Jalaine Silk

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Jalaine Silk was an impulse buy that I threw into my cart of samplers at the last minute when it caught my eye and tickled my nose. A white amber with vanilla? I had to know what that would smell like!

In Bottle: Sweet but soft aquatic vanilla. Reminds me of a marshmallow sitting in a dish of water.

Applied: Silk opens with a sweet, gentle vanilla scent that candies itself up a little with a bit of sweetness. The marine notes that are supposed to be in this give it an almost floral edge with a fresh kick. There’s a hint of warmth as the fragrance develops which is where I assume the amber comes in. If I had to give Silk one word to describe it, I think that word would be “pillowy”. Soft, yielding, comforting, not in your face, not demanding or extreme. It’s unobtrusive and pleasant and one of the easiest going vanillas I’ve smelled and it wears very close to your skin. There’s not a whole lot of complexity to Silk because it comes on smelling like soft sweet vanilla and it’ll generally stay that way for its wear life. But then I guess it doesn’t really need to be an attention grabber.

Extra: Jalaine Sommers is an independent perfumer that runs her own website at JalaineFragrances.com offering up some very interesting fragrances in perfume oil form. Of particular interest to me is the green tea fragrance.

Design: The bottles are pretty, a simple and effective shape that does well for the juice that it’s holding. Nothing garish or unnecessary in the design here. The bottles do remind me of some of the ultra sharp corners featured in Zaha Hadid‘s architectural work.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: White amber, vanilla, marine.

I think Silk is a very pretty fragrance and a great candidate if you need to wear something light and vanilla based to work. It’s not the kind of fragrance that will announce your presence. And when I said it was soft and sticks close to the skin, I really mean it.

Reviewed in This Post: Silk, 2012, Perfume Oil.

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.

Katy Perry Purr

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Lovely. I get a little splodge of the most anticipated Purr by pin-up girl by day and pop star by night, Katy Perry, but I can’t get my hands on a vintage Chypre de Coty? Slap a sad face on me and let’s review Purr by Katy Perry.  Purr

In Bottle: Sweet peaches and a mix of florals that I’ve smelled pretty much everywhere by now. It’s a celebrity fragrance so I didn’t expect genius.

Applied: Initial flair of fruitiness up top. I get mostly peaches, sweet and ripe and big with a vaguely familiar synthetic apple note tossed in there with a tiny dash of tartness slathered with a thin coating of sweetness and dipped in a hint of creaminess. That creaminess sticks with the fragrance throughout its cycle. Now the peach in Purr isn’t grown up peach like Mitsouko. Actually, I can’t imagine why anyone would think they’d get any sort of Mitsouko out of Purr so I’m not even sure why I bothered to mention this in order to discern that no, you aren’t wearing this to meet the Queen. The peach in Purr is this is fuzzy peaches candy thing. Fun and girly and not at all serious. After a few minutes the fragrance takes its fruity opening and shifts into the midstage where you’re greeted by a banal blend of jasmine and gardenia. The sweetness is still lingering there. It’s a light sweetness though, not heavy and obnoxious but nothing to phone home about either. The mid-stage blandly shuffles along, smelling pleasant enough, and hits a rose note near the end of the mid-stage’s lifespan, falling headfirst into the very predictable sandalwood and vanilla base with traces of the mid-stage florals hanging about.

Extra: I don’t think Purr is anything to jump up for joy about as I didn’t expect much else from Katy Perry. Nothing to her as a person or a singer, this is just your run of the mill fruity floral celebuscent that hasn’t changed its formula since every other recent celebuscent. It’s an average fruity floral at best, with a variety of other fruity florals doing this tired fragrance genre much better justice. And as much as it pains me to say it, you’d probably get a better reaction scent from the Paris Hilton line. Me? I’ll wait and see what Lady Gaga does.

Design: Purr hasn’t been released where I live  yet so I haven’t handled the bottle, but I have seen photos of the bottle and I have to say it’s not my style. It really, really isn’t. The bottle  is in the shape of a purple cat with a heart hanging from its collar and jeweled eyes. You take the cat’s head off to gain access to the spraying mechanism as far as I can tell. I mean, it’s cute, but way beyond my demographic.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Peach, bamboo, apple, gardenia, jasmine, freesia, Bulgarian rose, vanilla orchid, white amber, sandalwood, skin musk, coconut.

Purr smells like so many different generic fragrances that I don’t think anyone should really bother with it if they’re looking for that sweet fruity floral. Unless you love Katy Perry’s work, her perfume is passable but highly uninteresting, and you are better off looking elsewhere for a fruity floral fragrance.

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

Donna Karan Liquid Nude

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Cashmere Mist is one of the most popular Donna Karan fragrances. It was released in the early 90s (1994, I believe) and has been sold with much popularity since. Liquid Nude is the brand new 2010 flanker to Cashmere Mist. Liquid Nude

In Bottle: Light and floral. Reminds me of clean linen and fresh sheets with a hint of cleaned up sandalwood.

Applied: Floral top notes that lend a very feminine edge to this fragrance. It has quite a nice display of florals set against a seemingly always present perfumed sandalwood. The fragrance evolves into a clear and very floral jasmine mid-stage that lends to a nice airy clean linen-like scent. This smells like good soap and I can sort of see the connection to the original Cashmere Mist as this is set in a nicer, more modern stage than the original. It also smells a little bit younger too. The dry down is a pleasant smooth white floral with a bit of lingering warmed sandalwood mixed with a light vanilla. Pretty much the one thing you can take away from Liquid Nude here is that it’s a very good, very clear and clean floral and creamy woodsy fragrance.

Extra: Donna Karan has other fragrances with her name on them including the very popular DKNY Be Delicious line which is a big hit with younger women.

Design: I don’t know if “elegant” is quite the word I want to use here but the design of this bottle is slick and nicely designed. It reminds me of a variety of things but mostly, it’s a close interpretation of the original Cashmere Mist bottle in a nice shiny pinkish tone with the swan shape toned down and smoothed out.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Orange flowers, pink cyclamen petals, lily of the valley, sandalwood, ylang ylang, Moroccan jasmine, labdanum, jasmine, white amber, skin musk, suede, tonka, benzoin.

I’m actually not much of a fan of Cashmere Mist or this particular incarnation of it. It reminds me of the perfumes I grew up smelling and I suppose my nose is a bit dulled from it by now.

Reviewed in This Post: Liquid Nude, 2010, Eau de Parfum.