Pure (2008)
by Boadicea the Victorious

Pure is clean in it's approach, it's loud, yet clean and to an extent tranparent. the citrus blended pretty well with green accord giving it a green tinge. i just love the way this green accord is executed. Under the green tinge a prominent accord of Ylang-Ylang and Jasmine swirls up pretty smoothly exudin a fresh breath of florals...the beauty of this scent starts after half hour where oakmoss and woody notes gives this scent a powdery smooth feel as opposed to the sharp accords in openin. green accords gets smoother and jasmine gets a bit more prominent with lovely accords of wood. overall a pleasant scent. doesnt have the ooomphs of a guerlain or a dior but, for wht it has to offer, it does it well. and yes, it's pretty much unisex.

I'm not sure the note pyramid is entirely honest because what I smell is a bit different. Pure starts out like a simple, pleasant citrus - in fact the sparkly topnotes weren't entirely different from one of the Guerlain eaux that I recently acquired. The lemon/cedrat type topnotes give way to a mixed white floral heart and soon a distinctly lily of the valley note emerges. After 1-2 hours the lily begins to fade and a lightly sweetened, amorphous white floral base hangs around for hours. I never detect distinct rose (though it may account for the light sweetness of the white floral accord), and if Pure contains sandalwood, oakmoss, or any woody/mossy type base I don't smell it.

If you separate the so-called 'published notes' from the fragrance itself, Pure is a perfectly competent citrus/floral with good structure and very good longevity. Sillage is what you'd expect from such a fragrance, specifically it's average and were it to be stronger it would likely be very out of place. The quality of materials is very good - nothing smells synthetic or cheap. As a citrus/floral Pure is perfectly acceptable.

If I stopped reviewing here I'd be on the border between thumbs up and neutral. Although fragrances are best judged on their own merits, I can't help but comment on the high-price and purported exclusivity of this new house. As I work through samples of the entire BTV line it strike me that these fragrances typify a lot of what's wrong in niche perfumery. Recently it's as though the niche houses saw a couple other houses charging $2-3/ml and thought "well if they can charge that much so can we." Thus a new house like BTV puts a line of fragrances together, puts them in fancy presentation bottles, and boxes and charges top dollar through limited distribution channels. The problem is that these BTV fragrances - Pure being an excellent example - simply don't have the quality or distinction behind them to command such a high price. There must be enough people who aren't perfume collectors that will drop money on the latest and greatest such that houses like BTV can charge $175/50ml. There must be, because I don't think many people with significant fragrance experience are going to bite at buying simple, competent citrus/florals like Pure when the same money can buy something much, much better. Sure, Pure is 'good' - but since when is just 'good' enough?