb. Pink Sugar has a not bad licorice note that makes brief appearances in the mid-stage. When Pink Sugar dries down, it’s a bit of vanilla and slap of clean woodsiness and then it’s gone.

Extra: Pink Sugar is consistently one of the most popular and well-loved fragrances among its target audience. If you were ever wondering what young people like these days, Pink Sugar is probably a good guess.

Design: Pink Sugar is bottled in a tall glass cylinder with pink crisscrossing lines on the glass. The presentation itself makes me think of cake. The lettering is playful, a bit messy for my tastes, but I’m not the target audience for the fragrance or–I assume–the design of the bottle.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Bergamot, sicilian orange, raspberry, fig leaves, lily of the valley, licorice, strawberry, red fruit, cotton candy, vanilla, caramel, musk, wood, powder.

From a choice of Miss Dior Cherie, Pink Sugar, or Flowerbomb, I will have to give props to Pink Sugar. It’s the most wearable, the least cloying and at least it’s upfront about what it is.

Reviewed in This Post: Pink Sugar, 2008, Eau de Parfum.

Soivohle Vanillaville

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Soivohle is an independent perfume house  run by Liz Zorn that has a fantastic collection of natural perfumes of which Vanillaville is a part of. I was searching for a replacement to my much beloved, Spiritueuse Double Vanille (SDV). While I don’t think Vanillaville is a replacement for SDV, it is nevertheless, a beautiful fragrance.

In Bottle: Smoky strong pipe tobacco with a blend of leather up front. It’s reminiscent of campfires but has a far more sophisticated edge than that. I don’t smell much of the vanilla but it is in the background lending this a pleasant creamy, mildly sweet, smoothness.

Applied: I don’t get a whole lot of shift and change in this as what it is has pretty much been described. Smoky, sophisticated, a bit of leather to add some more personality and a fantastic sweet and creamy vanilla note lurking near the bottom. As this ages, the smokiness fades just a little bit to let the vanilla scent to come up but for the most part, Vanillaville is a clear and beautiful interpretation of a fantastic vanilla concept.

Extra: Soivohle offers some of the best natural perfumes I’ve found and the packaging is impeccable. My favorite from the natural collection is by far, Pink Praline, a deliciously well crafted gourmand scent.

Design: I have not purchased a full bottle yet, but the sample jars that Soivohle uses are adorable little glass deals with a cute screw on black plastic cap. They were meticulously packed and if the sample were so well treated, I can’t wait to see how beautiful the actual bottles will be.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Almond, tonka, tarragon, birch tar, coffee.

No replacement for SDV here, but Vanillaville is a fine concept. A bit smoky for my tastes, but this would make an excellent fragrance for anyone looking into darker vanilla scents.

Reviewed in This Post: Vanillaville, ~2009, Eau de Parfum.

Guerlain Mitsouko Vintage

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After having read and heard about how beautiful vintage Mitsouko is, I had to get my hands on a half ml vial of the stuff to see how it was for myself. I like the new Mitsouko just fine but she pales in comparison to the vintage for good reason.  Mitsouko Baccarat

In Bottle: As fragrance restrictions were increased and time went on, something happened to Mitsouko. She doesn’t smell like this vintage and the difference is immediately noticeable. Vintage smells like a smooth fruity chypre, the peach is detectable, the chypre scent is distinct. It’s a beautifully layered, and beautifully composed fragrance that smells like rich history.

Applied: This smells heady, dense, very distinctly a chypre with a very smooth, soft peach note. This reminds me of Chypre de Coty for good reason, I can see how these two fragrances came about and I can smell how and why they were beautiful. It makes it even sadder that they don’t come like this anymore–Chypre de Coty being discontinued, Mitsouko having been reformulated into a sharp, powdery ghost of its former self. It opens with a gentle citrus with a touch of heady floral. It goes into the mid-stage into a smooth beautiful fruitiness with a soft peach scent intermingled with a rose and jasmine ensemble. Now, this isn’t peach in the Bath and Body Works sweet peach body mist kind of way, it’s a feminine but very grown up peach scent that lacks any silly girly-girl sweetness to it. The fade is a complex blend of oakmoss, spice and woods that makes Vintage Mitsouko smell so personal. Then there’s that familiar Guerlain base that lingers for an incredibly long time and makes me feel like I could totally pull off wearing a ball gown to a baseball game.

