Liquorice, for example. It’s quite strong since the beginning, and other than with sugar, it also mixes with a floral note that struggles to come out. After five minutes it feels like the sweet and floral sides are imploding into each other, makine the fragrance tip on its toes, wrapped in a muffled bitter-sweet layer, although it never gives up a certain floralcy.

Bitter and sweet indeed go great together, just like in Lolita Lempicka, of which Pink Sugar Perfume By Aquolina is a slightly less sophisticated version. For a fragrance that was meant to be sweet, it’s quite light, and the bitterness offers a significant contrast. In the dry down, sweet notes change towards a warmer mix of vanilla and chocolate, very much expected and appropriate.

Liquorice in perfumes is a little like tea: you either like it or not, and so is sweetness, so expect a black or white reaction to it.

If this was a color it would be
Pink Sugar Aquolina Perfume Review

Aquolina Pink Sugar Perfume Review

If you have the luck to sample it, don’t miss the opening, because that’s where earth breaks loose after the rain-shower, releasing all sorts of things, and creating an incredible smell that is hard to describe: minty, plastic, warm, fresh, sweaty. At times it’s also indolic (fecal, that is), with the memory of a childhood in the countryside right there (cowshed smell, anyone?).

All that amazing stuff above (it’s still floral, mind you) translates into a type of clean smell. Yet, it’s something light years far from the laundry detergent in many masculine perfumes: it’s the hardcore, concentrated cleanness of laundry soap bars, the smell of the laundry room in my parents’ house, which always comes with the sloshing noise of hand-washed clothes being rinsed.

After the fireworks of the opening, Apres L’ondee Parfum will reveal its personality: it speaks softly and it’s a vaguely melancholic, warm but detached at the same time. It will embrace you and keep you at a distance.

Note-wise it won’t change much, keeping its almost uber-human richness. However, as it starts marching towards the end, it will speak softer, and softer, and softer… until it fades away…

If this was a color it would be:

Apres L’ondee Review

Apres L'ondee Guerlain Review

Perfume Roberto Cavalli opens fresh, and with a certain minty flavour. It will be fairly unquiet all along, however after a couple of minutes, its structure starts to build, with sweet notes first, and then it finally settles down to a warm floral, sprinkled with musky notes.

After about 20 minutes of sophisticated musky floralcy, fruity notes unexpectedly come out, with a peachy sweetness, which almost gives out a tropical flavor. Peach is a good girl in the bad company of dark florals, musk and pepper. I wouldn’t call it a fruity-floral though, if the idea you have of it is something upbeat and unsophisticated. This one is warm and complex instead, also because of a spicy peppery side.

Roberto Cavalli Perfume For Women has a fairly clear physiognomy at this point, with four sides: the floral, the musky smudge, the peach and the peppery.  It is, however, still a quite restless fragrance. Like many – but not all – complex perfumes, it tends to toss and turn a lot, and results may vary: when it keeps the perfect balance of its elements it’s just great, deep and rich, but it may as well give more prominence to one of its sides. The most unfavorable of them is probably the musky facet, which in itself can be quite rough and plasticized: if that’s what you mainly get, then you may not like it.

As it dries down, vanilla starts to come in, muffling the notes, and toning down the Roberto Cavalli Fragrance’s voice. In the very end, it will get an interesting dark green background as well.

The base notes are when it becomes marilyn-monroe-chanel-No5-quote sexy: from under the clothes to under the sheets. Luscious and warm with no fear and no shame (It’s the perfume speaking, not me, I’m just the messenger…).

Also, it has a good duration, after 16 hours it was still there.

If this was a color it would be:

Parfum Roberto Cavalli

Roberto Cavalli Perfume 2012 Review

There must be rose somewhere, together with a light tuberose that gives a light but rough earthy touch in the background.

It’s all pleasant and the sweet-ish notes coming out of the fruity floral mix are potentially sexy from a close distance.

Yet, I’m finding hard to get an idea what this perfume is about. And I’m not really sure if it’s because there’s really nothing to say, or because it’s actually deeper and more complex than I’d be able to understand.

La Lune by Dolce and Gabbana is a girl you wouldn’t normally notice, unless you had the chance to sit down, talk to her for a while, and look at her from a close distance. Then, you might find her interesting, or she might still leave you undecided between simple or shallow.

If this was a color it would be
D & G La Lune 18

D And G La Lune Perfume Review

Thank goodness it turned out to be just the opening dance of notes, and after five minutes it settled down to a good ole reliable leather.

Kouros by YSL comes easily to mind as a comparison here, but I prefer Antaeus by Chanel big time.

It takes away the most obnoxious aspects of Kouros and adds a bitter but delicate background note to leather.  This bitter side seems to turn into tobacco for a short while, and I would swear I felt even coffee at some point.

All in all however, Antaeus perfume won’t change much, and the dry down will offer the same main leather note, backed up by something that is part floral, part incense, part honey, part herbal green.

The result is warm and reliable, and in spite of its power and complexity, it runs incredibly smooth on the skin.  Also, special mention to the spray on the bottle, which felt quite sturdy.

It would suit men of at least 40 years of age. And that’s one more reason why I loved it: for a guy who is too much into his thirties, it’s always nice to come across a frag and think “nice, but I’m still too young for this.”

