04/09/2012

Bassavina
25 Reviews

Bassavina
Helpful Review
Loud, Spicy, Yummy
This is not your grandma's Shalimar, nor your mother's, nor yours, yet it is a recognizable oriental fragrance. I love the purple bottle with the turquoise cap common to all the "Ralphs", I love the name Hot, and while the other Ralphs have been disappointingly tame to the point of bland, I love this fun, over-the-top take on the oriental class of fragrance: loud, spicy, and yummy. It sounds like breakfast: milk, fig, cinnamon, vanilla, and maple syrup (of all things!) figure in, and yet it is not a caricature, it is, I'd say, Pop Art as fragrance.
I have four fragrances in my wardrobe that have in common the spicy/vanillic thing we call oriental—beginning with Shalimar of course—while each strikes out on its own. If Shalimar is the template, the other three, all 21st c creations, are its modern variations, each with that modern gourmand sensibility, though still recognizable as relatives of the grande dame. Succinctly:
•Carlos Santana I wear salsa dancing,
•Queen Latifah with my late mom's mink,
•Ralph Hot with my yellow Converse All-Stars, and - - -
•Shalimar I wear to bed.
I have four fragrances in my wardrobe that have in common the spicy/vanillic thing we call oriental—beginning with Shalimar of course—while each strikes out on its own. If Shalimar is the template, the other three, all 21st c creations, are its modern variations, each with that modern gourmand sensibility, though still recognizable as relatives of the grande dame. Succinctly:
•Carlos Santana I wear salsa dancing,
•Queen Latifah with my late mom's mink,
•Ralph Hot with my yellow Converse All-Stars, and - - -
•Shalimar I wear to bed.