Bottle Design:
Jacques Helleu

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Senso Emanuel Ungaro 1987 Eau de Parfum

7.7 / 10 52 Ratings

A popular perfume by Emanuel Ungaro for women, released in 1987. The scent is floral-sweet. The production was apparently discontinued.
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Main accords

Floral

Sweet

Fruity

Spicy

Woody

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Hyacinth

Bergamot

Neroli

Green notes Reseda

Reseda

Galbanum

Heart Notes

Jasmine

Orange blossom

Ylang-ylang

Carnation

Rose

Tuberose

Iris

Lily of the valley

Base Notes

Patchouli

Benzoin

Musk

Sandalwood Vetiver

Vetiver

Ambergris

Vanilla

Perfumer

Jacques Polge

Ratings

Scent

7.752 Ratings

Longevity

7.743 Ratings

Sillage

7.037 Ratings

Bottle

7.453 Ratings

Submitted by Kankuro, last update on 05/19/2023.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Senso Parfum

Senso Eau de Toilette

Ça Sent Beau / Kenzo (Eau de Toilette) by Kenzo

Ça Sent Beau Eau de Toilette

Vanderbilt Eau de Toilette

Reviews

4 in-depth fragrance descriptions

03/30/2023

BrianBuchanan
363 Reviews

BrianBuchanan

3

Fruity Woods for Her

The fruity woods was a theme that Jacques Polge would play with - on and off - for a decade. And by the time he came to do Senso in 1987, it needed to address the High Eighties style of feminine, to which he gave more panache than it probably deserved.

Part of Polge's genius was the way he could adapt the same idea to a bubblegum tuberose like Senso, or - with equal conviction - the hard dry woody masculine of Égoïste, also 1987.
They were a His and Hers couple, even though they were on different labels.
And both were variants of the fruity woods - which first appeared in Ungaro and Antaeus, both 1981; another His and Hers pairing.

Don't take this for lazy recycling though. Senso - like her partner Égoïste - is excellent, even if it feels dated these days. But that's more to do with the Eighties than any fault of Polge.

The recycling came later when Ungaro relaunched Senso in a hot pink bottle in 1992 - the same year that Chanel released Égoïste Cologne Concentrée, a flanker by François Demachy and Polge ... a third cycle of the His and Hers fruity woods.

06/26/2013

8Scent

BronxBeauty
58 Reviews

BronxBeauty

Very helpful Review 4

Smooth Tuberose

If you just looked at Senso's many notes, you'd think this was the busy fume from hell. But no, it's one of Ungaro's last great perfumes, so well-executed and -blended that the notes are almost seamless. The overwhelming impression is of tuberose and vanilla, with the tuberose coming off as soft and succulent, not shrill or amped up as it is in so many fumes. Another site lists Jacques Polge as having had a hand in Senso; that would make sense.

04/20/2014

10Scent 10Longevity 7.5Sillage

Jadwag
7 Reviews

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Jadwag

Helpful Review 7

When Kinski was still "Nasty Kinski"!!!

So, I have now decided to share my first comment on
the scent 'Senso' with you-
Well, the year was 1987 when the fragrance was launched, I was
only 15 years old back then - already an admirer of the beautiful child-woman
Nastassja Kinski!
Yes, she was a real export hit in terms of beauty at that time,
the whole world wanted our Nasti, and she was making a career!
Worldwide - well, beauty alone is a 'door opener'
but as we all know, often more is needed to truly shine beyond that -
this was no longer given to her after a certain age, what a pity!!!
Back to the fragrance -
I still remember very well the large-scale advertising campaign,
fascinating and so perfectly tailored to Kinski,
she was at the peak of her career back then, and the house of Ungaro
had a good idea in showcasing her as the face of the perfume!
So far so good - only unfortunately, the well-organized campaign went down the drain,
- the perfume sat like lead on the shelves, the scent simply missed the mark of the perfume
taste at that time!
It was one of my first real quality perfumes
that I could call my own - my birthday gift -
an ambered scent - floral-sweet, woody with a beautiful chypre base
it reminded me a bit of a mix of Montana's "Parfum de peau" and "Diva" - just with a slightly sweeter floral note.
Longevity and sillage were simply bomb!!!
I had the splash bottle - oh yes, I am commenting here on the first 'Senso',
not the reformulated one in the terribly kitschy pink bottle!!

