Fragrances -Guerlain - Shalimar Parfum Initial
riveroflethe 10/15/2011 10:48:00 PM
Awful. Truly awful. I just can't believe the level of desecration that has occurred to the original and magnificently sensual fragrance.
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Conditioner -Oscar Blandi - Balsamo di Jasmine Smoothing Conditioner
riveroflethe 4/13/2011 6:10:00 PM
I had high hopes for this product, as the intoxicating jasmine scent alone beguiled me. Yet in truth, the product, for all its high price and 'salon' quality, did not do what it should have done: smooth out and condition my curly, dry and often unruly, over-processed hair. My hair is very fine; it is the kind of hair that, with the right conditioner, is super easy to blow out into a sleek style. So the fact that multiple dollops of this conditioner, which I left in my hair in a shower cap under hot water for 7 minutes, DIDN'T do the trick is enough to send me right back to Ulta with my reciept and the products (shampoo and conditioner) in hand. Further proof of the low effectiveness of this product is that the same week I tried Joico reconstructing conditioner, used less of it than I did OB and I had amazing results immediately perceptible to me when I touched my hair while wet, before blow drying. JOICO is the way to go, curly girls!
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Fragrances -Guerlain - Nahema
riveroflethe 3/30/2011 2:57:00 PM
Venus floating on a cloud.The rose/peach combination is lush, generous, opulent, but with a sense of humor...like a happy baby playing suds of soap or wide-eyed girl innocently batting her eyelashes. And yet in spite of this caricature-like femininity, Nahema manages to be complex, alluring, erotic. I can see the Sharazadesque quality that inspired the fragrance: the rose continually unfolds, always promising an end yet never quite taking you there and you hold your breath waiting to see what happens next. Absolutely stunning fragrance and an added bonus is that when you wear it, chances are, you are the only one in your town wearing it!
6 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -Agent Provocateur - Agent Provocateur EDP
riveroflethe 3/24/2011 7:47:00 PM
The secret to loving this scent is not to judge it by the first spray! On the skin, after about 5 minutes it settles into something at once erotic and demeure. It evokes the minutes, the seconds before love, and then the morning after. The saffron is exquisite: it lends a refinement and elegance to the sensual rose and jasmine notes...it is a scent reminiscent of a woman who has just come out of the bath after a night of love and now stands before the mirror buttoning her fine-textured chemise over her delicately embroidered lingerie.. I simply love it. I own two painfully expensive bottles.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -Shiseido - Feminite du Bois
riveroflethe 3/24/2011 7:44:00 PM
I hardly have the words to describe the ineffable beauty and 'truth' of this fragrance. In a strange way, it reminds me of a famous painting I once saw called "La Tentation de Saint Antoine." (The Temptation of Saint Anthony). I see the image a woman of profound beauty emerge from the thick of the wood. The moonlight illuminates her rounded hips and ample heavy breasts but she still remains something of an apparition. Her hair is so dark and dense that it can barely be distinguished from the opaque darkness of the forest from which she emerges...She is a bold yet silent woman. She listens. She is a woman who loves and desires ardently but she is not coy. She is naked but not transparent. If she is a figure that tempts, it is because she is so elemental that she eludes... There is something of a shadowy, symbollic quality to this fragrance that is nonetheless wearable, even comfortable--like skin. When I say that, however, I do not mean to suggest that there is anything vaguely animilic about this fragrance. On the contrary, the wood of this fragrance is devoid of the mustiness and dankness of the earth. Rather, it is a gently rustling, deep, voluptuous wood moving like music beneath the stars. On the skin it is like embers, warm and intimate, like a secret held close to the body. The secret unfolds invitingly, the way pages of a book turn themselves. The embers suggest the warm 'halo' of fire but there is no fire in this fragrance--figuratively speaking of course. It is not a fragrance that presumes to seduce; it is not a 'sex in the bottle' potion and for this reason it is quintessentially enticing. It evokes--in a silent and serene way-- the intricacies and inexhaustible depth of a woman's psyche without invoking the menace and terror that this eroticism poses to men--especially men in long dark robes. It is a masterpiece--sonorous and deep like a cello. Well worth the price and the fragrance does indeed live up to its name. It is a terrible pity that this fragrance is hard to find in the US.
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Fragrances -Laura Mercier - Neroli
riveroflethe 3/24/2011 7:35:00 PM
Sorry girls, but if you've ever inhaled the intoxicating fragrance of orange blossom in North Africa, you would really appreciate this scent. This really does capture something of the honeyed, plush, sensual aspect of orange blossom.
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Fragrances -Bulgari - Jasmin Noir
riveroflethe 3/22/2011 3:00:00 PM
Another hit for Bulgari. This is what I would refer to as the quintessentially MODERN floriental. The title is a bit of false advertising, as I would hardly call this a jasmine scent, especially for someone like me who adores true indolic jasmines like "A la Nuit" SL. But for the juice int the bottle: simply GORGEOUS. It is dark without smokiness, sensual in an non-gourmand sort of way or perhaps its gourmandise is an abstraction. When I wear this, I feel very sultry and mysterious.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -Bulgari - Black
riveroflethe 3/22/2011 2:53:00 PM
Sex in a bottle--for MEN.
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Fragrances -Bulgari - Omnia
riveroflethe 3/22/2011 2:50:00 PM
I will make this review short and to the point: this is a man-catcher. Men stop me in the street, or in the elevator, or in the corridor of an office building to ask what I am wearing. In fact, one of my good friend's husband made a special point of saying that it was a very lovely perfume. Of course, she wasn't there when he said it--thank God for her or him!
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