Did you know that J. Lo perfume is the most frequently searched perfume term on the internet?  Yup, shocked me too.  So given that popularity and our normal propensity for reviewing high end, niche, obscure scents, we’d like from time to time to look at more accessible perfumes and ones that are clearly making a killing in the perfume market.  Someone is buying them, so let’s find out why.

We have some generalizations about the JLo oeuvre, having sniffed seven in a short period of time. First, there´s a unified feel to these that indicates JLo´s involvement in these on some level. Not that she designed them, but they seem united even beyond what you´d expect as a branding effort. Lopez allegedly runs all aspects of her life like a pretty tight ship – congrats to her on the twins – and these reflect that. Whether you like them or not, they tell a coherent story.

JLo loooooves her some fresh accord.   How you build a fresh accord in terms of the aromachemistry is beyond our knoweldge, and it´s hard to describe, but you know it when you smell it – it´s sort of that “clean laundry” or “fresh from the shower” smell, only more gaseous and a little plastic. If Lopez´ fragrances are a tad less sweet overall than you might guess if you´d never smelled them, I´d really, really like to take the vat of Clean away from her perfumers — all perfumers. (March: There are things I hate more in perfumery, but “fresh” smells weirdly stale to me, sort of the antithesis of what it´s meant to evoke. “Fresh” is like too much room spray, when what you really want is to open a window.) (Patty:  I think of this “fresh” thing as TampaxFreshAccord. Artificially bright, trying to cover up with too much freshness things that do exist in nature, except, well, this smell.)

Beyond the “fresh” accord, there´s a curious, synthetic sameness to her scents. Using the word “synthetic” doesn’t really work because most of what we´re smelling in perfume is synthetic anyway, chemically. But a JLo fragrance´s relationship to fruit and florals is like the smell of Hawaiian Tropic tanning lotion – or Hawaiian Punch. You can see, if you squint, the original starting point in nature, but what you are smelling doesn´t bear any relation to a real fruit or flower.

March: If I had a complaint about the JLos as a group, it´s their lasting power. In general, I am not one to complain about how long fragrances stick around, because mostly they stick to me like glue. Deseo had the best lasting power, but really, what I was left with was an ambery musk for most of the afternoon. Live goes on quite strong and spicy, but after two hours I could barely smell it. Glow and Still were entirely undetectable after two hours (I asked my kids.) Some of you might consider this a blessing, but I was disappointed. If there´s one thing I admire about Jennifer, it´s her tenacity.

Patty: My main criticism about the J.Los is their sameness. After a few sniffs, cohesive as it might be, they aren’t very memorable or differentiated in the marketplace, except for the celebrity whose name they bear. 

Still - “In the eye of the storm I am still.” Sake note, white pepper, mandarin, Earl Grey, freesia, honeysuckle, orange blossom, rose, wild jasmine, sandalwood, musks, amber, orris.

Patty:  This one worked for me, at least I’m voting it as most likely for me to wear.  I did get more tea out of it and less fresh or floral. Not sure why, but the TFA (tampax fresh accord) disappeared, and the tea stuck around, though the whole concoction didn’t seem to want to stick as long as I would have liked.

March: This was supposed to be her original “mature” scent, by which I assume she means women over the age of 21. The notes don´t sound bad, and the opening is sweeter than I expected (that´s a lot of floral for a Jlo), although the drydown is satisfyingly tart. If I got more Earl Gray I´d be happy, sort of. But the fresh note in this just kills me. (Diva says: it smells like powder. It doesn´t smell like anything important.)

Glow - “fresh and clean, like you just came out of the shower.” Orange blossom, pink grapefruit, rose, sandalwood, soft amber, jasmine, vanilla, musk, orris.

March: The bottle´s sexy, but I´d describe this as the Office JLo – the one least likely to offend anyone in the Cube Farm. A very clean musk with muted florals. Oddly, for the “fresh” one, I get less of that Glade Ozone smell. I´d wear this. (Diva says: I like this one, I´d wear it.)

Patty:  I despised this one. I got more of the TFA in this, like a boatload, and it really grated on my last nerve after about 20 minutes, though I can see how it would work on a younger person who has more nerves to grate on and less frayage caused by age.  And that super-fresh feeling lasted for hours.

