Betsey Johnson Perfume

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Betsey Johnson’s fragrance is a polarizing affair with fans and dissenters alike. I just happen to be on the dissenter side. Even though I see what Betsey Johnson is trying to do with the kitschy design and equally kitschy fragrance, I just  can’t say that I like it.

Betsey Johnson

Betsey Johnson

In Bottle: Incredibly sweet and floral with a bit of musk. A rather discordant fragrance with a fruity hint and a strange medley of scents that don’t play nice with my nose.

Applied: Opens with a very sweet blackcurrant and citrus fragrance that quickly introduces the florals and a very sweet and very obvious freesia note. The apple wiggles in with the midstage and turns up the fruity side of this fragrance a few notches. It’s sweet and flowery and smells a bit synthetic and cheap and very cloying as the fragrance just continues to amp up on the sweetness the longer it sits on my skin. When the base notes arrive there’s a bit of sugary woodsiness that mingles with the equally sugary floral.

Extra: Betsey Johnson’s style has always been bright and colorful and pop artsy. I can’t say I’m a big fan of it, but the fragrance and the design itself do reflect these aesthetics. This particular perfume was created by noses Mathilde Bijaoui and Bernard Blanc.

Design: The bottle for Betsey Johnson is just about everything I don’t like in a design. It’s big and girly and flashy and bright and pretty much the epitome of kitsch. I don’t like the aesthetics and think they are a little ridiculous but rest assured, the bottle was designed to look like this. I just don’t like the look at all.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Grapefruit, blackcurrant, tangerine, pear, freesia, lily of the valley, apple, sandalwood, amber, musk, cedar, praline.

So all in all, this fragrance just isn’t for me but that shouldn’t stop someone else from looking this one up. It’s got a nice fruity floral with a very sweet tooth. If you love fruity floral and sweet scents, try this stuff out.

Reviewed in This Post: Betsey Johnson, 2008, Eau de Parfum.

Tokyo Milk Honey and the Moon

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I’ve always wanted to try Tokyo Milk fragrances so it was strange when the one place I’d find some miniature bottles for sale was at a stationary store. A physical Papyrusstore, to be exact.

Honey and the Moon

Honey and the Moon

In Bottle: Creamy, sweet and rich honey scent with a slight flowery aroma to it. It’s a very convincing honey scent.

Applied: Opens up with a really beautiful creamy honey fragrance with a floral scent rolling in with it as well. This smells rather gourmand with a delicious floral twist that actually adds to the gourmand feel of this fragrance. It probably helps that the scent is honey and honey tends to take on certain elements of whatever flower the honey was made from. I am so far very impressed with the authentic honeyness of Honey and the Moon. The progression into the midstage takes on a bit more of a floral air. As the scent continues to age, the scent becomes a bit more creamy and a little sweeter at the end as it takes on a slight dustiness in the dry down.

Extra: Tokyo Milk is a niche house that deals in perfumes and other cosmetic products as well as stationary. Their very elegant website has all these things available online here.

Design: Designed simply enough the bottle I looked at was a rectangular square affair with a shiny cap. It was a very cute size with really nice, whimsical illustrations on it. Very cute and practical at the same time.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Honey, violet, jasmine, sandalwood.

I really liked Honey and the Moon and the best part about it is the fact that Tokyo Milk fragrances are relatively affordable. I haven’t tried many other scents from them but they are generally well done.

Reviewed in This Post: Honey and the Moon, 2009, Parfum.

Atelier Cologne Vanille Insensee

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Always on the look out for that next great vanilla to replace Spiritueuse Double Vanille. I don’t know why I keep wanting to upgrade. You would think once I find a fragrance that I love, I’d just stick with it? Maybe it’s the fear of SDV one day being discontinued. Or maybe it’s just the thrill of trying to find something just a little bit better.

Vanille Insensee

In Bottle: Spicy vanilla with a woody personality. Quite nice and quite interesting!

