Britney Spears Circus Fantasy

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So I dragged my heels on this one a little bit. I’m fatigued with the whole Britney Spears Fantasy line, to be honest. Fantasy, itself, is an icon of celebrity fragrances and its flankers are nothing to be sniffed at either. Though they aren’t so unique  that if you passed on them, you’d miss out.

Circus Fantasy

In Bottle: Circus Fantasy does clean! That’s a nice mix up from the fruitiness of the other two Fantasy scents I’ve tried. It smells like a very sweet glass of lemonade.

Applied: Sweet citrus up front and the citrus is a quick fader so we get down to business rather quick. Heading into the rest of the opening, Circus Fantasy hits up a sweet berry note and falls into a pile of pretty little violets right away. The mid-stage is a more floral fragrance, doing a mixture of sweet and clean florals rather well as the scent hits up peony and orchid. It smells really similar to a bunch of other celebrity fragrances in the mid-stage with that sweet floral heart that’s so recognizable. At least it’s easy to accept and wear! The dry down is an uninspired array of vanilla and sugar with a jolt of clean dashed in there for good measure. Overall, Circus Fantasy does clean and refreshing rather well. The mid-stage bores me a bit along with the end stage but the opening was pretty good. I liked the lemonade smell and wished we had gotten more of that.

Extra: Now the only fragrance in the Fantasy line that I haven’t gotten my nose on yet is Hidden Fantasy. That’s the red one. I can’t seem to find it anywhere but online and I would like to avoid getting more than a decant or sampler spray of it so until I track it down, I’m sure Britney’s perfume line will come out with another Fantasy flanker.

Design: Still hate the bottle. Sorry guys. It will probably never look any better no matter what they do with it. Circus Fantasy is an appealing shade of blue at least, with red rhinestones set into the bottle’s glass.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Raspberry, apricot, lotus, orchid, peony, vanilla, sugar, musk.

Move over Midnight Fantasy, Circus Fantasy’s got you beat. I really do like that lemonade opening and wish they could have just bottled that for all three stages.

Reviewed in This Post: Circus Fantasy, 2009, Eau de Parfum.

Calgon Morning Glory

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Last of my original Calgon four-pack of body mists that Calgon referred to as the “Take Me Away” series. Morning Glory was a another fresh floral in the line. Unlike its very familiar sister, Turquoise Seas, Morning Glory opts for green fresh rather than blue marine fresh.

Morning Glory

In Bottle: Green sharp opening with a floral backing. I get lily and green, very clean and sharp.

Applied: The green freshness in this isn’t the normal grassy green, you can tell this is an unabashed and unapologetic synthetic element being used to give the fragrance that clean and crisp feel. If you look past the green opening there’s a very thick layer of florals in the mid-stage that’s marked, once again, with a prominent lily note that’s intermingled with varying degrees of florals. However, there’s something a bit sweet and licorice like about Morning Glory that’s very appealing. It makes this fragrance seem a bit more grown up than the other three body mists I reviewed. I love that little licorice nip in the mid-stage and it sticks around for a bit as we round off near the end where the fragrance ends on a floral woodsy affair.

Extra: Morning Glory flowers don’t really smell like this but this is a nice interpretation of it anyway. I don’t mind Morning Glory though I doubt many of the notes in its notes list (see below) were really present or they were their heavily synthetic elements.

Design: Last time you get to hear this for a while but, Morning Glory is a blue liquid bottled in a tall plastic cylinder with a plastic spray nozzle. Once again, functional if somewhat plain in form.

Fragrance Family: Clean Floral

Notes: Green notes, galbanum, anise, apple, peach, pineapple, jasmine, lily of the valley, clove, oakmoss, musk, sandalwood.

So that about wraps it up for my trip down memory lane. These four body mists were far from the first perfume I ever wore but they were the first four I wore on a regular basis. I’m sure many of us can attest to trying on mom’s perfume when we were younger. I don’t quite remember what my first actual brush with perfume was, I want to say it was a Givenchy or maybe even Chanel No.5. What about you?

Reviewed in This Post: Morning Glory, 1999, Body Mist.

Calgon Turquoise Seas

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Number three of four in my original four pack of Calgon body sprays is Turquoise Seas. A fragrance I stated smells similar to Avril Lavinge Forbidden Rose. And I stand by that statement.

In Bottle: Clean aquatic white floral with a very heavy, sharp aqua note up front. There’s a slight sweetness to this stuff in the bottle too.

Applied: Sharp aquatics and white florals up front with a slight sweetness to take away from the sharpness of the fragrance. The floral aquatic opening is very reminiscent of Forbidden Rose as the fragrance digs into the mid-stage with the aquatics calming down a bit and letting the floral heart float up. I smell lilies and jasmine mostly in the mid-stage. This is is not a very complicated fragrance and it won’t get any more complicated when it starts to dry down with a cleaned up iris note mingling rather well with the aquatic lily jasmine. Turquoise Seas seems to add notes as it goes along rather than let notes drop off, which is a nice approach given how pleasant this ends up smelling by the end.

