Bronze Goddess Eau Fraîche Skinscent (2008)
by Estée Lauder

This is one of my absolute favorite summer/beachy scents. It has a definite coconut sweetness to it, so it may not be for those of you who are not a fan of coconut. It is light but not fleeting, and seems to warm on the skin into a gorgeous floral/coconut suntan oil scent. It's perfect in the summer, but also great in the dead of winter to remind you of great times spent in the warm sunshine. I can't recommend this one enough!

Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess Eau Fraiche Skinscent

As someone who grew up in South Florida I feel a strong personal connection to the beach and the smells of the beach. It is one of the reasons I like aquatics for the ability to re-create the smell of the ocean and the surf. There is another way to conjure the beach milieu and that is to go for that melange of scent that encompasses sun-baked skin and the suntan oil slathered on that skin. Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess, the 2008 release, does that. There is a little contretemps about this scent because it is often compared to the 2007 release designed by Tom Ford, in 2007, called Azuree Soleil Eau Fraiche Skinscent. I have a sample of this and to my nose the two scents are identical and so I am going to credit Tom Ford with the design of Bronze Goddess, too. One of the harder things to do when trying to emulate a day on the beach in a perfume bottle is to keep it light but intense. This is because when you're at the beach the breeze comes along and whisks away any scents before they get too strong but then it lulls and you get a strong sense of the scents around you. Bronze Goddess does a great job of this. Right at the top you get a mix of light florals and coconut. Like the gardenia and jasmine bushes back at the edge of the beach and the slowly browning body on the towel next to you slathered with coconut sunscreen. On the other side of you a child is snacking on a candy apple as a sweet caramel accord joins the mix. Just beyond the next towel there are some dudes playing hacky sack and you get a hint of the incense they were burning in their van up in the parking lot. As the sun sets you smell the wood being collected for the evening fire pit as you pack up your towel and head home from your day at the beach. I could wish that Mr. Ford had chosen to include an ozonic accord of some kind to evoke the surf because this trip to the beach is oddly devoid of any hint of water. What is here is really quite nice and goes well with a sunny summer day whether I'm on the beach or not.

Truly makes you feel like a goddess. Bought it on the spot, as it smelled so breathtakingly good. Whenever I spray it on, my boyfriend would start kissing my neck like crazy after taking just a few whiffs. Perfect for summer, best if sprayed directly onto skin, not on the clothes. Warm, delicate, sunny, perfect in every sense except for its lasting power -- I'd reapply it every 2 hours just to make sure it's there.

OK, now I'm delving into my bag for it again... :)

A colleague kindly gave me a bottle of this today for no other reason than she loves me to bits. I ADORE this fragrance. It's going to be my summer scent. It's so warm, and sensual, and the guys LOVE it.

It would appear this is back for 2009 (in Boots, UK anyway).

After searching high and low, reading excellent reviews on it, I finally got around to smelling it!
It is everything everyone has said so far. REAL beach, suntan lotion, salt, sand sweat. I would have loved it had it not given me a headache from hell! There is a note in there that makes my head throb, and jarrs with all the nice stuff thrown into this blend. For this reason alone I wouldnt buy it, but def worth a sniff if beachy scents are for you. I may give it another go though, just to be sure it wasnt a one off bad experience!

This is what you wear when you want to remember that fabulous beach vacation any time. The afternoons spent walking the beach, swimming in the surf, napping in the sun. A wonderful fragrance with the ability to transport you to the beach immediately. On me, it stays close to the skin which is OK because I seem to do the wrist-to-the-nose quite often. I'll keep this on hand for as long as it's available. Love this one!