Parlux

Notes from Fragrantica: Top notes are pear, apricot and red berries; middle notes are gardenia, jasmine, almond and caramel; base notes are sandalwood, vanilla and amber. This review is for the 2012/2013 pre-reformulation eau de parfum, as I feel knowing that makes a difference in notes and smell/impression. I have had this for so many years and literally have only worn it twice (counting today). With my recent fragrance project I felt I needed to really work on some unloved/unworn fragrances in my collection, so this one ended up in the first round of what to wear. Honestly, I like it much more than I thought I would. It's not a gourmand by any means---it's far too floral in the opening for that, and the jasmine and gardenia linger throughout, keeping it just this side of foody for me. This iteration is very similar to Prada Candy (but a fraction of the price) so it hits that spot of wanting something sweetish but in a more 'grown up' manner. I get zero fruit in this, but I do get the floral opening, which is soft and laundry-sheet/clean shampoo-esque. Then it softens and dries down into a lovely caramel-almond vanilla fragrance with no sharp edges. A hint of powder, and I swear for about 30 minutes I got a hint of sweet cafe au lait as well. Just a hint! I went into today thinking this was definitely one getting purged, and instead I find I quite like it.

Animale......yeah a wolverine or Yeti or Sasquatch. Loud, brash, ostentatious and masculine. Those are the words that come to mind with this fragrance. It's difficult for me to pick out any individual notes but after a few hours I did detect the honey note but it is not predominant. I feel like I am in the middle of a vegetable and herb garden (coriander is a note in this fragrance) with rose bushes on the outlying regions of said veggie garden. I can smell the dirt, weeds, oranges, vetyver and something very animalic (duh......the fragrance is called Animale Animale) which is the civet. Reminds me a little of Cacharels Eden. Sillage is amazing (it can fill up a gymnasium) and lasting power is until you somehow manage to wash it off. I think this perfume is part of the chypre family. I'm a floral kind of guy but this stuff is amazing. Very cool unexpected find. Definitely a left over fragrance from the 80s. Glad it's still around.

I'm pretty sure I got the newer, reformulated version unfortunately. This perfume smells a lot like Katy Perry's Purr perfume which I absolutely hate and ended up donating to Project Beauty Share. I have smelled Fancy before but in the body spray version, not the perfume version but it smelled so good which is why I took a gamble and ordered Fancy, hoping it would be the beautiful scent I smelled in the body spray version. It was a gourmand lovers dream: Caramel, marshmallow, a slight sweet brown sugar note was detected, caramel, slight warm musk (white musk?) scent. Perfect for fall and winter. But this newer version is not good imo. It has a floral note that I can't stand that is a migraine trigger unfortunately which is why Katy Perry Purr didn't work out for me (and the scent on Purr was awful, on me it was all a suffocating, noxious seriously heavy floral scent with no gourmand, warm scent at all like what was listed in the description). The bottle is nonetheless very beautiful, looks very high end like something you'd buy from a Macys fragrance counter. The bottle would be a beautiful addition to your makeup table, if only for decoration purposes. The weight of the bottle is very heavy. Not cheaply made at all. I will keep this perfume, hoping maybe it will work for me and give it a second chance. If you are looking for a very warm, gourmand scent, try Queen Latifah's Queen perfume. I hated Queen at first cause the first few sprays were awful but then I got the most amazing gourmand scent from it: Caramel, marshmallow, musky vanilla with a slight warm boozy note to it (think Vanilla Bean Noel from BBW, that has a boozy note to it imo). I love Queen so much that I even have a back up bottle. I'll come back to update this review for sure if it does/doesn't work out for me, hopefully it does.