Fragrance Reviews by an_oud_girl

Amber and incense with a prominent, intriguing cola (anise?) note. The incense is not at all sharp, grey, or cold. It is very nicely warmed and softened by the noticable amber. I find this beautiful and long lasting.

I used to say, "I can't wear musk. It doesn't smell right on me. It's too heavy and suffocating...," etc. This is a wonderful, well-blended, clean musk. The fragrance is softly floral (I typically don't like delicate florals) and a little bit soapy (don't like soapy or powdery) and musky (see above), and I really like it! This scent is as "animalic" as a white fluffy kitten with blue eyes playing in a knitting basket on a southern veranda in the springtime.

Parfum extrait: Spicy, creamy, and woody. Very elegant. Dry, with little floral quality, and the extrait is not at all sweet. I find this unisex. It makes me think of a raw silk blouse in a luminous ivory color. In fact, this is much like the smell of raw silk (which I find distinct)-- warm, dry, and nubby yet buttery soft.

A gourmand scent that I mostly like (and that's saying a lot). Almonds, cherries, vanilla. Starts off spicy and liquor-y, indeed like cherry cough syrup. This is not a bad thing to me-- I like this cherry cough syrup. A bit powdery, but not too much. The boozy spiciness fades in the drydown, leaving cherries and powder that is more comforting than cloying. I'd wear this at Christmas time.

After trying this several times, my impression remains a disappointed "meh." It's not just that the fragrance is lightweight and sits close, but parts of it feel missing on me. The bergamot and florals I noticed in the beginning quickly become thin, the patchouli is nice and interesting but also weak, and the whole thing is sadly unimpressive.

This is very, very weak on my skin. I've worn it several times and I find it difficult to review because I've now pumped six sprays on my forearm and elbow, and I can barely pick up a thing. Faint sandalwood, spice, amber, and maybe some fruit. A fairly dry scent overall. It does have some projection, oddly enough. I've encountered weird scents before that you can catch whiff of in the air around you, but when you put nose to skin they seem to run and hide. I do get a little similarity to Feminite du Bois, but FdB is much boozier and fruiter (like plum wine with spices), and much more potent. Too bad I have to pass on this one because I love the bottle.

A citrusy rose. Fresh, sheer, and youthful. Some reviewers mention tea, which may be what smooths out anything overly pungent from the zesty lemon and orange, and gives the rose a damp, dew-dappled quality. Definitely an excellent rose-based fragrance for a young person (you won't smell like grandma's soap!), but enjoyable as well for the more mature person who shies away from fruity florals.

I love it. This is a beautiful treatment of lily-- not honey-sweetened, not ripe and lush, but elevated to something bright, weightless and almost pungent by spicy ginger. I don't find amber to be much in evidence until well into the drydown, but it is quite exotic, especially when the incense comes forward. Yet, I wouldn't call this scent "dark." The incense isn't brooding, the lily not funereal. This to me is a beautful summer fragrance; serene and uplifting. It reminds me of visiting a Japanese garden on a warm afternoon, sitting in an azumaya shaded by surrounding cypress trees, watching the koi investigate brightly hued fallen leaves from Japanese maples floating on the surface of a sun-dappled pond.

This is just plain boring next to the likes of L'Occitane's Eau des Baux. They got it right the first time. That said, it's not a bad scent, so I'll go neutral.

A lightly soapy, somewhat fussy, full-bodied chypre. The florals are very big (with a good dollop of aldehydes, I bet), and the orange blossom gets a little sour on me. I'm a fan of chypres and wanted to like this more, but it has that feeling of being too mature and stolid for my taste.

Well-named. This is a resinous, rich amber scent. It does have a dark, mysterious quality. The vanilla blends in a silky smooth creaminess, and a hint of patchouli adds just the right subtle touch of dark, peppery earthiness. Lasts a very long time.

I'm pretty sure the world didn't need another fruity-floral, but this one is nicely done. It's uplifting, well-balanced, not too sweet (more floral than fruity), and perfectly inoffensive. These days, it's easy to turn one's nose up at yet another common fruity-floral. However, in this case, it's easy to turn my nose toward this one.

