Versace Versense (2009)
by Versace

This is awesome! It smells to my nose like a green version of D&G Light Blue, that synthetic but so good sweet. Like Light Blue, this is almost unisex, if all the femme notes (sea lilly?) in the middle were removed. Very modern, for the confident woman...HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Very citrusy opening, I smell coriander. Then it dries down to a citrus MUSK. The drydown is masculine, I smell nothing feminine about it. I would love it on a man, on myself I'd smell SKANKY.

This one took me completely by surprise.

I was shopping for something in my usual oriental range, and took home samples of this fragrance mainly because it's so hard to get samples these days, I'm grateful for any offered. I frankly had no interest in what, in the bottle and on paper, smelled like just another desperately "transparent" modern fragrance.

I gave it another sniff, and recognized bergamot, so, in deference to Shalimar, I applied it to my skin.

It opens with the sophisticated lemony smell you expect from bergamot, with an earthy zing from the cardamom and a certain gracious roundness that I attribute to the fig. Soon, this warms up with sandalwood and cedar, and the lovely play of jasmine. Jasmine, here freed from its usually overbearing companion, forms the perfect counterpoint to the woody heart of a masterfully blended fragrance.