Parfums de Coeur Fireworks

With a weather related headache, I had to question whether it was a good idea for me to test another Sexiest Fantasies fragrance from Parfums de Coeur considering the last fragrance I reviewed from them gave me a headache.

Fireworks

Fireworks

In Bottle: Very sweet, very peachy and fruity with an equal part vanilla and not a whole lot else.

Applied: Super sweet peach and vanilla. The vanilla gets even stronger as the fragrance ages until all you smell is pretty much synthetic vanilla with a fruity background. I’m not getting much else but fruity vanilla out of this which is a bit of a disappointment. In terms of individual notes, they’re all drowned out by the very strong vanilla. The dry down ends up as a plain old synthetic vanilla fragrance.

Extra: Fireworks and a lot of the other scents I have in this line are just body sprays. Fireworks, itself, is very strongly scented so don’t feel that a body spray won’t last as long or be as strong as a full on fragrance. This particular scent can hold its own in terms of longevity and power.

Design: Packaged in a simple black bottle. No frills or thrills here. It’s functional and tries to dress itself up a little, but it’s still essentially a body spray bottle.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Strawberry, peach, vanilla.

Not much to say about this one, it’s fruity and sweet and that’s about the start and end of it. It’s not my kind of thing as it’s too sweet and one-dimensional, but it will smell great to the right person.

Reviewed in This Post: Fireworks,  2009, Body Spray.


Parfums de Coeur Strawberries and Champagne

Having found myself the recipient of a set of these Parfum de Coeur fragrances, I decided to give these a try. The fact that Parfum de Coeur’s last scent experience didn’t go over well with me doesn’t mean none of their other fragrances won’t.

Strawberries and Champagne

Strawberries and Champagne

In Bottle: Smells like really sweet strawberry hard candy with a weird floral blanket.

Applied: When I was a kid I had a doll that came with a tiny bottle of perfume. The doll was great, the perfume smelled exactly like this. It was overly sweet, it was some sort of berry and it had florals thrown into it in an attempt to make it smell a little more interesting than just extremely potent strawberry candy. But what the florals just end up doing is give me a headache and make the fragrance smell especially synthetic. There is not much of a progression to this. It starts sweet and strawberry, and it ends sweet and strawberry.

Extra: Apparently there’s a large number of fragrances that also belong to this line of Sexiest Fantasies. I have to admit this Strawberries and Champagne doesn’t remind me of sexy fantasies.

Design: Rather uninspiring design that reminds me a bit of the 90s in a retro nostalgia way. This isn’t a full on perfume–it is just a body spray so I don’t expect too much of its design. The design is functional. It works. It just looks very dated and a bit cheesy.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Florals, champagne, strawberry.

I had actually been looking forward to seeing if I would get their Skin Musk fragrance in my grab bag as it seemed to be pretty well received, but it was not to be.

Reviewed in This Post: Strawberries and Champagne,  2010, Body Spray.

P.S. And with this rather underwhelming fragrance, I hope you all have a great New Year!


BnBW Paris Amour

Another new-ish release from Bath and Body Works, Paris Amour is supposed to be a sophisticated, romantic fruity floral scent. I already have my doubts.

Paris Amour

Paris Amour

In Bottle: Very fruity, the strawberry is really present along with this peach and apple combination. Everything is also very sweet.

Applied: Strawberry all up in my face. There’s the apple blossom kind of waffling about with the peach note as the big fruity opening starts drying off in the mid-stage where the floral notes start to come up. We got a little bit of something green but there is a lot of frangipani to my nose and an equal amount of cleaned up lotus mixed with a tiny hint of cleaned up jasmine. The dry down is not too much more interesting as the floral midstage gives way to a vanilla sandalwood scent that’s been bathed in white musk.

Extra: Paris Amour, like pretty much all other Bath and Body Works fragrances comes in a variety of different products. You can get a lotion, body mist, body cream, shower gel. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a candle version of this scent.

Design: Designed in much the same way as other Bath and Body Works fragrances. Essentially, you’ve got a square bottle with some cute pastel colors and the Eiffel Tower. Nothing too exciting though the design of this particular fragrance is a little unbalanced with the tower standing out a little too much in my opinion.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Mandarin, strawberry, cassis, freesia, apple blossom, peach, jasmine, lotus, frangipani, tulip, musk, sandalwood, amber, vanilla, coconut.

Paris Amour is pretty generic for what it is. I don’t know, Bath and Body Works seems to have one hit fragrance and that was Japanese Cherry Blossom. Everything else is kind of like this, “It smells all right” kind of affair with no real sense of the dramatic or the unique. As for whether or not Paris Amour is the sophisticated and romantic scent it was toted as being–eh, not really. This makes me think, “fun”, “girly”, “happy”. Romance and sophistication don’t come into the picture.

