Harajuku Lovers G

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The Harajuku Lovers fragrances is one of those things I never really got into. The scents are okay–mostly. My favorite of the lot is G which was supposed to represent Gwen Stefani’s character. There’s been so many flankers over the years that I’ve pretty much lost count of them all. So this post is a review of the original G, the one released in 2008.

Harajuku Lovers G

In Bottle: Fruity and coconut. Very tropical. The fruitiness is more predominant in the opening.

Applied: Blast of very slight tart fruits followed by very sweet coconut that rushes in and steals the show. The coconut is huge in this fragrance and is clearly the main player. It hovers up top and casts this creamy coconutty sweetness over the rest of the fragrance. You get some florals in the mid-stage, mostly reined-in jasmine and freesia with this sparkly clean undertone. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about G, but it is a very, very, well done coconut, beachy, tropical scent. The dry down is markedly uninteresting with more coconut hovering over the sandalwood and clean laundry smell.

Extra: Okay, I think I’ve got most of the flankers down for G as of this post. With how popular the Harajuku Lovers fragrances are, I doubt the list of flankers is going to remain static. Anyway we’ve got G (2008), Sunshine Cuties G (2009), Wicked Style G (2010), and G of the Sea (2011). Then there’s the bottle redesign for the winter which further adds to the confusion with the Snow Bunny version of G. I’m sure I’m missing some other edition like Valentine’s Day G or Talk Like a Pirate Day G–Oh no, am I giving them more ideas? 🙁

Design: Okay, yeah, the bottles are really cute. But they’re not my thing. The perfume comes in a little glass stand that the plastic doll is propped on. You gain access to the perfume by either popping off the head of the doll or the entire doll body. I remember handling these bottles more than once but don’t remember if I removed only the head or the entire body but spraying the fragrance itself was not an unpleasant ordeal. I was honestly not that impressed with the design and would have rather seen these dolls as a part of some sort of dangling charm off of a better designed bottle similar to what Juicy Couture did. Think about it, cute little Harajuku Lovers cellphone charms that come with your perfume. As it is, it’s too gimmicky for me at the moment.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Mandarin, coconut, apple, jasmine sambac, freesia, magnolia, coconut cream, white sandalwood, cottonwoods.

The fragrance for this is one of the better iterations of tropical and coconut out there. I’m just not a fan for a variety of reasons. The coconut is just that, pure sweet coconut, nothing too interesting about this fragrance. And the packing does not hit home for me. So they missed me by two points. There is, however, a huge fanbase for these dolls and these perfumes so clearly it’s a successful gig.

Reviewed in This Post: G, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

L’Or de Torrente

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Being a fragrance addict, I’m supposed to go around being drawn by smells and the fascination of following my nose to the next smell and just enjoying this fantastic olfactory world we live in. But sometimes I’m also bad and gravitate toward a fragrance because of its packaging. Thanks, L’Or de Torrente.

L'Ore de Torrente

In Bottle: Whoa, coffee! Well, this is coffee mixed with sweet lychee and a bit of tart currant but I’m surprised to find the note working so well with those other two elements.

Applied: Sweetness up top with the lychee dominating the scene and dragging a tart blackcurrant note behind it. The lychee in fragrances never seem to completely go away to me until late into the mid-stage. and the lychee in this sticks around but isn’t obnoxious about it as L’Or de Torrente heads into this beautiful sweet amber and roses fragrance with a cup of coffee sitting nearby. The lychee takes its time to fade out during this stage for me and I’m happy for it as that rose, amber, coffee smell is awesome without any fruitiness necessary. The coffee note is dense and rich, and even though the notes look like they might clash, it actually words really well here and I’m particularly fond of the use of roses in this scent. The fragrance reminds me a bit of chocolate roses, a confection that doesn’t always land on my gourmand palette either, but always has this irresistible elegance to it. Now, this stuff is sweet but the rose and the amber help bring it away from gourmand and slot it more firmly in oriental. The final dry down is a vanillic amber scent with a fading coffee trail. I wouldn’t call this delicious, but it does smell fantastic!

Extra: L’Or de Torrente was composed by Jean Jacques in 2001.

Design: So this bottle is a bit flashier than I’d normally like but there’s something so appealing about its color and the leafy accents and the whole look of the thing. It’s organic in a way, mixed with metal and polished to luxury. I can’t quite describe why I find the bottle so awesome to look at it but there you have it. The packaging is certainly alluring to me.

Fragrance Family: Floral Oriental

Notes: Mandarin orange, lychee, kiwi, black currant, magnolia, iris, cedar, coffee, rose, angelica, vanilla, white amber, precious wood.