Applied: Citrus opener with the lime and a slightly sweet cedrat note. Maybe I’m inventing the sweetness but it smells a bit like lime and lemon with a hint of sugar. The vanilla evolves with this glorious green spiciness and woodsiness in the mid-stage. The woodsiness actually adds to the fragrance in the very subtle way that it’s used. Kind of like adding personality to the vanilla rather than just mixing with it. The florals are very light with the jasmine making the most pronounced appearance giving the fragrance a feminine touch and taking away from the level of gourmand this would reach if the woods and florals hadn’t been around to soothe it a little. This smells like warm vanilla pods and being in the woods with a cup of lemonade. It’s very easy to like and easy to wear and it’s a hint more special than your standard fare sweet and synthetic vanilla scent. The vanilla is, indeed, a little bit more interesting than your usual and it’s quite nice with this smooth and spicy personality that mixes really well with the woods. Very nice, indeed.

Extra: I almost forgot how nice a niche line could make a vanilla fragrance. I got a little caught up in the humdrum mainstream market for a while, smelling mostly synthetic vanillas and interpretations made for clearly younger audiences than me. It’s nice to come back to niche now and then and smell something this good.

Design: The bottle’s shape itself is rather simple, a little reminiscent of more common things like shampoo. But the design on the glass is what really makes it. Lovely colors, nice typography, great use of space. I really like how it takes a simple shaped bottle and turns it into something more luxurious and artsy. Nicely done!

Fragrance Family: Woodsy Gourmand

Notes: Lime, cedrat, coriander, jasmine, vetiver, oak moss, Madagascar vanilla, oak wood, amber.

I’m not entirely sure what a cologne absolu is or what its equivalent on the concentrations scale is. If I had to venture a bold guess, I’d presume Eau de Toilette, as the fragrance is a bit light but then you can’t really tell with these things anyway. Bah, regardless Vanille Insensee is a pleasant, unique vanilla scent and for $170, you can get a lot of this stuff (200ml).

Reviewed in This Post: Vanille Insensee, 2011, Cologne Absolu.

Paco Rabanne Black XS

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After two fails on me with Paco Rabanne, I had to wonder why I keep coming back to the brand since nothing they put out really interest me. Black XS has an enormous rose on the bottle which made me a bit leery about what I would get.

Black XS

Black XS

In Bottle: Slightly woody, creamy scent with a dish of flowers and some slightly tart berries.

Applied: On application, it almost smells like Christmas dinner. You know with the festive spicy smell and the little bit of cranberry? There’s sweetness in here almost immediately and it’s a pleasant little party. I admit, it is a little weird to feel like it’s Christmas all the way in July but hey, it’s fascinating at least! But Black XS quickly sheds its festive cheer and heads into a fairly banal floral mid-stage with a creamy and rich cocoa note adding a bit of interest to it. So far I’m pleased with the cocoa but pretty bored with the floral mid-stage that pretty much adds nothing new or interesting. I get more woods in the dry down, the cocoa note is still present and there’s always that looming sweetness that stuck around. Black XS lacks in a lot of departments and originality is one of them. I’m not all that pleased with this unfortunately.

Extra: Black XS was clearly not for me as it is marketed toward a young audience with a specific taste. I like to call them the Flowerbomb demographic.

Design: The bottle for Black XS is actually pretty nice–until you get to the huge rose on the glass then everything just kind of focuses there. I suppose that’s what they were going for and I suppose the demographic might appreciate the design but I don’t particularly like it.

Fragrance Family: Floral Gourmand

Notes: Cranberry, pink pepper, violet, rose, cacao, patchouli, vanilla, woods.

So I didn’t have a really bad reaction to Black XS. It was all right but like I said, there’s nothing original or interesting about this. It’s definitely wearable but it’s not at all artistic.

Reviewed in This Post: Black XS, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Demeter Vanilla Ice Cream

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I don’t know what to say about Demeter’s more literal fragrances like Vanilla Ice Cream. The stuff smells like actual vanilla ice cream. Though I do get a bit of a synthetic vanilla vibe from this one. It is still a very good interpretation.