I like how it smells like the entire fig tree-- the leaves, the sap, even the dirt where the over-ripe ones hit the ground before I get to them. It pushes sweetness just a little too far for me (I'm so particular about sweet), but this does lend a mouth-watering effect to the fragrance that reminds me of plucking a fig right off the tree and stuffing it in my mouth. Fig lovers should be very happy.

Leans more toward sweet lily of the valley than true, heady lily on my skin. A very nice, clear, ringing muguet floral dappled with honey that for me suits cool, sunny days. Lovely, but not quite me (I like but don't love lily) and just a little too sweet (I'm twitchy about sweet). Since I realize sweetness is mostly a personal preference and find it otherwise quite pretty, I'm going thumbs up.

Very true lily scent; like wearing a big bouquet of stargazers. I get the watery cucumber that some have mentioned mid-way thru the drydown, but later it snaps back to being a fully bloomed lily scent. In the end, these lush lilies aren't my thing, even in cool weather, but for those who do dig lily, it's a very good one.

Anise, vanilla, and musk dominate this sweet oriental. It reminds me of Lolita Lempicka, which is also a 'meh' for me, but a little more interesting. Classique has even more sweet vanilla going on. Pass.

I'm very surprised this is considered a women's fragrance. I would've thought unisex at the very least. It leans too far masculine for my taste. The pungent herbal notes are bitter on my skin and I don't care for the strong powdery freshness.

Starts as a spicy, dry almond; woody and floral. There is a touch of powder. After a while the heliotrope (cherry vanilla) emerges more strongly and spicy/sweet. This is similar to the cherry cough syrup note in Louve, but it interestingly appears in the drydown rather than at the beginning like Louve. I prefer this to Louve.

Very sweet fruit-- mandarin, apricot, mango. Florals come from jasmine and rose. Described as a chypre, which I don't get at all (I think "new-chypres" are more about marketing than true perfumery). No oakmoss; instead the tonka bean comes thru in the base with its creamy, nutty vibe, and the result leaves me feeling like I'm wearing a fruit-blend pina colada.

This reminds me of the damp, sparkling floral notes of Gucci Envy rendered more sheer and set atop leather. The leather really comes forward on me, and while many comment on this as a summer fragrance (which Envy is to me), I think the leather makes it a winning scent for winter as well. In cooler months, I tend to wear deep, resinous, rich scents. But that can get monotonous, and this feels stunning on those bright, crisp, cloudless days when you can feel the sun on your face, yet still need a heavy jacket. It's an unusual combination at first (buttery leather and airy florals), but I quickly came to love it.

Another impressive achievement from Jo Malone. I typically dislike mint, and find jasmine troublesome, but here there is just enough mint to take the indolic, dirty edge off the jasmine. The mint does get a bit much mid-way through, but overall the result is beautifully balanced, shining and uplifting.

I was attracted by the name of this fragrance and was also disappointed. Imagine the Angel is a vapid fruity floral who supposes herself to be pure and lovely. She decides to get her wicked up by getting in some (Boucheron) Trouble, as bold an oriental as winking at a bartender. This is not a bad scent if I think of it as a youthful oriental. But it's not to my taste and I can see how many others don't care for it either.

Gorgeous! Fantastic! Amazing! Holy Grail?! I understand now that this can exist. So many favorites seem now in the distance. This is a "leave now doubt" seductive chypre. It is breathtakingly feminine. Not the kind of aggressive, more unisex chypre that conveys "arm's length" distance, or detachment. And I'm wrong-- it is aggressive. Aggressively sexy *and* refined. It goes both ways, in all directions, and doesn't look when crossing the street because it stops traffic.

I enjoy this soft, floral-fresh fragrance. It gets a little candy-sweet in the midnotes, but dries down into a lovely scent. The freshness is more fresh like cotton than fresh like citrus. I would wear this on warm but not hot days during the spring and summer.

Poor Quarry! Maybe this is one of those scents that must be sprayed rather than dabbed to get the most out of it.

