Oscar de la Renta Tropical Flower

Posted on by

I smelled this fragrance before I saw the bottle and while the fragrance left me lukewarm, the bottle really turned me off. Something about the colors, the shape and the way it felt just didn’t settle well with me. Just as well for lukewarm perfume.

Tropical Flower

Tropical Flower

In Bottle: Tropical, pleasant but not especially unique or interesting. I get a lot of fruits, sweet and cooling.

Applied: Tropical fruits upon application, smells like a dewy melon mixed in a tropical drink and meant to be enjoyed under an umbrella. There is a floral, rose note that wafts in during the mid stage with a liberal coating of sugar that runs over the opening. If this had been a bit less sweet, it might have done a little better because there’s something decent about the mid stage and its florals that are trying to class up Tropical Flower, but aren’t quite making it because of the sugar. The dry down is a dead end of white musk and the remnants of sugary fruits and frangipani.

Extra: Having been too busy this summer to make it to the beach, I tried to replace my beachless summer with a fragrance. Some day I’ll make it to the Bahamas, but for now, the Tropical Flower just isn’t a substitution.

Design: I really can’t say I like the design of Tropical Flower’s bottle. It looks very plastic, even though it isn’t. And maybe that’s what they were going for all along, it just doesn’t appeal to me.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Passionfruit, melon, raspberry, gardenia, jasmine, frangipani, white musk.

So that was Tropical Flower, a fairly underwhelming fragrance.

Reviewed in This Post: Tropical Flower, ~2008, Eau de Toilette.

Taylor Swift Wonderstruck Enchanted

Posted on by

I didn’t happen upon Wonderstruck Enchanted by accident. It was actually somewhat pushed on me by a well-meaning sales associate who said it would suit me.

Wonderstruck Enchanted. In case you weren't tired of looking at Taylor Swift yet. I am.

Wonderstruck Enchanted. In case you weren’t tired of looking at Taylor Swift yet. I am.

In Bottle: I was underwhelmed when I smelled it prior to application. It had the hallmarks of faux vanilla and too sweet berries.

Applied: Well-meaning sales associate tells me Wonderstruck Enchanged was new, smelled fresh, clean, sweet and that it would suit me quite well. I was a little perturbed by that assessment, but figured I would try it anyway. Upon application, the sweetness and faux vanilla make themselves known right away. It’s not outright plastic-smelling but it isn’t natural. The sweetness is dialed way up in this to the point where my teeth felt like they needed to be drilled and filled in. And by the time I had walked away from the fragrance counter, gone home, went for a jog, showered then sat around for a few hours–I could still smell the sweetness on me. It clings like a powerhouse. Wonderstruck Enchanted isn’t special or unique. To me, it’s like a pile of berry candies coated with a vanilla air freshener. It’s just unappealing and kind of a mess. And unfortunately for it, it’s strength and longevity make it last an absurd amount of time. It wasn’t until I woke up the next morning did I finally rid myself of the cloying sweetness.

Extra: Wonderstruck Enchanted is obviously the flanker for the original Wonderstruck. It was released in 2012, and I really wish they had taken some time to think about it a little bit more because the fragrance manages to be both uninspired and messy.

Design: Similar shape to the original Wonderstruck. It’s red this time instead of just purple and features some slightly different charms around the neck of the bottle. I like the ornate cap, but that’s really about all I can say for it because every other design detail is clearly aimed at a younger audience.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Passionfruit, berries, poppy, freesia, peony, champaca, sugar, musk, woods, vanilla.

Well, there you go. A few months go by and I get this urge to write about a celebuscent and Wonderstruck Enchanted just had to be it. It really wasn’t anything special and I found it mildly annoying that Taylor Swift was every where I looked. But hey, at least it wasn’t Lady Gaga again.

Reviewed in This Post: Wonderstruck Enchanted, 2012, Eau de Parfum.

Escada Marine Groove

Posted on by
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.