Glow After Dark – her nightclub scent, “out with your friends, celebrating and enjoying the nightlife”. Passionfruit, lychee ice, pink peony, orange flower, blond woods, pink musk.

March: You know this is her nightclub scent because along with the blended fruit it has the singular, tangy smell of fresh vomit – like someone threw up a Mai Tai. Ugh. (Diva says: too fruity.)

Patty:  Oh, Lord, just kill me now.  I would have thought that I would like this one, but reminds me of too many long nights drinking cheap fruity cocktails and waking up to regret all the things you don’t remember doing. 

Live, about “living for the moment, celebrating life through my very first love, which is dancing.” Sicilian lemon, orange, pineapple, redcurrant, spicy violet, peony, musk, vanilla, sandalwood.

Patty:  Not that bad at all. It’s a little too much sweet on the open, but that blessedly blows off  a little and gives a nice musky minimally sweet fruity smell.  It’s still much too sweet for me even in the drydown, so I”m sticking with Still as my fave, but this comes in right behind it.

 March: This goes on nicely musky, with a minimum of Glade, and a spicy accord (must be that spicy violet.) The only JLo that registered as spicy, and the musky, woody drydown is sexy. This is my favorite of the bunch. I won´t buy it, but if I owned it I´d probably wear it. (Diva says: that´s fun, I´d wear it.)

Live Luxe celebrates “Jennifer´s excitement for dance and her love of luxury.” Pear, peach, melon, citrus, apple, satiny muguet, amethyst freesia, honeysuckle, precious diamong musk, vanilla, sandalwood.

March: In this case, Luxe means “I can afford enough sugar to bury your entire family.” Too sweet. (Diva says: ewww, that´s really gross, like you threw up something sweet.) The vomit reference – a weird coincidence that in hindsight maybe isn´t a ringing endorsement of the line … I mean, how often do you compare a fragrance to vomit?

Patty:  Fruity sweet TFA. Not sure how they screwed up a Live flanker this badly, but they threw out everything that was good about Live and threw in a gallon of Sucrose-fortified cotton candy.  If you like Pink Sugar and that ilk, you’ll love this.

Deseo means “desire … wish .. dream. I want to inspire people to dream and want more.” Tropical plants accord, bergamot, orange blossom, geranium, mineral accord, amber.

Patty:  Did not smell this one.

March: Deseo is the newest JLo and seems like a bit of a departure for her. The bottle´s more sophisticated and interesting – sort of a lumpy, assymetircal uncut gemstone. It opens on a huge fresh accord, what I am thinking is her idea of tropical plants. Once that goes away, I kind of like it. It´s got decent lasting power, and that musky, sexy, warm-skin drydown that´s like the part of Live I like best. (Diva says: that´s nasty, that´s worse than the throw-up one. It smells like our locker room.)

Miami Glow has apparently been discontinued, although it´s still all over the net. Notes are passion fruit, coconut, orange flower, sunbathed sand, amber, musk and vanilla.

March: I´m sorry it´s been discontinued, because I really liked it – it´s Jenny at the Beach, complete with tanning oil and big white sunglasses (must have been that sunbathed sand note.) It was a great virtual-reality beach fragrance.

Patty:  I didn’t get to test this one this time around, but I know I smelled it when we were doing some blind things a year or so ago. I’d agree with March - from my memory, it’s pretty great.  Why they would discontinue one of the best of the bunch is a mystery.

Love at First Glow — bergamot, Georgia peach, osmanthus, pink jasmine, wild rose, freesia, blond woods, musk, and vanilla absolute.

Patty:  I really didn’t mind this. It’s not something I’d wear, but if someone sprayed it on me while I wasn’t looking, I wouldn’t be horrified or annoyed.  A soft little scent, less of the TFA than most of these, only on the open and then disappears.  Something a young girl could wear without smelling like a tarted-up child-floozy.  It also faded on me pretty fast, so maybe that explains my lack of annoyance?

