Tommy Hilfiger Tommy Girl

Happy end of July. The rain receded here by the end of last week … for a bit. I wish we could send a bit of our weather to places that are suffering in the heat.

In the meantime, I was more in the world this past week, thankfully. I really do wonder how much weather affects our beings.

Got stuff done, did a fair bit of work; the plumber and the locksmith visited.

Noticed that the hedge row fruit is rampant this year and the fruit themselves are huuuuuge. They are ripening earlier than normal (our freezing rainy winter, then hugely hot June, then grey and wet again?). I’ll give it another week and then gird my loins (ie, gardening gloves, long sleeves and long trousers) and start picking. I’m thinking a crumble this year — or maybe a fridge cake. In the past I’ve done jam, but I feel something different this year.

I also made it into town for a haircut with associated errands. Got my fave hot chocolate (the no sugar stuff – ie, it’s 100% cocoa — that tastes like proper chocolate) and decided it’s actually too warm and humid to have it hot. Maybe iced hot chocolate next time?

One of my errands related to finally trying Tommy Hilfiger’s Tommy Girl which turned out to be a bit of a faff, but I was triumphant in the end. Had to visit four shops before I was actually able to 1) find someone who would help me and 2) find a place that had a tester to hand.

So, managed to spray it on and get a blotter before getting haircut. Made a few notes and then ignored it for over an hour while other stuff got done.

I’ve wondered about this since I first read about it in Turin/Sanchez The Guide years ago. I’ve never been partial to Tommy Hilfiger – the clothes, the image, whathaveyou. Just not my thing. But they were so fulsome it stuck in my head.

It was released in 1996 – a fruity floral by Calice Becker. I mean, that sounds good, yeah?

Notes include (included? – ‘cause I’m pretty sure it’s been massively reformulated since release) apple tree flower, camelia, mandarin, black currant, lemon, honeysuckle, lily, mint, violet, magnolia, jasmine, cedar, sandalwood and leather, per Fragrantica.

So, initial notes, written before I removed my glasses to be shorn: aquatic melon, watery flowers, possibly freesia, very chemical.

I mentioned to a friend I’d sampled it and her response was “well, it was a zingy, refreshing tea scent an age ago – not any more’.

Definitely not any more.

Weird, conglomerated very sweet fruity maybe floral – ‘maybe’ because it’s difficult to differentiate any specific notes bar that melon thing and maybe freesia (neither of which is within the notes list — plus tea isn’t on the list).

Patty wrote about this in 2008 and didn’t seem hugely impressed (Tommy).

I expect this was something that people bought for teenage/young 20-something women as a gift when they weren’t sure what they’d like and weren’t themselves really interested in perfume.

In any case, there’s not a lot I can say about this version beyond what I’ve written above: it was a strange, slightly unpleasant aquatic melon generic floral thing on me that lasted well and dried down to an annoying, slightly metallic floral with no specifically discernible flowers (ie, a sweet chemical floral melange) except maybe freesia because to my nose freesia is just sweet and ever so slightly irritating – even in real flower form (plus I still remember Miranda Priestly going off on freesia in The Devil Wears Prada). I could still smell something on my wrist after eight hours of wear and I seriously considered washing it off at that point. The blotter still smells after three days – of something generically fruity floral, like bubble gum with flowers or that chewable candy that gets stuck in your teeth.

I feel a bit frustrated that I didn’t have the sense to sample it when it was released, as it sounds like it was the good stuff back then.

So, did you smell/own it when it was the good stuff? Still own it? Thoughts?

Pics: mine, pexels and Wikiscents