Reviewed in This Post: Paris Amour, 2011, Eau de Toilette.


Marc Jacobs Oh Lola!

Oh Lola! is a recent flanker of the original Marc Jacobs Lola, that shampoo-y smelling, not unpleasant but not exciting, clean floral with the massive flower cap. Oh Lola! s presented as a pinker, more stylish version of the original. When someone describes a fragrance as ‘stylish’, I immediately cringe.

Oh Lola!

Oh Lola!

In Bottle: Fresh and berry-like with a layer of sheer florals underneath, a bit on the sweeter side but doesn’t overdo the sweetness to the point of cloying. Not very interesting but smells decent.

Applied: Clean and berry-like in the opening, reminds me a bit of a berry trifle or fruit juice. I swear I can smell a mango note and pineapple note in there. But essentially, the opening is generic fruit punch. It’s clean though and a little sweet as the fragrance ages, the fruitiness meshs more into the florals and lets in some of these flowers we’ve been hearing about. The florals themselves are unexciting, they’re blended well enough that they form this clean, unassuming and easygoing blend of flowery goodness that goes well with the fruity opening. As Oh Lola! heads into the base the scent takes on an extremely dull sandalwood vanilla scent that I haven’t smelled in a while but still remember rather well because every generic-smelling perfume uses a sandalwood vanilla base. “Oh Lola!” is shaping up to be more of an “Oh, Lola, It’s You Again”.

Extra: The buzz is already out for the ad campaign surrounding Oh Lola! Dakota Fanning has been chosen as the face for this fragrance and the questionable nature of the ad photo has already sparked something of a sensation around this perfume. I found Bang! and its ad campaign to be a humorous if somewhat lowbrow presentation. I find Oh Lola! to be of the similar vein. Or could we all just be overreacting because we’re used to Marc Jacobs pulling stunts like this? Whatever it is, the ad campaign made me raise a brow, the pink bottle made me grimace, and the description that Oh Lola! was ‘stylish’ made me cringe. Nothing about its presentation made me want to rush out and smell it or buy it.

Design: Maybe it was because I was overpinked as a child and have since grown something of a disdain for the color’s reputation as a “feminine” hallmark, but I don’t see why everyone thinks pink is so cute. Pink, when used right, can be cute. Sometimes it can even be sophisticated. If used wrong, it’s a bit burlesque and can even come off as cheesy and childish. So when they took Lola’s bottle, (a perfectly dynamic piece of work) and made it pink, I had to wonder what exactly there was to accomplish here. But I suppose they had to have a flanker look somewhat like the original. And I suppose–if nothing else–pink truly does suit the fragrance. I just find it tired that perfumes would constantly use pink for their fruitier, lighter, less serious flankers of original perfumes. You see a flanker that’s pink and can safely assume that it’ll either be sugary, weak, one dimensional, or a combination of the three.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Strawberry, raspberry, pear, peony, sandalwood, vanilla.

All right, so I admit I was chomping at the bit to get at the design of the Oh Lola! bottle. It just bothered me on a fundamental level that I can’t even begin to explain. Nothing on the juice, but the design of the bottle itself just turned me off immensely. Thankfully we’re here for the juice–most of the time.

Reviewed in This Post: Oh Lola!, 2011, Eau de Parfum.


Aquolina Pink Sugar

Pink Sugar is as simple as its name. It’s a sweet fragrance made for younger perfume consumers that’s not ashamed of admitting that it’s just a candy-like confection for people who like to smell sweet. And that’s about it. I can respect that. Pink Sugar

In Bottle: Sugar, caramel, and strawberry. Very reminiscent of Miss Dior Cherie but much more tolerable due to the lack of patchouli and the toning down of the strawberry note. This smells like the pink cotton candy you buy at carnivals and little strawberry hard candies.

Applied: Dominating the opener is the cotton candy and strawberry hard candies. If Pink Sugar were a food–it’d be aptly named. As the scent ages, it stays the same but for a caramel note coming up. The caramel note has been toasted a bit too much, smelling burnt. I have a suspicion there’s really only one caramel note shared between this fragrance, Miss Dior Cherie and Flowerbomb and it’s Burnt Caramel #2990. A pox on you, Burnt Caramel #2990! I’m convinced that due to this mysterious caramel note that these three fragrances are related in some smelly conspiracy. But they aren’t the same, Pink Sugar lacks the extreme sweetness and harshness of the patchouli and strawberry. The burnt caramel in Pink Sugar is more muted than in Flowerbomb. Pink Sugar has a not bad licorice note that makes brief appearances in the mid-stage. When Pink Sugar dries down, it’s a bit of vanilla and slap of clean woodsiness and then it’s gone.

