Parfums de Marly Oriana Review

Parfums de Marly Oriana was just released a week or so ago.  Hot pink bottle, just a bit more girlie looking than Delina, and buzz on the street was it was a Kilian Love Don’t Be Shy close relative.

Hot pink bottles are tough to resist for me.  First, if anyone is looking for some cheap alternative to Kilian LDBS, Parfums de Marly is not the place to look.  $320 for 75 mls is not a bargain when compared to the (from my memory) 190 or so for a Kilian Love Don’t be Shy 50 ml refill.  Same money ballpark.

Notes of mandarin, bergamot, grapefruit, orange blossom, blackcurrant, raspberry, marshmallow, ambrette, Chantilly cream and musk.

[ peering over my glasses ]  Welp, they look pretty close on a few notes! Someone mentioned Memo Sintra as being related as well. I haven’t smelled that?  Anyone care to comment?

Parfums de Marly Oriana has a description of “mille-feuille of flaky sweetness, softness and sensuality.”  So far, based just on notes and description, unless you are not a gourmand fan in the slightest, there isn’t anything to hate.  I sprayed Oriana on one wrist and Kilian Love DBS on the other, just to see how they started and how they went.  There are tussles on Fragrantica about how similar they are, and on the open, they start out pretty close.  Oriana has a blast of grapefruit and raspberry that adds an open tartness that is different.

After the open, they keep rolling, like rivers traversing the same terrain, but side by side and diverging in some places, but almost touching each other in other places.  Kilian LDBS is a more musky marshmallow orange blossom.  Parfums de Marly Oriana is a little more citrusy marshmallow cream with a dash of orange blossom.  Oriana is sunnier, Kilian LDBS is more sensual.  Marshmallow is the place they stay the same.

Parfums de Marly Oriana is that gourmet marshmallow treat you get at the high-priced fancy confectionary, and they serve it with sunshine and smiles as you plop into your pink marshmallow warmed puffy cloud.

Yeah, I liked it a lot. If you wanted your Kilian LDBS a little less sweetly yearning  and a little more happily in love, Parfums de Marly Oriana could fix you up pretty nicely.

That cheesy hot pink bottle with the little hot pink tassels is just the little hot pink cherry on top!  It’s like a little fan dancer bottle.  So don’t think they are the same, they are not. They belong in the same family, but after the open, they take different paths and wind up in different places.

So will give away two samples of Parfums de Marly Oriana. Just drop a comment to be entered!

It is fall release time!  I’m still on the hunt for that new Unum Reliqua thing. I think a bottle is on its way to me from Italy, but I really can’t be sure.  Here is a little bit from Sorcinelli you can discuss in comments –

“Reliqvia speaks of the walls covered in gilded wood, finely decorated with carvings and reliefs, speaks of the incensed steps towards the great high altar, like a golden embroidery, where the statue of the dead Christ is kept inside it, a wooden work of the seventeenth century and visible only once a year. But he also wants to frame in a synaesthetic way the altarpiece made by Federico Barocci, “the Transport of Christ to the sepulcher” , one of the most beautiful works by the painter from Urbino executed in 1582, and for which he also designed the frame.

Reliqvia is a place where to meet and where to re-evoke memories, to remind the time that passes and which becomes “solemn and authentic gold”, a message of corruptibility and incorruptibility.

“Reliqvia is the tangible trace, the last trace, to describe in life a different and prodigious existence above us. It is the wardrobe always closed, the precious custody of sacred men that makes us understand that time is precious and that it risks being consumed without letting us leave a clear mark in life.

“Reliqvia is the nail of the Passion, layered and peaty incense from the solemn and sacred years.
There is no sacred, if men do not recognize the sacred, and exalt it in perfect rites.
“Reliqvia is the perfect sacred space.

