Revisiting

Sorry, no post today.  Between sick kids and a migraine, I’m keeping it short, so no hard feelings if you blow this off.

I wanted to mention briefly a couple of things I found at Sephora on my mall binge, one of them a reconsideration.

Chanel Allure Homme Edition Blanche – here’s a link to my original review.  For the longest time I only saw this at some (not all) of the Bloomingdale’s stores.  It’s now in much wider distribution at Sephora.

For any guy reading this, or you gal perfumistas, I don’t suppose Edition Blanche is of much interest.  But it’s the bottle of fragrance I gave to the Big Cheese, who doesn’t care much for scents, and it’s the one he wears of his own free will.  Edition Blanche is rather like the Cheese’s favorite gray cashmere sweater that he wears all the time.  It is well-made and unobtrusive; it is appropriate for most occasions; it appears to be luxurious without demanding attention.  If you’re looking for a guy-frag as a gift, and you don’t want to go the classic citrus-y cologne route, you might consider this.  The bottle is as handsome as the scent.  Jacques Polge did the scent, notes are lemon, bergamot, cedar, sandalwood, tonka bean, white musk, vetiver, ginger, amber, vanilla, white and pink pepper.

I also re-sprayed KenzoAmour Florale – the one in the white-fading-to-clear KenzoAmour bottle that I love so much it’s ridiculous.  I’m a huge fan of the original KenzoAmour, one of my comfort scents, and I can’t say I found this an improvement, being a more floral interpretation and a step in the direction of Flower.  Retrying it long after my first review, I am giving it further consideration.  I wish it didn’t do the ghost-of-Play-doh thing at the top (and I don’t know why it does, but so does Flower; notes are neroli, grapefruit, blackcurrant, cardamom, frangipani blossom, rosebud, gardenia, white musk, cedar wood).  That part only lasts for a few minutes, though, and I am left with a lighter, sweeter Amour, with a faint bitterness that I find unexpectedly compelling in contrast to the woodsy drydown.  It is not “clean,” and as surprised reviewers note on Sephora, for something that doesn’t wear heavily, it lasts and lasts.

I don’t need to own any more perfume (God knows), and since I already own KenzoAmour and KA Indian Holi, I’ve resisted buying this, in part because I know what I’m lusting for is that bottle.  But I can’t escape the feeling that, having removed part of my mental block of comparing it unfavorably to the beloved original, I’m falling a little in love with it on its own merits.

So that’s … it.  If you have a fragrance reconsideration of your own that you’d like to share, particularly if it’s a flanker of a much-loved scent and so you couldn’t take it seriously at first, I’d like to hear about it.