Extra: Pink Sugar is consistently one of the most popular and well-loved fragrances among its target audience. If you were ever wondering what young people like these days, Pink Sugar is probably a good guess.

Design: Pink Sugar is bottled in a tall glass cylinder with pink crisscrossing lines on the glass. The presentation itself makes me think of cake. The lettering is playful, a bit messy for my tastes, but I’m not the target audience for the fragrance or–I assume–the design of the bottle.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Bergamot, sicilian orange, raspberry, fig leaves, lily of the valley, licorice, strawberry, red fruit, cotton candy, vanilla, caramel, musk, wood, powder.

From a choice of Miss Dior Cherie, Pink Sugar, or Flowerbomb, I will have to give props to Pink Sugar. It’s the most wearable, the least cloying and at least it’s upfront about what it is.

Reviewed in This Post: Pink Sugar, 2008, Eau de Parfum.


Miss Dior Cherie

Sometimes, you come across a fragrance that just isn’t to your taste. Miss Dior Cherie is not to my taste. While I do tend toward the fruity and the sweet, Miss Dior Cherie is like a candy strawberry syrup attack that goes straight up my nose and into my head. Congratulations are in order, I suppose. No. 5, Shalimar, Brut, and all the powerhouses of the 80s combined could not induce a perfume headache. Today, Miss Dior Cherie took that prize home. Miss Dior Cherie

In Bottle: Sweet, sweet, synthetic strawberry layered over a lovely slather of caramel. There’s so much sweetness and sugary fruitiness in this that it’s crossed the line between edible, wearable sweet and cloying sweet. I tend to think of myself as having a high tolerance to sweetness. After all, I didn’t mind the tooth numbing sweetness in Love of Pink by Lacoste or Pink Sugar by Aquolina. But that combination of sugar, candy and strawberry in Miss Dior Cherie takes it a notch above just sweet into shrill sweet. So sweet you can feel your blood turn to high-fructose corn syrup.

Applied: Initial minor burst of sweet citrus aside, Miss Dior Cherie wastes no time letting you know what she’s up to. She’s going to turn you into a walking strawberry lollipop. I immediately got hit with the sugar and caramel and whatever else is sweetening this so much. It’s cloying upon first application and several hours later, it’s still cloying and I can still smell it. It being the initial notes upon application. I was really surprised to find this fragrance hadn’t moved or evolved on me at all. If nothing else, Miss Dior Cherie deserves applause for longevity. The strawberry candy fragrance is a strong one. The projection isn’t bad. It’s neither far nor short. It’s just right. I just don’t think this one works for me. And as I wait a few more hours, it starts to turn for the cleaner, melting down from strawberry lollipop to jaded strawberry and sweet, fresh florals. I can only assume that slight and freshness is the patchouli trying its hardest to come up. The dry down is rather pleasant, though surviving that powerful longevity to get to the clean last act is too much of a challenge. Really, the initial burst and the workings of those middle notes just reminds me of cough syrup. Sorry, Miss Dior Cherie.

Extra: Dior’s had a lot of hits in the past. The original Miss Dior, Diorella, Poison. All of them to be respected. And a lot of people really love Miss Dior Cherie. I can see why. It’s a very sweet, very fun, extremely girly fragrance. But to me, it overdid the sweetness and the strawberry note was too candy-like. The fragrance itself didn’t dry down fast enough for my tastes and the dry down is really where I start to appreciate Miss Dior Cherie. Otherwise, she sits right at the start with that syrupy strawberry and remains one-dimensional for hours. Overall, Dior has had a lot of hits, a lot of great fragrances and Miss Dior Cherie, while popular and peppy and cute, is probably not one of my favorites.

Design: Lovely and simple bottle glass bottle with a metal bow attached to further add to the youth of this fragrance. It is overall, very nice, youthful, and trendy packaging. The sprayer works fine, the packaging is adorable. And the French commercial is one of the most fun-loving, uplifting perfume commercials I’ve seen. A very recognizable, in branding, fragrance.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Gourmand

Notes: Green tangerine, strawberry leaves, violet, pink jasmine, caramel popcorn, strawberry sorbet, patchouli, musk.

I admit, I’m probably not the target group for this. It seems like Miss Dior Cherie was made for women around my age or younger but they kind of missed me I suppose. I wanted to love this fragrance. Really, I did. But I think I’d like a more understated fragrance. Nevertheless, Miss Dior Cherie would be a wonderful hit for a teenager or younger woman who absolutely loves sweet scents.

Reviewed in This Post: Miss Dior Cherie, 2010, Eau de Parfum.