I can’t believe how well this fragrance works. There’s just enough mixing to make it all mesh together without clashing and the coffee, strangely enough, really holds up the roses and vice versa. I simply love this.

Reviewed in This Post: L’Or de Torrente, 2005, Eau de Parfum.

Versace Bright Crystal

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Bright Crystal’s one of those designer fragrances geared toward younger consumers. It hits that purchaser’s sweet spot that’s totally into easy to wear, light and floral, and most importantly young and approachable.

Bright Crystal

In Bottle: Rather strong presence of sharp green grapefruit and tart pomegranate. The florals try hard to make an appearance in the opening but the top of this scent is rather two-dimensional.

Applied: The big fruity opening nets you in if you like fruity fragrances and the light floral heart will keep you around. This opens as a sharp yuzu/grapefruit with a strong flare of pomegranate before it digs into the mid-stage where a mixture of sheer clean florals awaits. The magnolia in this is particularly well done, it’s lush and pretty but not overpowering. There’s just enough of it to make you smell clean and flowery. That mixed with the cleaned-up girly lotus and the always girly and cleaned up peony and you get a mixture of some of the easiest to love florals in perfumery. The dry down is a cool green amber, kind of reminds me of sap, and a rather nice gentle waft of woods and clean musk.

Extra: I think the word of the day here is “clean”. Bright Crystal is highly approachable, highly likable, and will not make people clear a circle around you. It’s really easy to love, and I do like it quite a bit. It’s not the most interesting composition in the world, but you have to hand it to Versace if you’re looking for a youthful and clean scent.

Design: All right, I’m not a fan of the bottle. The color is pleasing, the shape of the bottle itself is simple and easy to like. But that giant, jewel-shaped cap is a bit too much for me. It does make the bottle stand out rather well, but it’s a tad too flashy in my opinion.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Pomegranate, yuzu, iced accord, magnolia, lotus, peony, plant amber, musk, mahogany.

Bright Crystal is a good choice for office wear or elevator wear. It’s just one of those fragrances that I have to lump into inoffensive and not much else. It’s one of the better inoffensive and not much else perfumes out there though.

Reviewed in This Post: Bright Crystal, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Beyonce Heat

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Today we’ve got Beyonce’s Heat perfume. This fragrance, along with J-Lo Glow, are extremely popular and are often asked about. So I’m finally crawling out of the wood works and digging up my notes on it.

Heat

In Bottle: Ah peach up front. Big, synthetic, sweet peach. You know I used to like peach but now that I’m smelling it everywhere, I kind of wish these celebuscents would move onto a more obscure fruit. How about the beloved durian? Noble, spiky, tastes like custard and smells like sewage . . . What?

Applied: All right, so we got sweet peach up front blasting the opening wide open with a big fruity announcement. The background to the peach that digs itself into the mid-stage is a series of barely detectable florals. The fluffy opener leads rather well into a warm cleaned up amber and fruity flowers mid-stage with the sweetness still lingering about even now after the peach is all gone. Heat dries down in a rather expected fashion, keeping that warm amber scent and adding vanilla and soft woods. Heat’s nothing new, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but like all celebrity scents it is a good, decently constructed, wearable fragrance.

Extra: So Beyonce’s first perfume release was a big smash hit. Though most of Heat’s popularity probably has less to do with the juice and more to do with Beyonce’s  name on the bottle. This stuff sells, and it’s okay with me so long as the stuff they sell is at least decently composed–which Heat is. Smell away. Heat has already spawned a few flankers so if the original doesn’t float your boat, there’s Heat Rush and the elixir version of Heat.

Design: The bottle’s shape reminds me a bit of Hugo Boss Deep Red with a few interesting curves  and a few neat little colors added in. I’m okay with the design. It is what it is, though, which is a flashy celebrity bottle. One of the better ones out there.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Oriental

Notes: Red vanilla orchid, magnolia, neroli and peach, honeysuckle, almond, creamy musk, sequoia wood, tonka, amber.

I don’t know if I’m going to be up to smelling those two Heat flankers. I expected a bit more out of this fragrance than what I got. In the end, it’s a celebrity perfume that’s fairly predictable in how it was built and how it plays itself out.

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

Escada Island Kiss

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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.

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.

Agonist The Infidels

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Agonist has recently come out with a new perfume which spurred the memory of this perfume and it’s crazy abstract bottle. So I dug out my sampler vial and gave her a sniff.

Agonist Infidels

The Infidels by Agonist

In Bottle: Dark, earthy blackcurrant note. The blackcurrant is the most prominent smell I’m getting so far from The Infidels.

