Absolutely Fabulous (2001)
by Revlon

I bought this without having ever tried it because it intruiged me. I was expecting a spicy, warm cyphre in the tradition of Opium, Halston, or Youth Dew. Instead, it's a strong fragrance that doesn't mellow out with drydown. There's a particular note, maybe it's the tuberose, that clashes with the other notes but also dominates them. It gives this fragrance that headache-inducing quality. It just reminds me of walking into a Yankee Candle shop and getting overpowered by the blend of all the candle fragrances.

26th January, 2011.

Absolutely In Your Face would be an apt descriptive for the opening notes of this fragrance, which comes on with a heavily alcohol-toned, cinnamon-fueled fury that doubles-slaps you across both cheeks before standing back and giving you a load of its curvy but too-sweet "double tuberose" (which is the actual name given to the tuberose note here - fits the bill, too.) Once all that commotion has taken its toll, this fragrance becomes rather calmly introspective and dare I say far more serene than fabulous; its soft, warm turn towards white musk and woods and "temple incense" is surprising but welcomed. It is at this stage that Absolutely Fabulous becomes worth putting up with; how it literally converts from something so brazen and loud to something so relatively gentle and sensual is beyond me. I still barely wear it because the opening accord bothers me so, but I wouldn't necessarily write it off as just another drugstore scent either. Plus the frou-frou marabou-ringed bottle looks so cute standing next to the black-lace gartered Chantall Thomass bottle on my dresser; it's like a meeting of the burlesque ladies club!

20th September, 2005.