Perfume FAQ, Part 3

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Part 3 of the Perfume FAQ for common questions that keep coming up regarding perfume. I collect these questions from common misconceptions and queries I get regarding fragrances.  If you have a perfume related question, please leave a comment.

Q. What is the best perfume in the world?
A. No perfume is widely recognized as “the best”. Labeling a perfume as the best would be like labeling a color as the best. It’s too subjective, there’s too much variety, and everyone has a different opinion. There are classifications for most widely known perfume (Chanel No. 5) and best in class for the year according to certain organizations (FiFi Awards). Then there’s recognition for things that veer away from the fragrance itself such as world’s most expensive packaging (here’s lookin’ at you, Clive Christian). But as for best perfume in the world? Can’t be done. What’s the best depends entirely on you when it comes to this one.

Q. What are some nice perfumes that are inexpensive?
A. Enjoying fragrances doesn’t have to be an expensive hobby. If you like chasing brand names or niche lines, you will punch a hole through your wallet sooner or later. But if you just want to enjoy some nice, inexpensive, scents then check out Victoria’s Secret ($10-70), Bath and Body Works ($10-40), Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab ($17.50-25), The Body Shop ($20-40) and the huge variety of celebuscents that can often be purchased from discounters (like FragranceX) for much less than at a department store. Reputable discounters are good for some designer brands though you shouldn’t expect too much of a discount when you’re dealing with designers like Chanel or niche lines like Creed. Wal*Mart also usually sells legitimate fragrances for a bit cheaper than a department store would. If you know what you’re doing and are confident, then eBay can have a lot of good fragrance deals. And if you want to hook yourself up with some vintage perfumes, estate sales can sometimes yield excellent results and of course, the aforementioned eBay for vintages is always an option.

Q. Is there a difference between a counterfeit fragrance and a designer impostor fragrance?
A. Yes. Counterfeits are fragrances that are manufactured to look like and mimic the appearance of a real designer perfume. It is  illegal to sell, trade or deal in fake or counterfeit fragrances. Many counterfeit fragrances contain poor  quality materials, volatile materials, watered down perfume, and sometimes harmful ingredients. A designer impostor fragrance is a fragrance produced by a company to mimic the smell of a designer perfume. Many times these impostor scents get a few of the predominant notes right but miss when it comes to the rest. This often results in a less complex imitation of the original fragrance and some perfume lovers prefer this. The perfumes marketed as designer impostors are not counterfeits as they are clearly marked as impostors and not as the “real” thing. The designs of the packaging are also not at all supposed to resemble the designs of the real fragrances to further avoid confusion (and lawsuits). Because perfume recipes are kept secret (for the time being anyway) these impostor scents may get close to mimicking the smell of a perfume but rarely get the entirety of the real fragrance correct. Many people confuse these two terms but it’s important to note that there is a difference. You can read up more on Parfums de Coeur, the leading impostor fragrance producer, and how they conduct their business at JiffyNotes >>

Q. What’s the difference between essential oil, fragrance oil, perfume oil and carrier oil?
A. Loaded question. Essential oils are raw materials extracted directly from the plants they were derived from through a variety of extraction methods including distillation, enfleurage, and other techniques. Essential oils are volatile and potent making most of them inappropriate and sometimes even dangerous for straight use on the skin. Essential oils should be carefully diluted in a carrier oil prior to use. If you do plan on using essential oils on yourself, make sure you read up on them very well first because as innocent as many people like to think essential oils are, improper use  by someone inexperienced can result in injury. Fragrance oils are a mixture of natural and synthetic components that produce a specific scent. Scents from fragrance oils can be composed of entirely natural materials or entirely synthetic materials. Often, it is a mixture of natural and synthetic. Sometimes fragrance oils can be made to mimic a natural scent like vanilla or iris. Sometimes fragrance oils can smell like something abstract like aqua or ozone. Fragrance oils, like essential oils need to be researched prior to use. There are fragrance oils made for cosmetic use and those that are not. There are also fragrance oils that need dilution and some that do not. Make sure you know what you are buying and doing before  putting anything on your skin. A perfume oil is a mixture of fragrant oils to create a scent. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is one such company that blends essential oils and fragrance oils to produce perfume oils. Carrier oils are oils that are used to dilute perfume, fragrance, and essential oils. Oftentimes these carrier oils have very little aroma or no aroma at all. Jojoba oil and sweet almond oil are two such examples of carrier oils.

