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ChapeauClack
Very helpful Review
6
A Sultry Carnation From An Era Bygone
This was probably my first non-mainstream perfume and it also laid the foundation of my perfume addiction. I acquired a flacon of the EdT from local amazon where Carons were hilariously cheap due to sellers' ignorance, and plunged headfirst into online research of the house. Thus I stumbled upon Basenotes, and I suppose you can guess the rest. I've read so much rant about my sweet Bellodgia since! The humble two stars from Tania Sanchez (whose opinions I have thankfully learned to take with a generous helping of salt)... the whole ordeal about it being an altogether different formula than the vintage... all the way to the unforgettable comment from someone at another perfume site implying that Bellodgia smelled like smoked sausage!
Seriously?!?
And yet my love persevered. I loved the sensory assault of cloves, pepper and carnation that had almost made my eyes water upon the first several applications, but, with time and learning, has gone from "just suffocating me a wee bit if I got too trigger happy" to pure unadulterated bliss of a topnote. I adore the soft creamy vanilla-and-sandalwood cushion upon which those carnations rest. I like the pronounced lemony geranium in the heart, so lifelike, so redolent of the red and pink plush-leaved flowers on my grandma's windowsills, so balsamic it tiptoes on the line of medicinal. And finally, I'm smitten by the heavenly drydown. A featherbed of the warmest, darkest vanillic powder. Musky, creamy, and spicy, it melts into the skin until it's completely blended and claimed as the body's own, a skin scent magnified beyond mere sensuality.
This must be what the mysterious, cheongsam-clad Dragon Ladies of Shanghai's demimonde looked and smelled like to their bewildered and bewitched western lovers at the turn of XX century.
