OK Posse! I finally hit the CheckOut button on a bottle of Stash Prive by Sarah Jessica Parker. There have been so many nay-sayers and knockers that I’ve not gone through with it till now. Though it has been in Australia, it’s never been on a shelf in any store, at any time I am. So, come ye blind buy. Fortunately my expectations are at rock bottom. Even the advert looks like everyone involved has given up all hope. There’s something just sad and jaded about the whole shebang. BUT I’ve yearned so hard for this cheap as shit fragrance, and now it’s in my hands it’s easy to be embarrassingly excited. So you get to join me on my first application.
WHAT?!? This came out in 2017! NOOOOOO, for reals? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. What a saddy am I? EIGHT years I’ve been wanting this stupid bottle. Ha Ha Ha. Stash Prive will be 10 years old in just over a year. It came out the same time as Stash Unspoken. How does time fly so fast? Better get sniffing then.
Stash Prive by Sarah Jessica Parker 2017
Featured accords offered are:
Top: grapefruit, pink pepper, quince
Heart: Moroccan orange blossom, sage
Base: birch wood, musk, Haitian vetiver
On opening and into the first few minutes Stash Prive gives that fresh, zingy pink pepper and amorphous fruits that we have expected from the fragrance industry for years. It’s been bandied about from the cheapest drug store offerings to the highest costing designer and some of the niche.
Is there Moroccan Orange Blossom in here? HA! Probably not. It’s an amorphous white floral idea that is neither breathy nor fleshy. It has been shorn of all interesting or confrontational bits and left as a whisper of itself. It does skirt the radiant idea and winks at it from a distance.
That something so polite and pretty could be called Prive is strange to me. SJP is a notoriously good co-creator of scents. Some of them have been downright weird (looking at you Covet, which I love). Yet here we are being given a simple, sweet nothing.
Stash Prive is not terrible. It’s very pretty, undemanding and wearable in almost every situation. Unless you are a conspicuous over spritzer it will not attack innocent bystanders or outrage the clergy. What it smells like is a slightly elevated celeb-u-scent.
Will I wear my 30ml of Stash Prive. YES! You know it. I’ll be running dry and buying a 100ml at crazy prices in the very near future. I can just tell this wispy excuse for fragrance is going to become an easy spritz and go, just like Unspoken did. I’ll overlook the iconic, the expensive and the fabulous for it. How perverse we humans are.
My bottle came from FragranceNet with a few 8ml Travels. Not affiliated but bought some stuff and you’re reading about them in a bunch.
So, does Stash Prive read like it might be a you fragrance?
Portia xx
I remember talking about this on APJ and you couldn’t get your mitts on it at the time. You’ve had some wait! I agree that it’s an easy wear when you don’t want something edgy, and can’t be bothered to shop your extensive collection of El Fabulous. Sometimes it’s easier to be El Cheapo and just smell pleasant and uncomplicated. I haven’t worn mine in years, but some day. . .
HA! That was some time ago CassieFlower!
If you put it in your grab tray I bet it gets regular spritzes.
Portia xx
This was HYSTERICAL to read, thank you!!! I’m glad you finally bought it! Also FragranceNet is fabulous and has also gotten me into trouble soooooo many times. This doesn’t sound like “my” kind of cheap and cheerful but I’m glad it makes you happy and doesn’t smell like paint thinner. XO
YAY for giving you a smile March.
Prive is a wallflower, but a pretty one. You’d probably sleep through it.
Portia x
I have both Stash and Covet and love them. This was a fun read. I totally get choosing the “easy spritz and go” and had to smile when I read it. I do it quite often but I don’t always own up to it. If I’m honest, what I’ve worn the most this past summer has been my Vacation Grand Cuvee body mist (90 mls for 24 bucks in the U.S.) and my discounted bottle of Burberry Goddess (hello, mainstream designer frag).
