Marc Jacobs Lola

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Marc Jacobs Lola was supposed to be a more grown-up Daisy. And I had seen this fragrance touted so much that I had to go and find some just to see if all the hype was true. I left underwhelmed with the scent but pleased with it all the same. Lola

In Bottle: Bright grapefruit, clean spice, and fruity pear. This smells juicy and clean right off the bat. It’s almost like a Herbal Essences shampoo.

Applied: Fruity off the bat with a pile of flowers rolling in like a scrubbed clean tide of–uh–fresh flowers. I’m tired. Cut me some slack. That shampoo smell lingers for a bit in Lola as the opening stage gives way to the mid-stage where the flowers rise up a bit more and the fruity, juicy opening dies down to hold Lola at “Smells like shampoo”. This is a really nice, clean and feminine scent and I can definitely see where people would say this is a grown up Daisy. It doesn’t smell like Daisy but it does smell a little more mature. Not mature in the sense of a classic sophisticated perfume but if we were to assume Daisy is meant for the teen crowd, then Lola would be good for the college kids. She lacks the bright, grassy freshness and youth of Daisy but she makes up for it by being a clean pretty floral with a hovering sweet rose. Sweet rose being a good alternative to classic rose that tends to infuse a bit of youth into perfume’s most popular and, strangely enough, polarizing note. The dry down is a typical affair of sandalwood and vanilla with lingering traces of nice shampoo. Lola reminds me a bit of Gucci Flora with a less sweet mid-stage.

Extra: Lola’s spawned a number of offshoot products. One of the ones I see most often is the solid perfume ring adorned with its iconic vinyl flower.

Design: A big bright, red, purple, blue and green vinyl flower adorns the cap of Lola. The glass bottle itself is a purple color while the circumference of the cap is a textured gold-colored metal. There’s two bottle designs for Lola. The smaller (50ml) is a tall bottle. The 100ml is a squat, wide bottle. The design for Lola took a few pages from Daisy’s bottle design and it’s cute as a button. I didn’t think I would like the bottle design as much as I did but heck, it’s adorable. Not sophisticated at all, a little silly but not the least bit pretentious.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Pink pepper, pear, red grapefruit, peony, rose, geranium, vanilla, creamy musk, tonka.

If nothing else, Lola is an eye catcher for its bottle design. Subtle is not this lady’s business. The 100ml bottle in particular is huge and comes packaged in an equally huge box due to the giant vinyl flower cap.

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

Robert Piguet Fracas

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If you want tuberose, you usually don’t have to look far. The fragrance industry is inundated with tuberose scents. From the highest end to the shower gels. Sometimes tuberose is even masquerading as gardenia. But if you want a really bold, really classic, very true tuberose, you get Fracas. Fracas

In Bottle: Powerful hit of sweet tropical, juicy, slightly rubbery tuberose. Fracas is very strong. I want to come out and warn you of that right away or I would feel bad. Aside from its strength it’s a lovely thing. It smells like the times must have been like back then, elegant and classy with a bold streak.

Applied: Wet rubbery tuberose with a sweetness added to it. This smells like a giant bouquet of flowers with a dominant tuberose the size of a skyscraper. The flowers, despite all their best efforts, are secondary to the tuberose that’s so massive and appealing that it can’t really scream any louder than it does in this fragrance. Unlike most people, and you shouldn’t go by what I say, I don’t consider tuberose as a sultry flower. It smells like slick rubbery floral to me and that’s about as far as I can take it. If you do happen to think tuberose smells sultry, then Fracas is sultry in a bottle. As the scent progresses, you start to wonder if it will ever end as not only is Fracas fantastic in terms of projection, its longevity is to be complimented too. There’s a subtle spiciness to Fracas if you wait her out long enough which gives the tuberose something to talk to as up until that spiciness, all I had was a big white floral.

Extra: Fracas was released in 1948 and is a classic by all accounts and purposes. It has become the go to scent for tuberose and its reputation is well deserved. It has survived this long as a reference and a piece of history and I’d like to believe it’ll survive for a good six decades too if you never wash it off.

Design: The eau de parfum is bottled in a fairly plain black bottle with hot pink lettering depicting the fragrance’s name and house name. Not Earth shattering in appearance but you don’t buy Fracas for the bottle.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Green notes, mandarin, bergamot, hyacinth, geranium, peach, tuberose, jasmine, orange flower, white iris, lily of the valley, violet, jonquil, carnation, coriander, balsam, vetiver, orris, sandlawood, moss, cedar, musk.

