Valiant Boadicea the Victorious 2013

A blind purchase that cost me a lot of money, comparable to the price of a brand new iPhone. For over a decade, I could only dream of this fragrance, spurred on by promising reviews and my meticulous research during my student days. At some point, I stumbled across this mysterious fragrance and made a promise to myself: if I ever became as wealthy as Pierre Gasly, this fragrance would be mine. Rumor had it that it was his personal favorite. On TikTok, women rave that you can recognize him from miles away by his perfume. A fragrance so unique that it captures the aura of a Formula 1 star. And even the decorated bottle is a little reminiscent of the world of motor racing, its trophies and logo.

Well, after years, I finally reached a point in my career where I could treat myself to this luxury - not without a guilty conscience, but as a collector's item it seemed justified. However, the disappointment came with the delivery. The bottle, heavy and decorated with gold, promised a lot - but the details and the spray cap left a lot to be desired. For the price, I was expecting pure craftsmanship, not an economy program in terms of attention. The gold ornamentation was not polished enough and succinctly cast. The plastic cap was taken the cheapest of the cheapest. I think the €15 perfumes you can buy on Amazon have one of those.

And then the fragrance itself - shouldn't it be the crowning glory of my little luxury? What greeted me, however, was a bizarre mixture of orange juice and overripe pineapple, strangely mixed with the smell of Nivea cream. Far from sophisticated luxury, the scent leaned more towards mustiness, something I could imagine on a lady of advanced age or my former neighbor - a passionate admirer of Versace in possession of a marble-floored apartment who financed her extravagant preferences through shady deals.

Everything seemed cluttered, too densely packed in too narrow a frame, which made it look artificial. The room was crammed full, as if too many elements had been crammed into too small an area. Oversized vases, heavy curtains, mirrored floors, leather furniture, carpets and various bar cabinets - all spread out in an area that you would normally expect to find in the spacious lobby of an Italian hotel on Lake Garda. That's the most apt description I can think of. A perfume like this seems to have been created precisely for this type of person or situation - an overabundance crammed into a tiny space.

Now the question arises: Should I keep the perfume as a memento of my maximalist younger years and as a curiosity in my collection, or should I give it away now that I've jumped on the minimalism bandwagon - which is kind of ironic when I think of my admitted obsession with consumption, which I'm definitely affected by, right? Maybe maximalism and minimalism aren't as different as you think - it's all a bit too much in too little space. Time will tell. And who knows, maybe in a few decades, when I crack 60, I'll look back on this perfume with a fond smile and start reaching for it with passion.