Acqua di Gio

This Acqua di Gio is the perfume I gave my dad for Christmas. I have to thank my friend Isabelle for making me try it.
You see, my friend Isabelle only wears mens perfume, and this Acqua di Gio pour homme is one of her favorites. Ok I know your eyes went back to where I say that my female friend only wears mens perfume. It’s less weird than you think and of course has nothing to do with a sexuality disorder or stuff like that; it’s just a matter of taste. My friend has always found womens perfumes too sweet and with no in-betweens: either way too loaded or too ethereal and delicate. Perfumes for men, she says, are subtler, and everyone likes them. Although I remain faithful to the classical division between thing for boys and girls, I have to say I agree with her 100%: womens fragrances always play with the extremes. Perfume makers just don’t want us women to be tri-dimensional: we have to be either the perfect wife and mother, or the femme fatale, we either need to smell like innocent girls, or walk around with the word “sinner” stamped on our forehead. Being all these things at the same time? Impossible. Buy one perfume for each of your personality and wear them one at the time. Being none of these things? Get yourself a men’s fragrance. Men’s perfumes market is less saturated, less aggressive, and therefore offer more choice.
Of course I wasn’t thinking of any of these things when I decided to give this Acqua di Gio for men to my dad. I needed a classy, dry and fresh fragrance (if you find a perfume for women with all these qualities together please let me know).
The feminine version of this Armani perfume was first launched in 1995 followed by the one for men the year after. The latter was more successful, and in fact made the brand Armani more popular. After Acqua di Gio, Armani started to launch new perfumes more often, almost every year.
The opening notes are pretty alcoholic but they are happily tamed by a marine aroma. I actually think it can work really well as a sport fragrance, if you can afford to use it that way. By this I mean I found it a bit expensive (whatever it means to me), even if the Acqua di Gio 6.7 oz is actually good value compared to the 3.4 bottle.
Back to the perfume, other than water, there are melon and pear, and also white roses.
In the middle notes, fruits take a step back, and roses stand out together with other flowers, like jasmine and something denser that smells like hyacinth.

Compared to its predecessor “Gio,” Acqua di Gio perfume is fresher, with a totally different style. More suitable for summertime, quite informal, maybe too much for a work environment. On a date it will not give much help, as the bitter note will remain until the base notes, making this Armani perfume suitable for a personal use. Age range, I would say between 20 and 50.x\

My passion for Jo Malone was born a few years ago, when I was kind of obsessed with essential oils, an obsession that decrease to more healthy levels after having to go to ER for an acute conjunctivitis caused by one my oils. Anyway, at that time I wanted to create my own perfumes and body lotion and so on (how lame!), so I spent a lot time trying to get to know as much as possible about essential oils, and how to get them. That’s when I heard the name Jo Malone for the first time, during a weekend in London, in Jo Malone’s boutique at 154 Walton Street. I was stunned by the huge variety of fragrances she made. It was a completely new world of delicate and sophisticated aromas, light years away from the stinky concoctions that I made.

Jo Malone perfumes have been around for 20 years now. At that time, she became well known thanks to word-to-mouth, thanks to a bath oil never heard before, with nutmeg and ginger. Towards the end of the 80s, at 19 years of age she worked in a florist shop by day and gave facial massages in the evening after work. She used balms and oils that she prepared herself. The Nutmeg & Ginger Bath Oil was at first a gift for her regular customers. Flash forward to 1004 and first boutique in Walton Street in London opens its doors.

Her aim was to recreate, in the very shop, the lab of a perfume maker, and offer personalized perfumes to her customers. Since then Jo Malone has come a long way, with new boutiques opening and a growing popularity.

Now, the review. This Jo Malone Lotus Blossom and Water Lily is -  as the name suggests, floral. The notes are very clear to detect, don’t be fooled though: the simplicity of this fragrance is the typical product of someone who knows hot to master the ingredients.
The opening citrus notes include tangerine and bergamot. They tend to disappear quickly, but not completely, a part of them lingers in the air, teasing the nose. The middle notes are anticipated by water lily and freesia that set the tone and open the gate for jasmine and honeysuckle. Here is where the dance of this Jo Malone fragrance starts, as these flowers play a tug-of-war where nobody is strong enough to defeat the others but each one has a minute of fame.
The base notes are a reassuring orchestration of sandalwood, musk, incense and another wood that I cannot recognize.

No doubt this Jo Malone perfume is a work of art, bye bye DIY perfumes, let’s leave it to the masters.