Q. I keep seeing people and websites that claim that perfume is dangerous to your health. Are any of these claims true?
A. Perfume has been associated with some contact dermatitis (allergens coming in contact with the skin) and general allergies such as sneezing, stuffy nose, and trouble breathing. It is true that fragrance ingredients always come under fire for potential danger but they are regulated and restricted on a rather rigorous scale. A perfumista can tell anybody about the deaths of many great fragrances and reformulations that destroyed classic scents that had to happen because a component was found to be dangerous or concerning. What people who read online about perfumes and the supposed numerous dangers of fragrances need to understand that this issue is not a simple matter of “I saw it online and it sounds convincing so it must be true”. There is a key element to online research that I feel a lot of people are missing when they choose to believe claims they read on a website. I don’t believe you should or would trust me 100%. After all, where’s my scientific research? Aren’t I some disembodied voice with a website too? And I am but an independent blogger who just happens to like smelling things. I  have no scientific credentials either. What I want you to take away from this rambling is my request for you to study the sources of where your information comes from prior to outright believing it. I am not imploring you to believe me or take my words for truth. I am imploring you to deeply research a subject from credible sources before deciding on a stance and this goes for everything you read about, not just perfume. If the website you’re on does not provide a solid scientific or medical background to its claims that fully backs up what it’s trying to say, do you really want to trust that it’s telling you the whole story? “Safety advocates” have an agenda too. Please keep that in mind.

Q. Does civet really come from a cat’s butt?
A. Almost as good as the “deer butt” question from Part 2. Civet is a musk taken from the rear region of a curious little creature by the same name. Despite popular belief, a civet is not actually a cat. It’s more of a mongoose, really. Civet notes used in modern perfumery are usually synthetic. However, some modern perfumes will still use natural civet as farming and harvesting of these animals is still going on.

Q. How do I check the ingredients of a perfume?
A. You can’t. I always find it a little off when well-meaning individuals with concerns over ingredients suggest to consumers that they should “check the ingredients” of a fragrance. It makes me ask myself if these well-meaning folks have tried to do the same before suggesting it to others. You simply can’t check all the ingredients of a perfume with the present regulations because perfume formulations are jealously guarded by the manufacturers who produce them. The list of ingredients on the back of a box of perfume lists the base that the fragrance was diluted in–not what the fragrance is composed of. The actual fragrant oils and components are kept secret to prevent the copying of the fragrance recipe. The notes list that comes out with  most perfumes is also not a definitive list of ingredients. Sometimes the notes mean absolutely nothing, oftentimes there are more components in a scent than the notes list would indicate, sometimes notes listed aren’t even present in the perfume itself. Notes lists are used to give the consumer an idea of what they should be smelling. They are not ingredients lists. Also you will be very lucky if you contact a perfume manufacturer requesting a full ingredients list and actually get one. Pretty much the only way for the average person to find out exactly what’s in a perfume is to perform a gas chromatography analysis–something highly expensive, complicated, exclusive, and far more trouble than most people would care to go through.

Got any questions not addressed in this FAQ? Please leave a comment.

Agonist The Infidels

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Agonist has recently come out with a new perfume which spurred the memory of this perfume and it’s crazy abstract bottle. So I dug out my sampler vial and gave her a sniff.

Agonist Infidels

The Infidels by Agonist

In Bottle: Dark, earthy blackcurrant note. The blackcurrant is the most prominent smell I’m getting so far from The Infidels.

Applied: Yep blackcurrant. Not the sweet berries or tea-like blackcurrants, but this earthy, dark jammy blackcurrant note that’s very rich and dense. That currant note is an ever-present entity during the entire fragrance as The Infidels digs into the mid-stage with a slight showing of florals that helps with that earthiness. It’s not particularly interesting in the mid-stage but the end game is a bit better, as The Infidels takes it blackcurrant and plays in a touch of lavender with a woody, green patchouli and warm amber. Very interesting fragrance, though is the juice worth its price? I’m going to have to say that while this stuff smells interesting, it isn’t the best or even anywhere near my top fragrances. So to me, no, it’s not worth the price.

Extra: Priced at $495 for 1.7oz, The Infidels is quite a bit out of reach of most people’s budgets. This is one of those fragrances that have been priced so beyond affordability and practicality that it lands in Clive Christian territory, and that’s a double-edged sword. You can, however, bite the bullet and purchase the glass art bottle for $495 and get the subsequent refills for a–all things considered–reasonable $90 for 50ml.