Extra: Any perfumista can write novels about vintage Mitsouko, but instead, you got me. What I can say about vintage Mitsouko is that it makes me sad in the way that smelling old vintages like this makes me sad. Because perfumes aren’t made like this anymore and it is a real shame.

Design: I do not own a bottle of vintage Mitsouko but I eye them very jealously. Guerlain has put their classic fragrance lines under a few redesigns over the years and they have always remained elegant and beautiful designs. Linked above is a newer bottle of Mitsouko. It’s a limited edition collector’s item dressed up in Baccarat and available for $7000. It is not how the original bottle looks. Too rich for my blood, and besides, I’d rather spend the money on a vintage. I always feel like something of a clown judging vintage bottles because I can only say that they’re beautiful and elegant and they certainly do not make them like they used to.

Fragrance Family: Chypre

Notes: Bergamot, peach, jasmine, rose, oak moss, spices, vetiver, woods.

I would love to own a bunch of vintage fragrances because I have yet to smell one I didn’t like. Vintage Mitsouko and its newer formulation is close. Guerlain did what they could with the new stuff but it isn’t the same. The new formulation is noticeably sharper, more powdery, and has a slight imbalance that doesn’t hit the mark quite as well as the vintage stuff.

Reviewed in This Post: Mitsouko, circa 1950, Eau de Parfum.

Yves Saint Laurent Opium

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It was bound to happen one day but we were all hoping it wasn’t this soon. Opium has been (quietly) reformulated into a shadow of its former self. So it is with this review that I bid goodbye to an old classic and an icon of oriental fragrance. Opium

In Bottle: Heady, rich, deep and spicy. Opium is not a time waster. She’s a woman of drastic sophistication and daring. Often referred to as sexy and mysterious. This fragrance opens with a big spicy kick followed by a huge wave of thick resinous amber.

Applied: Cinnamon and amber upfront as Opium’s opener flares instead of rolls. This fragrance announces its presence with a capital A. You want a powerhouse? Opium’s your gal. She’s no meek, slinking fruity floral girl in a white dress. She’s decked to the nines in diamonds and blood red pumps. The ambery cinnamon scent sticks around in the background giving Opium a smooth and punchy background while the heart notes of powdered jasmine, rose and dark myrrh flood the middle. Opium’s a strong and long lasting fragrance that you’ll struggle through if you don’t like it. The heart sticks around for a very long while before the dry down of deep, dense woodsy patchouli and myrrh base join that ever present spice and amber with the faded floral hearts. Even then it takes Opium a long time to completely fade with its mixture of base notes.

Extra: It takes a while to love Opium. A fragrance fanatic or an individual born into the era when Opium reigned would find it easy to appreciate this but someone young and inexperienced coming into the scene needs to be gently introduced. I got myself acquainted with Shalimar before I could brave Opium. And I’m glad I had a classic bottle to do it with. The new Opium is a slightly damaged affair. It smells younger, but more vapid. Like its missing some of its daring in exchange for modern ease.

Design: The most well-known bottle of Opium (at the moment anyway) is a thin pretty glass flacon with the signature Opium colors and designs on it. I’ve always though the bottle was beautiful and I was happy to note that Opium’s sprayer nozzle (unlike its flankers) was metal.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Mandarin orange, bergamot, lily of the valley, jasmine, carnation, myrrh, vanilla, patchouli, opoponaux, amber.

Opium was quietly reformulated in and around the time its new bottle (the current look) was released. Quiet reformulations of old fragrances is not a new thing. It happened to many fragrances and will continue to happen due to industry regulation changes, materials availability, and a slew of other consequences that a fragrance lover may never come to terms with. Thanks for a good thirty years, Opium.

