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Visar inlägg med etikett Good Girl Gone Bad. Visa alla inlägg

måndag 30 juni 2014

Eau d'Italie - Graine de Joie

Picture: HRH Prince Carl Philip and his fiancee Sofia Hellqvist
on their engagementday June 27th, 2014.
Photo: Expressen Sven Lindvall (c)
Graine de Joie from italian nichehouse Eau d'Italie is a red berry boost raised to ten. Graine de Joie is created by Daphne Bugey. The fragrance is said to be inspired by the idea of love and according to the marketing blurb "we have decided to celebrate love, and to create a fragrance that conjures up the irresistible light-headedness of when you fall in love." Graine de Joie would have been the olfactory background for the great royal news of last Friday: The handsome HRH Prince Carl Philips engagement with his charity working, from a small village, middle class background, girlfriend Sofia Hellqvist. Another Cinderella story following the one of HRH Prince Daniel. The color and expression of Graine de Joie is exactly the red color of Sofias elegant dress.

Graine de Joie starts very uplifting with ripe redberries and pomegranate, red, lush and mouthwatering delicious. The berry-pomegranate combo goes through the whole fragrance supported by a fizzy freesia who is contrasting and lighten up the fragrance. There are also a contrasting, tart note, maybe some redcurrant leaves is added to the mix or the note just picturing the tartness present in the berries themselves. Not unexpected, the berry-bowl is grounded in a well balanced musky, light woody base.

Picture: The sunny spirit of Graine de Joie
Photo: PR Eau d'Italie (c)
Beside the royal engagement, Graine de Joie gives me the image of a bowl with ripe red berries and fruits avaible when relaxing in a sunny mediterrian garden in the peak of the summer.Graine de Joie is a perfect fragrance for the season, something that departs from the usual fresh aquatics or citrus scents. The fragrance is much richer than the usual sommerfragrances and despite its full blown berry sweetness, it doesn't becames sickly sweet or smells chemical. It's an uncomplicated happy and easy to wear fragrance, appropriate both for work or casual wearing. Graine de Joie is a good composition in the floral-fruity genre. I find it more ordinary in style than the intriguing and demanding earlier Eau d'Italie compositions such as the burnt, spicy, woody Bois d'Ombrie, the green, rough, woody Sienne l'Hiver, the dramatic rose Pasteum Rose and the special cologne styled first fragrance Eau d'Italie which I personally prefer.

When it comes to similar fragrances, first of all Robert Piguet Jeunesse comes to my mind, though that one has more dept and contrasting non-berry/fruity notes. Also the fragrances in By Kilians subline In the Garden of Good and Evil are in the same style, reviews of In the City of Sin, Good Girl Gone Bad, Forbidden Games and Playing with The Devil.

Rating: 4

Notes: Red berries, red currant, pomegranate, freesia, flowers, praline, musk,cedar

måndag 25 februari 2013

Jimmy Choo - Flash

Picture: Flash the latest Jimmy Choo release
Photo by Jimmy Choo (c)
As a longtime parfumista I shouldn't (of course) like Jimmy Choo latest fragrance Flash, but I have to confess, I really do like this mainstream release. Flash, created by experienced perfumer Christine Nagel, is a diluted and thin floral fragrance, so typical for a IFRA/EU compliant 2013 release even though, it has something appealing in its appearance. Maybe it's the contemporay interpreation of the cold white floral notes backed up by some light and spicy notes.

Flash starts flowery with a contemporary stripped down, cold tubereuse matched with a jasmine and a lily handled in the same way. The indolic, animalc notes are far away, and there is also no creamy aspects as for in example the lily dominated Baiser Volé from Cartier. Instead Flash has cold and clean and in the same time pleasant smelling flowers accentuated with a slight just recognizable note of frozen strawberries. The strawberrynote is not particular sweet, I percieve it as wellbalanced. Flash is quite linear in structure, but in the basenotes, some to the chilly impression, contrasing, light spicy, warmer notes appears as also a pleasant slight soapy note. Overall Flash is cold and the pale purple color of the juice is a perfect match to the feeling Flash intermediate: Its texture is like a pale, purple chiffon veil.

Flash is a very uplifting perfume, refreshing and even if pale, somehow distinctive. It's the perfect perfume for days when tired or even with a hang over. Flash is also a comfortable, non-offensive, office fragrance, versatile and a easy choice for days when not knowing what to wear. Flash will also be a good fragrance for spring. Despite Flash is representing the pale and almost bodyless structure of a modern mainstream, the longevity is almost 24h.