Extra: Turquoise Seas is a discontinued fragrance, which is a real shame because it’s a very wearable aquatic floral. If you do love it, there are still bottles of it kicking around on eBay.

Design: Once again, typically bottled in tall plastic cylinder with plastic sprayer nozzle. Nothing to phone home about, it’s simply practical. You’ll have to excuse the lack of a photo for this post, the bottle doesn’t look any different from its Calgon body mist brothers and sisters. The label depicts the image of an ocean, the body mist color is a light turquoise-blue. My own bottle is an empty, beat up mess so a photo of it won’t be indicative of what  it should look like.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Marine accord, lily, jasmine, iris, white musk.

Once again, I am guessing with the notes. Some people express some surprise when they find out that Calgon is a part of the Coty brand. Some aren’t too surprised until they find out that Coty is an old perfume house with quite a rich history and prestigious legacy. This is the house that made Chypre so I’m not surprised its body mists are not too bad. But maybe that’s the nostalgia talking.

Reviewed in This Post: Turquoise Seas, 1999, Body Mist.

Calgon Moon Petal Musk 1999

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I remember a long time ago when I got my first set of body mists. They came in four. They were body mists, and they were Calgon. They started my long sordid decline into the perfume obsession I find myself in today. Now, Calgon’s never really gotten any better with these fragrances but I can’t help but feel that little sting of nostalgia whenever I smell one of these.

Moon Petal Musk

In Bottle: Sharp floral twang with a bit of fresh greenness up top. The greenness is very fleeting because it’s easily overpowered by the floral bite.

Applied: Strong flowers floating in ozone notes. Moon Petal Musk might as well be standing ontop of a mountain and shouting, “OZONE!” for the whole world to hear because that ozone note is what lends to the sharpness and powerful fresh smell in this. And fresh, in this case, is defined as overly clean and very sharp. The ozone does fade, however, leaving you with a rather pleasant bouquet of white florals. The most prominent notes being lillies and roses. Mix lily and rose together in equal parts and you will get this vague feel of white, powdery flowers. As Moon Petal Musk dries down, the florals devolve into a very vague floral fragrance where you can’t really tell what flower it is you’re smelling, but you’re sure it’s at least a flower. The florals are mingled with a sharp white musk to usher out the fragrance completely.

Extra: It should be noted that Calgon re-imagined and reformulated Moon Petal Musk since my bottle’s time. The new Moon Petal Musk smells nothing like this and one glance at its new notes list should tell you that. So, if we were going to be ridiculous, I’d venture to say my bottle of watery perfume is a vintage–but we’re not feeling ridiculous right now. I will say that compared to the new Moon Petal Musk, the original is far more competent.

Design: All body sprays tend to be bottled in the same way. Tall cylindrical plastic container with plastic sprayer nozzle. It’s not fancy, it’s not exciting and it’s not meant to be any of those things. This is simply functional, with a little bit of plain and ugly thrown in.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Ozone, orchid, rose, freesia, muguet, white musk.

I took a stab at the notes list with what rarity of information I could find online regarding the original Moon Petal Musk’s notes. I refused to believe the one place I found a notes list that “airy green expression” was a serious thing I was supposed to smell. It’s like when you’re playing Pictionary and some smarty pants decides to make you illustrate the concept of humility. My thanks to LittleGnome on Makeupalley for the notes list I referenced. I believe her list might be the official word on this fragrance, so take mine with a grain of salt.

Reviewed in This Post: Moon Petal Musk, 1999, Body Mist.

Davidoff Cool Water for Men

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It’s funny to me how Creed priced its Green Irish Tweed (GIT) out of many people’s markets and drove them to a cheaper, albeit, very good alternative in Cool Water. These days when people think aromatic aquatic,they think Cool Water for the very simple reason that Cool Water was more affordable, more readily available, and it pretty much smells the same to most people’s noses anyway.

Cool Water for Men

In Bottle: I’m one of those people who find Cool Water and Green Irish Tweed very similar so I’ll try to vary this up a little but do keep in mind these two fragrances go through the motions in relatively the same way. Cool Water opens with a green, citrus, aromatic backed by a couple of gentle wood notes lingering in the back. It’s herbs, aquatics, and woods basically.

