Escada Magnetism for Women

Magnetism by Escada is an easy to like and easy to wear sweet floral oriental with a stroke of pure fun.

Magnetism

Magnetism

In Bottle: Sweet vanilla blended with a fun fruity and juicy opening coated with flowers.

Applied: Sweet and green rather crisp and juicy up top with a distinct fruitiness that blends well with the fragrance. The scent delves into this floral mish-mash that comes out smelling distinctly flowery but keeps a rein on its strength. There is a sweetness throughout this fragrance that doesn’t take away from the fragrance’s purpose. In the end, it is a sweet sandalwood with an earthy vibe and a strong sweet vanilla finish.

Extra: Magnetism for Women was introduced in 2003. It’s a fairly decent fragrance though it’s not in any way groundbreaking. It does smell good and does the Escada brand some fine justice.

Design: Not too wild about the design of the bottle but then Escada’s bottle designs have always seemed a bit off to me. Magnetism is a hot pink curved glass bottle. It’s vaguely unpleasant and looks a bit too suggestive for me to take it seriously.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Floral Oriental

Notes: Pineapple, black currant, melon, berries, cassia, litchi, magnolia, orris, green leaves, freesia, basil, jasmine, caraway, heliotrope, lily of the valley, rose, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, musk, benzoin, caramel, vetiver, vanilla.

So in the end, Magnetism isn’t attracting me, but it is doing a good job of trying. If you want a nice, wearable floral oriental with a dollop of sweet then this might be good. As a bonus, Magnetism can be purchased from several discounters for a rather fair price.

Reviewed in This Post: Magnetism for Women,  2010, Eau de Parfum.


Escada Island Kiss

Escada’s fragrances have never struck much of a chord with me. The ones that are popular are pretty generic, the more obscure ones are just not my thing. So here comes another generic!

Island Kiss

Island Kiss

In Bottle: Island Kiss starts off predictably enough with a fruity blast up my nose of clean tropical mango and other girly sweet fruits.

Applied: There’s a slight layer of sweet white florals in the opening that I’m detecting on me along with the fruits. I smell the fruits the most though with mango making the biggest splash followed by a sweet peachy note. Most Escada fragrances tend to go like this, big fruity openings evolving into bland floral mid-stages and going on some sheer note like white musk or sandalwood. And from the looks of things, Island Kiss will continue the tradition. The mango and sweet fruity opening of the fragrance leads way to an equally sweet floral mid-stage that’s a bit better than Marine Groove in terms of strength but it’s still quite benign, quite easy to wear, and when Island Kiss reaches its dry down the same sheer ending is waiting for me in a cleaned up sandalwood and sharp white musk. Aside from Island Kiss having some more fruits up in the opening with a hint of floral layering, there’s not a whole lot to set this fragrance apart from Marine Groove or any of the other fruity florals that Escada’s released. If you want to smell like girly, fruity, fun shampoo, Island Kiss is a good start. It’s clean, it’s modern, it’s easy to wear and it smells like fun.

Extra: Island Kiss was released in 2004 and was supposedly inspired by the Greek islands. Frankly, it is interchangeable with most of Escada’s summer line.

Design: Same bottle shape as the other summer line Escada fragrances. That stretched heart thing with the gradiating color on the glass. In Island Kiss’ case, the gradient goes from blue to a pink base.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: White florals, magnolia, mango, passion flower, orange, passion fruit, raspberry, white peach, hibiscus, musk, sandalwood.

Island Kiss is one of the better ones from the summer line. That’s not really saying much since choosing between the Escadas in their summer line can pretty much boil down to which top note you want to smell first. You want mango? Island Kiss. You feel like pineapple? Marine Groove. Big on pears? Get Tropical Punch.

Reviewed in This Post: Island Kiss, 2004, Eau de Toilette.


Escada Marine Groove

Marine Groove

Marine Groove

Ah, Escada, the masters of the simple fruity florals. Their fragrances are generally nice. The perfumes are certainly easy to wear, but I can’t help but notice how almost everything from Escada smells like the same fruity-floral dollop, up to and including Marine Groove.