Applied: Yep blackcurrant. Not the sweet berries or tea-like blackcurrants, but this earthy, dark jammy blackcurrant note that’s very rich and dense. That currant note is an ever-present entity during the entire fragrance as The Infidels digs into the mid-stage with a slight showing of florals that helps with that earthiness. It’s not particularly interesting in the mid-stage but the end game is a bit better, as The Infidels takes it blackcurrant and plays in a touch of lavender with a woody, green patchouli and warm amber. Very interesting fragrance, though is the juice worth its price? I’m going to have to say that while this stuff smells interesting, it isn’t the best or even anywhere near my top fragrances. So to me, no, it’s not worth the price.

Extra: Priced at $495 for 1.7oz, The Infidels is quite a bit out of reach of most people’s budgets. This is one of those fragrances that have been priced so beyond affordability and practicality that it lands in Clive Christian territory, and that’s a double-edged sword. You can, however, bite the bullet and purchase the glass art bottle for $495 and get the subsequent refills for a–all things considered–reasonable $90 for 50ml.

Design: The design for this bottle is polarizing. There are people who think it’s a beautiful piece of abstract glass art and other people who just can’t figure out what it’s supposed to be. And some people who look at it and simply think it’s hideous. I’m a member of the, “Oooh! Glass art!” crowd. Agonist’s bottle is probably most of the price of the juice as it’s truly a beautiful, misunderstood, piece of artwork. It’s unlike any other perfume bottle I’ve seen out there, it’s strange, it’s compelling, it’s dramatic with the contrast between the redness and black and clear glass. It’s got that crazy application stick too that you don’t see much of. Everything about this bottle speaks of daring, dangerous, and blood. The fragrance isn’t shouting that stuff but the packaging certainly is and I appreciate this thing for the artistic merit of it and the boundaries it pushes in traditional and contemporary bottle design. This bottle is like the high fashion runway. You don’t have to understand it to appreciate it.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Earthy

Notes: Blackcurrant, green cumin, bergamot, magnolia, tonka, lavender, patchouli, amber, labdanum.

Let’s not kid ourselves, the major reason to own this perfume is for the bottle. The juice inside is pleasant enough but it’s second fiddle to the packaging.

Reviewed in This Post: The Infidels, 2010, Eau de  Parfum.

Annick Goutal Un Matin d’Orage

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I don’t know why I keep chasing fragrances with that dreaded lemon note that goes all sharp and dominates fragrances all the time. It’s like I’ll hope that one day, my views will shift and all of a sudden the note will work on me or smell good to me. For now, Un Matin d’Orage is a lost cause thanks to the lemon that hates me. Un Matin d'Orage

In Bottle: Very nice, light and airy citrus-based fragrance with a pretty white floral bed and a touch of dry spiciness added in. Beautiful in the bottle, very easy to wear and quite nice on the nose. Especially given my recent brush with Sécrétions Magnifiques.

Applied: A fantastic dewy floral immediately rushes up. For a few seconds, this is one of the nicest and most pleasant florals I’ve ever smelled. So clean and clear and crisp and beautiful. The florals are accompanied by a series of green leafy notes. Then the lemon has to come in and ruin my day. It amps up like it usually does, flooding the entire fragrance field with its too sharp citrus that it destroys all other smells and I end up with something reminiscent of lemon cleaning solution once again. It’s very sad as the beautiful floral opener would have made a fantastic every day scent. The dry down sees the typical mellowing out of the lemon but it clings on until the bitter end when that gorgeous floral opening has gone to parts unknown and all that remains is this irritating lemon and a faint ozone note.

Extra: Un Matin d’Orage means Stormy Morning in French. It’s a fragrance made to invoke the crisp and fresh feel of a garden after the rain. Unfortunately for me and my arch nemisis, that stupid lemon note, this is less a garden after a rainstorm and more like a sharp crack of lightning.

Design: Un Matin d’Orage is packaged much the same way as other Annick Goutal fragrances. it is available in a ribbed bottle with gold lace that bears a paper sign with the fragrance’s name on it.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Magnolia, jasmine sambac, Sicilian lemon, champac, perilla leaves, ginger.

While Un Matin d’Orage’s opener is one of the most pleasant florals I’ve encountered yet, this fragrance doesn’t separate itself much from Annick Goutal’s other offerings. It’s nice, to be sure, but it’s not so unique as I would mourn the lemon ruining this fragrance on me.

Reviewed in This Post: Un Matin d’Orage, 2005, Eau de Toilette.

Bond No.9 Chelsea Flowers

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There aren’t a whole lot of things I can say for Bond No.9 as a perfume house or as a business. However, I can attest to how well-sealed their fragrance samples are. Getting that little stopper off the vial should be classified as an Olympic Sport only to be played by the most determined of fragrance junkies.  Chelsea Flowers

In Bottle: Light, airy flowers, slightly sweet and very floral. Entirely pleasant but not very original. Chelsea Flowers is rather nice for an inoffensive wear to the office.