March: This is probably the most candy-fied of the bunch, and smells the most tweener. Having said that, I still find it less offensive than, say, Pink Sugar. It strikes me as something my 11-year-old would like. (Diva says: too sweet, too girly.) Okay, so 13-year-olds are too mature for this one?

In summary, only a couple of these are pretty atrocious, but even then, they likely appeal to people with different tastes than ours — we lean more towards the odd, ridiculous and skanky.  A couple of them are pretty good and stand on their own merit as a lower-cost perfume that smells decent.  But best selling?  Sorry, I don’t understand that at all.  There is nothing remarkable enough in any of these to be a standout.  The one that might have been close, Miami Glow, is discontinued

Patty

Vetiver and I have a difficult relationship. I blame this on a tragic first meeting with Hermessence Vetiver Tonka, one of … how do I put this delicately? One of the most heinous fragrances on the planet. Vetiver Tonka is the fragrance equivalent of avocado ice cream – no, make that Brussels sprouts ice cream – and every bit as hard to choke down. (I concede my problem may in fact be with tonka, since I tried Patricia de Nicolai´s Vanille Tonka with similarly dismaying results.)

I´ve been trying to undo the leaf damage with a slow reintroduction to the wimpiest vetivers I can find. I was charmed by Guerlain Vetiver Pour Elle, and then worked my way up to regular ol´ Guerlain Vetiver, which I am pretty sure is now at the top of my to-buy list for The Big Cheese this spring. Le Labo Vetiver I like, but it´s not really vetiver, is it? Anyway, when Louise offered up a sniff of Lubin Vetiver recently, I turned her down. Couldn´t care less. I only tried it because she kept shoving it at me, and if you´ve met Louise … well, anyway, it´s gorgeous. Clearly I still like my vetiver on the cleaner end of things, and with a little additional company – notes are: mandarin orange, grapefruit, Guinea orange, orange flower oil, cloves, whole nutmeg, pepper, Java vetiver, Eastern red cedar, myrrh, frankincense, tobacco. If you are feeling blue and would like to wet yourself laughing, read the description on LuckyScent (“… the freshly torn from the earth richness of vetiver and the otherworldly airiness of frankincense circle each other warily, a truce between the sacred and the pagan….”) But what a wonderful, cheerful pleasure: citrus and spice opening, but layered with the vetiver from the start – so the whole effect is that bright, sparkling, leafy earthiness rather than dirty rootiness. Trot in the woods and incense and tobacco, and you´ve presented vetiver on a perfect platter of notes. I doubt vetiver purists will find this satisfying, but gosh, it´s pretty – I hate to use that word, because really, it´s unisex heading toward masculine on me, but it´s one of those colognes I´d ask about if I smelled it standing behind someone. Have you smelled it? If I say, I´ve come around to vetiver, and then cite Guerlain and Lubin as examples, does that give me all the street cred of someone who talks about how much they´ve learned to love Mexican cuisine based on their meals at Taco Bell?

L´Atelier Boheme Immortelle — Wow. What a … stunning disconnect between my nose and the online reviews. Perfect if you would like to smell like baby lotion and amber. None for me, thanks.

L´Atelier Boheme Helianthe – green notes, pear, exotic flowers, ylang ylang, sunflower, sandalwood. I cannot think of the last time I experienced such a profound gap between my feelings about the opening and drydown of a scent. The opening of this is such a fruity, green atrocity – like taking a can of Glade Spring Meadow and shooting it straight up your nose – that I refused to scrub it only because I was curious whether it could possibly get more awful. Then I got distracted by my maternal duties (dinner or something) and – you guessed it – eventually realized Helianthe had morphed into a delicious scent. Now, let me clarify that I like pear. I like Petite Cherie. If you do not like pear, you will really feel the full flower (fruit?) of your hate for this. I still can´t recommend this, based on the hideousness of the opening. Has anyone else tried this?