There is some similarities in style with the In the Garden of Good and Evil fragrances from ByKilian but Flash is more distinct, less fruity and maybe a bit sharper in edges but it definitly gives a greater value for the money. Another fragrance that strangely comes to my mind when wearing Flash in its basenotes is the transparant, smooth-spicy Rima XI from Carner Barcelona. It's probably the light spiciness just detectable in Flash that is the common link as also the chiffonlike texture of both frgrances even if the Rima XI veil is white where Flash is purple, Rima XI is not flowery at all to my nose. Those who like Prada Infusion deTubereuse could also like Flash.

Rating: 4 *)

*) Even if Flash doesn't reach a 5 rating in the overall assessement, Flash is a fragrance that I personally like very much regardless the overall rating

Notes: Strawberry, tangerine, pink pepper, tubereuse, jasmine, lily, heliothrope, white woods

fredag 18 januari 2013

By Kilian - Forbidden Games

Picture: Boy with a Basket of Fruit
Oil of canvas by Michelangelo Merisi Cravaggio ca 1593
Wikimedia commons
Forbidden Games is the third installment in The Garden of Good and Evil line from By Kilian. Forbidden games is created by Calice Becker and is said to express the following: "When going beyond the boundaries has never been so exciting and dangerously attractive".

Forbidden Games starts a bit chemical, in a good way, fruity-floral, with emphasis on fruity, sort of like a compot of fruits as peach and apricots. Forbidden games is slight gourmand compared to the other two in the Garden of Good and Evil trio In the City of Sin and Good Girl Gone Bad. There is also like a light trail of cacaopowder glimpsing throughout the composition. As the rest of the trio very light and somehow thin and fleeting in charachter when taking into account the quite distinct ingredients mentioned in the notelist. A nice and good officescent that smells nice and can't harm anybody. Even if light the longevity is good almost for a day and the projection is close.

Just as hinted of in the In the City of Sin and Good Girl Gone Bad posts I suspect that  these sort of indistinct, fleeting charachters as I perceive from the Garden of Good and Evil  fragrances, is a good example of the coming, even more regulated perfumeworld that could be effective from 1 July 2013. Probably By Kilian is just pre-compliant.

Rating: 3

Notes: Apple, peach, plum, cinnamon, rose, geranium, jasmine, vanilla, honey, opoponax

onsdag 16 januari 2013

By Kilian - Good Girl Gone Bad

Picture: Lü Ji, Birds in Osmanthus and Chrysanthemum,
13th century, Palace Museum, Beijing
Testing the next installment of the In the garden of Good and Evil subline of By Kilian, Good Girl Gone Bad. This almost natural smelling fruity-floral frag is created by Alberto Morillas. The spirit of the fragrance is described as "A woman who is game for anything in the world of love, of desire, of naughtiness"

Starts with fruity-flowery notes, osmanthus  contrubutes with the fruity-floral notes but there is also something similar to a mellow, yellow melon in the opening. Soon a tame tubereuse, some white flowers off-setted by a crisp but smooth narcissusnote appears. A very light creamy touch also appears in the middlenotes. There also some very light traces of cardamom (I think). Cardamom seems to be a it-note by now, Histoires de Parfums cardamomtrio Veni, Vidi, Vici is another example of this trend. The fruity-floral blend continues in the same style, supported by a conventional ambery-woody base.

To me there is nothing "Gone Bad" or naughty with this nice & fresh, totally officefriendly fragrance that could be worn in any season. There is more body to it than the initial perfume of the subline, In the City of Sin, but despite this, I percieve Good Girl Gone Bad as thin and uninteresting (I wonder if this depends on compliance with the new EU-regulations/IFRA selfregulations), but smelling nice. To me also GGGB just as ItCoS doesn't lend any remaining impression. On the other hand, Mr Parfumista think GGGB smells very good, "clean and wellblended not as the strange old-ladys scents you're insist to wear".To summon it all up: A nice smelling, easy to wear perfume that couldn't offend anybody. Taking the pricerange of By Kilian into account (if not buying the refills), I rather go for something mainstream, for example the Versace Vanitas Edt or Vanitas Edp if I wan't something in this uplifting, easy to wear style. The two latter also have a fuller body and are not fleeting.

Rating: 3+

Notes: Jasmine, osmanthus, may rose, tuberose, narcissus, amber, cedar