Applied: Citrus is quick to fade with the green aquatics sticking it out while the woods and aromatics work their magic. Cool Water is a fresh, clean, easy to wear and easy to love fragrance that I have a hard time finding fault in. This was one of the earlier aromatic aquatics that lived in a time where the market was less convoluted. It grows on me, keeps me reminded of Green Iris Tweed. But there’s a bit of a difference between Cool Water and GIT, and that lies in the complexity difference between the two. There’s a certain flatness that Cool Water hits during the mid-stage, as if some component is missing from the fragrance as a whole. I want to say it’s missing a refined floral heart like GIT had while Cool Water focuses more on the aromatics and woods side. Whatever’s missing it, it needs to be looked for in order to notice, but I’m still left wondering just what that is. It seems to be the ‘spark’ that sets GIT aside from Cool Water for me. Cool Water chills out in the end stage with a cedar note. The cedar’s threatening me, of course, but it’s not as loud as some other cedars have been.

Extra: Now, I can sit here and ponder the intricacies of these two fragrances all day but being a child of the late 80s and early 90s, I smelled my fair share of both GIT and Cool Water. They’re still both very popular fragrances but they spawned a trend in men’s fragrances that still persists today. The aquatic fragrances family. A family so full of members that I have a hard time telling them all apart.

Design: I’m going to have sigh and say I’m not a fan of the bottle here. The colored glass angle has to be played right with perfume in that the shape of the bottle has to be able to stand whatever color you splash on it. Use too little color and people won’t notice. Use too much and the glass ends up looking like plastic. Unfortunately that’s the case with this bottle, it reminds me of a shampoo bottle.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Mint, green, lavender, coriander, rosemary, geranium, neroli, jasmine, sandalwood, cedarwood, musk, amber, tobacco.

There’s two main version of Cool Water (and a huge lot of flankers). One for men and one for women. This review was regarding the men’s version.

Reviewed in This Post: Cool Water for Men, 2005, Eau de Toilette.

Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau

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Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau is the green little flanker from 2009. It’s older sister, Miss Dior Cherie was a smash hit when she debut in 2005. I wrote a review of Miss Dior Cherie almost a year ago and proclaimed my amazement at one of the few perfume headaches I’ve ever gotten. And so, enter her flanker.

Miss Dior Cherie L'Eau

In Bottle: Sweet and flowery with a hint of cleanness. It’s like I’m smelling a bar of too-flowery soap.

Applied: So Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau is a little disappointing in the bottle, does she get any better on the skin? Eh, no, not really. She goes on with that sweet florals thing again, there’s a hint of sharpness to this that makes me think fresh and clean like a shower gel or a bar of soap or something. I’ll commend this for being less sweet than Miss Dior Cherie but there’s not much else to it than a very familiar, but very banal shower gel scent. The mid-stage is marked with a squeaky clean sweet floral blend of white flowers and fruits. The dry down is a floral woodsiness with a dash of sharp white musk for good measure.

Extra: Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau has a good thing going for it if you like weaker perfumes that don’t last very long but can still make you wrinkle your nose. This stuff smells nice, and if you like squeaky clean smells and little else, this is a good bet–just don’t expect it to last very long. The longevity seriously sucks.

Design: Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau is bottled in a similar shape to Miss Dior Cherie but with a taller bottle and a frosted glass-looking bow  and cap. It’s still fantastically cute packaging. The juice is also an appeasing shade of yellow-green.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Bitter orange, lily, gardenia, woods, musk.

I admit it, I do like this a lot more than Miss Dior Cherie. But the fact that I didn’t get a headache from this probably has something to do with that. In the end though, Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau, is just not special. She smells like a great deal of other things out there and there isn’t much to set her apart. The bottle sure looks cute though!

Reviewed in This Post: Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Voyage d’Hermes

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Voyage d’Hermès has come to be known in the fragrance world as, “did you see that bottle?” Or at least, that’s what I call it. It’s the perfume with the fantastic bottle. The juice inside is pretty good too.

Voyage d'Hermes

In Bottle: Bright green citrus. Lime most of all, with a distinct sourness to it. This smells like lime rinds, okay? And I love it.

Applied: That initial citrus, green and dry with a hint of sourness edges into a steadily rising spicy mid-stage where ginger greets you and takes you to meet its friend cardamom. The two of them hold you there, complementing each other with the fading lime rind as the fragrance’s rind opening gives way to a sheer floral headed by those spices you met earlier. The fragrance then dissolves into a white musk dashed with a bit of woodsiness that grows stronger and stronger as the spices start to fade away starting with ginger then cardamom. The final stage is marked with a pretty white musk and fading traces of woodsy notes. It should be noted that Voyage d’Hermès is not a heavy scent. It is extremely sheer so if you’re looking for power and projection, this is not your stuff.

Extra: Voyage d’Hermès was composed by the much esteemed Jean-Claude Ellena whose rapsheet also includes Kelly Caleche and Terre d’Hermès.