“Touching the relics, touching something that has been in contact with them is a grace and a guarantee: for this reason the Romans tore the veils that had covered the holy martyrs and in which the corpses of the popes were wrapped. This is why the popes were precisely wrapped in those veils.
In front of the relics the fools are healed, the possessed and the obsessed liberated, the blind find their sight, the lame start walking again …

Notes of patchouli, incense, cashmere wood, Guaiac, sandalwood, orange blossom, Scots Pine, Cloves, lentisk, Amyris, elemi, sweet orange, black, currant, nutmeg, smoke, tobacco leaves.  Nothing like a fragrance centered around incense and the mysteries of history and faith to make my heart beat fast.

Here is the commercial for it –

  • Sue RH says:

    Very helpful review, Patty. I’d love to try Oriana but am with the others in feeling PdM prices are a bit out there. I like that companies are doing more travel sprays and sample sets but inflation seems to have hit perfumery particularly hard.

  • AnnaEgeria says:

    I’d love to try a gourmand marshmallow fragrance but Reliqvia appeals to me more.

  • Taxi says:

    Love the bottle! I’ve sniffed Delfina but none of the others. My local stores don’t stock them.

  • Musette says:

    DNEM but I just have to say how much I LOVE that pink bottle!

    xoxo

  • Kathleen says:

    Oriana sounds wonderful; however, I have a bottle of Killian Love from way back that sounds like similar notes. Is Killian Love similar to Killian Love DBS I wonder?
    Agreed, the price of many new releases are making new full bottle purchases prohibitive.
    As a side note, I noticed Estee Lauder is joining in the luxury fragrance line trend with eight new EDPs. The prices are higher than their usual department store fragrance prices but not outrageous. I’m an EL perfume fan, hopeful?

  • Jennifer S says:

    This sounds yummy and you know? The prices for just about everything keep going up (while the packaging gets smaller.. cookies I’m looking at you!)…so why not perfume?

  • VerbenaLuvvr says:

    Quickly adds to try list… mama loves marshmallow!

    I agree on the Penhaligon’s. Been trying to add some from the Portraits collection but the prices are in that same unrealistic (for me) price range.

    One thing I noticed recently while trying to unload some unloveds and search for Portraits, evilbay (the last resort after having offered unloveds for swap for two years) is no longer allowing the sale of used fragrances…? Tried to post and the only options are new and new w/o box. The rules indicate the same but give no reason. But it IS ok to sell used makeup brushes?! I see some selling used/vintage scents as new condition, but I wonder if that can come back to bite you.

    • Patty says:

      Really? No used? Or is that just for some perfumes? That explains a lot. The decanters on eBay (after driving all of us off in the past!) seem to be doing fine. I think I’d list it as new and CLEARLY state used in the title and description. I do still see those listed. I think. Now I need to pay better attention! Mercari seems to have a lot of used fragrances, maybe that’s where they all went to? Try that!

      • VerbenaLuvvr says:

        As soon as you try to post a fragrance for sale item on ebay, there is a dropdown with only two condition options. The rules also state no used fragrances–period. It used to be only things like rollerballs and samples that require skin contact, and that was in the rules only and not enforced in sales, but now their ridiculous ban is across the board. People selling used items are selecting new then stating used in the description. I wonder if claims aren’t being filed and for sure ebay would find on behalf of the buyer, I’m not taking that chance. I RAOK’d what I had and just moved on. I have never done business on Mercari but will check it out!

  • March says:

    I think that bottle is cute as heck and this sounds great, but holy cow those prices! I would really love to know how much of that is aspirational pricing.

    • Patty says:

      Aspirational for sure, but they seem to get it. There’s all this scuttlebutt I ran into about people doing a lot of promotion through YouTube channels, etc., that had a relationship with some of that family of companies. I don’t know, they seem to have gotten a big push recently, part of it is the popularity of Delina, which is nice, and I don’t hate it at all. Beyond that :: shrug:: who knows? I think promotion and the perception of Louis Vuitton levels of luxury pricing being the goal that people do roll into.