Prada Cuir Ambre parfum – this is one of those obscure LE things that I think is available at the Roja Dove boutique at Harrods in London, at some Prada boutiques (Milan? Moscow?), and on alternate Tuesdays on Mars. Here´s my review: heh heh heh. Okay, first a big note of powdery amber, a cross between Anne Pliska and POTL, and I say: bleah. Then: big big BIG (cue music from Jaws) leather – leatherleatherleatherrrrrr, dark tanned boot leather, but expensive. Not soft handbag leather. If I do my weird huffing thing (we need a better name for that: I breathe softly in and out through my nose and mouth pressed softly against the scent on my skin in the drydown, and I feel like my hot breath gets me maximum feedback, including almost tasting it)… there is something else in there, spicy, like carnation or iris? But I only get the spice while huffing it. What I don´t get – that sort of fresh/aquatic note I sometimes get with leather, that I don´t care for. This is custom-quality leather, all the way, no vinyl here. I´m not even a leather freak, and yum.

Lubin Idole – okay, fine. I give up. Do you hear me? I give up on this. I get: 45 seconds of warm, woody wonder, a la Feminite du Bois. Then I get something doughy and wan. Then I get poof! nothing. Then I get some lame wisp of something indistinct and ambery. Notes of saffron, bitter orange, rum absolute, black cumin and bitter orange peel, doum palm, smoked ebony, sugar cane, leather, red sandalwood. Yeah, read that list and weep. This was made for me (by Olivia Giacobetti, no less.) Where are those notes? Not on my skin, that´s for sure.

Demeter Incense – this is new. Their blurb: “Demeter´s incense is a warm, deep, rich blend of exotic notes, inviting and enveloping, the kind of scent that is both simple and complex at the same time, centered on a unique core of Copal. Copal is a type of resin produced by plant or tree secretions, particularly identified with the forms of aromatic tree resins used by the cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica as a ceremonially burned incense, as well as for a number of other purposes” etc. You know I love incense, and I like a lot of Demeter scents – not the sugary sweet ones, but their more offbeat ones (Holy Smoke, Beetroot, Coriander Tea, Bonfire, Greenhouse, off the top of my head, are pretty great, as is Eggnog, and yes, I know that sounds disgusting.) They don´t last forever, but they´re inexpensive and they come in those giant mini sizes (1/2 oz. for $5), which I love. So. This doesn´t smell at all churchy, like frankincense – Armani, Avignon, etc. This is definitely on the warm, resiny end of things. Its fragrance is mild and sweet, and there´s some extra stuff in there – a dry vanilla, maybe some amber, spice and pine? It´s soft and warm, smooth but velvety rather than creamy, a resiny comfort scent. To me, a nice Demeter is like putting on a favorite tee shirt. Two thumbs up.

Lubin images: LuckyScent

March

Three days until March – which in my book is officially spring. Yahooeeey! Now I know some of you poor folk are shrouded in snow and permafrost yet, but here daffodils are all opened up, leafbuds are swelling ready to burst, the sap is rising so fast it’s almost audible in the ache and creak of the earth. The purple acacia in my front garden is covered in its froth of yellow pompom blossom; the species tulips have poked their way through the gravel; the alliums have emerged – their slightly hairy spiralled green leaves, lime fresh, will die back before floral firework explosions open in April and May. Am I perky or what? We don’t get many frosts, and they’re rarely severe enough to set back the soft growth that’s already begun, ever earlier it seems. I’m itching to spend more and more time outdoors.

And, in honour of this time of year, I’m listing. I’m not generally your listing type, except I become so seasonally, or when ridiculously stressed, but that’s another story. I’m a long way from stressed these days. The listing: I have a colour-coded spreadsheet of my seedsowing schedule (103 types of vegetable and cut flower at last count) and, more relevant to this blog, I even list the perfumes I’m excited to try and/or buy. Unsurprisingly, there are a few Neil Morris numbers in there – winging their way across the Atlantic as I type, I imagine. Drooling over the idea of Midnight Tryst and Fetish. Then there are those of which I now need decants, because I’ve been craving them but they’re not me enough to justify a full bottle – if that makes any sense. Included here are Tom Ford Black Orchid (Update – bought a 30ml bottle from (h)e(ll)bay just now – a guy’s gotta snaffle a bargain, right?) and Miller Harris l’air de rien ( a bottle I bought and returned in December, realising that 100mls was just too much for me).

