Guerlain Cherry Blossom Fruity

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A year ago when my eyes were still filled with stars for old fragrance houses like Guerlain and Coty, I would have sworn off stuff like Cherry Blossom Fruity and pretended they didn’t exist. But the truth of the matter is, Guerlain makes its bills by selling mainstream fragrances like this while, hopefully, keeping its classics alive for another year.

Cherry Blossom Fruity

Cherry Blossom Fruity

In Bottle: Smells like flowers and fruits. Kind of a funny experience when I remember Guerlain of Vol de Nuit and Jicky fame made this.

Applied: Yeah, florals and fruits. There’s a bit of tartness at the start–very little of it–with a juicy cherry fragrance and a very fruity blanket to push the cherry smell a little. The whole opening is familiar with mainstream fruity fragrances. I think the word “juicy” is a good approximation of how Cherry Blossom Fruity opens up. Don’t worry though, it gets better as the scent ages and the cherry blossom jasmine combination come into play. The florals balance out the loud juicy opening very nicely. The whole composition of the fragrance is quite sound. It’s actually one of the better fruity florals I’ve sampled in that it doesn’t just throw a punch of fruits and flowers together. There was some good thought put into this. The drydown sees a bit of taming when it comes to the fruity florals and introduces a bit of surprising dry dustiness that I want to say might be vetiver, but I’m not sure I want to commit to that conclusion.

Extra: While I have a very small sample of this, Cherry Blossom Fruity is apparently a “Glittering” Eau de Toilette. I can only assume there’s some sort of glitter or sparkles in this stuff that when sprayed can either make you look like the Queen of the Fae or a walking disco ball. I’m really not sure where Guerlain was going with this one, but there’s been some iteration of these easy fragrances out for a while. You can still get your hands on Cherry Blossom Fruity. Beautyencounter has it for a very reasonable price though the bottle is very small.

Design: I’m not wild about the look of this one. It looks particularly out of place given the rest of Guerlain’s packaging. It is what it is though. Every time I look at the bottle I get the feeling Cherry Blossom Fruity would fit in more with the body sprays (especially given the glitter in it) than the Eau de Toilettes.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Red berries, cherry, cherry blossom, jasmine, vetiver.

Please note that my list of notes is mostly an approximation. Guerlain themselves only provided two definitive notes: cherry, cherry blossom and jasmine. The rest are my guesses.

Cherry Blossom Fruity–to me–hails from Guerlain’s mainstream arm that makes fast and easy to wear perfume. It’s fast fragrance for the too-busy-to-bother 21st Century consumer who needs to spray and go. And what they want to spray is something subdued and inoffensive. Nothing wrong with that. Like I said, this stuff smells good and is fundamentally sound as an easy perfume. Though I’m not sure you want it to make you glittery if your chief concern is convenient fragrance. In the end I hope it sells (or sold) well so Guerlain can keep it’s classics in stock. Though judging by the fact that I hardly see any of this stuff on actual store shelves, I’m happy that the Aqua Allegoria line does a bit better.

P.S. Happy Valentines Day!

Reviewed in This Post: Cherry Blossom Fruity, 2006, Eau de Toilette.

Kenzo Amour

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Kenzo Amour was probably designed around romance, passion and love. The shape of the bottle is certainly interesting as is the bottle design but the fragrance itself, as usual, has little to do with its ad.

Amour

Amour

In Bottle: Like with all perfumes that use frangipani, I end up smelling that the most. It’s sweet little flowery self dominating the majority of this scent but there’s a bit of other stuff going on here too like this slightly powdery floral scent and an equally dominating vanilla note.

Applied: Initial flare up of frangipani with a warm, creamy center. The fragrance gets a bit more floral as you keep wearing it as I presume either the heliotrope or the cherry blossom in this is trying to peak through. I get a slight powderiness in the fragrance, maybe it’s the rice? Not entirely sure what that is but it’s not strong and easily ignorable if you’re not looking for it. As Amour ages, the vanilla note gets stronger and comes up, bathing the whole fragrance in this creamy, milky, flowery concoction. Very nicely done actually. Amour is a rather comforting scent, not sure if I would associate it with passion but comfort is definitely there. The dry down is marked with a clean and still creamy vanilla scent.

Extra: Kenzo Amour was composed by Daphne Bugey (Rose 31 for Le Labo, A Scent for Issey Miyake) and Olivier Cresp (Dune for Dior, Angel for Thierry Mugler, Elle for Yves Saint Laurent).

