Balenciaga Florabotanica

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Florabotanica is a new Balenciaga release from 2012. After their Balenciaga Paris release, I had to give this one a try. If for nothing else than its beautiful bottle design.

Florabotanica

Florabotanica

In Bottle: A nice rose, tame and green and fresh. Not fake and overly sweet.

Applied: Balenciaga’s fragrances tend to excel at being understated and Florabotanica seems to be heading in that same direction. It’s sold as a fragrance for a younger audience, but doesn’t patronize them by loading itself up with fruits and a cheap-smelling rose. The rose in Florabotanica is well-mannered, having a fresh green spicy kick to keep it on the ground. The dry down is a nice grassy amber with a prominent rose. I get an impression of Juliette Has a Gun’s Lady Vengeance with a little less concentrated prettiness and more girlish charm.

Extra: Florabotanica was released in 2012 with Kristen Stewart as the campaign figurehead.

Design: Love the bottle design. Bold, modern and fashionable. I was somewhat questionable about them using Kristen Stewart as the face of the fragrance, but I love everything from the styling to the photography to the campaign itself. It’s stern and not at all silly.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Mint, rose, carnation, amber, vetiver.

The thing Florabotanica reminds me of is preppy clothing. It makes me think I’m shopping in some teenage store where all the teenagers play water polo, have stables of horses, and have parties on their yachts. I don’t know why it makes me think of this but the fresh, screaming clean rose just sort of fits the imagery. It’s not Lady Vengeance as I think Juliette Has a Gun’s rose fume was a little more likeable but Florabotanica is a good, pleasant addition all the same.

Reviewed in This Post: Florabotanica, 2012, Eau de Parfum.

Thierry Mugler A*Men

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Lots of thanks to Undina from Undina’s Looking Glass for the sample of this fragrance. A*Men has been one of those scents that I kept hearing about but never got around to trying.

A*Men

A*Men

In Bottle: Sweet and a bit dusty, I get a lot of woods out of this but at the same time, I’m smelling the gourmand too.

Applied: Sweet upon application, lavender with a bit of milk and honey and lots of caramel. The fragrance introduces its woodsier side rather earlier as I get patchouli mixed with cedar that blends in with the caramel and milky notes. The mid-stage is marked with a noticeable addition of spices and woods, I swear I can smell cinnamon as the fragrance gets a bit more coffee like with this dusty coating of woods following it. The dry down is warm with a sandalwood base and a sweet toffee-like backdrop. I’ve seen people absolutely love A*Men and other people who can’t stand it. I was all ready for a gourmand but I was more surprised by the prominence of the woods in this. It makes the fragrance more oriental in style with a creamy, sweet caramel scent accented with a lot of woodsiness.

Extra: A*Men was introduced in 1996 and comes in two bottle styles. One metallic bottle and a rubber bottle.

Design: I’ve never been much of a fan of Thierry Mugler’s bottle designs. I often found them too chunk or too alien-looking and I can’t say I really like the bottle designs for A*Men either. It just doesn’t strike a chord with my sensibilities.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand Oriental Woodsy

Notes: Coriander, lavender, fruits, spices, mint, bergamot, honey, jasmine, milk, caramel, lily of the valley, cedar, patchouli, sandalwood, tonka, amber, musk, benzoin, coffee, vanilla.

I don’t think I’m that big of a fan of A*Men. I wasn’t sure whether or not I liked the gourmand bits of it, or the oriental bits, or the woodsy bits. It just all melded together into one big “blah” for me, though it does have really fantastic longevity.

Reviewed in This Post: A*Men, 2012, Eau de Toilette.

M. Micallef Ylang in Gold

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The perfume house of M. Micallef got in touch with me again and asked if I would be interested in reviewing their new, Ylang in Gold fragrance. Given the awesome Vanilla scents I tested from their last location, I really couldn’t say no.

In Bottle:Sweet, a little fruity up top with a nice clean and fresh vanilla background.

Ylang in Gold

Ylang in Gold

Applied: Sweet fruitiness, refreshing upon application. I get vanilla almost instantly with a clean waft of mint. As the fragrance wears on, the vanilla calms down a bit and the sweetness gets tempered by a pleasant mix of ylang-ylang and soft lily. The scent is very light, almost creamy with a lovely smooth aroma that I guess is coming from the combination of clean musk and coconut. The longer I wear it, the more vanilla comes back to further smooth out the scent. In the end, I get soft vanilla musk with a hint of woods and the barest reminder of ylang-ylang.