On me, this is truly beautiful. Uplifting and soothing. Citrus flits around, but not enough to classify this as citrusy. Beautifully blended florals. There's smooth incense, but it's not dominant. All of these facets mingle together to produce an elegant comfort scent. I also might be getting what others be call the "Play-Doh" accord. I'm reminded more of hot candle wax, however. Since I enjoy burning fragrance candles, this isn't unpleasant to me. It seems to add a layer of mystery to a stunning scent that is already so many things at once.

WL is horrid on me-- all aldehydes and soap. It took 2 1/2 hours for it to settle down into something I don't want to scrub off, and even after four hours I just plain don't like it. I'm pretty sure I over-applied, but even with that consideration this is not something I would ever enjoy.

This has a lot of creamy, sweet vanilla that I'm not keen on, and instead of incense I get something more like ashtray. The woods don't really come forward until late in the drydown. I guess I bring out the worst in this fragrance.

This is EXACTLY what I smelled like Back in the Day after a long afternoon at the beach. Salt in my hair, dusty sand between my toes, several absorbed layers of Hawaiian Tropic suntan oil with a little sweat, and the day-long drydown of Jardins de Bagatelle (a big, beautiful white floral that represents the best of the 1980s power frags). It's an incredibe accomplishment.

Delicate and lovely floral, but too light and soapy for my taste.

Sweet eponymous gak. Betsey Johnson's fun clothing is so over the top that it's not really wearable for every occasion. This big, sweet, floral is so over the top that it's completely unwearable for any occasion.

This white floral smells both opulent and refined. Its sophistication suggests evening, but I think it would be perfect for a daytime wedding or a Sunday matinee at the theater. It wears like the fragrant equivalent to diamond stud earrings. I have trouble with many white florals, but this is satin smooth. It has a magnolia, bergamot, peach, jasmine thing going on similar to J'adore, and it is similarly lightweight, but J'adore works easily for almost any occasion (from business to baseball to Beethoven) whereas FdN is clearly a dressy scent. I think it's meant to be applied lavishly. There is also orange blossom; jasmine AND orange blossom are usually an unpleasant one-two punch on me, but they are tempered very nicely here. I think the amber is what lends it that close to the skin headiness and pulls everything together in a creamy, dreamy way to make it all work. I'm thinking it's full bottle worthy if only because it is almost something I normally can't wear, and I'm delighted that I can. And, okay, it's full bottle worthy because the bottle is gorgeous!

Yes, a green fruity-floral built around freesia, lily of the valley, and green notes. This reminds me A LOT of the women's version of Gucci Envy. The fruity note in Union Square smells like apple to me, rather than the sweeter peach and pineapple in Envy. I've often wished Envy was less sweet, but it is also more effervescent than Union Square, and I'd suspected that if the sweetness was dampened, the well-rounded sparkling quality would dim as well. This seems borne out in Union Square. I'm glad I saved a truckload of pennies and found Envy first; it's one of my very favorites. I want to give Union Square a thumbs up, but considering the cost and lack of originality, this otherwise good fragrance doesn't merit it.

When I first applied Black Orchid, I found the opening notes (especially the syrupy black current) way, way too thick and sweet for my taste, and I was convinced people had been hitting their bottle of Dekuyper's a little too hard when trying this out to be singing such praises. There's a good progression when the patchouli and incense enter to temper the sweetness (the chocolate also seems more dark and bitter than sweet), but it remains pretty boozy and I like my incense drier. I'm also just not a big fan of gourmands; I've yet to find a scent with a chocolate note that I like. Dries down first to an ordinary dirty patchouli, then a fine but basic vanilla oriental, which is disappointing given its bombastic beginnings.

I like magnolia. In fact, I like magnolia a lot. But to me Bright Crystal is simply a nice fruity-floral based on magnolia. Hey, at least I said it was a "nice" fruity-floral. There's plenty more that aren't! But I expect better than "nice" from Versace.