Vanilla Ice Cream

Vanilla Ice Cream

In Bottle: Rich, creamy, vanilla ice cream. It’s like the liquid essence and I like how it smells but there’s a certain plastic or synthetic quality to the vanilla that I can over look because everything else about the initial in-bottle sniff is so authentic.

Applied: Synthetic plastic vanilla that’s too sweet and too loud upon application. It is reminiscent of vanilla extract, the kind that you can buy at grocery stores that’s super sweet and has a bit of a licorice flavor (am I just crazy?) to it. I’m not wild about the vanilla note in this but most of the vanilla notes in your generic vanilla ice cream is of the loud, synthetic-like vanilla anyway. So it’s an authentic experience to be sure, but the authenticity is mimicking standard ice cream instead of gourmet stuff. The dry down comes really fast for a vanilla-based fragrance as the base turns a little darker while still maintaining its super sweet vanilla-like scent. The fragrance is pretty much one-dimensional and has pretty poor longevity (less than an hour of wear on my skin) but, like I said, it’s very authentic if you’re looking at generic ice creams.

Extra: There are a number of things I would have done differently with a vanilla ice cream inspired scent. I would use higher quality vanilla for one so that the fragrance takes on a spicy, dense quality instead of the syrupy sweet stuff that dominates this fragrance. I’d also give it a stronger base, and do something to make this stuff last longer. There were many ways this could have been done better but I suppose it’s ultimately achieving what Demeter set out to do; make a generic vanilla ice cream scent.

Design: The bottles are pretty basic, small and rectangular in shape. No thrills or frills. You get a pretty lackluster label with the bottle but then Demeter fragrances aren’t about the packaging. The bottle is fine. You may be interested to note that most of my Demeter bottles are the refillable type.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Sugar, vanilla, cream.

This is a good fragrance for you if you’re looking for an affordable straight-up vanilla scent and don’t care about synthetic vanilla vs. spicy vanilla. This stuff will deliver a sugary sweet rather authentic experience for a pretty cheap price. Just keep in mind that the longevity on this stuff seriously sucks.

Reviewed in This Post: Vanilla Ice Cream, 2010, Cologne Spray.

Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille

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When I ask people what fragrance can be a stand in for Spiritueuse Double Vanille, people often say try Tobacco Vanille. But when I tried Tobacco Vanille, I found these two fragrances too different.

Tobacco Vanille

In Bottle: Seems Tom Ford fragrances have a tendency to be on the strong side. Tobacco Vanille is a sharp smoky vanilla upon first whiff. The first whiff was all it took for the scent to travel up my nose. I think one of those cardinal rules you learn in middle school science class applies here; waft, don’t whiff.

Applied: On the skin Tobacco Vanille behaves a bit better for me. This is all tobacco and vanilla that sort of smoky, warm, creamy scent that’s sort of echoed in Spirituese Double Vanille. Unlike in SDV, Tobacco Vanille has a less woodsy and less boozy smokiness to it. This smokiness is coming from a pipe tobacco scent. And let’s not confuse tobacco used as a fragrance with the often sour smoky smell of a cigarette. This stuff is smooth and clean and smells a bit more like burning leaves with a very nice smooth character. As the fragrance ages, I get a bit more of the other notes in this, particularly the hints of woodsiness here and there and occassionally a good sniff of spices. There isn’t much else I can say about Tobacco Vanille. It’s a smoky vanilla scent, a couple of notches away from SDV though these two could be pretty close cousins. I still like the touch of booziness in SDV and the more woodsy character in that fragrance though.

Extra: Tobacco Vanille is a member of Tom Ford’s premium line of fragrances called the Private Blends. I had a devil of a time tracking down an actual bottle and didn’t end up liking it enough to drop over $300 on a bottle.

Design: The Private Blends are bottled a bit differently than other Tom Ford scents. I’ve seen various styles and all of them are very pleasing. There’s the style shown above that I see most often but the bottle I sampled out of had a square cap instead of a round one. I believe the style of bottle differs depending on how much juice you’re getting.

Fragrance Family: Smoky Gourmand

Notes: Tobacco leaf, spices, tonka bean, vanilla, cacao, wood sap.