Applied: Light and green, small and subdued white floral opener with a nice mist of sweet peony. Its mid-stage is a pleasant bouquet of rose and peony with that same mist of green freshness. This smells like freshly picked flowers, or flowers that just bloomed on a hopeful spring. A gorgeous fragrance by all accounts and purposes even if she isn’t all that exciting, she’s very well done. Dry down is a nice enough floral with a very faint woodsiness lent by a tame sandalwood note.

Extra: There is a lot of talk about Bond No.9’s more recent business antics in relation to them disallowing decants from selling decants of their fragrances online. To get a Bond No.9 fragrance sample on the up and up these days you will have to visit a Bond No.9 counter and hope the people working there like you enough to hand you some of the candy-like wrapped vials of perfumy goodness. Further adding to my distaste of this company’s policies is the legal wrestling they did with Liz Zorn of Soivohle over her use of the word “Peace” in one of her fragrances.

Design: I’ve always found Bond No.9’s bottling to be a bit silly looking. I see these things and all I see are stars. Which reminds me of the Hollywood Walk of Fame decorated in pop-art designs. Not highly unpleasant but not my first choice for perfume design. Holding one of these bottles, I’ll admit, feels luxurious and they are an interesting shape and have nicely done colors. I just can’t say a minimalist like me would be swayed much by the design decisions, nice and bold as they are.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Peonies, tulips, hyacinth, magnolia, rose, musk, sandalwood, vetiver, tree moss.

Don’t let my distaste for Bond No.9’s business antics to turn you away from Chelsea Flowers as a fragrance. This is a very competent and versatile white floral.

Reviewed in This Post: Chelsea Flowers, 2008, Sample Vial.

Baby Phat Dare Me

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So I sprayed this on a tester card and decided to rub a little on myself to see how things go from there. How it smells on a tester card and on me is wildly different. Interesting, though not unheard of. Baby Phat Dare Me is a tropical blend of fruits and florals. Emphasis is on the coconut. Though on the card you really couldn’t tell just what it was trying to do. Dare Me

In Bottle: What the? All I get is tuberose. I swear this smells like a creamy tuberose which makes me think this is one of the more pleasant tuberose soliflores I’ve ever encountered. Upon reading the fragrance notes and looking at what everyone else says I am perplexed as I realize this was the result of a coconut note on astray. Hey, when you’re wrong, you’re wrong!

Applied: Actually, I refuse to believe I’m wrong as this smells like creamy tuberose. Big pink and smooth, with a bit of sweetness. That is what I get for the first few minutes and I’m sticking with my story. After things settle down a little and I regain my senses, I start to see where the coconut is coming from. It’s one of those sour coconut notes, not the creamy, lush kind that’s usually treated with vanilla and sugar to make it more gourmand. The coconut in this one is rather prevalent as it blends in with some tropic flowers and turns a bit green on me. As it settles down into the dry down stage, that sour coconut note is still lingering about until it dissolves into a slightly tart strange and a little bit musky.

Extra: I hold firm that I smell tuberose in this. I swear I’m not crazy. My nose might adore tuberose and smell it in everything though. So uh–as for this fragrance, it was supposed to be billed as a pleasant lush tropical, summery scent. They really outdid the tropical summery part of it and as much as I love coconut, that note in this fragrance was entirely too predominant and it wasn’t the sweet coconut variety either.

Design: Dare Me is bottled in a pink glass flacon with gold detailing and a plastic cap designed to look like a jewel. It looks a bit more like cauliflower to me though. I don’t find the design of the bottle aesthetically pleasing but I also think the look is a little over the top. However, I believe Dare Me is in line with the look of other Baby Phat bottles so if you are into that kind of look then you’ll like this.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Magnolia, island coconut, audacious southern honeysuckle, African white milkwood, confident crème de musk, sandalwood.

I’m not feeling the coconut note in this. What I’ve noticed with coconut notes is that there’s a couple kinds. The sweet type and the sour type. I encounter the sour type more often. Sometimes it’s loaded with sugar or vanilla which helps masks the sour. Case in point: Dare Me and Victoria’s Secret Coconut Craze. Then there’s the sweet coconut that isn’t as sour and has a nice sweet, wateriness to it. That one I swear I smelled in Creed’s Virgin Island Water. But then, it could all be the same coconut note for all I know and it’s just coming up strange in some fragrances but not in others.

Reviewed in This Post: Dare Me, 2010, Eau de Toilette.