Who is the best person for this 1 Million perfume? A seducing guy. Are you not that type of guy but you would like to be? Sorry, I don’t have any trick to teach you, but this perfume at least won’t make things worse. It may even increase them a little bit. Ah actually I may help you on the seducing thing, I actually have a trick to offer: women (not me of course, God forbid!) like men that are a mix between classic and rebel. Don’t you believe me? Well don’t come complain after. However, even if you’re not, with this perfume you may do as if you were, at least for a couple of hours. For the record, I gave this perfume as a gift to one of my relatives, who’s single and loved it. Too soon to have results on the seducing part though.

The opening notes are fruity with a spicy hint which I cannot define, but among the official notes are cinnamon and cardamom, so it could be either. Paco Rabanne One Million perfume becomes more defined towards the middle notes and the citrus are stand out a little more, an aromatic orange which reminds me of Amor Amor by Cacharel.
In the (olfactive) distance, this perfume by Paco Rabanne also offers some interesting Mediterranean herbs, like basil and peppermint. Cinnamon now is definitely there, mixed with something very sweet possibly a resin, or amber or patchouli. After a good while a woody note shows up, most likely produced by birch extract. Birch extract and Amber Ketal (both in Paco Rabanne Million official ingredients list) are very common in Paco Rabanne fragrances, the first being used as surrogate to produce leather notes, the latter as a fixer.

In the base notes the spicy wood is still there, still intense but relatively fresh. The leather notes don’t become too dense, after all, last time I checked the 80s were long gone.

This Paco Rabanne perfume gives its best in a closed and slightly cold environment, so it’s perfect as a winter gift. Avoid it in a sunny beach if you can. It kind of reminds me of Ultrared perfume, also by Paco Rabanne, even if they have different styles, with 1 Million being more “serious.” I think it’s also great for a daily use. It looks like it was designed to take you through a day at the office: Fresh in the morning, and denser during the day.
Age range: I want to be flexible: between 25 and 55. Just make sure that the 25 years old looks older than he is.

Anyway, enough rambling, let’s talk about this Juicy Couture fragrance that goes by the same name. The tester was brought to me from Bloomingdales in New York by a friend of mine (where I live it’s virtually impossible to find any tester, and there’s no way a perfume shop is willing to give up a bottle of a Juicy Couture perfume for the general public).
Even if the perfume designer didn’t go to the most secluded corner of the earth to look for never heard of ingredients, it’s nonetheless a sophisticated perfume. There is pretty recognizable stuff like vanilla, patchouli, mandarin and green apple, but what makes this perfume particular is the way these notes are combined together. The opening notes are fruity and rather sweet: watermelon standing out, but it doesn’t last long as the florals (white lily in particular) takes the stage, softening the sweet notes. Yet the final notes are sweet again, thanks to vanilla and caramel, fortunately enough though the designer didn’t want to make a gourmand perfume and made the base notes very light.
There is a phrase used by one of the creators (I think it was Pamela Skaist-Levy) to describe this perfume: “something that Barbie might wear.” It is often quoted and often misinterpreted as somehow inappropriate, considering that this is after all a subtle and sophisticated fragrance. It’s not the gross sophistication of Britney Spears, that Barbie is associated to, but a subtler one. This Juicy Couture perfume is young with the right amount of forvolousness, fresh but not thin as air, girly but not puerile.

Jennifer Lopez Perfume

From the website, the notes are orange flowers, neroli, white roses, jasmine, iris, vanilla, sandalwood, musk and amber. The opening notes are actually not so clear, a confuse mix with vanilla and opaque florals notes, probably because they all appear at the same time. Gradually, it is possible to smell the floral more clearly: orange at the beginning, then jasmine and roses and vanilla. There are also some citrus notes, some bergamot and again orange. In the base notes jasmine stands out giving a warm final.

Unsurprisingly, this is a perfume that can be worn all year (if we make a perfume for the summer, who’s going to buy it during the other six months?). It is said that the original idea that Jennifer Lopez had when they proposed her the idea of a perfume was that it had to be clean, fresh and sexy. The office is not its ideal environment I would say, not because it’s inappropriate, but because, especially towards the end, Glow perfume becomes a fragrance made for the open air.
All in all it could have been worse (it’s a compliment, really). Maybe the only aspect that was not properly developed is the sexy side. Even if you wouldn’t annoy your date, there are more powerful perfumes in this category. And, in spite of what I said above, I think that the age range for this Glow by Jennifer Lopez is between 20 and 60.

There is another version (the third or the fourth) of this Jennifer Lopez perfume, Glow After dark, launched in 2006, 4 years after the original. I prefer Glow after dark to the original Glow, I think it has more personality. It is not a very intense perfume, the floral and the fruity notes are very soft, but don’t be misled by this apparent calm: as the name and the silver bottle say, it’s a fragrance made for informal night-outs, perhaps not the life of the party, but a girl perfectly at ease in the social moment she’s living. Again, like Glow, not so good for dates, if your aim is to make your sensuality explode.
In the opening notes Glow after dark recalls the fruity notes of the original Glow, although less intense than other Jennifer Lopez perfumes. Around the third hour the floral are more prominent, namely white rose, mixed with more generic fruity notes.