Design: The design for this bottle is polarizing. There are people who think it’s a beautiful piece of abstract glass art and other people who just can’t figure out what it’s supposed to be. And some people who look at it and simply think it’s hideous. I’m a member of the, “Oooh! Glass art!” crowd. Agonist’s bottle is probably most of the price of the juice as it’s truly a beautiful, misunderstood, piece of artwork. It’s unlike any other perfume bottle I’ve seen out there, it’s strange, it’s compelling, it’s dramatic with the contrast between the redness and black and clear glass. It’s got that crazy application stick too that you don’t see much of. Everything about this bottle speaks of daring, dangerous, and blood. The fragrance isn’t shouting that stuff but the packaging certainly is and I appreciate this thing for the artistic merit of it and the boundaries it pushes in traditional and contemporary bottle design. This bottle is like the high fashion runway. You don’t have to understand it to appreciate it.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Earthy

Notes: Blackcurrant, green cumin, bergamot, magnolia, tonka, lavender, patchouli, amber, labdanum.

Let’s not kid ourselves, the major reason to own this perfume is for the bottle. The juice inside is pleasant enough but it’s second fiddle to the packaging.

Reviewed in This Post: The Infidels, 2010, Eau de  Parfum.

Creed Zest Mandarine Pamplemousse

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Zest Mandarine Pamplemousse is the grapefruit scent that should have been. It ranks up there with my other favorite grapefruit fragrance; Guerlain’s Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune as a well done, citrus-heavy scent.  Zest Mandarine Pamplemousse

In Bottle: Light, slightly sweet and lovely bit of tart and sharp grapefruit cutting through the mandarin. There’s a very flowery and clean aura about this fragrance that’s also quite nice.

Applied: Fresh and clean, like a really good citrus soap. As stated, there’s a hint of sweetness lent by the mandarin note that helps out the grapefruit to take it away from too sharp and too tart. The fragrances really do complement one another and I love how well blended and sheer this is. Zest Mandarine Pamplemousse is not a heavy hitting fragrance. It’s light, airy, and not at all heavy-handed. I’ve become quite a fan of the understated scent and there’s a charm to this one that helps me get over how short-lived it is. Zest Mandarine Pamplemousse goes into its mid-stage with a pleasant white floral and woodsy pairing that helps carry the scent out of the citrus opening and into the end stage where most of the fragrance complexity falls off into a very light woodsy scent.

Extra: Zest Mandarine Pamplemousse is a very weak, very short-lived fragrance. A lot of citrus heavy perfumes tend to be like this so if you are looking at a citrus scent that’ll cling to you forever, Zest Mandarine Pamplemousse is probably not up your alley. If you want a light, very sheer, very clean fragrance, this one will do the job.

Design: Designed much like every other Creed fragrance bottle. I still like the heft of the bottle but wish the design was something a little more luxe looking. Especially given the cost of admission that Creed wants to charge for these things. Zest Mandarine Pamplemousse’s bottle is a clear glass with a greyish-white cap.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Bergamot, mandarin, grapefruit, white florals, ambergris.

Between Zest Mandarine Pamplemousse and Guerlain’s Pamplelune, I’m going to have to concede Zest Mandarine Pamplemousse as the winner. It’s cleaner, more to my taste, and goes down much smoother too.

P.S. Happy New Year!

Reviewed in This Post: Zest Mandarine Pamplemousse, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Annick Goutal Eau de Sud

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Eau de Sud is a true, well done, citrus centered fragrance with a beautiful and interesting dry down. It was released in 1995 and is–unjustly–underrated. But if you do happen to be looking for a competent fresh citrus, look past the Light Blues and Versences and get yourself a bit of this stuff.  Eau de Sud

In Bottle: Herbal and grapefruity with fresh green notes. It’s a (refreshing and much needed) far cry from the citrus explosion of other perfumes based in this category.

Applied: Opens with a beautiful bouquet of herbal grapefruit greenness. The grapefruit used in this fragrance is a tart one, similar to Guerlain’s Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune. The mid-stage is punctuated with an odd but entirely pleasant saltiness as the grapefruit lingers back behind a pleasant mix of spicy peppermint, basil, thyme and lemon verbena. Eau de Sud’s relatively masculine composition might turn away a few more scent gender conscious ladies but it is a lovely fragrance that I think anyone can use because before it is masculine, it is fresh and classic smelling. You get the classic scent of this on the dry down where the fragrance takes a woodsy and herbal turn before falling off completely.