  • cinnamon says:

    Oh, this sounds right up my alley, but the prices of perfume are really starting to get me down. Are they actively trying to price out a certain cohort of perfume lovers?

    • Patty says:

      I don’t know. I think some of it is the raw materials have probably gone up. But it can’t be that much. It feels like a weird time to jack the prices so much, with it being harder to sniff perfumes easily when we were all going to the stores, etc. They even talk about that, and then plop out another even designer perfume for over $100.

  • Alityke says:

    I guess the only way to corral the silly perfume prices is NOT to buy.

    Whilst there are people who only chase the new and/or most expensive, brag about it on the forums & pages, then list for sale after using it only a couple of times, prices will continue to spiral. Last summer, in a FB group I was in, one young man was so completely maxed out financially with his fragrance spending he could no longer pay the bills. He had to sell much of his collection quickly & cheaply to get out of the hole he was in. The next month he was back to bragging of new purchases. On that page a scent spend of £2000 per month was normal!!!!!

    Such a shame that, for various reasons, splits & decants are more difficult to ship. I fondly remember the split pages in FB where members from across the globe shared in the beauty of delicious but pricey scents. Remember when Uncle Serge’s bell jars seemed expensive?

    Anyway, rant over, apologies. The Oriana bottle is swoony but marshmallow is not my aesthetic, unless anyone sees my lily white thighs!
    Reliquia could be more my thing, I eagerly await your thoughts, assuming it arrives

    • Patty says:

      That is just crazy. People just dont’ want to use the USPS because of that no perfume in the mail speed bump? I mean, they don’t seem to really care, but international shipping has just gotten obscene. I’m hoping I get my hands on the Reliquia. They do have a sample on the Sorcinelli website, but I don’t want to pay that much shipping for a sample, so I’m hoping my sketchy Italian shop comes through for me!

      • Alityke says:

        I feel the pain. Hermes won’t ship any liquids in or from the U.K.
        Royal Mail will if correctly marked up but only within the country. Yet I got an order from Beautynow in Belgium delivered in 3 days, no extra taxes, sent by Belgian mail & delivered to me by Hermes. It’s a mystery ????

  • Portia says:

    This sounds like EVERYTHING I don’t want to smell like Patty. Knowing my luck I’ll fall madly in love and need a litre.
    Portia xx

    • Patty says:

      I think it is safe to say that you would NOT want to smell like this. Have you got your hands on that new Naomi Goodsir, the horsey one inspired by her Arabian horse Tequila? I’m anxious for that one!

  • MMKinPA says:

    I don’t have much experience with PdM – the price point turns me off, would love smaller sizes- but this one sounds fun.

    • Patty says:

      It is fun, and I can’t figure out how prices got so completely crazy, but the last year has all of them astronomical. It is disheartening, but a lot of them are doing smaller sizes, but those prices are also astronomical, but just less total for way less.

  • Wendy B. says:

    Oriana sounds fantastic! (and so does Reliqvia, at least from its notes).

  • Tara C says:

    I smelled Oriana at Nordstroms, it reminded me of the Kilian, Profumum Roma Vanitas and Dulcis in Fundo. Since I own those three, no need for this one, especially not at that price. The Reliquia sounds quite good, but who knows where/when it will show up in the US.

    • Patty says:

      Yup, exactly! I think each one of them have some variation that a person should be able to find their fluffy marshmallow perfume out there!

  • Filomena says:

    I have read a couple of reviews for Oriana but your review gave me a better perspective. It sounds like something I might like but the price is outta sight!

    • Patty says:

      I know, it is ridiculous. The other perfume that surprised me on price was Penhaligon’s. When did they get so pricey? Maybe they always were, but I keep thinking Amaranthine, when it existed, was not that bad. High, but not stratospheric, which to me means it was around the 200 mark. Now all of their stuff is 300’ish or above? Huh?

      • Filomena says:

        It seems like they a lot of perfume houses are charging a fortune for their perfumes. Think MEMO and Roja…almost make Xerjoff seem somewhat reasonable.