Reviews by Pachinko

Eau d'Orange Verte by Hermès

I'd love to review this, but it lasted about five minutes before disappearing completely. It's laugable. I thought that Hiris was bad....

Tommy Girl by Tommy Hilfiger

Gorgeous scent. Starts off a bit sharp but settles down to a beautiful floral tea, very fresh and sweet. This was a pleasant surpirse, especially for the price.

Voile de Jasmin by Bulgari

Very poor staying power and smells like a product instead of a perfume.

Égoïste / L'Égoïste by Chanel

Overpoweringly sweet and syrupy. I regularly wear women's scents, including Chanel scents, but find this too feminine. I bought a sample and thought the fragrance had been replaced with a cheap knock-off...then I smelled some at the department store and realized that what I had was genuine.

Iris Bleu Gris by Maître Parfumeur et Gantier

I wanted to love this, not only because I'm a big iris fan but because I found a big bottle on discount. Alas. While the drydown is nice, there is a sour, soupy undertone that nauseated me a little. In reading reviews of of MP et G fragrances, I gather that they tend to have a more raw, natural quality. This may be the problem. Or, I may not yet be sophisticated enough to appreciate these perfumes. This one will have to wait.

Bandit by Robert Piguet

Bought EDP unsniffed, on reputation only. Amazing. It's a warm, strong, spicy leather with a liquor-like intensity. Deep and sophisticated but a little brutal as well. I was overwhelmed when I first put it on and thought I'd made a big mistake in purchasing it, but I'm falling in love by degrees as it dries down. A very special scent.

Firefly by Demeter Fragrance Library

For me, this scent has a very specific referent: those segmented, plastic trays of flowers that nurseries sell in the spring. Subtle floral notes compete with the loamy scent of wet, pillow-soft, mica-flecked soil, and I swear that I detect a note of chemical fertilizer, like TruGreen, whispering beneath. Powerfully evocative of suburban childhoods (and quite possibly other kinds of childhoods as well!).

Lady Stetson by Stetson

This is a beautiful fragrance and does not smell cheap in the least to me. It opens with slightly sharp, aldehydic spicy peach and dries down to eggnog: creamy vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon. It is lovely and lifts my mood. It's a fantastic bargain for the price.

Givenchy Gentleman by Givenchy

This smells to me like a more refined (read: more polite) version of Kouros. The civet pops to the forefront when first applied but recedes behind the leather and vetiver shortly. I actually like the civet in this context; it provokes but doesn't stick around for a long time. Lovely and powerful.

Aramis by Aramis

Wow. This is one of those fragrances I've smelled many times before without realizing what it was. And, yes, it somehow smells like the scent of old people. To me, it recalls a scenario: being a little boy having my hair cut. The barber is a man in his 60s with thick, silver, pomaded hair. He's been smoking heaving since he was 13 and exudes the scent of decades of cigarette smoke through his pores. When he leans in for a close trim, you smell it: the smoke, the sour sweat, the distant, clean note of soap and aftershave. It's actually extraordinary, but it's not something I'd wear. Yet.

Mitsouko by Guerlain

Eeek.

I tried this after reading the laudatory reviews of it. This is a very strange scent. Goes on powdery and dries down to a strongly gastronomic, savory, fleshy scent. Peanut is a fair description. I find it a little alarming and not very appealing.

Chinatown by Bond No. 9

I smell the peach note only after several minutes, and then it's a strange, waxy fruitiness that smells Chapstick-like. The first, and overwhelming, scent that I pick up initially is cinammon. The cinammon lingers, becoming more and more attentuated, as the scent wears down. This is a strange fragrance...not sure where I come down on it yet.

Dirt by Demeter Fragrance Library

This is a suprisingly lovely and powerful fragrance. As mentioned, the top notes smell like freshly turned, moist earth, more elemental than vegetal. The dry-down is indescribable but reminds me of cocoa powder, dry and rich without being sweet. This is one of the few fragrances where the quick fading doesn't bother me. This is a strong scent that could easily be overpowering.

Grass by Gap

I was thrilled to see this fragrance return. I loved it in the '90s. To my nose, this reissue is not substantially different from my memory of the fragrance. It's a warm, round, sunny, sweet grass scent that's at once pure and very sexy. It's both naive and witty, and it still gives me great pleasure. I'd tried several grass scents after this one was discontinued, and none came clase. I bought two small body sprays and two large EDT bottles this time around.