Annick Goutal

More Chanel than Chanel itself--it's like the Platonic idea of Chanel. Powdery, cool, sophisticated, serene. The AG website used to present it as a rose scent with iris, and now describes it as an iris scent with rose. But to me it's equally composed of rose, iris, and sandalwood. Glorious.

I have a cute mini bottle, about half the size of the full bottle. If your idea of hyacinth is Chamade, then this well blended, smooth hyacinth is Chamades civilized mild mannered granddaughter. On my skin chemistry, it’s relatively pleasant and innocuous. it’s sweet, but not narcotic like some honeysuckle scents. I’ve worn a lot of Annick Goutal and 9nly lately c9me to understand that they generally don’t work with my chemistry. Eau de Hadrian is like Pledge furniture polish. Folavril is like cheap hotel soap. Eau de Sud was okay, but Guerlain Pamplelune, much better on my skin. But this is nice. Reading the reviews below, I cannot emphasize enough that Goutals are not a blind buy and that skin chemistry is a big factor.

I used to wear this a long time ago when I was on a Goutal journey. It smelt clean and soapy on me. I don’t recall any trace of mango. My mom sniiffed me and said I smelt like generic (cheap) hotel soap. I switched to Eau d Hadrian whihc smelt like pledge furniture polish on me, then Eau de Sud. Recently I came across a bottle mini of Goutals gran amour, which seemed like a well blended, mainstream grandchild of Chamade. But, after many bottles over various Goutals, I realized Goutal just doesn’t really work on my skin chemistry.

A beautiful bright and juicy pear that dries down into something that reminds me of a Philosphy scent from the Grace line. Lovely.

I am sad that this no longer is sold. It is not on the Annick Goutal website. No one seems to sell it except Overstock and the quality and age of that is suspect. A shame that yet another great 'real women's' scent has disappeared, in favor of ozone, candylike, fake flowers, fruit and the soapy scents of today.