Vohina by Huitième Art, 2010

Peach and honey start out precariously balanced on the top of the hay notes like small children on a tall horse. Once the fragrance settles the hay becomes more dominant, until the scent melds into ... something changeless, sweet and smooth with no distinguishing features. Like a face in a photo that's been so airbrushed into frozen pleasantness it's lost those individual, quirky features that made it alive. Not a bad scent , just left me feeling it was somehow unnecessary. I get similar indifference to much of Huitieme Art, odd when I like several of Parfumerie Generale's creations.

Vohina would be blandly sweet if it wasn't for the dry, almost woody, warmth to it. Yes, it does smell like a bunch of hay with fragrant wildflowers thrown in, though in an extremely sanitised and perfumey version. Its sweetness is a honeyed sweetness, but the honey is kept in check by that dry note into something softly powdery, never sugary or syrupy. Still, it's to one-dimensional and conventionally girly-cute for me, but in a rather pleasant and well-done way. At least it's not cloying, and that's saying quite a lot for this genre.