Driftwood
Peony
Solar note
Tangerine04/13/2025
Gourmandgrl
299 Reviews
Gourmandgrl
3
Realistic tangerine - with an animalic twist
I'm a citrus snob. Growing up around citrus trees raises the bar for citrus fragrance expectations - sometimes making it difficult to find accurate portrayals of citrus. Luckily, "Bombshell Amalfi | Victoria's Secret" is a very realistic citrus - but there's more to it than that.
It opens with a true-to-life tangerine, but not just the juice: you get the whole fruit - with sun-kissed, slightly-bitter rind intact. It's very refreshing, and I imagine picking a ripe tangerine straight off the tree - with freshly-juiced/zested tangerines nearby.
Very quickly, a sweet musk moves in. Based on testing/comparing the notes from the other flankers in this line ( "Bombshell Santorini | Victoria's Secret" and "Bombshell St. Tropez | Victoria's Secret" ), I'm guessing this is meant to be a creative interpretation of peony. But it's not the typical peony note Victoria's Secret is famous for, as it lacks the watery/aquatic quality like previous note iterations. It's more sweet than floral, and the touch of musk seems to be a new addition. Interestingly, the musk does make it feel more "beachy": something that feels sandy, and a bit like sunbaked skin.
This last element was drastically different between the tester strip and my skin, so "your mileage may vary". On a tester strip: a subtle driftwood became present in the dry-down; very dry and quiet. On my skin: the woody note felt more like subtle driftwood, paired with a very loud and heavily-animalic sandalwood. This blend was so animalic that it skirted the line of feeling like body odor, and dominated the citrus (to me it was a breakdown of 60% animalic sandalwood/20% tangerine/10% sweet musk).
One spray on my wrist, and the sillage + projection were both very powerful. Even covering my wrist up with a long sleeve jacket, I could smell it through the fabric strongly - and couldn't seem to escape that animalic accord. When it was finally time for me to shower, I ended up needing to scrub my wrist multiple times with Dawn dish soap afterwards to fully remove the fragrance - and could still smell faint hints of it. The next day (a full 24 hours later), it was still strongly present on my jacket sleeve - despite only spraying on my wrist, and not the fabric.
So if you're looking for a "skanky"/animalic citrus blend for summer with performance, this might be a great choice! But if you're like me and generally avoid animalic notes, I'd strongly recommend testing this in store like I did - to prevent any skin chemistry surprises.
P.S. If you're looking for more refreshing citrus scents for summer, I wrote a blog post about this:
https://www.parfumo.com/Users/Gourmandgrl/Blog/Article/sweet-citrus-scents-for-summer
It opens with a true-to-life tangerine, but not just the juice: you get the whole fruit - with sun-kissed, slightly-bitter rind intact. It's very refreshing, and I imagine picking a ripe tangerine straight off the tree - with freshly-juiced/zested tangerines nearby.
Very quickly, a sweet musk moves in. Based on testing/comparing the notes from the other flankers in this line ( "Bombshell Santorini | Victoria's Secret" and "Bombshell St. Tropez | Victoria's Secret" ), I'm guessing this is meant to be a creative interpretation of peony. But it's not the typical peony note Victoria's Secret is famous for, as it lacks the watery/aquatic quality like previous note iterations. It's more sweet than floral, and the touch of musk seems to be a new addition. Interestingly, the musk does make it feel more "beachy": something that feels sandy, and a bit like sunbaked skin.
This last element was drastically different between the tester strip and my skin, so "your mileage may vary". On a tester strip: a subtle driftwood became present in the dry-down; very dry and quiet. On my skin: the woody note felt more like subtle driftwood, paired with a very loud and heavily-animalic sandalwood. This blend was so animalic that it skirted the line of feeling like body odor, and dominated the citrus (to me it was a breakdown of 60% animalic sandalwood/20% tangerine/10% sweet musk).
One spray on my wrist, and the sillage + projection were both very powerful. Even covering my wrist up with a long sleeve jacket, I could smell it through the fabric strongly - and couldn't seem to escape that animalic accord. When it was finally time for me to shower, I ended up needing to scrub my wrist multiple times with Dawn dish soap afterwards to fully remove the fragrance - and could still smell faint hints of it. The next day (a full 24 hours later), it was still strongly present on my jacket sleeve - despite only spraying on my wrist, and not the fabric.
So if you're looking for a "skanky"/animalic citrus blend for summer with performance, this might be a great choice! But if you're like me and generally avoid animalic notes, I'd strongly recommend testing this in store like I did - to prevent any skin chemistry surprises.
P.S. If you're looking for more refreshing citrus scents for summer, I wrote a blog post about this:
https://www.parfumo.com/Users/Gourmandgrl/Blog/Article/sweet-citrus-scents-for-summer
Gourmandgrl
Jayvicmay
