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Browsing by tag: powdery

Madly Kenzo ~ perfume review

Posted by Robin on 8 November 2012 40 Comments

Madly Kenzo advert

A woman’s greatest quality is her touch of madness. — Madly Kenzo

Madly Kenzo sparked my interest when it launched last year — it has much in its favor, from the whimsical advertising to the wonderful Ron Arad bottle. And it was done by perfumer Aurelien Guichard, who also worked on Kenzo’s UFO fragrance, a fun limited edition (and limited distribution) fragrance that was sold in a more complicated metal variation on the same bottle design. I hoped Madly might be a more commercial (and affordable) version of that scent; here is what I said about UFO back in 2009:

[It is] meant as “an interpretation of the scent of skin”…That, and the fact that Guichard apparently “delved into memories of his mother sculpting in marble, a contrast between the heat of the sculptor’s hands and the coolness of the material” is really all you need to know — as described, UFO is a transparent incense-y skin scent, slightly metallic in the top notes, later, more mineral-ish than metallic, with a light, slightly milky sweetness and an almost-velvety finish.

Nope…

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Lolita Lempicka L’Eau en Blanc ~ perfume review

Posted by Robin on 12 June 2012 28 Comments

Lolita Lempicka L'Eau en Blanc

L’Eau en Blanc is Lolita Lempicka’s latest limited edition flanker to what is now known as Lolita Lempicka Le Premier Parfum (it used to be called just plain old Lolita Lempicka). L’Eau en Blanc, appropriately enough, was reportedly inspired by the brand’s wedding gowns:1

Lolita Lempicka offers women a new encounter with the First Fragrance, a story of Love and Enchantment… more romantic than ever.

With this new Eau de Parfum, Lolita Lempicka brings all women in love an Ode to Love, a new story that every girl dreams of being the heroine of one day…2

And that’s a pretty good fit with the juice: it’s a powdery floral, very much in keeping with the recent trend of cosmetic powder perfumes…

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Michael Kors Suede & Keiko Mecheri Soussanne ~ perfume reviews

Posted by Robin on 15 May 2012 18 Comments

Tuberoselily

Today, brief reviews of two white florals: Michael Kors Suede and Keiko Mecheri Soussanne.

Michael Kors Suede

It often puzzles me why perfume brands choose the names they do. At the very least, they seem to assume that consumers are paying very close attention — an assumption that seems entirely unwarranted given the number of new fragrance releases every year. So, if you assumed, reasonably enough, that the new Suede by Michael Kors was a soft leather fragrance, sorry, you were quite off base. If you knew enough to recognize the bottle design (see below), and figured based on the bottle that it was a flanker to the brand’s signature fragrance from 2000, Michael by Michael Kors, you were closer to the mark, and if you guessed further that it was a softer, lighter, more summery version, with no relationship to “suede” other than being soft, ding ding ding: you win the prize…

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Lush Silky Underwear ~ perfume review

Posted by Robin on 7 February 2012 50 Comments

jasmine

They like jasmine over at Lush. Whenever I’m feeling particularly wealthy (a rare, and entirely delusional state) I pick up some of their Jasmine & Henna Fluff Ease hair pre-treatment (about $22 for 220g). My hair most certainly needs some pre-treatment, followed by some treatment and then perhaps some post-treatment, but I buy it for the (massive) wallop of jasmine, which lasts right through a shampoo (or two). Once, and only once, I bought a very small travel size of their Flying Fox shower gel ($10 for 100 ml, which mind you doesn’t look like nearly so much product in shower gel as it does in perfume) — another decent wallop of jasmine. And then there’s the Lust fragrance, which arguably out-jasmines both the Fluff Ease and the Flying Fox, and adds a hefty dose of candy to boot.

But their best known jasmine product is probably the Silky Underwear dusting powder. I love the smell,1 but I’m not a big user of dusting powder so I’ve never bought it. I was tempted when they released the same fragrance in a solid perfume,2 but I still didn’t bite…

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Tom Ford Violet Blonde ~ perfume review

Posted by Robin on 22 September 2011 60 Comments

Tom Ford Violet Blonde advert with Lara Stone

Violet Blonde is the latest addition to Tom Ford’s Signature Collection (i.e., it’s not in his more expensive and harder-to-find Private Blend series). It’s his third pillar for women, after Black Orchid and White Patchouli, and it’s in the same ribbed bottle with metal label. This time, the bottle is in clear instead of opaque glass — and just as well, thank you; if they’d done it up in opaque violet glass I’d have had to buy it even if it was a scrubber.

It’s not a scrubber though. Violet Blonde is soft and cushy-powdery, as is the current fashion, but it’s loudly so, in keeping with Tom Ford’s aesthetic.1 I preferred it applied lightly; your mileage, of course, may vary. The opening is a heady mix of citrus, sweet fruit, violet leaf and violet (violet fans take note: it does smell like violet in the early stages). It’s green early on, and peppery throughout. The fruit notes soften as the top notes dissipate, and the violet fades into a jasmine-heavy floral mixed with a dry, peppery iris. The jasmine is clean, with fruity undertones, and it’s strong rather than rich…

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