Other list items are things that have been released for some time, but that I’ve never got round to buying, even though I love them. Top of this list, and guaranteed an automatic purchase in April or May, is Hermessence Vetiver Tonka. I used the last of my large sample last night, and the hazelnutty richness with the green vetiver once again took my breath away. It’s all of 100 mls of this one for me. There are also plenty of scents that were released sometime ago that I’m still yet to try, and wonder why I haven’t, so they’re listed too – Vierges et Toreros for example. But these are strictly samples only.

Finally, there are those that I’m at risk of buying unsniffed. Three fall into this category right now. Though I’m a pretty unChanel kinda guy, Sycomore is calling me. However, his voice is a whisper in comparison to the clarion call of first Serge Lutens’ Five o’clock Au Gingembre, and now Hermes’ Un Jardin apres le Mousson. I’ve often been lucky enough to get advanced sniffage of new Serge releases, and though this time I am getting a mouillete / tester strip / spill of the perfume from Paris, that’s not enough of a taste really. I knew Louve wouldn’t be a fit, but this silly-named number has my (slightly silly) name all over it. Who doesn’t crave ginger at five o’clock? I have a not-often-shared addiction to ginger preserves, and my pumpkin pie served with ginger and cardamom cream is genius, even if I do say so myself. And I’m you’re regular spice slut, especially in the hands of Christopher Sheldrake. And seeing as sweet notes are absorbed by my skin, I’m not even worried by the candied. Must. Have. And. Soon. But even this rank acquisitiveness faded into obscurity when I read Robin’s announcement at nowsmellthis about the latest Hermes Jardin scent. Kerala? Post-monsoon? Ginger? Cardamom? A vetiver accord created by Ellena? Oh my oh my. Oh My. Oh! My! etc.

All this means I need to make room in my scent wardrobe by evicting fragrances that I rarely use nowadays. I’m determined to maintain my count around the 70 mark, as I start to be overwhelmed by any more than this. I’m not a great decision maker, and too much choice is a nightmare for me! I know in theory there’s not really much difference between 70 bottles and100, but in practice for me it’s all the difference between knowing what to grab and being stymied and choosing wrongly. Samples and decants don’t count. They’re allowed to go forth and multiply effortlessly. I rarely wear them out – they’re more my bedtime testers.

So, in complete homage to total plagiarism of March’s post in November, I would like to give away 9 bottles, some partially used, some hardly used, some half empty, of scents which I no longer wear or, in one case, of which I have a duplicate. If you’d like to send me a little something in return, random or otherwise, that would be lovely, but you’re under no obligation. Just leave a comment below highlighting which scent you’d like, and I’ll draw the winners from a hat or similar vessel, announcing them next week, and emailing them for their address in the meantime. I’ll throw in a local product or two, too. Perhaps a tutu or two, too.

The scents are as follows:

l’Artisan Voleur de Roses 50 mls – about 60% full. Roses and I can love each other, but we never ever play nicely together.

l’Artisan Bois Farine 50mls – about 50% full. Duplicate bottle. How did that happen?

Boucheron Jaipur Homme 100ml tester bottle no box – 80% full. Too smooth for me.

Rochas Lui 50mls – about 70% full. Too much neroli for me.

Lanvin Arpege pour Homme 50mls – about 60% full. I loved you for a while…

Ungaro III (promised to Erin K, if she’d still like it) 50 mls, hardly used, no box. Roses, again.

Jo Malone Amber and Lavender 30ml – 60% full, no box.

Guerlain Habit Rouge edt 50mls hardly used.

And finally, the pià¨ce de résistance (ha!) Hugo Boss Soul 50ml, no box, 75% full (must have appeared by magic… And please, if you fancy having this one, there is DEFINITELY no need to send something back my way. I’d just be happy to find it a home).

Hilarious spring image from mooseycountrygarden.com

Lee

Released by Christian Dior in 1995, and created by Pierre Bourdon, Dolce Vita has notes of rose, magnolia, muguet, apricot, peach, cinnamon, sandalwood, vanilla, and heliotrope.  There is something about the interplay of the fruity notes on the open that makes this start off feeling a little, well… smutty.  Like there are massive amounts of cumin in there, though it’s not listed as a note.  Attention, K-mart Fragrance Makers, this is what fruity floral should smell like.  Not sweet, but you can pick out the fruit easily.  The cinnamon lends spice, and the floral notes, vanilla and sandalwood smooth it out into a warm, woodsy scent, never taking it into foody at all.  Smooth, interesting and grown-up, Dolce Vita could be worn by  men or women. 

