Xi'a Xi'ang (1987)
by Revlon (orig. by Charles of the Ritz)

This was the very first perfume I ever wore and owned. Every time I smell it, it reminds me of my early days of womanhood. Summer days, dress up and first love. I also believe this fragrance influenced my preference for Oriental florals.

My skin changes 99% of perfumes into something totally gross and acid... I only found two perfumes in my life that I could wear! One was a solid and my all time favourite was Xi'a Xi'ang... I dearly missed it and have not found another one that smells nice on me since!

As for the name, Guy Cook in his book "The Discourse on Advertising" indicates (on p. 83-84) that the perfume's logo is reminiscent of a stylized calligraphy of the two Chinese characters meaning "Distant Thoughts" and "Daydream"....

I also heard (where was that from?) that in Chinese Xi'a Xi'ang with a different intonation could mean something like "pink cloud".

Wish they would bring it back... :o)

I really liked this as an "office" fragrance. Light, subtle, never offensive. Even freshly sprayed it never offended anyone. Not much lasting power though. I am sorry it has been discontinued, cheerful pretty little scent.

I recall enjoying this a lot when I was in my mid-teens - it was among my first full-bottle purchases - but eventually I got tired of it. I remember that there was something about the scent that reminded me of freshly sharpened pencils, in a good way. I recently came upon a sample and now I can enjoy that flood of memories that come from scent. I like it - a floral oriental, but not rich especially, rather unobtrusive. A floriental that you can wear during the day, that doesn't take over a room. And the packaging is gorgeous, even better than I remembered.

Gosh, I remember this so well because it was around in my presence (in my sister's collection, as were most fragrances I experimented with back then) ages before I really got into fragrances myself; I was just starting to wear them but was a total ignormaus about what they were actually made of and what those ingredients actually meant. I somehow talked myself into believing that the name of this scent meant "ylang ylang" in some kind go Chinese dialect. Wrong! This, as I recall, was an extremely fruity fragrance - nothing Asian or exotic about it at all and not a drop of ylang to be found - that went on with a twang of something vaguely sour. Extremely strong; I'd guess lots o'jasmine, peach, white floral. I'd take a hit of this off my sister's bottle expecting something Opium-like or at least along the lines of Cinnabar, and get nothing but heavy fruits and florals and always feel disappointed about it. I do wish I'd stashed a supply of this, though; it's a real rarity now and the bottle and package - gold foiling striped with various tones of royal purple - were both pretty enough to keep around just to look at even if the juice was basically average.