Reviewed in This Post: Opium, ~1990, Eau de Parfum.

Victoria’s Secret Appletini

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Appletini is a part of Victoria’s Secret Double Body Mist Beauty Rush line. The product itself is a fun little thing with a layer of color and scent resting over a layer of moisturizing oil. You use it by shaking it up, combining the separated components and spray it on yourself. Appletini

In Bottle: Appletini smells like apple Jolly Ranchers. Remember those hard candies that taste like fake fruit flavoring? The green one in those candies is Appletini’s very close cousin.

Applied: Straight up apple candy with an added jolt of sugar. Appletini is simple and painfully sweet. There’s nothing else to this fragrance but a huge apple Jolly Rancher scent and probably some sugar added in just so you get the full effect but the big, lush, brick of candy. Unlike Plumdrop, I find Appletini to be a far simpler construction with very little in the way of complexity. It is what it is and it won’t ever be anything more. I get tired of straight up fruits. As I smell more and more things, I find the fruity florals to still be pleasant–when they’re done right–while the straight up fruit scents outlive their novelty and I move on. Appletini is one of those straight up fruits that’s outlived its novelty to me.

Extra: Appletini is a perfectly fine fragrance, for sure, if you like scents in the same skein as DKNY Be Delicious or Nina Ricci Nina. But in the case of those two perfumes, they had other notes propping up the apple. Appletini smells like one note and if you don’t like that one note enough then you probably don’t want to go for this. Otherwise, this is great for people who want to smell like apple candy.

Design: Appletini and Plumdrop are bottled and packaged the same way except for the color of the liquid. Appletini has a vibrant green color. You get a sturdy plastic spray bottle with a metal sprayer and a plastic cap to protect the sprayer. Not a glass perfume bottle but it is a very nice and very competent presentation for what is, essentially, a body mist. One thing to note is that, unlike most other body mists, the Beauty Rush Double Body Mists line have their sprayer nozzles factory sealed onto the bottles so you cannot remove the sprayer (very easily anyway) and reuse the bottle when the fragrance is all done.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Green apple, sugar.

I find myself able to tolerate this fragrance but I don’t like it much. It’s just too simple for my tastes. Each full size Beauty Rush Double Body mist has approximately 250ml.

Reviewed in This Post: Appletini, 2009, Oil and Body Mist.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Stinky

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Stinky is the scent whose name invokes the spirit of dogs everywhere. At one point in almost every dog’s life he or she has been stinky but Stinky by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab smells like everything but dogs. Stinky

In Bottle: Sweet and stinky honey layered over soap and powder. Smells a lot better than I make it sound. For one thing, the honey is a well blended matter as if it’s a honeyed bar of soap resting next to a pot of fluffy white powder.

Applied: The honey is the first thing that I smell, it gets a bit sharp on the initial application before it mellows out a little as the scent ages on me. But for the first hour or so, it smells like warm, sticky honey with a clean background. As Stinky ages, the clean background of soap and powder comes up a bit more and the honey takes a few steps back. It will remain present as the fragrance continues to age and starts to fade with the soapy smell going away the quickest, leaving a powdered, warm and sticky honey type of scent lingering until it all dissolves into nothing. Think honey-scented powder and you’ve got Stinky.

Extra: Stinky was released in 2009 in and around the summer months as a celebration of mud-covered and mischievous dogs. In particular, the dog featured on the label.

Design: Stinky is bottled in much the same way as other Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab fragrances. Held in an amber apothecary bottle, Stinky sports a cute Limited Edition label with a photograph of the dog which inspired this scent.

Fragrance Family: Clean Gourmand

Notes: milk, white honey, baby powder.

Leave it to Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab to come up with a fragrance that pretty much defies any sort of fragrance family.

Reviewed in This Post: Stinky, 2009, 5ml Bottle.