Sung (1986)
by Alfred Sung

It's not often that I smell a perfume and immediately recognize what it is because I'm not nearly enough of an expert with fragrances to be able to recognize a lot of them really fast without even asking, "what are you wearing?"
The minute I opened my sample of the feminine version of Sung by Alfred Sung though, and dabbed it on my wrist, I knew that I had smelled it many times before. This is definitely an extremely popular fragrance that a lot of women wear, for sure. I'm actually a little surprised that it isn't listed online among the most popular perfumes of all time. I'm sure that it has to be way up there. On the other hand, though, there are a lot of other things that smell like this perfume too. Yardley's Lily of the Valley fragrance is very similar, and so are the Body Shop's Jasmine and Gardenia perfume oils. (I'm not sure if The Body Shop still carries those though.) Truthfully, Sung is a pretty generic smelling white floral, so it's not necessarily immediately recognizable.
My overall feeling about this perfume is: it's nice, and there's nothing about it that I really dislike. But it's just so darn generic that I really can't see myself buying a bottle or ever making it my signature scent. However, if you're generally a big fan of lily of the valley, jasmine and white floral fragrances in general then you might want to give this one a try if you haven't already.

18th November, 2011.

Does anyone know where to buy a genuine vintage sample of the original Sung? The Sung I remember was amazing. The newer version is chemical, screechy and a shadow of what it used to be. So sad.
**received a sample of the original Sung today from a generous BNer. Spraying on the fragrance was like running into the arms of a long lost friend. I want to bathe in this stuff!

2nd November, 2011. (Last Edited: 10th January, 2012.)

Very, VERY strong. Overpowering floral. The Hyacinth, orange blossom and rose stomp all over everything else in this fragrance. It's got a huge amount of silage and it lasts.

I wear it occasionally, but I have to be in the mood. It's not my go-to fragrance, and it's certainly not something I would wear in a processional setting.

20th May, 2011.

Strong fragrances must need to be applied with moderation, is like when you make a wish, you allways need to be careful, cuz if you ask for all you want, maybe you can end overwhelmed.

Sweet with a Green touch, Flowery and long lasting.

28th January, 2011.

Green, semi-sweet floral with indolic hyacinth and ylang-ylang accords. Slightly vanillic ambery base. With under-application (1 spritz) this is a nice, light white floral scent. With over-application (4 or more spritzes) this may have that "greenhouse" effect.

Edit: Having worn Sung several more times after purchasing, and comparing its white floral arrangement to that of the iridescent Tommy Girl, I must confess a diminution in opinion for the older of the two fragrances. For whatever reason, Sung's bouquet never seems to fully open the way the orange blossom and jasmine of Tommy Girl lilts into the air through its green tea opening. The Sung florals screech, becoming somewhat chemical and one-note, with a trite indolic sweetness that hovers between handsoap and hairspray. It may be uncouth of me to compare an '80s wedding floral to a jeans-and-T '90s teeny-bopper Hilfiger, but what can I say? As an owner of both, I found myself enjoying and wearing one much more than the other, which is to say that Tommy Girl remains a welcome member of my small staple, while Sung recently found a new home in the trash.

5th July, 2010. (Last Edited: 5th February, 2011.)

This is my signature fragrance. I will weep bitter tears if it ever goes out of production. My first husband died of cancer in 1987. At the time, I wore Oscar de la Renta and he had used Pour Lui. It may sound odd, but my fragrance reminded me of him (I guess because he loved it so much on me). I began to search for another scent that I liked as well. It proved to be more arduous than I expected. So many fragrances smelled great in the bottle, but mundane to horrible on my skin. Or I liked them for the first hour or two, but not the subtler tones that came out later on. Finally, I received a sample of SUNG in the mail, with my Macy's Charge Card bill - and I was hooked!

I still love the scent, though I may be a bit desensitized to it after all these years. I do get many compliments and requests to know the fragrance I am wearing.

In the summer, I switch to PURE. It is lighter, but still wonderful on me. Pure is becoming more difficult to find, it seems.

26th January, 2010.