Lovely as this is, it didn’t sway me from the SDV crowd. I’m still a big fan of Spiritueuse Double Vanille. Though Tobacco Vanille can scratch a very small itch if it came down to the wire.

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

V&R Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose 2011

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I decided to give Flowerbomb, or rather its flanker line, a chance hoping that after the very un-floral like contraption that was the original Flowerbomb, they would add some actual flowers to the perfume so it smelled a bit less like a very expensive Pink Sugar.

Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose

In Bottle: Still smells foody though the caramel note in this one is significantly more tame than in the original Flowerbomb. I’m noticing a smooth almond note mingled with that same scent that I got from Flowerbomb. That sweet, nothing-else-but-candy scent that I wasn’t too sold on in the original.

Applied: A flare up of bergamot with sweet tangerine leading the way. It’s typical of perfumes and this citrus opener didn’t happen with the original Flowerbomb that veered right into sweet territory. After the citrus digs itself out, the original Flowerbomb scent comes through with a milder caramel note riding on the waves of an almond scent that adds a bit more foodiness to the fragrance. The florals are still largely absent behind the huge wall of obnoxiously sweet candy-like accords that add nothing to this flanker’s originality. It is, essentially, Flowerbomb with some bergamot and almond. I’m not impressed. The dry down is a similar affair as Flowerbomb. La Vie en Rose is hanging on to some sweet candy scent dotted with a scrubbed clean patchouli until it has faded completely.

Extra: So this version of Flowerbomb’s La Vie en Rose flanker was released in 2011 and toted as being the same floral fragrance everybody’s already loved. I really wish the fine folks who keep producing this stuff would stop kidding themselves and admit that there’s very few flowers in Flowerbomb. I haven’t tried any of the other Flowerbomb flankers yet so hey, maybe they managed a floral one somewhere in there.

Design: Designed much in the same way as the original Flowerbomb. Same shape. Same basic premise. La Vie en Rose has a notable deeper pink though with smaller geometric squares on the flacon’s surface. I like the design. I think it’s cute and clever. I just wish this stuff actually smelled like flowers or at least admit that it doesn’t smell like flowers at all.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Bergamot, pink pepper, tangerine, freesia, lily of the valley, almond, raspberry, red berries, cashmere wood, patchouli, amber.

Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose  irritates me a little bit. It’s like the convenience store I go to sometimes that gouges me for instant noodles. So Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose is the instant noodles. I know it’s not gourmet, I know it’s got very little nutritional value but the convenience store will still gouge me for it anyway.

Reviewed in This Post: Flowerbomb La Vie en Rose, 2011, Eau de Toilette.

PS. For all my geeky perfume lovers out there, happy Captain Picard Day!

Victoria’s Secret Coconut Craze

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Coconut Craze is another one of those Beauty Rush 2-in-1 moisturizer and body mist combos from Victoria’s Secret. Its application and concept is in the same ballpark area as Plumdrop and Appletini.

Coconut Craze

In Bottle: That coconut note that I complain tends to smell sour. I smell it in this and aside from a very noisy vanilla note, that’s just about all I can get.

Applied: Goes on very light and sheer. The scent is strongly coconut and sweet vanilla with the coconut possessing that slightly sour quality to it that meshes rather poorly with how sweet this fragrance is trying to be. The fragrance ages on the skin but never really loses its coconut note which clings rather impressively. This is a sweet, girly, very simple body mist. The fragrance smells very similar to Bath and Body Works’ Coconut Vanilla fragrance. Not all that surprising, considering both of these operate on the same coconut and vanilla formula. Overall, not bad, but the sour coconut note drags the fragrance down a few notches. Longevity on me was surprisingly good.

Extra: So another coconut based note strikes out in the books. I wish I knew how they made coconut in some fragrances smell convincing while coconut in others just smells sour and synthetic.

Design: Coconut Craze is bottled in the same way as Plumdrop and Appletini. The only difference seems to be the name on the label and the juice inside being a pleasant white color. Almost looks like milk.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Coconut, vanilla.

