Normally, I wouldn't have had this fragrance on my radar at all. Neither does the bottle particularly appeal to me, nor the description, nor would I have thought that the fragrance pyramid could suit me. The name Calvin Klein stands for everything I didn't like about the 90s, and I associate the name too much with Loreen's eponymous Eurovision winner song from 2012, a song I have never liked: Although I am a long-time, hardcore ESC fan, I held a grudge against the title for not being the Serbian entry "Nije ljubav stvar" that I favored. And when I have a grudge, even an innocent perfume has to suffer.
The reason I own Euphoria is that I got it on eBay in a bundle with the out-of-print Yves Rocher fragrance Yria, a still half-full 25ml bottle. I sniffed at the nozzle once, couldn't decide if I liked it or not, and then cataloged and stored the fragrance with librarian thoroughness. I have many perfumes that I have never tested, and this was basically a collateral gain. It was only when I got to know my best friend's Obsession and found it great enough to buy for myself that Euphoria came back to mind. While I was still waiting for the delivery of my Obsession, I tested Euphoria on a day when I had nothing else planned.
And not only was I positively surprised. My husband, who usually isn't into perfumes, came in and asked what I was smelling. His comment after I showed him the bottle was "That smells high-quality!", and I took that as a compliment, albeit with the somewhat bitter aftertaste that apparently everything I had worn before smelled cheap to him. In any case, I seized the opportunity to interest my husband in designer perfumes and why a fragrance can sometimes cost a bit more, and when I actually received the long-awaited Samsara for Christmas, I knew that the time for dupes was finally over. And I owe that entirely to Euphoria. I can even forgive Loreen for the win.
In fact, Euphoria is a very atypical scent for me, and not just for me. I would clearly classify it as a winter fragrance, but while other winter scents warm me and caress my soul, I find Euphoria rather cold. It starts with the bottle, which always feels cool due to its metallic surface, especially in my unheated bedroom where the boxes with the perfume are - memo to myself: find a solution for perfume storage in the new house! - but the cold also permeates the fragrance itself. Euphoria is not an evening by the fireplace, wrapped in a wool blanket, with a cup of hot cocoa on the side - Euphoria is a walk in the snow, a dance on the ice, it celebrates winter in its beauty rather than fighting it. And the rosy color that the perfume apparently once had - over time it fades, and mine was already clear as water when I got it - reflects the well-blooded cheeks when you return home at the end of the walk.
At first, Euphoria seems very strange to me, and in the first five to ten minutes after application, I still think it was a mistake and that I should have chosen a different fragrance for the day: There is something chemical, alcoholic, that, combined with the rather sour pomegranate, really doesn't seem to suit me. But then the flowers come, the woody notes, enchanting, dark, as one wouldn't expect from such an inconspicuous colorless liquid, and it still maintains the cool distance that makes it seem so noble. The bottle somewhat resembles a half-closed flower bud, a rolled-up rose petal, but unfortunately also a UFO, a chimney, or the proverbial "handle to throw away," which fits well: It invites you in, it lures you, and then it slams the door in your face. Just look, don't touch.
It is not a scent for every day, nor for everyone, although it is certainly not a niche fragrance, and it seems very modern to me, having grown up with what Yves Rocher produced in the 90s. And this is not only due to its futuristically designed bottle - I can't imagine that there would have been a market for this fragrance twenty years ago. It has now been around for ten years, and whether it will still be around in another ten, I don't know: It is modern, but not timeless, and as well as it seems to fit into this decade, it will appear antiquated all the faster, a relic of its era, just as the classic Chloe smells of the 70s today, Obsession of the 80s, or Burberry of the 90s. In a year or two, Obsession will appear to us as the signature scent of the 2000s, and from there it is not a long way to the museum.
For me, Euphoria is a fragrance full of contradictions, but that is precisely what makes it so interesting. It is not intrusive, but has a strong character, pleasant, but not arbitrary, and unlike much that is currently on the market, it is anything but interchangeable. The sillage is rather restrained compared to other fragrances from the Klein house, but the longevity is all the more stable, and even if I would have given it another name - for euphoria it is too cool for me, it delineates more my personal protective zone, which one should better not intrude upon, instead of inviting to embrace - it fits very well with its bottle, and, on some days, also with me. When my half-empty bottle is finished, I will probably repurchase the fragrance. This time, however, with intention. And maybe I will listen to Loreen's song with different ears then.
Sonjoschka 11 years ago