Extra: Ylang in Gold is the third member of M. Micallef’s Jewel Collection that features Jewel for Her and Jewel for Him. Ylang in Gold comes in two forms, one with a gold dust mixed with the juice and another without the gold dust. My sample didn’t have the gold dust. I’m not a big fan of shimmer on my skin so I actually preferred to go without it.

Design: Like with most bottles by M. Micallef, Ylang in Gold was hand decorated with little Swarovski crystals. I really like the presentation of it. The shape of the bottle is fairly standard, but the designs help give it a bit of uniqueness and luxury flare. It’s very fitting for its collection, looks quite nice, and is presented rather nicely.

Fragrance Family: Floral Oriental

Notes: Tangerine, geranium, sage, rosemary, artemisia, ylang-ylang, rose, lily of the valley, magnolia, mint, sandalwood, coconut, vanilla, musk, oakmoss.

I can best describe Ylang in Gold as a very soft vanilla with a nice sprinkling of Ylang-Ylang. It’s pleasant, very wearable and a bit sophisticated. If you’re interested in a bottle, you can nab one at LuckyScent as well as at their Scent Bar physical store, Parfum1, Parfumerie Nasreen, and Osswald NYC.

Reviewed in This Post: Ylang in Gold, 2012, Eau de Parfum.

Disclaimer: The fragrance reviewed in this post was provided to me for free for the purposes of review. In no other way am I receiving pay or compensation for this review. This review was written based upon my personal experiences and opinions of the product.

Thanks to Micallef for giving me the opportunity to try this fragrance and Jeffrey Dame at Hypoluxe for forwarding on the sample.

M. Micallef Vanille Cuir

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Vanille Cuir

Vanille Cuir

Vanille Cuir is the last of the Vanilla Art Collection from M. Micallef. I left this one for last because I had a feeling that I would like it the most. Though after Vanille Orient and Vanille Marine, Cuir has some pretty big shoes to fill.

In Bottle: Smooth, creamy vanilla with an equally smooth leather note that makes this fragrance smell very grown up.

Applied: Rich, smooth vanilla. One of the nicest smelling vanillas ever. It floods into the air and has this instantly relaxing feel to it. I love the opening. Like, absolutely adore it and if I could bottle that, I’d probably have my favorite vanilla and call it a day. All the bergamot, mint, lavender and whatever else that’s supposed to be in the opening isn’t there for me or it’s been too well-blended, and I quite like it that way. But, the pillowy, rich vanilla gives way to a smooth, almost smoky leather scent that makes things seem more dense and grounded. Like wrapping yourself up in a big leather blanket and sprinkling some flowers on top for good measure. After a while, the spices kick in and the leather calms down a little, letting that gorgeous initial vanilla note to return and take the fragrance into this very soft leather, woods and vanilla dry down.

Extra: One of the best selling features of M. Micallef’s Vanilla collection is the fact that they use a really nice vanilla. I’ve smelled plenty of vanillas, many were plastic, boring, or predictable. And a few, rare, vanilla gems really stood out. The bourbon vanilla that Micallef used in this series is one of these gems. It shows in the delicate way the note unfolds and works with the other ingredients to form a beautiful creamy, natural fragrance.

Design: Yep. Still not a fan of the design, but the shape and utility of the bottles is growing on me quite a bit. I still prefer Micallef’s other designs.

Fragrance Family: Leather

Notes: Bergamot, mint, lavender, cinnamon, cumin, orange blossom, tonka, sandalwood, cedar, vanilla.

Leather’s one of those notes that has a lot of people concerned about how it would make them smell. It’s generally been tamed, but I know of some leathers that can smell quite animalistic. Vanille Cuir isn’t one of those. It tempers the leather quite well and mixes the vanilla with it rather expertly. With that having been said, I think my favorite in this line is probably Vanille Marine, followed by Vanille Orient, Vanille Cuir and finally, Vanille Fleur. If you do love vanillas though, you should definitely check out this collection, some samples or the fragrances themselves can be purchased at Luckyscent.

Reviewed in This Post: Vanille Cuir, 2012, Eau de Parfum.