Guerlain Cuir Beluga has notes of mandarine, aldehydes, immortelle, leather, heliotrope, amber, and vanilla.  Don’t look for leather here, you’ll be very disappointed.  You will find a creamy, lovely, cooly interesting scent.  Without the immortelle, I think this scent would tend to bland, but the immortelle gives it enough play so the chocolatey creaminess becomes addictive, but never warmed up.   It is the creamy white flower that blooms in the shade, releasing its perfume only for itself, never caring whether it is beautiful to others.

Strange Invisible Perfumes Vine has notes of  osmanthus, lavender, grapefruit and black currant.  Its inspiration was the Greek Myth of Persephone whose appetite for pomegranate seeds kept her in Hades for half of the year.   It’s an almost sweet green open, which lasts for just a few mintues before the grapefruit and lavender show up to give it a tart almost minty floral feel, all the while Satan is running around beneath it laughing.  Not listed, there’s a deep, dark animalic character that permeates this entire concoction.  If you think Vine is about green… think again. It is the vine that wraps around your leg in the night and pulls you down to the forest floor, caressing you as it overpowers you – but do you want to fight it?  This is one of my favorite SIPs, but it’s not easy to wear or appreciate, and I wouldn’t recommend it for a beginner.  Save it for when you’re feeling more confident and want a walk on the wild side.

On a personal note, my youngest son has picked his college, yeah!!!  Now we start the rest of the long grind doing all those collegy things, and in a few short months I’ll be an empty nester.  That fills me with a melancholy that this part of my life is almost over and a new part is about to begin.  Once we take our family trip to Europe this summer, I’ll need suggestions for what in the world do I do with a big old house empty of kids?

Patty

Look, let´s talk. You know I love a niche perfume as much more than the next person – maybe a scent you can only get from a little shop on the outskirts of Ulan Bator with no phone or website. I´m a perfume snob, in that perfume represents a significant interest in my life. If I were dating, which thank heavens I am not, and my hot, cute guy said, baby, I love the natural-smelling you so much I want to buy you large diamonds, and by the way I wish you´d skip the perfume … well, that guy´d be kicked to the curb faster than you can say Caron.

But part of my snobbery is this – I´m a perfume omnivore, and I refuse to dismiss something as, you know, some sucky mall-dreck juice just because I hear it´s the number one seller at Sephora. I mostly try (even if I fail) to smell things and be open to them, because if I don´t then I´m just as much of an ignorant asshat as a chick who´ll only buy a scent made by Paris Hilton, or from Victoria´s Secret.

Which is my longwinded introduction to the fact that I finally took Calvin Klein Euphoria for a test drive. If I had a dollar for every time I´ve been told by a Macy´s SA that Euphoria is their store´s number one best seller, I could buy a bottle of Guerlain parfum. I don´t know if it´s true, and I´m too lazy to find out, but I´ll concede it must be wildly successful. When I was working on my penance post recently, it occurred to me: I had no idea at all what Euphoria smelled like.

Which is how I got busted by the SA in Macy´s last week as I hiked my jeans up and methodically drenched one (unshaved) leg in Euphoria and other in Euphoria Blossom, which was sitting right there, so why not try it too? She looked at me so weird. Like those women have never seen legs before.

Euphoria´s blurb on Sephora is blowing the Sex Trumpet (the strumpet?) – the words sexy, sensual, and seductive are used several times. The notes listed are pomegranate, persimmon, green notes, black orchid, lotus blossom, champaca flower, amber, mahogany wood, violet, cream accord.

