Red Roses Jo Malone 1996

It took me quite a while to get my head around this one ... I generally don't like the Jo Malone fragrances but I've persisted here and to my delight have come to recognize a fair bit of uniqueness about this creation.

I guess my newfound appreciation for Violet Leaf is tickling this particular fancy! I have a number of compositions in my collection containing this note ... Boucheron's Jaipur Bracelet, Gucci's Gracious Tuberose and Dior's Fahrenheit to name a few ... but not until Red Roses have I appreciated it fully. The crisp, almost metallic greenness my nose is presented with is most satisfying!
Strangely enough, I'm not one with a fondness for the sweet powdery, woody-floral scent of actual violets, which is due to the ionones in the flowers. The scent of violet leaves is different ... they give off an intensely green aroma which resembles mown grass with a hint of cucumber ... tout à fait merveilleux!!
The freshness of Red Roses is further exacerbated by the addition of Mint, which to some has lent this fragrance a 'toothpaste' mien. I don't get that feeling here ... rather just a slightly 'sparkling' idea, and a tartness provided no doubt by the Lemon.
When all is said and done, however, Red Roses is all about just that ... big, red, velvety Roses ... speckled with dew and the vibrance of a summer morning. I can't be sure what the origin of this Rose is, but it definitely is big and blousy, with none of the earthiness contained for example in Damascus or Taif Rose. Hazarding a guess I would be more inclined to steer in the direction of Bulgarian roses ... and yes, I know that most roses come from this strain but where they grow vastly affects the scent. Roses grown in drier climes are woodier in fragrance ... at least to my nose! I could also be completely wrong and simply be experiencing a well crafted aroma chemical :). I'm glad that I stuck it out on this one, and while I haven't become a Jo Malone convert I am a Rose freak and this one is sufficiently different to have a place in my collection.

The price Red Roses retails for is tragic (I have the bath oil too) and there are many 'less expensive but just as good' Rose frags out there.

Unfortunately I am just a glutton for a well crafted Rose!!

Today I was given a sample of Red Roses with my Jo Malone purchases. I didn't expect to like it much after reading reviews, but I was curious. I have a friend who smells wonderful in Tea Rose. It's her signature scent and was also worn by her beloved grandmother. I've secretly always wanted a grandmother and I wanted to smell of roses.

Red Roses opened better than I expected. It's strong and fresh yet not sneezy. The lemon is clearly a back up singer. It nicely supports the crispness of the rose. My nose didn't detect even a hint of musk or powder.

Sadly, Red Roses gradually turns more and more "barnyard" on my skin. An hour or so after application I found my self wondering "what is that horrible odor?". I realized that it was emanating from my skin.

Without too much graphic detail I can tell you that underneath the "rose" and after the lemon fades- I am taken back to my days as a pony clubber. I've smelled this very scent as I mucked out my pony Anastasia's stall. I adored my pony and spend my childhood summers smelling of her- horse hair, grass, and sometimes manure. Her name was Shannon when I got her. I thought she was a princess among ponies so I changed her name.

As an adult woman, I'm more than a little horrified to smell of this cologne. It really smells disgusting on me for whatever reason.

I've also left it on for almost 8 hours.... On purpose. It's made me feel both a little repulsed and nostalgic. I'm missing those carefree days of summer when Stacia and I spent our youth together. I grew too tall for her and ended up on a part thoroughbred gelding. I loved him too, but it wasn't the same.

Stacia died when I was in my 20's. I don't think of her often, but when I do I cry. I feel silly about it, but the tears still form.

I don't know why this "turns" on me but I do not recommend buying this unless you can try it first. The top was pretty but it morphed into one of the worst perfumes I've ever worn.

Tomorrow I will wear Orange Blossom which stays fresh and pretty on me. Tonight I'm sleeping in it and hoping I dream of my childhood.

I believe Jo Malone when she says this perfume contains “seven of the world’s most exquisite roses.” When I first smelled it, I was idly paused at a perfume counter with a friend. The sales clerk handed a test strip of this to my friend and the roses leapt from the perfumed paper into the air and up my nose. I knew I would buy it.

At once my eyes opened in surprise. I said, “What is THAT??” and could barely keep myself from snatching it from her hand. We each left with a bottle. I’m wearing it now, about to meditate, this ecstatic scent fit accompaniment for the other bliss I will shortly be in.

Crushed violet, mint, honeycomb and lemon mimic the mundane aspects of the rose—thorns, stems, leaves—supporting, as claimed, seven of the most breathtaking rose petals on this earth.

This is such a delicious rose fragrance - probably one of the best, ever.

It just smells straight-up like a rose without much else. It's not oldschool (which would be a very powdery, aldyhydic rose) or newschool (which would be a jammy and sweet rose). It just smells like you have happened upon a dewy, fragrant rose in a garden and have leaned down for a smell. I do get a hint of honey and citrus like the notes listed here but they're so harmonized with the rose that they barely seem separate. I see why people think it's boring because it's just rose and little else but it's executed so well and that's exciting to me.

This is such a realistic rose fragrance that the first time I smelled it I had a powerful olfactory memory of being in a florist's shop with my Dad buying roses for my Mom. I have to wonder if this was my earliest memory of smelling roses - I think it may be as we didn't have a garden and in this memory I was very small.

Fragrance alone, it's in my top 3 rose fragrances with Delina and La Fille De Berlin. However the performance is so bad that I don't even have a full bottle of this. On my skin it lasts about an hour before it turns into an unpleasant powdery floral that smells like it's gone off (but is barely detectable) and on fabric it performs better but I think the projection is really low (which could be bad or good).

Jo Malone fragrances get a lot of criticism for being colognes with EDT/EDP prices. Some actually perform quite well - Lime Basil Mandarin has impressive longevity for a cologne and Peony Blush Suede isn't bad either. Fragrances in general have gotten weaker than they were 20-30 years ago when JM earned this reputation so I think the bar has lowered and some JM fragrances now don't seem like such a bad buy but Red Roses specifically performs so poorly that I can't give it the same benefit of the doubt that I give some other JM fragrances despite it being one of the best fragrances they've ever created.

Red Roses is 100% the only perfume on the market where I live that features the exact rose absolute I use to fall asleep. When I was younger, I would put a few drops of rose absolute essential oil in an ultrasonic diffuser to ensure I would drift to sleep in a dreamy haze. Every other "Rose" fragrance on the cosmetics market is either pulling their rose accord from Rose Hips, which are the developed seeds of rose flowers and smell completely different to the petals, or they are attempting to get the accord from the Tea Rose varietals which are in a different grouping of cultivars from the apothecary roses and damask roses.

I'm not a rosarian myself, but I do understand that different varieties of roses release different molecules. This particular fragrance is a soliflore based only on the Damask Rose or Bulgarian Rose, depending on your familiarity. Rosa Damascena is hybrid between the Rosa gallica and Rosa muscena - the French Rose and the Musk Rose. Both parent cultivars are among the oldest cultivated varieties of rose. Red Roses comes close to the right region in a subtle and well rounded way.

There is an almost citric note that hangs around the edge of the topnotes of this fragrance in a way that sort of dilutes the Roundness of the rose accord, which I imagine is a sort of alteration to the typical english fragrance palette. If Jo Malone produced this as an Intense, as they do with their similarly osmotically-shaped Rose and Oud, I would bathe in it.

One of my friends and my own mother personally loathe the smell of rose absolute - whereas when I smell this and the essential oil I associate with it, I cannot breathe deeply enough to satisfy my rose lust. Their loss, I love this fragrance.