In Bottle: Big pineapple opening. There’s a lot of pineapple in this. It’s sweet and fruity, very tropical. I’m trying to find the passionfruit that’s supposed to be here but all I get is pineapple.

Applied: Yeah, I don’t know who the notes list is trying to kid but there’s definitely pineapple in this and it’s very big. Marine Groove hits a tropical feel right away with its sweet, fruity opening. I’m not really seeing any other fruits but pineapple here and if there are other fruits, the pineapple’s pretty much got the top tier of the notes pyramid on this cornered. As Marine Groove ages into its mid-stage the pineapple settles down a bit and lets a benign set of jasmine and peony up. The mid-stage is marked with a light and airy floral quality with a coating of sweetness. This isn’t too sweet, just sweet enough to let you know you’re not supposed to take Marine Groove seriously. The dry down is a dull thud of clean, white musk. There’s not a long of longevity with this, or a lot of complexity. The projection on me was fantastic in the opening and then it just dissolves starting from the mid-stage and onward.

Extra: Marine Groove was released in 2009 as a limited edition summer scent. There’s very little to set this fragrance apart from other pineapple dominant scents and if I had to pick between the sweet fruity pineapple in this and the sweet boozy pineapple in Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs’ Rangoon Riptide, Rangoon Riptide would win every time.

Design: Marine Groove’s bottle has the same design as most of Escada’s other bottles. That elongated heart glass bottle with the gradient colors on it. In Marine Groove’s case, we got reddish-purple gradiating into bluish-purple near the base. I still don’t like the way it looks and still think it makes the packaging look like a bottle of shampoo.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Passionfruit, peony, jasmine, musk.

Sheer, easy to wear, young, fun, nothing at all to judge in terms of complexity. Marine Groove is a summer scent through and through.

Reviewed in This Post: Marine Groove, 2009, Eau de Toilette.


Escada Tropical Punch

Escada’s mostly known for their very nicely done line of fruity floral fragrances. I was never that interested in Escada’s stuff because there’s a wealth of fruity florals in the market. But if you wanted a good fruity floral, that’s reminiscent of the tropics then Escada’s got you covered.  Tropical Punch

In Bottle: Wet and sweet fruit juice. Like a blended tropical smoothie consisting of pears and pomegranates and peaches. It smells delicious.

Applied: Burst of that fruit smoothie scent with the pears overtaking the pomegranate until both of them fade into the background and let the florals up. Of the flowers in this scent, I smell the lily of the valley the most followed by the combined powers of hibiscus and freesia making the mid-stage of Tropical Punch a lush bed of florals. The peach note in this lends a bit of fruitiness to it but by and large Tropical Punch’s mid-stage is very reminiscent of an Herbal Essences shampoo. And I like how Herbal Essence shampoos smell so if you’re into that kind of thing, this stuff delivers. The dry down is rather unremarkable but so is the rest of this fragrance as it warms up a bit but fades with a clean fruity floral sweet amber scent.

Extra: Escada is a women’s luxury clothing group founded in 1976. They have a ton of other similarly built fruity floral fragrances in addition to Tropical Punch. Of which one of the most popular is Marine Groove.

Design: I don’t much like Escada’s fragrance bottles. They’re nice and colorful and fun looking but I’m not a big fan of the shape which is reminiscent of a stretched out heart. Actually, I think the design of these bottles is lacking and makes them look more like body mists instead of perfumes. Tropical Punch is a mostly pink glass affair with a gradient that fades into a pinkish orange. It’s easy to hold though, and the sprayer works great.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Papaya, pomegranate, pear, hibiscus, freesia, lily of the valley, white peach, white musk, amber.

I’m not interested enough in Tropical Punch to really get a bottle. The top notes on this stuff are fantastic. But as soon as it dries down, it heads into all too familiar territory. Then there’s the price and for the amount of an Escada fragrance, I would much rather get a mainstream Guerlain or a mainstream Chanel–even.

Reviewed in This Post:Tropical Punch, 2009, Eau de Toilette.