If someone hadn’t pointed me to that massive list of notes, I never would have believed it. Just as a point of interest because I know someone might be looking for this, you pronounce Robert Piguet like, “Row-Behr Peeg-Gehy”. You pronounce Fracas as, “Frah-Cah”.

Reviewed in This Post: Fracas, 2002, Eau de Parfum.

Hugo Boss Hugo

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Hugo is your run of the mill fresh aquatic that doesn’t bring much to the table and doesn’t leave with much either. The tide of aquatics has petered out in the latest years as the incoming flood of fruity florals starts dominating the scenes. Some of these are works of olfactory art in their own respect while others are forgettable. And some even regrettable. Unfortunately for Hugo, it was one of the less notable aquatics of its time. Hugo

In Bottle: Green and blue aquatic. Fresh, sharp, and a little bit spicy. The herbal notes up front are paired with pine and citrus.

Applied: The green flare, just a touch sweet before it settles into its spicy woodsiness where the pine is predominant on me. I smell kind of like one of those pine-shaped air fresheners you use for your car. Not unpleasant, I just have a strange association with anything pine scented. Well, perhaps not strange, just persistent. The scent stays with pine as it introduces a few spicy herbal notes into the mix. Hugo takes a turn for the interesting near the complete dry down stage as it leaves its fresh pine-scented herb garden and veers toward a darker, murkier, funnier funky note that’s reminiscent of the blast of aquatics upon application. It’s fleeting though, a one or two second moment that could just be me. Hugo dries down to a benign woodsy, spicy, fresh accord that doesn’t make any presumptions and doesn’t even want to think about standing out.

Extra: Hugo Boss fragrances have largely been a miss for me. The only one I can say I actually like is Deep Red. Even then, I don’t particularly like it that much. I can say nice things about it though. But this fragrance, it’s the generic men’s scent with the all too familiar aquatic citrus opening, the woodsy spicy middle, and the miasma of leftover freshness at the base.

Design: I could give or take with this design. It’s clean and simple and functional. Holding it is easy. Spraying it is easy. Kind of looks like a water bottle which is a bit cheesy but overall, not bad.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Woodsy

Notes: Grapefruit, green apple, pine needles, thyme, spearmint, basil, cedar, rum, jasmine, sage, geranium, clove, lavender, cedarwood, moss, fir balsam, sandalwood, vetiver, suede.

Yeah, I definitely cannot get past the predominant evergreen scent in this. Too much pine, maybe, or maybe I’m just not the kind of person who likes that in a scent.

Reviewed in This Post: Hugo, 2000, Eau de Toilette.

Amouage Lyric for Women

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Amouage is a luxury niche fragrance house base based in Muscat. Most famous for their very expensive and very decadent Attars, Amouage is well known as one of the most artistic and luxurious fragrance houses in the world. Lyric for Women, released in 2008 is one of their newer fragrances. Lyric for Women

In Bottle: Big kick of spicy citrus upon first application. It immediately reminded me of a BPAL oil. I cannot put my finger quite on which one but I’m going to tentatively say it reminds me of a more complex Lear. At least, that’s what my mind flew to first.

Applied: Lyric for Women only vaguely resembles BPAL’s Lear for the first ten seconds. It starts to smooth out and become more floral, softer, definitely more feminine as the initial spice gives way to a lovely bouquet of jasmine, rose and angelica flowers. The rose is the star in the mid-stage, vibrant but not overbearing. It’s kept tame by a fantastic and very well-done incense note. It’s a beautifully blended fragrance with a clear and fascinating progression as Lyric for Women dries down into a complex medley of clean incense woods and smooth spicy vanilla.

Extra: Amouage is a world famous, luxury niche fragrance house with roots in the Sultanate of Oman. It’s most famous fragrances are the Attars, rich and decadent scents that can run you upwards of $400 for 12ml. Lyric for Women is not one of these Attars but it is beautiful just the same.

Design: I love the bottle. Deep red glass, has a fantastic feel to it. Has a good amount of weight, is easy to hold, and very pleasant to look at with the Amouage seal on the bottle’s glass and the fragrance’s name running along the circumference of the neck.

Fragrance Family: Floral Oriental

Notes: Bergamot, spicy cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, rose, angelica, jasmine, ylang-ylang, geranium, orris, oakmoss, musk, wood, patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood, vanilla, tonka bean, frankincense.

Now, while I love how Lyric for Women smells, I’m not so sure about the cost of the fragrance itself. Running at $300 for a 100ml bottle, if I were to drop some serious cash on an Amouage fragrance, it would be going into an Attar instead.

Reviewed in This Post: Lyric for Women, 2008, Eau de Parfum.