This is a mood scent. I've been trying describe how the lavander is soapy, yet isn't, in my comments when I finally realized it could be the incense. It's an old fashioned, bone dry, traditional incense. It smells clear yet dusty, like a 600 year old carefully tended church, open to receive respectful tourists on a summer afternoon. Blended evenly with straightforward lavander. The idea I get most from this scent is that I seldom spend enough time being quiet and absently melancholy enough to mellow out and appreciate it. I also get a masculine sharpness. Vetivers often prejudice me the same way. I can't divine whether it's the lavander or the incense carrying the masculine edge. Lavander is the usual suspect for soapy-sharp, but having bought some craft-made incense sticks at an art and wine fest, I've discerned my notion of a 'gourmet head shop' vibe. Anyway, almost as soon as I decide "dang soapy lavender!," I notice there's black pepper tossing in its own vibration, and green sage. And so here is the difference between thumbs up and neutral. I don't love it. But this clever fragrance presents itself assertively with only few, basic, brilliantly well chosen notes. It comes on strong and edgy, but with main elements that are typically soothing and traditional. It establishes certain presence with certain grace. I'd love to bump into someone who can can pull this off, and I admit I'm not one.

This floral is dusty to me, like perfume on old turn of the century clothes from a trunk in the attic. The scent from an old magnolia tree next to the house comes in thru an open window. Vanilla and honey add sweetness while amber fixes the powdery/dusty florals. I prefer floral scents with a little more zing and sparkle, and green-ness. This old fashioned elegance doesn't just suit me.

Starts out with warm incense and woods. After about 20 minutes the orange kicks into high gear and stays, which caught me by surprise since citrus can be so fleeting. I don't care for it so much myself (despite the incense and woods) as it's a very ripe, sweet, and robust orange, like orange liqueur. I appreciate the scent because the orange is prominent and long lasting, which is an impressive accomplishment for a citrus in my opinion. How this plays out with the woods and incense is quite fascinating. I'd call it an evening citrus, something you don't see often in perfumery. I'm glad others seem to like it a lot, but it's simply not my bag.

Sweet vanilla flowers in a cigarette ashtray. Even sans the unappealing smoke odor, it'd still be too sweet.

Really smells just like orange blossoms. Even though there is tuberose in here as well. Sweet and floral (obviously), but surprisingly very pleasant. Lush, yet not too heady. I love smelling this because it's a beautiful achievement. Unfortunately, it's not something I'd wear simply because it feels somehow awkward on me. I'm not big on wearing white florals, but I love the odor of my orange tree in bloom wafting on the air. Now I have this scent tucked away to enjoy any time of the year!

Apricots, cardamon, and leather. Smells like fall-- leaves turning color, spices for baking persimmons and parsnips, soft leather boots. Sweet like pumpkin kadu from an Afghan restaurant. Sadly, it fades pretty quickly.

A wearable jasmine scent! Almost all jasmine scents do something funky and evil on my skin, but this is truly gorgeous. More green than sweet, the jasmine rings like crystal. Pronounced yet, I want to say sheer, but it's more like a deep lake in green mountains with water so pure and clean that you can see straight to the bottom. I didn't know I could wear jasmine! I ended up wearing this with a brown linen dress in the springtime (when I typically wear pastels), and loved how it felt-- sheer, green jasmine and brown linen in warm weather rocks.

Green! Languid, limpid, sparkling, delightful green! Technically a green, fruity floral with all kinds of notes I thought I'd dislike-- peach, pineapple, freesa, lily of the valley, jasmine. But there's also bergamot, hyacinth, rose. A little on the sweet side for me, it is definitely gree-een. I don't quite understand how something without the usual accords like vetiver or oakmoss or lime can smell so clearly green. And wet! But not damp forest or aquatic. It reminds me of my mother's yard in Florida on a late June afternoon right after a hard rainstorm. Thick, springy St. Augustine grass, vibrant hibiscus bushes, glossy green jasmine vine in bloom, and tall royal palms making green punctuations in the sky, all still dappled and dripping with raindrops in the bright sun after the storm has passed. I wish I could turn down the sweetness, but I think that would sacrifice the sopping (but not soggy) quality. Sparkling like raindrops on the leaves and petals of flowers. Wet, but not oceanic or swampy. Long lasting, about six hours. I enjoy this most on warm, summer days.