Another reason why Fahrenheit by Christian Dior was perfect for my friend, is that it belongs to the Nineties, which is when it came out. And people between 35 and 40, even if they love to remember the long gone Eighties, they were actually young (I mean, teenagers) during the less cool transition to the Nineties.

Back then, this Dior perfume was pretty popular between sophisticated males and people in their fifties who hadn’t overcome the shock of leaving the decade behind. In particular, I remember, and not with pleasure, a professor at my university guilty of over using Fahrenheit by Dior (a friend of mine even caught him spraying it on himself in the toilet right before class), which is after all a perfume to be used wisely.

The opening notes have something woody and metallic, plus a hint of citrus, like bergamot and mandarins, mixed with sandalwood. The middle notes have a trace of honeysuckle, which is not too sweet and with a touch of nutmeg. However, the dominant middle note is a soft vetiver and patchouli and a hint of leather.

If you have the presence, it can be used daily also in a work environment, but it’s out of the office, on informal or semi-formal occasions that this Fahrenheit Dior gives its best.

Like all successful perfumes, Fahrenheit also started a line of fragrances under the same name (think of Angel or Opium). 2009 was the year of Fahrenheit Absolute. Dior showed they didn’t want to milk the cow as much as possible, as this version of Fahrenheit perfume was only the third one in 21 years. The bottle is very similar to the original of 1988, but similarities end here.
Except some violet and leather notes, the fragrance is a completely different one, as it’s based on a not very common type of resin. The name “Absolute” is probably related to the Absolute zero. After all, the first Fahrenheit perfume spin off was Fahrenheit 32, which equals to 0°C.
The ads for the different versions of Fahrehenheit perhaps give an idea of how this perfume has changed in the mind of its creator. The first Fahrenheit placed a man on a pier before a sea, made red by sunset. In Fahrenheit 32, the same man was on the peak of a mountain, almost touching the clouds. In Fahrenheit Absolute our guy is on a volcano surrounded by incandescent lava, which makes the sea waves boil. I’m not sure what I should read in all this, maybe it means something, maybe it’s all marketing BS, so I’ll leave it up to you.

According to the Christian Dior website, these are the notes: violet, leather, resin di myrrh and agar (or aquilaria) wood, a type of resinous wood used to make incense.

What does the nose say? The opening notes are indeed dominated by violet. In the background there are some notes of sweet resin, and a growing hint of animal and slightly spicy notes. After 15 minutes, there’s cumin, or a spicy note to that effect.
After a few minutes, the violet stands out again, together with something else which is musky and spicy at the same time, probably the result of this  mystery called resin (which to me, it’s mainly something that comes out of the bark of the trees, or a material used to make canoes).
Towards the third hour, the main notes of Fahrenheit Absolute are powdery amber, together with incense and oriental woods.
After three days (yes, it was a test paper), the perfume is still there, with the same notes of sweet amber and spicy resins.

In my head Fahrenheit Absolute is the perfect example of a well balanced fragrance. It’s an elegant perfume for an everyday use, strong enough to stand a walk on the open air, but flexible enough to be suitable for work, much more than its Uncle, the original Fahrenheit by Christian Dior.

Prada perfume

The masculine version has no similarity at all with the one for women. The opening notes at the first spray is also quite different from other fragrances, it’s a fresh non-oriental resinous perfume, that becomes woody and somehow soapy in the middle notes, like a shampoo or cologne of the thirties, together with floral masculine notes of geranium or vetiver. After two hours on the test paper, the note of classic cologne starts to disappear and a new layer of leather appears, together with vanilla and touches of spice (supposedly saffron, according to the bottle).
After 24 hours, the test paper still has a note of amber on it, but the traditional shaving cream smell is there again. It’s like an old barber shop must have smelt like.
Prada perfume is both suitable for a summer and a winter use, better by day than by night, as it reminds of the fresh sensation after the shower.

Creed Perfume

History is important, and to keep up with it, any Creed perfume has to be a precious, exclusive product with the best quality ingredients like roses from Bulgaria, Turkey and Morocco, Italian jasmine and laurel.
Among Creed’s customers, the list of celebrities is long All the most beautiful men in the world wear them: Richard Gere, Robert Redford, Robbie Williams, George Clooney and… the Prince of Wales.
To me this air of exclusivity makes Creed perfumes the ideal gift every time I need to buy or advise a perfume as a gift for any male friend older than 30, with a professional style.