Tommy Girl Tommy Hilfiger 1996

Tommy girl is derided for being cheap and ubiquitous, but to my mind, easily available, relatively inexpensive and brilliant are a perfume trifecta.

I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but I see TG as an evolution of the eau de cologne concept. EDC has long been prepared with various elements of citrus (fruit, rind, leaves, flowers, branches), culinary herbs that combine well with citrus (rosemary, lavender, basil), perhaps some other flowers (chamomile, rose, jasmine) and eventually musk. EDC works because when you wear it, the refreshing, bracing feels doesn’t require a day’s commitment and because you could easily want to drink it. The same could be said of TG.

The citrus/wood/floral portions of an EDC are of a piece, literally, as they all come from citrus plants. That same feel of tart woodiness is found in TG, but in this case, it’s more along the lines of the proudly synthetic metallic flower of Lauder’s Dazzling Silver. The shiny tart floral is encompassing enough to fill the place of the whole citrus gestalt of an EDC. The analogue to cologne’s herbs is an infusion somewhere between black tea and a verbena tisane. Others have called the floral in TG bright or glowing. To my nose, the metallic tang along with the tea’s smokiness makes the flower a bit grim, a bit dark. Its only light is like something radioluminescent under a black light.

Despite Hilfiger marketing’s straight-faced insistence on notes of nominal botanical Americana (American wildflowers or some such garbage---I had thought Tania Sanchez was joking) TG is an abstractly beautiful synthetic perfume. Chemical doesn’t mean fake. This is only an ersatz floral if you call it a floral. To me this is a marvelous, successful piece of synthetic perfumery.

Tommy is usually dismissed as cheap, synthetical, boring... I remmeber a time in which it was ubiquitous. Along with Estée Lauder's Pleasures and Happy Clinique. This was the smell of the nice posh girls in the 90's.

I wore then, and I wear it now. A previous review stated this is some sort of evolution of the classic Eau de Cologne, and I can not agree more. It is said that Tommy was inspired by the Mariage Frères Boutique in Paris, a distinguished shop specialised in fine teas, and that her nose, Calice Brecker, wanted to reflect in this perfume her Russian heritage, the custom of the samovar and the Russian style tea. Although since its very begginning, Tommy has been promoted as the fragance of the "WASPs", the American rich kids, and it was presented as a conconction of genuinely American botanics (quite incongruously: I am pretty sure there is not such thing like Cherokee Rose). Probably we have never seen a fragance spoiled for such inadecuate/barely atractive name or advertising.

Tommy evokes, for me, the cooling/warm feeling of a delicious cup of jasmine green tea, along with a slice of lemon, some rose petals and some mint leaves. Surprisingly, there is no tea among its official notes, yet when it was for the first time released, it was a note very in fashion. It has something calming, soothing, yet very energetic and reassuring. It is one of the very few fragances that I can wear just out of the shower and before going to sleep. In spite its fresh feeling is very long-lasting and has a good sillage. I hope they will never discontinue it or ruin it through ruthless reformulations. A hidden gem. A underestimated fragance.

I get what others speak of when they say metallic, I certainly understand what others mean when they use synthetic to describe Tommy Girl. It is, without a doubt all of that and more in so many words. It is brass, loud and screeches at you. It's not soft at all. It's such a cacophony of pots and pans hitting at my brain it's assaulting. Why in heavens name would I want to wear this? The only reason I could think of would be to revisit a memory from the long-gone past, the very-long gone. A heavy-metal one, I might add. This is a fragrance that brings to mind grunge to me for some reason, Doc Martens, safety pins and all that that era entailed. It's a cold, alloy feeling fragrance. It's certainly not one to make you feel cozy. But if you'd like to kick ass, hey, give it a spritz.

This was my very first perfume which I think I received as a birthday gift when I was 12. I still have the original bottle but the juice is almost all gone. Now that I'm older I must say that it's not really my type of fragrance. It's a little too citrusy and rosy for my liking. The scent however is extremely long-lasting.

When I was in my teens I wore this all the time, partly because my high school boyfriend was called Tommy and I thought wearing something called Tommy Girl was kind of cute. But now this perfume only has bad memories so I haven't worn this for a very long time.

Along with the usual perfume categories of Floral, Fresh, Fruity etc we could include Abstract, but what about synthetic?
Not just as an adjective, could it be the name of a category proper?

If so, I would add it to the the feature list of Tommy Girl: and along with Black Tea, Bitter, Purple Fruity, Floral, Fresh - with an Aquatic feel, and Woody; we would have Synthetic.

There's a thin smoothness to proceedings that can be called synthetic.
More specifically: predominantly made of aroma chemicals or isolates, and having a feel characterised by a lack of 'natural' materials.
For a definition this is a bit subjective, but being based on sense impressions it's hard to give it a scientific basis. (Like many critics I'm not a scientist.)

Now, Synthetic is not a bad thing per sé, but it does lead to a certain type of perfume which - like Tommy Girl - is not to everyone's taste.

I once described Tommy Girl as a bitter chemical soup ... sterile and unfriendly.

On reflection I can see it's merits, but it still feels a bit skimpy and cheap - as well as venomous, which again could be a category, and not just an adjective.