Very strong over the top floral. Mimosa, jasmine, mandarin, tuberose. Yuk.

Sharp astringency lasts for over an hour on me before finally settling down to a nice floral on faint, creamy amber. By this time, the scent itself is very faint unfortunately.

Sweet floral with freesia, black currant, almond, and a little vanilla. Also a little spicy-- a sweet, fruity oriental. It is lush smelling, with good complexity and layers, but I'm just not comfortable with anything this sweet.

Very heady florals, too well blended to pick out the rose, jasmine, tuberose, etc., but they're ALL in there and then some! The flowers seems to rest on a chypre-like base. Alltogether too lush for me.

This honeysickle worried me before I consented to try it because indolic scents usually do not behave on my skin. However, it quickly settled into a fairly nice straightforward floral. White florals are typically not my thing for the above reason, but this is well done and it definitely didn't go funky on me like most do, which is quite an accomplishment in my opinion. I wouldn't purchase it because it doesn't suit my personality, but I do appreciate the quality.

A skanky floral chypre! I love chypres, so I want to like this, but I prefer for example the dry, cleanliness of Safari or the lush florals of Paloma Picasso. This one falls indistinctively between the two and the dirty wang leaves me turned off.

Spicy, woody patchouli with creamy almond and amber. It starts a bit sweet for me with the almond. Later comes the cedar aroma, which to me makes this feel a bit medicinal. I want to like this more. Definitely a winter fragrance, I'd wear this with black, or dramatic outfits. It's quite unusual and challenging. Very long lasting.

Nice try for an amber oriental, but too soft and powdery for my taste. As others have noted, it's just not that interesting and there are many, many better orientals on the market.

What I think a traditional, mature, restrained perfume should smell like. A warm, rich floral that is not sweet or cloying or heady. Well blended florals with some amber resting on faint sandalwood. Sophisticated and elegant. Strong, good sillage, but not overwhelming. Nice job, Avon!

Lemon scented Pledge furniture polish, but in a good way. Lemony floral, very fresh and clean, yet it still smells purple. Kinda of like those fruit-colored hard, sour candies you used to get from the gumball machines. It's not grape, just ... purple. I don't understand it, but I like it well enough. Might prefer it as a room freshener, however.

I'm convinced this is one of those fragrances that smells very different depending on the wearer. And it even smells different on this wearer depending on the day. I sense the honeysuckle and jasmine, yet this juice is neither sweet or "wangy" (my word for the unpleasant, funky thing that indoles do on me). I have a very hard time picking out any individual notes, but the overall impression is that of a dry, green floral. Sometimes this starts out on me with a sharpness akin to hairspray, particularly in cooler weather. Fortunately this doesn't present in hot, humid weather and BP also works well in dry heat. I find many of my favorite fragrances too heavy to wear in very hot 90º+ weather, but this one seems made for it and is very enjoyable on those days. I first tried this while in vacation in Florida, loved it, and wore little else for the rest of the trip. However, I absolutely cannot wear this when the temperature is less than 80º. It smells persistenly like hairspray and cat urine!

I love this dry, crisp chypre. It seems to live for the hot, dry summers here in California. At other times of the year I feel more so-so about this scent, but when I wear it in July and August, it really shines and I realize all over again how truly stunning it is. It does seem to conjure the scent and feeling of dry grasses and open, arid plains. It's not a casual fragrance-- what chypre is? But I think it is one of the more easily wearable fragrances in that ofttimes challenging fragrance family. Hoarding is a good idea for this reasonably priced classic.

I was sure I wouldn't like this fragrance because the bottle is just too cute and I don't do too cute. I even avoided it as I was expecting yet another sweet, fruity floral, but I was pleasantly surprised. The sweetness is well balanced by grapefruit and overall it's a very fresh, pleasant scent. It's still too young for me; however, I think I'll suggest it to my niece.