Disclaimer: The fragrance sampler spray reviewed in this post was provided to me for free for the purposes of review. In no other way am I receiving pay or compensation for this review. This review was written based upon my personal experiences and opinions of the product.

Miller Harris Citron Citron

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The first time I tried Citron Citron was during a rainy trip to Vancouver in autumn 2011 with my friend–then a travel agent. We had managed to book a very nice room in a very nice hotel close to the two places I had to visit. It was one of the best “not really” vacations I ever had. In the hotel bathroom were one shampoo, one conditioner, two bars of soap, and one sample tube of Miller Harris’ Citron Citron.

Citron Citron

Citron Citron

In Bottle: Green, fresh very much a citrus scent with a hint of mossiness and woods layered in the background.

Applied: Lemon and lime instantly make themselves known rather loudly upon application. This is followed by a strong orange presence that helps blend with the green herbs and crisp scent. Citron Citron has a bit of sweetness to it, making the citrus notes a bit candy-like. I’m no fan of Dolce and Gabanna’s Light Blue–one of the more popular citrus-based scents due to its reliance on the strong cedar note. But Citron Citron is an easier beast to get along with. Its cedar is tamed, behaving and blending in well with the others. The fragrance dries down rather quickly and I get more of the mint note as it ages with a spicy kick near the end that adds a bit of depth to the green freshness of this fragrance. Citron Citron does not last long. Its very composition with its emphasis on citrus is a dead giveaway to its short wear life. I neither think it’s a particularly good or unique fragrance, but it is great at a citrus-based perfume and (I think) definitely much better than Light Blue.

Extra: Citron Citron was developed by Lyn Harris and released in 2000.

Design: I really like Miller Harris’ bottle design. Nice clean lines, nice clean shape. Very simple but elegantly done. The bottle escapes “painfully simple” by having that pretty line art that I’m a huge fan of.

Fragrance Family: Citrus Aromatic

Notes: Lemon, orange, lime, mint, basil, moss, cedarwood, cardamom.

Citron Citron isn’t a remarkable fragrance in any way. I vastly prefer it over Light Blue, but Light Blue has it beat in terms of wear length. Citron Citron is a good memory jogger and it was for the good memories that I got my hands on it again where I’d otherwise pass it over. It reminds me of Vancouver, highrises, the Pacific ocean and a couple of metropolitan rainy days in one of Canada’s most beautiful cities. Thanks for the good memories, Vancouver.

Reviewed in This Post: Citron Citron, 2011, Eau de Toilette.

Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male

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Le Male’s something of a classic for men’s fragrance, I guess. Well, maybe classic is putting it a bit too high on the totem pole. What Le Male is, however, is a very successful, very nice oriental fragrance that many men who prefer something outside of Acqua di Gio tend to enjoy.

Le Male

Le Male

In Bottle: Initial whiff of lavender and spices in Le Male. It’s at once familiar and unique.

Applied: Spicy lavender up top. Le Male’s reminiscent of a fougere fragrance with a major spicy kick. The cardamom, to my nose is particularly strong along with the cinnamon note. It reminds me a bit of this awesome chai tea that I really like that features cinnamon and caraway rather heavily. The lavender helps pull the fragrance together from the get go, as its little whiffs of mint and bergamot that were in the initial spray make way for a warm, dry midstage that sees an introduction of a slight floral sandalwood scent. The dry down is very dry with lavender hints hanging on and its spicy cinnamon making a very good run as the sweet, dry, woods scent of the base takes the rest of the show.

Extra: Le Male is strong and has excellent projection, so watch how much of this you spray on yourself. Especially you guys who wear this almost every day. Your nose may have adapted to the scent from prolonged use and you might be overdoing it a bit. I’ve stood close to a man who overdid the Le Male and it turns this brilliant spicy fougere into a powerful mess. Easy on the trigger and you’ll smell awesome though.

Design: Iconic design from Jean Paul Gaultier of the “torso bottles”. Le Male is packaged in a blue torso bottle resemble a man’s chest and hips. The fragrance itself comes in a tin can. Great for keeping out light and helping the fragrance keep a little cooler, but I can’t say I like having a tin can sitting on a fragrance shelf. Still, the torso bottle is a classic piece of design to some people, but for me, it kind of freaks me out to be honest. Still,as soon as you see these torso designs, you probably instantly think, “Oh, it’s Jean Paul Gaultier doing his thing again”. So if nothing else, it is memorable.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Oriental Fougere

Notes: Artemisia, lavender, mint, bergamot, cardamom, caraway, orange blossom, cinnamon, sandalwood, tonka bean, amber, vanilla, cedar.