Extra: Eau de Sud’s more popular older sister, Eau d’Hadrien is a lighter more citrus-based fragrance.

Design: Eau de Sud is bottled in Annick Goutal’s iconic ribbed glass bottle with the lovely gold metal cap and an adorable gold ribbon that carries the fragrance’s name tag. It should be noted, if you happen to be interested in this kind of thing, that all of Annick Goutal’s ribbed glass bottles have removable sprayers. Though I would advise that you keep the sprayer on so long as there’s juice in the bottle as Annick Goutals are known to fade a bit quicker than other fragrances.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Aromatic

Notes: Bergamot, tangerine, grapefruit, key lime, verbena, peppermint, basil, patchouli, oakmoss, jasmine, vetiver.

You can get Annick Goutal fragrances in three different types of bottles. Not all of them are available in all bottle types but there is the square variety, the ribbed variety (shown above), and the butterfly bottle variety.

Reviewed in This Post: Eau de Sud, 2000, Eau de Toilette.

Caron Fleurs de Rocaille

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I was wearing Fleurs de Rocaille around today to see how she’d do with a little bit of aging and stood a bit too close to a rather unimpressed young woman who upon catching a whiff of it proclaimed, “Someone’s wearing grandma’s perfume!” Ah, complete strangers making loud comments about my perfume. What a life. Fleurs de Rocaille

In Bottle: To be fair to the aforementioned young lady, Fleurs de Rocaille is old and she smells like she came from a different era for sure. She’s a classic from 1934 when she was composed by Ernest Daltroff.

Applied: Fleurs de Rocaille’s opener is a bit sweet for me thanks to the violet she also has a bit of headiness but she does smooth out.  She opens with a fantastic flair of aldehydes and florals, a very pretty rose note up top that stays throughout the scent. Then she settles down a bit. Not quite to the stage of modern perfumes with their clean, floral mid-stages or inoffensive fruity blasts. She’s a powdery, soapy, floral thanks to those famous aldehydes that everyone with a modern nose seems to equate to either grandmas or cat pee. I hope their grandmothers are cheap with their presents this year. Honestly, people, lay off the old ladies, would you? There’s a lot of florals to be had in this scent with the jasmine, rose, and narcissus playing the loudest among a group of green, softer flowers. Fleurs de Rocaille blends the florals so well with a very classic aldehyde rose build that settles into the base and end stage along with a very woody and warm amber scent.

Extra: Seems like the perfume industry loves to confuse its customers. There are two “Fleurs de Rocaille” scents. The one tested and reviewed in this post was Fleurs de Rocaille. There is another, more modern version, called Fleur de Rocaille. Note the missing plural. The more modern version was released in 1993.

Design: Fleurs de Rocaille’s bottle reminds me a bit of Annick Goutal’s ribbed bottles. The shape is similar and the cap’s ribbed shape is very reminiscent of Annick Goutal. I like it though. It’s a nice feminine shape with a pleasant weightiness and a good, simple, clean design. Nothing fancy about this!

Fragrance Family: Aldeyhyde Floral

Notes: Bergamot, palisander, gardenia, violet, oriss root, jasmine, narcissus, rose, carnation, lily-of-the-valley, ylang-ylang, lilac, mimosa, iris, amber, sandalwood, cedar, musk.

This little tester vial of Fleurs de Rocaille has actually been bouncing around my “to test” pile for a while. For some reason, I had convinced myself that I had Fleur de Rocaille instead of the older version.

Reviewed in This Post: Fleurs de Rocaille, ~1980, Eau de Toilette.

Britney Spears Radiance

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I’m still perplexed about the popularity of Britney Spears fragrances. The only scent I could take from her line was Midnight Fantasy which has its on and off days and became too synthetic and sweet for my tastes near the end of its 30ml bottle lifespan. Still I went into Radiance hoping for a surprise. I always approach celebrity scents hoping for surprise and always end up a little disappointed. Radiance

In Bottle: Sweet tuberose scent with a slight tart berry top note that isn’t particularly interesting but does remind me a bit of other sweet tuberose based scents. Namely, Baby Phat Dare Me.

Applied: Berries up front with a slightly tart treatment that is mildly reminiscent of Tommy Girl with less zing. The berries fade into the mid-stage where the tuberose amps up and leads a mild jasmine note in with it. The two create a sweet, and creamy tuberose-heavy floral heart stage that smells like it can’t decide whether it wants to be sensual and sophisticated or sweet and fun. But Radiance pitches an interesting middle ground and ends up smelling okay. Not great. Just okay. The orange blossom flares up now and again in the mid-stage but aside from that Radiance is a quicker fader into the base with a clean, very sheer ending.