I really do love Victoria’s Secret’s double body mists. Getting two things done at once and smelling nice? Aces in my book. As for Coconut Craze, it is decent for what it is. If you don’t have the, “Argh! Sour coconut” curse that I do, this is an affordable, nice-smelling coconut and vanilla fragrance and moisturizer.

Reviewed in This Post: Coconut Craze, 2010, Body Mist.

Lollipop Bling Ribbon

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Ribbon’s last in this line of Lollipop-related perfumery. It’s supposedly the one that smells the most like candy. And I gotta say, judging by the notes and the wear on me, it pretty much delivers. Ribbon

In Bottle: Sweet, sugary, clean, a touch of sweet raspberry note to give this some sort of smell. It’s pretty much like smelling a lollipop, I’ll attest to that.

Applied: Sweet raspberry lollipop smells hangs out for about five minutes before it ebbs and goes into an equally sweet berry dominated white floral fragrance. Smells very generic but not unpleasant, more pleasant than Mine Again as I can imagine Ribbon being an easier wearing scent. It’s got its notes in the right place but there is absolutely nothing grabbing me in the mid-stage for this stuff. The dry down is equally uninteresting as I’d like to note all three Lollipop Bling scents had disappointing dry downs . The end stage for Ribbon, for example, is barely even there with a sugary fruity floral fade that smells pretty much the same as it did in the mid-stage.

Extra: So there you go, all three Lollipop Bling offers and they were all kind of disappointing. Ribbon’s the second place winner here, Honey is first, Mine Again I wish I could forget.

Design: Ribbon is bottled in a pink glass that gradients upward into blue. The shape and style is similar to its sisters, Honey and Mine Again in that they all base their shape off of M by Mariah Carey.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Sugar, raspberries, white florals.

Ribbon, like its sisters just sin’t worth it. You are better off getting more complex scents t hat did these genres of fragrance better. For Honey, I recommend G by Harajuku Lovers. For Mine Again try Fantasy by Britney Spears or even Vera Wang Princess if you liked the chocolate. For Ribbon? Well, you might as well go for any celebrity fruity floral as this one is hardly remarkable.

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

Lollipop Bling Mine Again

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Every time I see the name of this perfume, my mind does a mental rearrangement of its comprehension closet so that I read it as, “Lollipop Bling Me Again”. Hey, who blinged me the first time? Mine Again

In Bottle: Wow, this is one of the sharpest sweet fragrances I’ve ever smelled. It reminds me a bit of Fantasy by Britney Spears except the sugar had its volume turned down to medium.

Applied: Mine Again is immediately sweet, roams into cloying almost right away and gathers in this tart berry note in an attempt to lower its levels of sugar. But the berries don’t do much but sharpen the scent. I almost feel bad for the chocolate note in this, it’s hovering at the bottom of the sweet pyramid, trying to get some stage time and it does. Just very little of it because the sugar and the berries are too busy vying for control. There’s something quite synthetic about this giving it that, “Something’s not right” scent. I know what this reminds me of aside from Fantasy–you know those boxes of chocolates? And inside are assorted flavors like nougat, coconut, truffle, caramel, and so on? You know how everybody leaves the fruit filled ones for last? That’s Mine Again. It’s those fruit filled chocolates that most people leave in the box after everything else is done.

Extra: Now I don’t necessarily like Mine Again and in terms of whether or not its worth a buy is dubious. There’s this stuff and then there’s Fantasy, and if you were going to go with a chocolate, berry, sugar concoction, Fantasy does it better and with less of a synthetic overtone. So really, between choosing two heavily synthetic scents, I give the win to Fantasy on this.

Design: Mine Again is bottled in red and much the same way was Honey with its bottle style modeled after M by Mariah Carey. I still don’t like it, even in red.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Chocolate, Carribbean magnolia, raspberry.

The magnolia is a lie. Or at least, to my nose, I couldn’t pick up any hint of floral in this. Lollipop Bling’s got one more entry to impress me with Ribbon because so far, I am underwhelmed.

Reviewed in This Post: Mine Again, 2010, Eau de  Parfum.