On myself, Le Male smells too iconically male. Though it’s a great scent that I really like. It smells like it belongs on a man though and that is probably because of the prevalence of the gender that often wears it. Still, it’s like I always say, if you like this enough then who cares what gender it was made for? Just wear it and rock it.

Reviewed in This Post: Le Male, 2001, Eau de Toilette.

Prada Infusion de Rose

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Ah, Prada and their infusions. Simple, light and usually easy to wear. Infusion d’Iris is still one of my favorite scents. And I absolutely love rose–if done right. So I gave her a try.

Infusion de Rose

Infusion de Rose

In Bottle: Big old Bulgarian rose right in my face with a splash of refreshing mint.

Applied: This smells like Bulgarian rose with a little squirt of mandarin. I don’t really detect much else aside from that until the mint comes up in the initial stages and gives Infusion de Rose this sort of crisp, watery quality to it. The fragrance keeps aging with the rose taking a dominant role and continuing to play a dominant role until the endstage. I get no wax or holly and have no idea how to detect the smell of beeswax anyway. All I know is, this is a very simple, very crisp and refreshing rose fragrance. Far from interesting or unique but still does a good job.

Extra: Infusion de Rose is a member of the Prada’s infusion series. There’s an entire series of this stuff where Prada takes a fragrance concept and runs with it. They’ve done Iris, Tuberose, Vetiver, and more.

Design: Infusion de Rose is designed in the same way as the other Infusion fragrances except it’s main color is a very girly pink. If lined up in a row, these bottles look absolutely beautiful. I’d love to collect them just to put them on display. The glass is clear, the bottles have a nice weight to them. The design is classic and simple but still very functional.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Mandarin, beeswax, holly, rose, mint.

I would buy this only so I can say I’ve got it for my collection. But as a fragrance, Infusion de Rose isn’t very interesting or new. You could get dewy modern rose in almost any modern rose-based fragrance. It’s just not unique but it does follow the style of Prada’s infusion series rather well.

Reviewed in This Post: Infusion de Rose, 2011, Eau de Toilette.

Davidoff Cool Water for Men

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It’s funny to me how Creed priced its Green Irish Tweed (GIT) out of many people’s markets and drove them to a cheaper, albeit, very good alternative in Cool Water. These days when people think aromatic aquatic,they think Cool Water for the very simple reason that Cool Water was more affordable, more readily available, and it pretty much smells the same to most people’s noses anyway.

Cool Water for Men

In Bottle: I’m one of those people who find Cool Water and Green Irish Tweed very similar so I’ll try to vary this up a little but do keep in mind these two fragrances go through the motions in relatively the same way. Cool Water opens with a green, citrus, aromatic backed by a couple of gentle wood notes lingering in the back. It’s herbs, aquatics, and woods basically.

Applied: Citrus is quick to fade with the green aquatics sticking it out while the woods and aromatics work their magic. Cool Water is a fresh, clean, easy to wear and easy to love fragrance that I have a hard time finding fault in. This was one of the earlier aromatic aquatics that lived in a time where the market was less convoluted. It grows on me, keeps me reminded of Green Iris Tweed. But there’s a bit of a difference between Cool Water and GIT, and that lies in the complexity difference between the two. There’s a certain flatness that Cool Water hits during the mid-stage, as if some component is missing from the fragrance as a whole. I want to say it’s missing a refined floral heart like GIT had while Cool Water focuses more on the aromatics and woods side. Whatever’s missing it, it needs to be looked for in order to notice, but I’m still left wondering just what that is. It seems to be the ‘spark’ that sets GIT aside from Cool Water for me. Cool Water chills out in the end stage with a cedar note. The cedar’s threatening me, of course, but it’s not as loud as some other cedars have been.

Extra: Now, I can sit here and ponder the intricacies of these two fragrances all day but being a child of the late 80s and early 90s, I smelled my fair share of both GIT and Cool Water. They’re still both very popular fragrances but they spawned a trend in men’s fragrances that still persists today. The aquatic fragrances family. A family so full of members that I have a hard time telling them all apart.

