An_oud_girl and I went on our 3rd (already?) monthly trip to Stanford Shopping Center -- the only place in our area for niche and high-end stuff; you have to go San Francisco to find another Neiman Marcus.
As always, it was a lot of fun, spraying and sniffing! We visited Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's and Sephora. I felt like I've already sampled through the classics/mainstays, so this time around I focused on the new stuff that I read about here on BN, on blogs, etc.
Here are a few mini reviews and impressions on what we saw:
Hermes Pamplemousse Rose: The citrus opening is indeed wonderful, but very quickly the top notes dissipate and I'm left with a metallic note that I also detect in TDC Bois d'Iris and Terre d'Hermes, which I don't enjoy. With the addition of musky vetiver, it's too 'cologny' for me at this stage. On a positive side, it's 'fresh' and 'natural' smelling -- and not in a sickly-synthetic way that a lot of department store fragrances are guilty of. 3 stars.
Estee Lauder Private Collection Jasmin White Moss: Green, dry and sweet at the same time -- very nice. My favorite so far in the 3 PC scents, maybe because jasmine is fairly subdued -- in fact I need to sniff pretty hard to smell any. Upon initial application, it reminded me of YSL Y, but a touch dryer. Bloomingdale's already had it on sale, while NM had a pre-release tester. 4 stars.
MAC Naked Honey: This is more of a 'honeyed floral' than 'naked honey' to me. Still very nice, but not quite bottle worthy for me, since I'm not a die-hard fan of florals. 4 stars.
MAC Africanimal: That's indeed a honey scent, which could be a bad or good thing, depending on where you stand on having honey in your fragrance. I'm a bit of a honey fiend: I like honey body products etc. There's also something sultry in it, keeping it from being a straight up honey scent. 4.5 stars (cheating a bit with a split rating, since I did not buy it on the spot -- but maybe I will).
Creed Acqua Florentina: NM had a bottle to test from, but were not selling it yet. It seemed to be a standard issue fruity-floral ("light and fresh" as SAs like to point out) -- I don't recall being too impressed. But again, I tested it in passing. 3 stars.
Marc Jacob Lola: Bloomingdale's had a pre-release tester, and I quickly tested on skin -- it was mostly musky peony to me & reminded me of Ineke Chemical Bonding (also musky peony to my nose.) I washed it off in about 10 min before waiting for a far dry down, but based on the first 10 min I don't think I'd be buying it. 3 stars.
Sephora did not have anything new or interesting (ouch, have I mined it to the bottom already?) so we left pretty quickly.
Looking forward to the next 'smell fest'! If we don't go in July, then it will be the BN group sniff day in San Francisco.
As always, it was a lot of fun, spraying and sniffing! We visited Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's and Sephora. I felt like I've already sampled through the classics/mainstays, so this time around I focused on the new stuff that I read about here on BN, on blogs, etc.
Here are a few mini reviews and impressions on what we saw:
Hermes Pamplemousse Rose: The citrus opening is indeed wonderful, but very quickly the top notes dissipate and I'm left with a metallic note that I also detect in TDC Bois d'Iris and Terre d'Hermes, which I don't enjoy. With the addition of musky vetiver, it's too 'cologny' for me at this stage. On a positive side, it's 'fresh' and 'natural' smelling -- and not in a sickly-synthetic way that a lot of department store fragrances are guilty of. 3 stars.
Estee Lauder Private Collection Jasmin White Moss: Green, dry and sweet at the same time -- very nice. My favorite so far in the 3 PC scents, maybe because jasmine is fairly subdued -- in fact I need to sniff pretty hard to smell any. Upon initial application, it reminded me of YSL Y, but a touch dryer. Bloomingdale's already had it on sale, while NM had a pre-release tester. 4 stars.
MAC Naked Honey: This is more of a 'honeyed floral' than 'naked honey' to me. Still very nice, but not quite bottle worthy for me, since I'm not a die-hard fan of florals. 4 stars.
MAC Africanimal: That's indeed a honey scent, which could be a bad or good thing, depending on where you stand on having honey in your fragrance. I'm a bit of a honey fiend: I like honey body products etc. There's also something sultry in it, keeping it from being a straight up honey scent. 4.5 stars (cheating a bit with a split rating, since I did not buy it on the spot -- but maybe I will).
Creed Acqua Florentina: NM had a bottle to test from, but were not selling it yet. It seemed to be a standard issue fruity-floral ("light and fresh" as SAs like to point out) -- I don't recall being too impressed. But again, I tested it in passing. 3 stars.
Marc Jacob Lola: Bloomingdale's had a pre-release tester, and I quickly tested on skin -- it was mostly musky peony to me & reminded me of Ineke Chemical Bonding (also musky peony to my nose.) I washed it off in about 10 min before waiting for a far dry down, but based on the first 10 min I don't think I'd be buying it. 3 stars.
Sephora did not have anything new or interesting (ouch, have I mined it to the bottom already?) so we left pretty quickly.
Looking forward to the next 'smell fest'! If we don't go in July, then it will be the BN group sniff day in San Francisco.
