Monday, September 20, 2004

Myne Trippe to Sephora II


SephoraContinuing from Part I...

One of the standout fragrances of the day was definitely Magnetism by Escada. I always expect a violently fruity note from Escada perfumes, ever since I smelled Tropical Punch, and then everything after that seemed to have a dominant fruit note, either papaya or guava or melon, married to a light and unassuming floral body. Really, for a while, most of those new Escada fragrances just kind of blurred together. I don't even remember the names--Island Kiss, Ibiza Something-or-other.... Sentiment I guess would be the exception among those perfumes, however, with its berry note above the lush florals; but apart from that they were all pretty much the same. So that's what I expected from Magnetism. But it pleasantly surprised me. It is fruity, though, and bombastically so: it opens with this bodyslamming cherry/cough drop note that I find incredibly pleasant, but which others might not be very partial to. I would say that it follows into a floral body, but by the time I got around to smelling it, there were too many fragrances in the air and I couldn't spend a lot of time following it. Still, the opening is quite nice, and it recommends the perfume quite well. I could see someone wearing this perfume for a romantic night out, but then again I could also see how that would be problematic. The intense cherry-ness of the scent might conflict with a really romantic mood.

These little Dior scents, the ones in the small cutesy bottles that seem to only be around a few months--are they made for teenagers? I'm thinking they are, because they always have these light, fresh scents that are very young, and the marketing seems geared to the very young. The ones I sampled yesterday were CHRIS 1947 (these ones seem to be pushing the envelope as far as names--that's a good thing), a wispy, young light floral, and Forever and Ever, a fresh fruity floral. The bottles are very cute and the scents themselves are pleasant, but I don't think they would do much for a grown woman. These are scents to keep in mind when giving a gift to a younger cousin or someone like that. They almost seem like 'starter' perfumes.

The Sud Pacifique line has new stuff out now, and it's incredible. I first noticed that line when I smelled their Amour de Cacao, Kumquat and Vanille Abricot, so I associate them with food scents. Here are the ones I noted: Vanille Coco--I thought at first it was cocoa-vanilla, but after I smelled it I realized it meant vanilla coconut. Pleasant if you go for coconut; I don't. I think there are plenty of cheap vanillic fragrances out there that end up smelling like coconut anyway. And if you really, really like coconut, you can just spray coconut car air freshener on your clothes; or wear some Coppertone. Vanille Canelle--I was excited about this one. Vanilla Cinnamon! How can you go wrong? Well, they did. There was too much vanilla, not enough spice. It was disappointing. Vanille Banane--this stole the show. Vanilla Banana. I thought it was such an incredible sensation; but then I love the smell of banana cream. I can't imagine when I or someone would want to wear it, though, but if you really like those smells you can't go wrong with this one. In fact, this one might would actually work best as linen spray or something like that. I just can't imagine when I'd ever feel like wearing it as a scent, unless I combined it with other things. There was also Vanille Pitahaya (papaya?), which I liked but Jason didnt, and Vanille Passion, which I didn't think was up to much, compared with the others. I would liked to have seen a stronger spice, and perhaps a vanilla caramel or a good berry vanilla.

Speaking of foody scents, I smelled Hot Toddy by Demeter as well. I liked it, but since I don't know what's in a hot toddy, I didn't really know what to sniff for. to me it simply smelled like a synthetic carnation oil to me, which is actually a pleasant smell, but nothing I'd necessarily wear.

I smelled 2 scents from the CLEAN line, Baby Girl and Fun. Baby Girl smelled familiar, but I couldn't conjure up what exactly it smelled like--baby powder? Johnson & Johnson's Baby Shampoo? I couldn't figure it out. Fun , which was a roll-on oil, smelled terrible, like fruity smells wafting through a car garage.

And the last one, the only mens fragrance I took notes on that day, the new offering from Hugo Boss: Baldessarini (named after a former Boss chairman. It's thanks only to basenotes that I'm able to spell it correctly, since the name is in a cursive that I wasn't able to completely decipher. As for the fragrance, I like it. I found it coniferous and spicy, and definitely not something I would have expected from Hugo Boss. I'd have to smell it again and look at the drydown to see whether I really, really like it, but my first impression was that it's a quite nice fragrance, although not a really groundbreaking one.

And that was my Sephora experience! Beep!

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