Design: I’m going to have sigh and say I’m not a fan of the bottle here. The colored glass angle has to be played right with perfume in that the shape of the bottle has to be able to stand whatever color you splash on it. Use too little color and people won’t notice. Use too much and the glass ends up looking like plastic. Unfortunately that’s the case with this bottle, it reminds me of a shampoo bottle.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Mint, green, lavender, coriander, rosemary, geranium, neroli, jasmine, sandalwood, cedarwood, musk, amber, tobacco.

There’s two main version of Cool Water (and a huge lot of flankers). One for men and one for women. This review was regarding the men’s version.

Reviewed in This Post: Cool Water for Men, 2005, Eau de Toilette.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Hemlock

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Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s Hemlock doesn’t smell how I’d assume Hemlock would smell like. But then, I didn’t expect this stuff to be green either. The real novelty here as most BPALs tend to be any color but green. Hemlock

In Bottle: Green  and a bit bitter with a slight woodsy undernote and a citrus note up front. I’d dare to call this refreshing.

Applied: Yep, citrus with a light green scent a bit of sharpness to make this fresh and a bit dewy.There’s something quite aromatic about this too, mint and a little bit of peppermint and some green leaves picked fresh off a tree thrown in. The woodsiness in Hemlock is ever present making the scent smell a little bit like pine-scented air freshener. But it’s a good thing, believe it or not.

Extra: Hemlock is a plant type. One of hemlock’s most famous historical deeds was poisoning Socrates.

Design: Bottled in the same amber glass bottle with the plastic twist cap as other general catalog scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. You’ll notice Hemlock’s label is a tad different in design. This design is employed for BPAL’s Rappaccini’s Garden fragrances of which Hemlock is a part.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy

Notes: Lemon, mint, peppermint, pine.

Just as a note that I am guessing at those notes up there. Now while I can’t really see myself wearing this as a fragrance, I do love it as a home scent. It’s got a classy air freshener smell to it, with my nose and I like those digs.

Reviewed in This Post: Hemlock, 2010, 5ml Bottle.

Paco Rabanne 1 Million

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1 Million is a love it or hate it fragrance. In my case, I hate it. Just as a forewarning. It’s been lauded for its sillage, longevity and sweet, woodsy personality. All I smell is citrus and wood. One Million

In Bottle: A nice, pleasant and slightly sweet citrus mixed with a reassuringly sheer spiciness.

Applied: Maybe I was a little heavy-handed with this stuff but it’s hard to see how one spray could go so wrong. I spritzed a little on my hand, enjoyed the sweet spiciness of it then walked away from the counter thinking it was an interesting twist for juice that came out of a gold bar. Then the woodsiness started to amp up, and keep amping up. Amping so much up that it overtakes everything and turns the scent’s mid-stage into a sharp, synthetic, spicy wood affair with a lingering amber cloying quality. This juice reminds me of Versace Versense slapped with a hint of spice. I tried to wait this one out for its fade but it took hours upon hours and eventually I had to take a shower. At which point, 1 Million was still detectable. This stuff is strong, it’s got huge projection, fantastic longevity, and it is a head turner–though it’s a nose turner for me. The dry down is a difficult thing to pin down due to what the scent had already gone through by the time it reached that point. I got more woods blended with a sweet amber as far as I could tell.

Extra: 1 Million won three fragrance awards in 2009 and judging by how this acted on me, I think I have some broken skin or something because I just can’t get on board for this. It was a mess to me. An men’s fragrance that overindulged in the wood notes department and slapped in some spicy sweetness to try and figure itself out.

Design: This design is garish and tacky and it doesn’t care! 1 Million is a glass bottle, with a gold plate that’s made to look like a brick of gold that you’d find sitting in cartoon versions of Fort Knox. It’s a rather heavy and hefty bottle, feels a little too heavy but then I can only assume its weight gives the allusion that wearing it would make you feel like a million bucks.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Woodsy

Notes: Grapefruit, red orange, mint, rose, cinnamon, spices, blond leather, blond wood, patchouli, amber.

Maybe I’m being too harsh on 1 Million. Maybe I’ll give it another chance sometimes but I don’t see the appeal of it right now. Heck, maybe I even  sprayed too much.

Reviewed in This Post: 1 Million, 2010, Eau de Parfum.