Hey SpringPansy,
I’m wondering if many of us 90s and 00s perfumistas are all confrontation-ed out? Sure, I still get the weird and wonderful out when perfume peeps are over for a sniff, and VERY occasionally give them a wear but what I really like for every day is a beautiful, undemanding, fragrant comfort food or white T Shirt in fragrance form.
Portia xx
I love fragnet, but they are dangerous. So many things on there, and some of them so cheap..
As for this one, I kind of like the bottle- reminds me of something but I can’t think what. Which from your description reads like the juice is the same way.
I remember you made me smell an SJP at the Macy’s in the (now defunct) Westside Pavillion. I was not as shocked that I would have been that it was so good because I had read she took a hands=on approach to doing it. But looking at the number of frags she has I can’t think she has the time to devote to each one of them, and her other projects.
Isn’t it weird that sometimes you just want to grab something easy? Like having a kitchen full of delicious fresh French breads, fruits, and hot food but just grabbing a Pop-Tart on the way out the door. And eating it cold.
Yeah, I’ve done it.
Yeah, FragNet ARE dangerous. You can never order just one.
Memories of our amazing 2013/14 LA adventures are some of my favourites Tom. How did we fit so much in?
HA! We don’t have Pop Tarts in Oz but I get the analogy.
Portia xx
Someone gave me a travel size of Lovely. I liked it but after about 5 -10 minutes wear, I got a headache. It’s a problem I have with cheaper (but also other) perfumes. There are too many synthetics in them or the wrong combination. I don’t know. Most of the current synthetics are recent and the old drugstore perfumes still had real perfume oils in them.
What a shame Maya,
That must make your sampling a bit of a crap shoot.
Portia xx
It does, but then you find one that’s nice and fun and works or another that makes your heart sing. Sharing the love is pretty darn nice too.
Truth
I have 100ml of Prive. It’s much more aligned to Lovely than Stash. I like an easy grab, specially if it cost no more than a tenner. Proud to be a Basic Biatch!
HA! Alityke, you’re hilarious. Also, spot on. It IS much closer to Lovely.
Portia xx
Line up Prive, Unspoken in fact any SJP with other femme aimed costly designer or nouveau niche & I defy any scent civilian to pick out the cheapies!
BTW I really am a Basic Biatch! M&S undies & jeans, Fitflop trainers & Ts in multipacks from Next. At my age I don’t give a hoot!
Yeah, (looking At you DIOR Privé line)
We are definitely Tribe Alityke. I’ve recently realized that Target Polo Shirts are better quality than RL ones and am now paying AUD$15 to look sharp casual.
Portia x
Isn’t it true how an inexpensive mass-market scent can sometimes be more pleasing than a high end la-di-dah one?!? As a teen and college student I must have gone through a dozen bottles of Revlon Jontue, a slightly green tuberose floral that could be bought in any drugstore. I still have a bottle for nostalgia sake. And you know what? I still think it smells good.
Hey DinaC,
I have a small bottle of Jontue here. It’s beautiful. It wouldnb’t need much tweaking to end up in a high end niche lineup.
Portia xx
I love Jontue! I wore it all the time. I have an old bottle and it still smells terrific.
YUM!
I had a bottle of Lovely and swapped it away, not my style. I still own Covet and love it (weird but good) and the original Stash is one of my all time favorites and my “lucky” perfume. Prive sounds like it has no relationship to Stash; if you said it was Stash Intense I might have bought (I do have Unspoken based on your previous review and enjoy it but nothing like Stash).
Yeah, Stash and Covet are SJPs best by far. If you like but don’t love Unspoken then you’ll probably be the same with Privé. It’s nice, pretty and forgettable. I like it though.
Portia xx
I loved the book about the creation of her first scent. However, I have no memory of it even though I did try it — and I’ve not tried any of her other offerings. I will pass this by unless I meet it somewhere (don’t know where that might be).
I went to the same secondary school as her husband, Matt Broderick. He was a jerk then. I expect he grew into a decent man if she married him.
O M G! Matthew Broderick was a jerk?!? Cinnamon, do tell please.
Portia xx
He was part of the drama clique. Of course. They could be … annoying.
HA!