If this was a color it would be:
Antaeus Pour Homme By Chanel

Antaeus Chanel Review

The opening is muffled and gives out indefinite florals plus citrus notes, with hints of red fruits. There is also a light bitter earthiness in the background, that smudges the innocence of the main notes.

After a couple of minutes, the earthy side disappears, and the fragrance settles down to a tropical-sweet, and fresh attitude, with also aquatic notes that come out on the blotter, but were completely swallowed up by the skin.

Air D’escapade won’t become an icon in the history of perfumery, but if you’re about to head for a sun holiday, you’ve gotta take this with you: it’s all you’ll need perfume-wise.

If this was a color it would be:

Un Air D’escapade perfume Givenchy

Spicebomb Viktor&Rolf opens with citrus and minty notes, although the balsamic effect is probably a product of the bergamot with the spices.

It won’t be long before the spicy bouquet comes out, with different facets spinning around: it’s dirty-peppery, powdery-old, there’s a smell of burnt (not smoked, burnt), body odour, tobacco, leather, and a quite interesting mix of sweet and bitter.  

You may get any of these or none in particular, in my case it was mainly pepper and cinnamon (like the one in Black XS, but without the blood orange).  

One thing you won’t get however, will be clean laundry notes along with the spices, like in Ferrari Black or Versace pour Homme. You will get floral notes, but they will be mostly buried underneath.

And that’s how Viktor Rolf Spicebomb plays with fire: it’s a spicy frag that takes a daring step further, going closer to where intense borders with obnoxious. A pretty bold thing to do for a mainstream fragrance.

In the dry down, and after lurking in the background the whole time, vanilla sweet notes finally come out, coupled with a nice cleanness. Again, chances are you may find this too cloying.

If a guy won’t like it, I understand. Girls, if you’re thinking of this as a present for a male friend, don’t be offended if you find the bottle on sale on eBay the following week. It’s nothing to do with you, it’s just that it can be too much for the average male nose.

PS: The credit for the tagline goes to a reviewer at the Fragrantica page for this perfume.

If this was a color it would be

Spicebomb Viktor And Rolf

Viktor Rolf Spicebomb Review

On the skin this perfume by Frederic Malle starts immediately with a balsamic minty greenness, which tames the power of the florals density. This balsamic side is a peculiar, quite unexpected counterpart to the floralcy of tuberose, and it’s almost harsh on the throat.

The blotter is way richer. Whereas on the skin there are still some animalic notes pushing from underneath, on here the fragrance is brighter, with also a stinging bergamot to the mix.

If this is what you get on your skin, then this is far from your usual white floral powerhouse. The mint and the fresh notes work with tuberose, uplift it, and create something strong but wearable even if you’re still far from third-age, which is where a white floral would normally belong.

On both sides, perfume Carnal Flower will get vague honey-sweet notes in the dry down, with tuberose being one part of the equation and not the main character. The calmness of the base notes makes the intensity of the opening actually stronger in the memory.

Carnal Flower is alive, like the remarkable yellow of its liquid, and even though at times it feels half light, half nostalgic, it’s sexy all the way. Perfumer Dominique Ropion (Amor Amor by Cacharel, Un Fleur de Cassie, Amarige by Givenchy) sure took a super intense tuberose, but joined it with other notes with enough personality to keep it at bay, and make it even smile a little. And for that we’re grateful.

If this was a color it would be
Carnal Flower Perfume By Frederic Malle

Carnal Flower By Dominique Ropion Review

It’s not your typical fishnet stockinged rose though: the layer of vinyl is substituted by the sweet peachy and the citrus fruity notes of the start.

It’s a strange couple what you have there, but it blends quite well: it’s delicate and sweet, but still with a sexy card to play, especially from a very short distance.

Super short review this time, but Perfume Versus Eau De Toilette is good. What is not good is that Donatella Versace allegedly described the fragrance with words like “rough femininity.” On the contrary, Versus’ femininity is indeed quite smooth. The cool thing is that it will leave an “innocent” trail, but it will still smell sexy from a very short distance.

If this was a color it would be:

Versus By Gianni Versace For Women

Versace Versus Perfume For Women Review

Although unmistakeably fresh-aromatic, the opening is clean, as in clean-bed -sheet clean, with citrus notes that make it a bit more interesting than the average. And after that, there is the spicy phase, with peppery and also some green notes at some point, which even turned into clove for a very short while.

All in all however, the spices feel quite generic, the impression is that the people at Coty wanted to play so safe, that the perfumers Beatrice Piquet (Echo for men by Davidoff, Lady Million) and Alain Astori were forced to tone down anything that could stand out, to even the slightest extent. Involuntary comic effects of marketing: a fragrance called Instinct is the triumph of focus group reason.

I have a bias towards aromatic perfumes, but I have to say that Instinct Beckham is sure quite pleasant, but quite forgettable as well. Yes it’s clean and young, and the opening is not that bad, but the heart notes were under-developed, and the longevity is questionable as well. They didn’t go the extra mile here. Indeed they stopped short. There’s better stuff out there, in the same category, like Versace Pour Homme, or Ferrari Black, or Dior Homme Sport.

If this was a color ir would be

Instinct By David Beckham

David Beckham Instinct Cologne