Gandali ID Parfums 2009

At first, I simply misread the name. What’s the name of the perfume? Gandalf? Do I want to smell like a rather scruffy older chain smoker? Nothing against Gandalf the Grey, and certainly nothing against the great Ian McKellen, but as a namesake for a women’s fragrance, he doesn’t seem quite fitting to me … Oh, the scent is called Gandali! Is the association intentional? In any case, my curiosity was piqued, and since it was available for just a few euros on eBay and I enjoy experimenting with completely unfamiliar scents to wean my nose off Uncle Yves, I ended up bidding on it.

The bottle looks completely different from the picture - a simple, rounded flacon, quite boring in comparison, but at least it doesn’t look like an electric toothbrush. I hesitated for a few days before trying it out, then it was time for a test - as always, when my husband is already in bed, because I don’t want to mess things up with him. There was a timid spray on my wrist - my nose is quite sensitive, and my skin even more so. But maybe it could have been a bit more, because I have to practically press my nose against my wrist to catch a whiff of this scent.

It does indeed smell fruity from the start, but for me, there’s a distinct hint of chewing gum - the good old Hubba Bubba strawberry, which is why I’m quite glad for the weak sillage. For my husband, this would be absolutely nothing, not even on me. For me … I’m not sure. The scent seems rather one-dimensional, flat. It doesn’t tell me a story. And it lacks freshness - the strawberries come from the chewing gum, the cherries from a jar, the raspberries from the deep end of a punch bowl, and even though it comes across as pleasant, it remains quite arbitrary.

And it doesn’t develop further either. Once the top note, which brings an unpleasant sharp hint of vinegar, has faded, you’re left with the same meaningless mushy scent mixture of wildly blended pink fruits for the rest of its duration. I love rose scents, but if a rose ever landed in this mélange, it’s struggling for survival without ever surfacing, and the same goes for the poor vanilla.

Anyone who had Blendi toothpaste as a child will recognize the smell I’m reminded of - but who wants to smell like a children’s toothpaste? Better to smell like Gandalf the Grey - even if he doesn’t look like he comes into contact with a shower too often, he has dignity, charisma, character; all that which the supposed namesake lacks. And we know that grey is a color with many shades, not just since the eponymous bestseller. Gandali, on the other hand, knows exactly one shade of pink: a sad, pale rose.

Perhaps little girls who want to play at being fine ladies will enjoy the scent, and with the weak sillage, Gandali doesn’t mind being sprayed as generously as if a fourteen-year-old boy set off the youth hostel fire alarm with his deodorant. As a woman in my late thirties, I feel at least thirty years too old for this scent. Maybe I’m being unfair, maybe it’s my skin chemistry to blame, and I don’t want to suggest that Gandali doesn’t smell absolutely wonderful on others. But what I’m getting in my nose and I simply don’t match.