Extra: Britney’s perfume line is one of the most popular fragrances for young women and girls. She’s got the market pretty much cornered with her fragrances. And this goes particularly for Fantasy with its huge fruity sweet personality.

Design: Not a fan of the bottle. I think it looks a bit garish to be honest. It’s a heavy glass bottle with a colored jewel motif that reminds me of Bejeweled, the Flash-based game. As stated, the bottle is glass but the cap is a blue plastic jewel that fits over the sprayer. I just can’t get on board with these types of over the top designs and I have yet to really like a Britney Spears perfume line bottle design and Radiance is no exception.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Floral

Notes: Berries, tuberose, jasmine, orange blossom, iris, musk.

Keep doing whatever it is that you do, Britney because it’s obviously working out for you. As for Radiance, it’s not my idea of a good time.

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

Sugababes Tempt

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I saw this thing laying about the internet and thought to myself, “Are you serious? Is that another Fantasy perfume I haven’t heard of yet?” Thankfully no, this isn’t an unknown bottle of yet another Britney Spears Fantasy. Tempt is actually a member of the Sugababes collection of fragrances. Being Canadian, unsavvy when it comes to music, and a general hermit, I had no idea who the Sugababes were. But I smelled Tempt anyway–in a safe, closed environment from a small sampler vial.

In Bottle: Fruity floral. If there’s anything I wholly expected from Tempt, it was this. Nothing exciting about this, it’s just  “that fruity floral smell” you can get anywhere else.

Applied: Berries up top, layered with a sort of sticky sweet tea scent that’s helped along in its tea-journey by blackcurrant that tries its best to bring the sugar down to tolerable levels but doesn’t succeed. It reminds me of a sweeter, sillier version of Tommy Girl. The midstage isn’t anything to phone home about either. It’s more fruits, more sweetness, a touch of rose to give this thing some florals, and an orchid note that might as well not be there because you have to dig to find it. The dry down is a typical, rather boring way-too-sweet vanilla scent that’s still too sticky for me to handle seriously.

Extra: Apparently the Sugababes is a pop group from the UK. No wonder I haven’t heard of it. Well, if nothing else, Tempt’s smell matches what the band seems to be all about. It’s definitely sugar.

Design: Ugh. I thought the Fantasy bottles were ugly to begin with, why on earth would there be another fragrance line to borrow design elements from it? The shape is awful and it’s made worse by the lack of embellishments.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Berries, blackcurrant, ced tea, rose, orchid, vanilla, musk.

Too sweet, too boring, terrible bottle. I’ll say what I always say for fragrances like this. It is by no means a bad smell. But it is definitely synthetic and unoriginal. If you like sweet fruity things, this is up your alley. If you are looking for something a little more sophisticated, this shouldn’t even be considered.

Reviewed in This Post: Tempt, 2010, Eau de  Toilette.

Marc Jacobs Bang

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Marc Jacobs came out with Bang (raise your hands if you read that as ‘came out with a bang’) earlier this year to a fairly decent media frenzy that at first revolved around his statements about the fragrance, then about the advertising that came out with the fragrance in which some men begged to wonder, “if I were to choose a cologne, do I want it to be the one with a naked Marc Jacobs on the advertisement?” Query of the ages right there. Bang

In Bottle: Bang slaps me in the nose right away with a gigantic dose of peppers. Red, white, pink, black. You got the entire pepper rainbow in this thing. And hey, it’s off-putting but I actually like it.

Applied: Pepper, pepper, pepper. Like grinding peppercorns and spraying them into my nose. The initial reaction I had was to sneeze but it didn’t get to that point. I love pepper. I love how strong and blatant the initial pepper blast in this stuff is. If you want something to wake you up, Bang’s opening is it. But after the pepper blast, Bang heads into something a little more conventional as it veers into a leathery woods scent with a tickle of vetiver and a now very familiar cedar note. But all that is second fiddle to the pepper that just doesn’t go away. Thankfully Bang is light-handed with its used of cedar and has ended up with a competent woodsy mid-stage instead of a cedar mess that so many other cedar-based fragrances suffer from on my skin. The dry down is a decent play between bitter green notes, a lingering tickle of pepper, and a pleasant bit of earthy patchouli and woods.

Extra: The less said about the advertising campaign for Bang, the better. I thought they could have taken this in a few different directions but ultimately picked the obvious, which was disappointing to me. Well, if nothing else, the ad caught a lot of people’s attention.

