Van Cleef & Arpels Gardenia Petale

Citrus, green, very fresh and floral. Gardenia, obviously, is the impression I’m supposed to take away from this. A fresh, crisp, dewy gardenia fragrance that I’m tempted to pinpoint as a soliflore. There’s other florals in here, of course, to deepen the fragrance and take it beyond just plain old gardenia. Jasmine, ever the staple, is present as is lily of the valley. All this coming together to support the gardenia and really make it bloom. Gardenia Petale

In Bottle: Sharp and crisp citrus notes right up top. They sort of mask the gardenia and the rest of the florals as they hog up most of the olfactory real estate. Very interesting for a fragrance that focuses on gardenia. There’s sweetness in there too, and I get the distinct impression of dewiness.

Applied: See you later, citrus. The florals bloom immediately on my skin as the citrus notes fly away after leaving their initial almost disinfectant impression on my skin. It’s as if they came out first to scour the canvas before the florals get there. I smell dewy, flower petals. I smell gardenia and jasmine slowly unfolding in a light green, freshly misted bouquet. Gardenia Petale is extremely soft and very airy. The dry down becomes quite interesting as the gardenia is joined by something equally green and just a bit mossy. There’s also something lightly musky about this too as the dry down starts to deepen and the florals lose a little bit of their bloom, letting in smoother mossy notes.

Extra: Van Cleef & Arpels is a jewelry, watch and perfume company founded in 1896. The collection Gardenia Petale is a part of is called the Collection Extraordinaire.

Design: Gardenia Petale, like the rest of the Van Cleef & Arpels collection is bottled very simply in a rectangular glass vessel with a black cap. There’s a little charm thing dangling from the neck which gives the bottle a bit of added flavor. Otherwise it’s very standard and, honestly, standard looks work when they are done right. This bottle design did it right.

Fragrance Family: Soliflore

Notes: Citrus, lily of the valley, gardenia, jasmine, musk.

I often find myself judging soliflores a bit harshly. This is because I really expect them to not only illustrate the experience of what it must be like to smell this flower but to see it and feel it too. Gardenia Petale is a wonderful fragrance that’s really good at all these things, particularly in the seeing sense as I can smell the greenness of the leaves but never lose the sense of white petals.

Reviewed in This Post: Gardenia Petale, 2009, Sample vial.


Beyond Love By Kilian

Green seems to be the color of the day when it comes to Beyond Love. It’s a gentle, high-pitched tuberose fragrance that, if skimmed, seems like a relatively simplistic blend of green tuberose and light balancing florals. But a closer inspection yields a fragrance with a bit more depth and charge.Beyond Love

In Bottle: Green, clean, and floral fragrance. It’s got that special slick bite that tuberose has to my nose with a definitively green aura of fragrance that makes me think of green and white flowers, bitter leaves and rain. There’s something a little musky hiding in the backdrop and what I think is the fabled ambergris rearing its whale upchuck head to sweeten and add complex appeal to Beyond Love’s so far pretty green tuberose petals.

Applied: Instant payoff on the tuberose part as an entire bouquet of them blooms upon application with this bitter green note that sticks around for a few minutes before dissolving into the ambergris induced sweetness. I’ve lost any coconut that may have been present in the bottle and all I get now is tuberose with a gentle breeze of jasmine here and there. This is a bit of an interesting experience as the tuberose in Beyond Love is trying to convince me it’s a new, science fiction born tuberose that’s a cut above the rest and if misunderstood will go on a rampage to devour its enemies before it dies at the end of the day.

Extra: By Kilian is a fragrance collection by the grandson of the founder of LVMH (Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton), Kilian Hennessy. LVMH being famous for its luxury items.

Design: As I don’t actually have a bottle I can’t personally give details on the feel of the design. I will say, however, that no expense was spared to make sure By Kilian’s packaging was top notch. For what you pay for it (approx. $220USD for 50ml of Beyond Love) the money has to go somewhere into the packaging. I see dark covered boxes, carved designs on the sides of bottles, travel holders that look more intricate than any travel holder has the right to be. These things have a look that tries its best to make you feel like the $220 you dropped was not in vain.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Coconut, tuberose, jasmine, ambergris, musk.

Despite all this, Beyond Love faded in a record two hours on my skin. The shortest wear time of any fragrance I’ve ever tried. But then I also only had a sample tube and that may have had something to do with it. Still, for how much it costs, I am leery to pick up a full size bottle unless I know I’ll get $220 worth of longevity. Again, this could be the fault of the sample vial I have and it may very well have excellent lasting power in a bottle.

Reviewed in This Post: Beyond Love, 2009, Sample Tube.