Badgley Mischka by Badgley Mischka, 2006

Impulsively and regrettably, I swapped a full bottle of Hypnotic Poison for a full bottle of Badgley Mischka, unsniffed. It was spring, and I wanted a change. I already had a bottle of Hypnotic Poison parfum, and felt the EDT was going unused. I wanted to shed my heavy, gothy, rosey, tuberose, and decadent notes for something just as sophisticated but sweet, fresh, fun, different. The review in Perfumes: the A-Z Guide made Badgley Mischka sound like the perfect fit- a gorgeous and sophisticated fruity floral. I can be traditional in that I love unabashed, feminine florals, many of which do fall into the "fruity floral" category. However, I don't particularly like fruit notes except for peach, and only when it is an accent, not the focus. Badgley Mischka is all fruit, as Sanchez says, "a big, breathtakingly gorgeous fruity top note". Well, the adjectives work if you like fruit, but if you don't, replace gorgeous with stressful and you have my reaction upon receiving a full bottle in the mail. I immediately had swapper's regret, and have missed my Hypnotic Poison EdT ever since. Today my Badgley Mischka is once again headed out for swap, and I've tested it just to remember my reaction. Anything is easier to appreciate when you know it will soon be gone, and so this time, I notice the jasmine middle notes, and the patchouli base and woody dry down. As far as fruity florals go, this one really is sophisticated, and would stand out among the other department store fruity florals as chic, subtle, and glamorous. However, those fresh, fruity, synthetic top notes still nag me, and I will not regret sending it off to someone else who will hopefully appreciate it more than me.

I usually detest anything too fruity, especially in strong doses, however Badgley Mischka is glorious. Whenever I think of this fragrance, as strange as it may sound, I think of a fruit salad gone wild, drowning in boozy rum and gorging itself on caramel toffees. The scent is thick and heavy like golden syrup drizzling off a wooden spoon. The more I smell this, the more addicted I become. The scent is very rich yet classy at the same time. It doesn't smell cheap or pre-pubescent like some syrupy and fruity scents tend to be. It reminds me a little of Miss Dior Cherie, just without the overly sweetened strawberry wine note and all the girly nonsense. What I love about Badgley Mischka is that it doesn't attempt to be pretty, it wants to make a statement, and that it does, boldly and proudly. If subtle scents are your thing, I'd probably skip trying this, however if you're like me and love the scents that often make people gag or sneeze, go right ahead and douse yourself in this. This is one fruity fragrance that I desire in copious amounts. I'm so glad to see Tania Sanchez giving this fragrance five stars in her book, 'Perfumes: The Guide', and I must agree that learning to love this fragrance takes time and a lot of patience. After a few wears, I almost guarantee you'll be hooked.

Once again, skin chemistry determines whether a perfume works or doesn't...I found Badgley Mischka to be a surprise hit for me. Although I do love flowers in nature, I'm rarely thrilled by the anonymous "white floral" notes of floral perfumes. There are exceptions, of course, but more often than not those are soliflores dedicated to replicating a single flower, often with a complex structure of many other notes for depth & interest. (DK Gold comes to mind.) But many floral offerings strike me as generic, sickly-sweet, lacking in depth, or unfortunately synthetic. And they tend to go even sweeter on me... Badgley Mischka went on both bright and lush, happily lacked any prominent artificiality, and went on to develop a warmth that underlined the exuberant florals with a hint of ripe fruit and a ghost of spice and/or resin (?), giving it some real backbone. It's a fairly subtle perfume on me---definitely not overblown or strong---and settles into skin scent within the first hour or less. In fact, opposite to what others have experienced, that is its main weakness for me: it lacks tenacity & projection. If it had more oomph, it would go on my favorites list for its quality and skillful blending.

A *masterpiece*? BADGLEY MISCHKA? Clearly I'm missing something. Sure it smells nice enough, but there's no no cause for olfactory ecstasy in this genteel ANGEL derivative. (Isn't that actually a contradiction in terms?) To my nose, this composition is a essentially a weak solution of the ANGEL base with some stewed peaches (no extra sugar added, thankfully) thrown into the mix. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that BADGLEY MISCHKA might have been one of the Angel of Stars, "Angel La Pêche, well, except that it is way too weak, so they'd have to bottle the extrait as the edp (which is in any case what Thierry Mugler appears to have done with all of the ANGEL namesake flankersthat's why a lifetime supply can be found in those apparently small .8oz bottles!). I disagree with the categorization of BADGLEY MISCHKA as a fruity chypre. When I think fruity chypre, I think YVRESSE or DECI DELA or FEMME ROCHAS or MITSOUKO or BRYANT PARK. Patchouli alone does not a chypre make, IMNSHO. In my perfume book, chypre is an honorific term denoting a texture and depth entirely absent from BADGLEY MISCHKA. Nor is BADGLEY MISCHKA a fruity-floral perfume, as Luca Turin's wife maintainsshe claims in her review of FLEURS DE NUIT that BADGLEY MISCHKA unexpectedly perfected the much-maligned fruity-floral genre. Say what? Since when is patchouli a flower? Clearly the authors of The Guide are bankingand I mean that, I really doon the fact that most of their readers are utter ignoramuses. But I digress... Although the opening of BADGLEY MISCHKA is an attention grabber, it is short-lived, ceding nearly immediately to a polite, very light oriental with middling longevity. Because it has been the object of a serious mission civilisatrice, BADGLEY MISCHKA will not remind many of ANGEL, I realize. Perhaps aesthetically it would be better compared to FERRE edp, except that the latter is a much more beautiful perfume, with a unique and distinctive identity, rather than being simply another distant relative to a famous perfume. (okay, it is related to IRIS POUDRE, by the same perfumer, but it's still unique...). In FERRE edp, fruit is skillfully deployed to complement iris. In BADGLEY MISCHKA, the fruit is just trying to break through, even to be discernible amidst the dominant, albeit dilute, ANGELesque base. Happily, the bottle really is a work of art.

My liking Badgley Mishcka is akin to the person who hates all white florals loving Fracas. I dont have anything against the notion of the fruity floral per se, but Id never smelled one that I liked (at all) until Badgley Mischka. It proves that if a things worth doing, its worth overdoing. The fruits are fermented, the florals dont show their innocence, just their decay. The patchouli is a sweet undertone to the sloppy drunk feel of the beginning, but you know when its great? Put it on, start to sweat a bit, and the patchouli combining with the hootch makes you seem like a bit of a hippy lush. People think this stuff is old-Hollywood soigné? Really? I find it much more blatantly queer than the mock-normalcy (and its mirror image, feral ambition) that I associate with old-Hollywood. I think the key is the part with the fewest spoken lines: the florals. If theres jasmine here, all I get is the indole. If theres peony, its that ammonia-smelling angle of peonies just starting to turn. If these floral bits were any stronger, Badgeley Mischkas first words to you would be bad breath. As it stands, theyre more the, Hello! Darling! kiss-kiss greeting of a fabulous friend meeting you at the door as you arrive just late to his cocktail party.