Reviews of Innocent (1998)
by Thierry Mugler

The only reason this one's getting a neutral rating from this nose is I'm in awe of the originality of this scent. Other than that, I say thumbs down...smells like a cup of earl grey tea with lemon mixed with the 1970's formulation of Clairol Herbal Essence shampoo. Yuk.

In trying this one on for the first time today, all I can say is that I am disappointed. As someone who actually can wear very "manly" fragrances and very spicy ones as well, Angel Innocent has literally evaporated from my skin within an 1.5 hours. All that is left is a cornstarch type powder smell.

Pleasantly bland. It has a kind of kittenish sexiness to it, which might be great on a 16-year-old, and dries down to an innocuous, undifferentiated (to my nose) powdery note reminiscent of (but less distinctive than) Blue Grass. Though the original Angel was not a masterpiece, it was groundbreaking in its time as a "gourmet" fragrance evoking mango and chocolate. This is just "bleh."

Angel and I have never gotten along very well, despite my best efforts and sincere wishes, and so when Angel Innocent launched I had high hopes. Conspicuously absent of the patchouli - which I was confident was the one note that caused Angel to stink to high heaven on me - Angel Innocent seemed an answer to my prayers, a confectionary nougat that I could wear with abandon and relish for its simple, sweet, dental carrie-causing gourmand deliciousness. Well - wrong. What Angel Innocent really turned me on to was the evils of dewberry, one of the few things it shares with its angelic predecessor. Now, I spent most of my developmental years in the Eighties, and did as much of the Elle mag-Benetton-Body Shop routine as the next chick; I know from the yuck of The Body Shop's Dewberry Oil, as it characteristically scented many of those years and not at all in a good way. Yet, when it turned up in Angel, I wasn't aware of it; all the blame there went to the patchouli (and still does, in large measure.) It wasn't until I got to Angel Innocent that I began to detect something of a pattern; the nature of the "off"-ness was different from Angel's, but not completely so. Angel Innocent is more about sugared almonds, brown sugar divinity and nougat, less about the honey sticks, vanilla fondant and caramel-filled chocolate bon-bons that live in Angel's particular region of candyland. Angel Innocent is grounded by musk and amber, not patch; it runs more powdery than Angel does. It's even got some bergamot in there, so that the topnotes don't drizzle around you the way they do in Angel. But innocent though it may be, it still smells as horribly rotten on me as Angel does. Just in a different way. Bad, bad dewberry. How I wish it would go back to the 80s and stay where it belongs!

Just like Angel for a tiny bit, then it bisects and, while keeping a somewhat spicy tobaccoish base, not unlike D&G pour Homme's, starts speaking the tongue of synthetic food flavors - namely, fake apple and fake raspberry (very much like car deodorizer...). This has to be the epitome of the post-gourmet fragrance, in that it pushes the 'real' edible thing one further level away: it evokes an imitation of a real thing.