Design: Amour comes in three colored bottles. Each of the colors represents a different amount. I believe the pink one is 30ml, the white is 50ml, and the orange is 100ml. The shape of the bottle reminds me a bit of Cashmere Mist by Donna Karan in that it has that swan-like shape. The bottle is easy to hold and manipulate despite is funky shape and the spray nozzle works just fine.

Fragrance Family: Floral Oriental

Notes: Heliotrope, frangipani, tea, cherry blossom, rice, musk, vanilla.

Amour is a well composed bit of fun. Very feminine and a good choice for most people (it leans a bit closer to the feminine side) of any age. It’s actually a great fragrance. But if you’re looking for passion, I’m not sure you’ll find it in this sweet milky flowery substance.

Reviewed in This Post: Amour, 2009, Eau de Parfum.

BPAL Fox-Woman Kuzunoha

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The full name of this fragrance is The Fox-Woman Kuzunoha Leaving Her Child. Due to space constraints, I couldn’t fit that whole thing in the title above. Regardless, Kuzunoha is a beautifully done clean tea floral fragrance from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. The Fox Woman

In Bottle: Lovely wafty of soft white tea settled with a pleasant bit of woodsiness. The jasmine in this fragrance lends the scent an even more tea-like personality.

Applied: Kuzunoha is one of my favorite fragrances. It’s light and beautiful and airy. The opening is a straight up showing of what the fragrance has, settling first with a hit of white tea followed by gently powdered jasmine. The white tea and jasmine mix well to make this fragrance smell a bit more like jasmine tea than just white tea while the two florals in this scent mix to make a floating floral background. The wisteria and cherry blossom are very light. The cherry blossom making a bigger appearance but it is still largely relegated to the background. The real star of the show here is definitely jasmine. Finally, the teak adds a tiny bit of woodsy presence to the fragrance to round it out. The entire experience is elegant, well-done, and very beautiful. Kuzunoha also benefits from the light approach because it is a very easy fragrance to wear.

Extra: The Fox-Woman Kuzunoha Leaving Her Child is a print by artist, Yoshitoshi Tsukioka.

Design: The Fox-Woman Kuzunoha Leaving Her Child is bottled in a similar way to most Black Phoenix Alchemy lab perfume oils. The glass is an amber color with a square label affixed to the surface of the glass. The label in this case features artwork by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka whose painting of the same name inspired this fragrance.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: White tea, cherry blossom, wisteria, star jasmine, teak.

Big as I am on this fragrance, its longevity leaves a bit to be desired. I’m not surprised by this as most of the notes are rather fleeting in and of themselves.

Reviewed in This Post: The Fox-Woman Kuzunoha Leaving Her Child, 2010, 5ml Bottle.

Bath & Body Works Japanese Cherry Blossom

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Japanese Cherry Blossom, to me, holds the prestigious title of most wearable powdery oriental floral. It’s a very well-made and well-loved clean, powder floral fragrance that almost anyone can pull off. It’s extremely versatile which makes it a fantastic work or school fragrance. Japanese Cherry Blossom

In Bottle: Powdery white floral with an airy quality that gives of a clean aroma with a slight dewy fruity note hovering beneath the floating powdered flowers.

Applied: Clean burst of florals and dewy fruits. The fruits are not at all heavy and are very quick to burn off. What’s left is a lovely, light powdered and clean floral fragrance that’s smooth and surprisingly complex. Japanese Cherry Blossom is the floral for people who don’t like florals. It’s got enough flowers in it to please those who enjoy flowers and it goes on light enough to be all right for those who  hate flowers. This fragrance is like a big soft bag of cherry blossom petals. Your dry down ushers in a bit of muskiness and amber to it as the fragrance transitions to a very well thought out base of floral sandalwood.

Extra: Over the years the Japanese Cherry Blossom scent has spawned a huge line of bath and body products including perfumes, body mists, shower gels, dry oil sprays, lotions, candles, and so on.

Design: Japanese Cherry Blossom’s bottle is the same shape as other Bath and Body Works eau de toilette bottles. It has black and white cherry blossom designs on the glass. Bath and Body Works tends to redesign their product lines once every few years so the bottle you’re looking at now may not look the same three or four years down the road.

Fragrance Family: Oriental Floral

Notes: Asian pear, fuji apple, ume plum, japanese cherry blossom, butterfly lily, Kyoto rose, mimosa, hedione, vanilla rice, amber, silk musk, cinnamon incense, Himalayan cedarwood, sandalwood.

I’ll give it to Japanese Cherry Blossom to be an oriental. But it’s not rich and deep and heady like what you would normally associate with an oriental. It’s a very cleaned up, very light version.

Reviewed in This Post: Japanese Cherry Blossom, 2010, Eau de Toilette.