Pure by Boadicea the Victorious, 2008

My first impression in testing Pure was "This smells pink." I was surprised at my own reaction, because I really don't know what it means to "smell pink," though I suppose it has to do with the citrus top notes that curiously seem to emphasize sweetness over the fruits' tangy qualities.

To be honest, it smells nothing like the notes that are listed above, and the notes LuckyScent lists for this fragrance are quite different: Bergamot, Sicilian lemon, green tangerine, Mediterranean cypress, basil leaves, Egyptian cumin, juniper berry, ylang ylang, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, vanilla. This seems far more accurate.

The spices kick in soon after the top notes, just enough to give it a bit more oomph, but they fade as the sweetened lemonade fruit notes expand.

Over all, Pure is a clean, fresh, and pleasant fragrance, more fruity than floral. I think it would be best for casual wear as there's something about it that feels not quite serious enough for business or formal use. The sillage isn't particularly strong, though, and I rather suspect that at $245 per bottle this is a high-priced variant of the typical tropical/fruity/holiday scents that can be had for much less.

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?