Design: I’ve got to spend a little time talking about this bottle. I love it. The design, the quirky swivel. The fact that it’s minimalist but elegant and modern. The inner glass bottle contains the juice itself, but it also has an outer metal casing that swivels. What sets this outer metal casing apart from other perfumes of glass and metal is the fact that the casing acts both as a cap and a stand. It’s a little functionality for your fragrance that beats the gold plated stuff that simply serves to be flashy. Did I mention an added bonus feature of this bottle? It’s refillable. Immediate points given for that, Hermes. It looks good. It functions well. You can refill it. It’s just fantastic.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Spicy

Notes: Lime, juniper, green tea, pepper, ginger, cardamom, cedar, sandalwood, amber, white musk.

Hermes has always done some beautiful work with their fragrances and I particularly must give props to Jean-Claude Ellena. The man has made some fabulous perfumes in his time and Voyage d’Hermès is one of them. Neither too abstract or too derivative, Voyage d’Hermès is in that beautiful little middle ground where balance is key.

Reviewed in This Post: Voyage d’Hermès, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Bath and Body Works Carried Away

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Carried away, released recently by Bath and Body Works is a fragrance meant to invoke springtime. And considering the snow dumps and the cold air that’s been blowing about here lately, I welcome spring’s arrival any moment now.

Carried Away

In Bottle: Bright, green citrus with a soft floral undernote. Not entirely interesting but doesn’t smell bad. This is fairly on bar with other Bath and Body Works fragrances. It’s not unique, it’s not daring, but it’s definitely functional.

Applied: I get a sharp hit of citrus right away with the lemon and mandarin mixing together up front. There’s a slight tartness from the raspberry note that carries the sweet little pear note a little further and when you start digging into the mid-stage, the sweet and light florals waft in to distract you while the citrus note sin the opening bow out. There’s nothing to phone home about in the mid-stage as it’s a mild floral, easy to wear, easy to like, not the least bit offensive. Though I will give Carried Away points for taking its springtime theme and running with it. This smells fresh, clean, femininely floral. The dry down is uninspired, the vanilla is sweet, comes up during the mid-stage and accompanies sandalwood on the way out.

Extra: Carried Away, like almost every other Bath and Body Works scent comes in a line of bath and body products such as body mists, lotion, body butter, and shower gel.

Design: Same shape and general design premise as the other eau de toilettes from Bath and Body Works. Glass rectangle with designs on it. Plastic cap. The designs for Carried Away are colorful turquoise and pink ribbons wrapping around the glass. Pretty, generic, but works very well.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Bergamot, meyer lemon, mandarin, pear, raspberry, freesia, tuberose, jasmine, violet, sandalwood, vanilla, musk.

I’m not jumping on this fragrance mostly because I’ve smelled similar stuff that I like better from Bath and Body Works. For freshness, I go with White Citrus. For florals, I prefer the roses in P.S. I Love You. And if I want clean, I’ve got Cotton Blossom.

Reviewed in This Post: Carried Away, 2011, Eau de Toilette.

Chanel Chance Eau Fraiche

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Chance Eau Fraiche rounds off the line of Chanel’s Chance flankers (at the time of this writing). It’s the first flanker to the original, meant to be a lighter, younger, interpretation of Chance. Though Chance was young to begin with. Chance Eau Fraiche

In Bottle: Light, crisp and green. Very clean and citrus heavy topper with a sweet fruit-like note lingering around as well.

Applied: Sweet, after the sharp citrus kick that immediately invades the nose upon application. The citron is going bananas in this fragrance as Chance Eau Fraiche mellows a teensy bit in the mid-stage but still clings to its sharp, clean, blaring personality that it displayed on initial application. I don’t know how to calm her down but she is very energetic! The middle has that sweet fruity note again and a familiar hyacinth echo that was present in the original Chance. It’s pretty much a cleaner, lighter, more citrusy Chance and there isn’t a whole lot else to it. The mid-stage is rather disappointing this miasma of sharp, sweet and clean that doesn’t quite go well together but tries anyway. The drydown is a mildly woodsy white musk. Like faintly wood-scented soap and sweet lemon drops.

Extra: Eau Fraiche is good for the young audience too though it is definitely a flanker and isn’t likely to excel much beyond that. It’s got clear echos of the original Chance except even cleaner, even more sheer and slapped in the face with a dollop of fresh.

Design: Much like Chance and Chance Eau Tendre, Chanel Chance Eau Fraiche is bottled in a circle with a square cap. Same effective deal with the same minimal but attractive Chanel elegance. Eau Fraiche’s juice is colored light green.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Citron, water hyacinth, jasmine, white musk, vetiver, amber, patchouli, teak wood.

Ranking the Chance series, I’m going to have to put original Chance in number one, Eau Fraiche in second and Eau Tendre in third. Mostly Eau Tendre suffers because of how familiar it is to Marc Jacobs Daisy on the opener.

Reviewed in This Post: Chance Eau Fraiche, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

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.