Design: Bang’s bottle is not for me. It’s a little silly looking, if you ask me, and seems overly gimmicky. The bottle boasts a metallic exterior that looks like it would have once been a statement piece in the world of metal rectangles before someone punched it out of shape in a blind rage. Surprisingly enough, despite its non-traditional appearance and respectable weightiness, the bottle is fairly easy and comfortable to hold.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Woods

Notes: Black pepper, white pepper, pink pepper, woods, elemi resin, benzoin, vetiver, white moss, patchouli.

I’m not a fan of the reputation they built around this fragrance. I’m much less a fan of the silly-looking bottle. But the fragrance is a competent well-blended spicy woods gig.

Reviewed in This Post: Bang, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Paco Rabanne 1 Million

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1 Million is a love it or hate it fragrance. In my case, I hate it. Just as a forewarning. It’s been lauded for its sillage, longevity and sweet, woodsy personality. All I smell is citrus and wood. One Million

In Bottle: A nice, pleasant and slightly sweet citrus mixed with a reassuringly sheer spiciness.

Applied: Maybe I was a little heavy-handed with this stuff but it’s hard to see how one spray could go so wrong. I spritzed a little on my hand, enjoyed the sweet spiciness of it then walked away from the counter thinking it was an interesting twist for juice that came out of a gold bar. Then the woodsiness started to amp up, and keep amping up. Amping so much up that it overtakes everything and turns the scent’s mid-stage into a sharp, synthetic, spicy wood affair with a lingering amber cloying quality. This juice reminds me of Versace Versense slapped with a hint of spice. I tried to wait this one out for its fade but it took hours upon hours and eventually I had to take a shower. At which point, 1 Million was still detectable. This stuff is strong, it’s got huge projection, fantastic longevity, and it is a head turner–though it’s a nose turner for me. The dry down is a difficult thing to pin down due to what the scent had already gone through by the time it reached that point. I got more woods blended with a sweet amber as far as I could tell.

Extra: 1 Million won three fragrance awards in 2009 and judging by how this acted on me, I think I have some broken skin or something because I just can’t get on board for this. It was a mess to me. An men’s fragrance that overindulged in the wood notes department and slapped in some spicy sweetness to try and figure itself out.

Design: This design is garish and tacky and it doesn’t care! 1 Million is a glass bottle, with a gold plate that’s made to look like a brick of gold that you’d find sitting in cartoon versions of Fort Knox. It’s a rather heavy and hefty bottle, feels a little too heavy but then I can only assume its weight gives the allusion that wearing it would make you feel like a million bucks.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Woodsy

Notes: Grapefruit, red orange, mint, rose, cinnamon, spices, blond leather, blond wood, patchouli, amber.

Maybe I’m being too harsh on 1 Million. Maybe I’ll give it another chance sometimes but I don’t see the appeal of it right now. Heck, maybe I even  sprayed too much.

Reviewed in This Post: 1 Million, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Demeter My Melody

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My Melody was released in Demeter Fragrance Library’s Hello Kitty series alon with the Hello Kitty scent and the Little Twin Stars fragrance. My Melody is the foodiest one of the three. My Melody

In Bottle: Smooth vanilla and almond. Demeter tends to do simple fragrances anyway and My Melody is a pleasant enough blend of two very gourmand notes that creates an almost edible scent in the bottle.

Applied: Delicious vanilla almond and cake. My Melody smells like cupcakes and cute, happy, tasty things. Everyone needs a little pick-me-up, especially lately and this fragrance is a delightful reminder that–if nothing else–we still have cake. The fragrance doesn’t do any morphing or changing for a while and the scent is fairly fleeting. Being an eau de cologne and all. As the dry down sees a fade in the almond note making the vanilla note more prominent.

Extra: My Melody reminds me an awful lot of many Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab fragrances. The foodies, in particular. I want to say this reminds me a little bit of Dana O’Shee and Boo from BPAL.

Design: The bottle I came across was a small, very typical glass rectangle bottle that Demeter’s fragrances often come in. It’s got a very simple, plain level of packaging that seems a little clinical to me so there’s very little to the design for these fragrances.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Almond, cake, vanilla.

My Melody should be a big hit for its target audience but it’s not really for me. I got Black Phoenix for gourmands like this that I really don’t see a need for something like this in my collection.

Reviewed in This Post: My Melody, 2010, Eau de Cologne.