Reviews of Vanisia (1987)
by Creed

I was very excited to get two carded samples of Creed's Vanisia in the mail. I dabbed the tiniest micro-speck on each wrist, waited for it to dry down, and inhaled my own personal mugging. Ye Gods! It was like snorting an Avon lady. Well, I thought, perhaps the fragrance needs to settle for twenty or thirty minutes. No, no, no. After half an hour, it was like being hit directly in the face with an oversized puff of Tabu body powder. Dry--and yet cloying--with a terrible sense of an old woman's handkerchief drawer and preserved flowers from parties half a century ago. I have mummified hay-fever. Arghhhh! This is what the room in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" smelled like.

Vanisia's opening is pure Ivory brand soap, and terribly undistinguished. There's a load of powder on top of the generic soap, plus some rather harsh lavender, and not much else.

Surprisingly, the vanilla takes its time emerging, and is kept from getting too cloyingly sweet by floral notes and what might even be a bit of iris.

Ultimately though, Vanisia is very bland, and that generic soap note never really goes away. Feh.