Longwood Gardens Always In Bloom ~ perfume review

Posted by Robin on 27 April 2010 55 Comments

Longwood Gardens Always In Bloom

It’s very nearly May Day. On May Day — May 1st — the French traditionally buy lily of the valley bouquets, and perfumistas traditionally wear lily of the valley perfume.

Your options, of course, are many. There are the classics: Christian Dior Diorissimo, Caron Muguet du Bonheur (I checked, they’re still making it), and Guerlain Muguet (they usually release a new version every year on May Day in Paris). There are the modern niche fragrances: Parfums Delrae Début, Van Cleef & Arpels Muguet Blanc, Parfums MDCI Un Coeur en Mai, and if you can get your hands on it, Annick Goutal’s now discontinued Le Muguet. There are the chain-store standbys: Crabtree & Evelyn, Woods of Windsor, Yardley, Taylor of London and Caswell-Massey all make lily of the valley soliflores. And of course, there’s the budget option: Coty’s Muguet des Bois (I checked, they’re still making that too and you can even buy it at Target). There are no doubt many others — please comment if you know of one I missed.

Longwood Gardens’ new fragrance, Always in Bloom, is likewise focused on lily of the valley…

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Van Cleef & Arpels Muguet Blanc ~ perfume review

Posted by Robin on 5 November 2009 152 Comments

Lily of the Valley

After immediately falling head over heels in love with Bois d’Iris, to the tune of $185, I took my time about the other five fragrances in the Collection Extraordinaire from Van Cleef & Arpels. As it turns out, they’re all nicely done, and I can see why Gardénia Pétale in particular has found admirers. But none of them made me catch my breath other than the Muguet Blanc, and my reaction to that one was not entirely positive.

Here’s what Neiman Marcus has to say about Muguet Blanc:

Muguet Blanc showcases the purity, innocence and much-anticipated beauty of one of springtime’s first flowers. A green, joyous and incredibly delicate arrangement, graceful lily-of-the-valley is enhanced with exotic white peony, radiant neroli and uplifting white cedar.

For the most part, that’s right on the money; the part I’m going to quibble about is mostly the “joyous”. To explain why, I need to back up. A little warning before I proceed: those of you who are sick to death of hearing me wax nostalgic about the lost glory days of perfumery, move on, there’s nothing else to read here today…

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Parfums MDCI Un Coeur en Mai ~ perfume review

Posted by Robin on 7 July 2009 100 Comments

Parfums MDCI Un Coeur en Mai perfume

Un Coeur en Mai is one of the more recent launches from Parfums MDCI, the French niche brand that packages its perfumes in limited edition, numbered bottles featuring Limoges bisque stoppers. They’re $610 a pop, and anyone who reads here regularly knows that this is precisely the sort of “luxury” that is bound to irritate me beyond measure, and the price of the refills, $235 for 60 ml, hardly helps matters. So it was with great satisfaction that I tested the first 5 MDCI perfumes, found them beautifully done but neither outrageously wonderful nor outrageously interesting¹, and moved on to other matters.

As always, I should have left well enough alone, but I dutifully tried the next 4 releases: Péché Cardinal, Le Rivage des Syrtes & Vêpres Siciliennes, and lastly, Un Coeur en Mai. I know Péché Cardinal has found fans, but it was very nearly a scrubber on me (ghastly fruit roll ups), and Le Rivage des Syrtes and Vêpres Siciliennes both left me cold. The last one to go on skin, Un Coeur en Mai, was the one that did me in…

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Strange Invisible Perfumes Epic Gardenia, Aquarian Roses & Urban Lily ~ perfume review

Posted by Robin on 28 April 2009 40 Comments

Strange Invisible Perfumes Aquarian Roses, Epic Gardenia & Urban Lily perfumes

Epic Gardenia, Aquarian Roses and Urban Lily make up the new spring floral trio from all-natural brand Strange Invisible Perfumes. I love many fragrances from Strange Invisible Perfumes, but it isn’t exactly my “go to” brand for pretty-girly-spring florals so I was very curious to see what they’d do with these traditionally feminine floral notes.

And I was extra extra curious because I was keeping my fingers crossed that Epic Gardenia would turn out to be a reprise of their gorgeous but gone Lady Day fragrance. Alas, no: as March has already pointed out at Perfume Posse, it’s no such thing. The top notes are a bit heady and indolic, with a strong undercurrent of green, but that stage doesn’t last long; after that, it’s nearly but not quite sheer, and the “gardenia” — bearing in mind that gardenia is very difficult to extract, and so this perfume, like most gardenia perfumes, doesn’t contain any “real” gardenia — is a bit less gardenia-ish and a bit more mixed jasmine-ish floral…

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Ellie by Ellie D ~ fragrance review

Posted by Robin on 26 April 2007 10 Comments

Ellie perfume by Ellie D

Ellie is the fragrance debut from Ellie D, a line created by Jessica Dunne. Ellie was inspired by (and named for) Dunne’s grandmother; Dunne reportedly wanted to “create a perfume infused with nostalgia with youthful and modern sensibility”. The perfumer was Michel Roudnitska, and the notes include bergamot, tangerine, cyclamen, lily of the valley, jasmine, gardenia, rose, fig leaves, vetiver, sandalwood, musk, vanilla and coconut.

Ellie starts with bright citrus and greenery; the heart is a simply lovely blend of florals dominated by lily of the valley. The jasmine is ever-so-slightly indolic, and there is a tiny, short-lived hint of rose…

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Now Smell This

a blog about perfume

Longwood Gardens Always In Bloom ~ perfume review

Van Cleef & Arpels Muguet Blanc ~ perfume review

Parfums MDCI Un Coeur en Mai ~ perfume review

Strange Invisible Perfumes Epic Gardenia, Aquarian Roses & Urban Lily ~ perfume review

Ellie by Ellie D ~ fragrance review