Given that list, I was expecting something warm – young, fairly sweet, a little fruity, really amber-heavy for the sexy bit. Instead, it opens on a heavy, rich note that bears some resemblance to that patchouli blast from Prada femme. I can´t quite work out how you get there from the notes listed, but if you compressed the fruits into their unsweetened essences and amped up the amber and woods hugely, I guess that might do it. As it settles, there is a creamy, slightly floral sweetness – the hallmark (in some way I´m still working out in my mind) of a modern, mainstream “young” perfume. There is almost never any specific old fashioned flower reference (gardenia, rose, etc.) Rather there´s a generic floral-notation sweetness, like all the fruits and flowers in the world friended each other on Facebook.

In any case, Euphoria is surprisingly low-sugar, and more about the fruits than the florals, and not in the generic, sticky-sweet cocktail-drink way I´m always whining about. Instead it´s a little sour, and more than a little musky. It´s one of those fragrances you´d pick to hide the fact that you´re smoking cigarettes from your parents, because it has its own musky, woody density that makes me think of cigarettes without smelling like smoke. Alternately, it´s a scent you´d pick because you wanted your boyfriend to think you smelled sexy. And it is a sexy, musky smell – again, it´s much less sweet than I would have guessed, and it is both more fully adult and more sophisticated than I´d bargained for. It is also strong – so girls, do me a favor and don´t spray your entire leg with it like I did.

Euphoria Blossom´s notes are pomegranate, dewy green accord, zesty kumquat, orchid, pink peony, blond wood, amber, sheer musks. I found it both inoffensive and less interesting (if possibly more wearable) than the original. As you might guess it is a lighter, cleaner version. While it bears a certain similarity to the original, it is sweeter, although it´s still not some sugar monster. Its appeal grew over time. The buzzwords on this one are dewy, lush and fresh, but it´s not the Fresh Accord from Hell – it wears a little greener and a little more innocently than its knowing older sister.

Do I like Euphoria? No. It’s bitter and strange and the longer I had in on the more aggressive it seemed; I ended up laundering those jeans just to get rid of the smell. Blossom I like, sort of. I wouldn´t buy it, but if you gave it to me I´d probably surprise myself by reaching for it in the middle of summer when I wanted something light and sparkling and pretty that wasn´t a huge stretch – and yes, I definitely have those days. I think one side effect of all the weird stuff I sniff is there is definitely a place in my perfume life for fragrances that are the equivalent of Doritos and Coke on the challenge index.

The bottles are IMHO ugly, weird metallic things that look like they ought to hold something called Salvador Dali´s Nose Perfume. I have never understood the appeal, and there must be one, because all those gazillion people who buy it can´t think it´s as ugly as I do. What´s your opinion?

Finally, an aside about the Euphoria model (and frequent Calvin Klein clothing model), Natalia Vodianova. I am old enough to remember the 90´s supermodels – Naomi, Christy, Linda, etc. – and the current crop of anonymous blandes with anonymous faces does nothing for me. Natalia has stood out from the first as an exception – her face is so freakishly, childishly beautiful it is almost too much to bear, like Brooke Shields in her heyday. I like her better now that she looks, say, 17 instead of 12 (and what is it with Calvin Klein and the jailbait ads?) although I think in real life she´s 22 or 23 and seems perfectly happy, having gone from rags to riches and marrying English real estate magnate/minor royalty (brother of a viscount?) Justin Portman. Now that she´s had three (!) kids with Portman her body seems softer and riper and even more lovely – not lush by any normal standards, I grant you, but there´s something in-full-bloom about it.

Her face plays young, and so that´s how she often looks in her photos (I´ve plucked some favorites and dropped them in here.) I think her Vogue shoot as Alice in Wonderland a couple years ago was one of the best fashion spreads I´ve ever seen. But my favorite look for her recently is when (usually) Vogue takes that so-young face and makes her up and dresses her in very adult clothing, like the poodle photo here.

Okay, assuming anyone´s still reading this – I promise to be back on Thursday with the usual niche-snob lineup. In the meantime – if you´ve smelled this I´d love your feedback. It was so much stronger and darker than I was expecting, I am really surprised; what do you think the appeal is? For what it’s worth, Diva (who at 13 has smelled a lot of weird product and is a little young for the target market) thought it was appalling — nasty was her word, and when pressed for more she just thought it smelled dirty — dirty like feet and unwashed bodies, not in a sexy way. Or, have you sniffed something recently expecting one thing and discovered something completely different?

March