Fragrances -Unlisted Brand - Durbano- Black Tourmaline
cdpx 4/7/2009 12:23:00 PM
Powerful pepper, something medicinal, spicy, almost mentholated, lovely frankincense, woods, lots of cedar, persistent smokiness. Meditative, stunning, sometimes exhausting.
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Fragrances -Donna Karan - Black Cashmere
cdpx 3/10/2007 2:37:00 PM
How I wanted to have the deep, dark Black Cashmere experiences I have heard so much about! This fragrance instantly separates into three distinct components on me, all of which have humorous aspects. First is the saffron: a big fat grandstanding dandelion full of it, a child showing off jumping off a picnic table. Then comes the slightly plastic cola / root beer. Finally, the wenge, which reminds me of a fake plastic wood created in the early 70s for people to make cheesy fake exotic "artifacts" out of. The last two components are steeped in, from the DK "solos" collection, the Labdanum, less dark alchemy than strutting around talking about it on one's lunch break.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier Perfumes - Ambre Precieux
cdpx 10/21/2006 1:11:00 PM
I'm of two minds and noses about this one. It is a very nice, warm amber, good mix of amber-resin and ambergris effects, pleasant vanilla, with a swooning, transporting opening. On the other hand, after a few minutes, it hunches its shoulders, and meeps in upspeak. It rapidly becomes flat, muddled and wishy-washy, a pudgy teen dressed in unflattering brown clothes. Is my sample off?!? For her sake, I hope so.
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Fragrances -Creed - Fantasia de Fleur
cdpx 10/21/2006 1:00:00 PM
I am shocked. Florals and I don't get along. With, so far, the exception of this. I don't know how to describe it. White and yellow flowers is what I would say. One particular flower in the top notes is startlingly like an actual flower being right there. I don't know which one of course. Not the rose. A heads-up to people whose chemistry favours Orientals and chypres - this may work! Gorgeous, classy, smart and kicky. Wow, wow, wow. * I today posted a somewhat scathing review of Odeur 53, which I'd worn the day the F de F arrived in the mail. F de F was a tester without cap and it got on my hands just after I'd applied Ambre Précieux to mask the 53 before a date. All three together is actually something I'd do again. Having 200mls of post-modernity staring at me and all.
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Fragrances -Comme des Garcons - Odeur 53 
cdpx 10/21/2006 12:45:00 PM
How I wanted to like this. The packaging is excellent, the concept intriguing. The self-description of notes is obnoxious, like someone in post-modern eyewear sticking their nose in the air ... because someone much shorter than them is actually wearing the fragrance. The burned parts ruin it for me. There ARE interesting fresh and carbon notes, and a skin scent-like element, but those burned notes are gross, like the bitter part of tar, like overheads fresh out of the photocopier with the hot plastic mess smell. The airy parts are nice. The skin scent parts smell like a dupe of a "don't remember brand" 5 dollar men's gift basket line that claims to have spearmint, patchouli and I forget what else in it. John Waters says he wears this and that after a few minutes it smells like nothing. Either I applied way too much, or the "default" in John Waters' head is as bizarre as his films.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -Les Nereides - Impérial Opoponax
cdpx 9/27/2006 10:33:00 AM
This to me is very much like Emeraude c. 1982 (classier and less gaggy) + myrrh. Very nice!
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Fragrances -Serge Lutens - Santal Blanc
cdpx 8/4/2006 2:07:00 PM
Smells to me like a fan made of sandalwood and stored in a box, a gift from a student. Pure wood, light and airy but not ethereal, cerebral and grounded, a calm presence and keen, unagressive intelleigence asserting themselves. On me, this doesn't change at all from start to finish and helps me see the daily details and the big picture simltaneously.
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Fragrances -Guerlain - Shalimar
cdpx 7/22/2006 6:23:00 PM
Angora sweater, perfect shining hair, innocence with maturity and a hint of intrigue. Much more than just soft and feminine, its understated complexity makes it evocative and uplifts the potentially cloying qualities.
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Fragrances -Givenchy - Organza Indecence
cdpx 5/20/2006 4:28:00 PM
I probably wouldn't purchase it, but I've learned to enjoy it. The opening is quite uncanny: two seconds of pure, airy amber and then, WHAM! Tropical fruit and coconuts and massive, woozy flowers pinned into the shiny, wavy hair of a star. Lasting power is commendable, and once the first two seconds are over, the fragrance stays its course, retaining its exact quality if not its strength, and sails over the seas singing and dancing off into the sunset.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -Frederic Malle - Musc Ravageur
cdpx 5/20/2006 4:22:00 PM
I'd think that I'd received a mislabelled decant given all the nods to MR's richness, intensity, spiciness, muskiness ... but I also received a little sample of MR body lotion, and the scent is definitely the same in both: faint, innocent, warm and kitten-soft, a dear and comforting scent, a graceful teen curled up with a book.
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Fragrances -Serge Lutens - Arabie
cdpx 5/20/2006 4:07:00 PM
Licorice, spices, fruits, a foody yet cerebral - more food prep / international travel than succulent consumption NOW - variety of accords ... plus an excellent demonstration of the incommensurabilities of impression, taste and chemistry. I found the end result harsh and austere, the licorice stiff, like never-worn denim, and something in the spice notes makes Arabie intolerable and unwearable for me, an itchy wool sweater I won't wear again.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -Fragonard - Grain de Soleil
cdpx 5/20/2006 3:29:00 PM
The opening of Grain de Soleil - both in the bottle and on me - is revolting and peculiar. The hearty, sunny, ambery creature that this "grain" (a term for some types of seed in French) grows into is initially masked by an acrid, overpowering note of nail-polish remover, which I assume is perfumer's alcohol evaporating, or a limited edition April Fools / SunShowers edition which contains turpentine instead. As it disappears, which takes about ten minutes, it gives off hints of geranium, and the sunny amber bursts forth, warm like lying in the grass in the sun and closing one's eyes, like the burnished early evenings of late summer.
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Fragrances -Serge Lutens - Datura Noir
cdpx 3/17/2006 3:33:00 PM
A big yuck! A big PURPLE yuck. Overripe stink flower and some coconut. It reminds my novice nose of either Alien or Organza Indécence and I am looking on-line at the notes of those two to try to figure out which one. Neither of those three are for me.
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Fragrances -Jo Malone - Amber Lavender
cdpx 2/26/2006 1:31:00 AM
I don't get an amber note from this whatsoever. I simply get sharp, raw lavender as though stripped squawking and indignant from a guttural tweed-leather-sports-car- English-countryside men's cologne that inflected it while rendering it thereby incapable of standing alone. It later softens down into very old man territory, sad, quiet but insistent. If I want something like this in the future, I'll go for lavender essential oil. NB This is a review of a decant.
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Fragrances -Chanel - Une Fleur De Chanel
cdpx 7/11/2005 7:01:00 PM
I got a generous spray from a friend, not my own bottle, and it is HIGHLY reminiscent of Coco Mademoiselle jacked up with some florals, not pink florals, green or yellow florals. Marigold or gardenia or jasmine or something. It reminds me of white, Chanel suits, quality fabrics, and restraint: calculated, sophisticated, possibly Machiavellian restraint. Professional manicure with nude polish. Tea rooms and shooting one's husband with a minuscule revolver that fits in the purse with the tiny little dog. I personally don't find this fragrance young. I find it forty-two. Une Fleur is quite alright, not my thing, and at forty-two I hope to smell more overtly dastardly and exotic.
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