11/07/2013

7Scent

Antoine
207 Reviews

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Antoine

Top Review

Who is Nastassja Kinski?

1987 was the year when Mathias Rust landed on Red Square, when Madonna sang "La Isla Bonita," and when the Barschel affair made waves in the old Federal Republic. Ungaro launched his fragrance Senso in 1987, with Nastassja Kinski as the face of the advertising campaign. And in the world of women's fragrances, Florientals were all the rage in 1987 - a term formed from the words floral and oriental, referring to scents that are both floral and have an oriental touch. Characteristic is a floral-sweet base theme that is given an oriental imprint by a lush, resinous-spicy foundation. Loulou by Cacharel is probably the most well-known representative of this direction to this day, and I would also classify Ungaro's Senso as a Floriental. To noses of that time, Florientals seemed extremely sweet in an unheard-of new way. Today, in the era of Flowerbomb and Prada Candy, Senso does not strike me as extremely sweet at all; at times, I even perceive almost bitter nuances.

It cannot be due to a reformulation that may have affected it, as I am testing based on an original manufacturer sample that has been in my collection for many years. The fruity top note is largely gone and can only be sensed faintly. But the further development of the fragrance is just as it should be and as I remember it from back then: a lush, exotic bouquet of flowers unfolds on a rich bed of resins, woods, spices, and patchouli - sweet and intense, balsamic, spicy, vanillic, animalic. The base is not endlessly sweet and smoothed out, as is often found today in mainstream women's fragrances, but rather receives tiny twists of bitterness and harshness from the woods and patchouli. Like many fragrances from the 80s, it offers a huge abundance of scent notes; transparency and restriction to a few notes were not in vogue at that time. Nevertheless, Senso, despite its richness, does not come across as overloaded or overwhelming to me; I perceive it as a subtle fragrance. Senso - the Italian word translates to feeling or also sense - has a very feminine and distinctly erotic statement, and it conveys this without being flashy or even vulgar. Nastassja Kinski, with her strong erotic aura that still appeared effortlessly natural, was the ideal ambassador for Senso; she embodied its fragrance message perfectly.

Kinski, the German style icon of the 80s, whose Hollywood career never really took off against all odds, is now approaching 60, and the release of Senso is nearly 30 years behind us. From today's perspective, the fragrance still seems beautiful to me, but somewhat dated; its origins in the 80s cannot be denied, and I am not sure if many potential buyers would still be found if it were available for purchase. It is stated above that Senso is still produced; however, I have not seen it in perfumeries for a very long time. And the prices and quantities found on eBay rather suggest that it is no longer available on the primary market.

Nevertheless, I find it surprising that Senso - a quite common fragrance in its time - is so little present here on Parfumo. So far, there has been no comment, it is hardly represented in collections, there are hardly any pictures, and no mention in discussions. It cannot be because it is no longer readily available, as this applies to many "hyped" fragrances here as well. I believe rather that there are fragrances - like books, pieces of music, fashion trends - that are particularly tied to their time of origin. Perhaps Senso belongs to this category of fragrances.

Statements

9 short views on the fragrance

Andrula

3 years ago

7.5Scent 7Longevity 6Sillage

35

30

Garden day
green-speckled
flower-scented
sunlit at heart
cloud-shaded
spice-wooded
shadow-leaning
towards night.

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Fabistinkt

5 years ago

8Scent 8Longevity 7Sillage

13

Miami 1987. Sweet sunscreen with lots of orange blossom, dark oversized sunglasses, white shirt. Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you doowwn...

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