Banana Bliss Ministry of Gourmand 2024

I had a bottle of Banana Bliss (BB) for quite some time now. My first impression was, it smells exactly like Cantu curl cream mixed with Garnier hair food, the banana kind. With the added displeasure of the signature Paris Corner annoying, headache-inducing, even nauseating artificial dry down note - possibly some ingredient used to give a good staying power to the perfume.

It's been quite a few months of what you could call maceration, and I have to say, BB is much more behaved now! All the scents are more refined and harmonious. It still smells somewhat hair product-y but more elevated. And fingers crossed, I'm not getting the artificial twang that I hate so much.

The bottle is super naff though. Cheap flimsy plastic cherry on top kind of thing. Not my jam but it could be worse.

This is an extremely synthetic scent. I personally do not get bananas, but more of a sweet buttery popcorn. It lingers for a very long time and induces sneezing for me. I purchased this as a decant and would not buy a full bottle. I think those that enjoy loud gourmand scents may love this, but for those who like refined gourmands, I would say this is a hard pass due to how synthetic it smells.

It starts off smelling like smashed bananas and melted butter, and dries down smelling like... smashed bananas and melted butter. That buttery note sticks around until the absolute end, and clings to clothes too.
I don't think this is terrible. In fact, I enjoy that buttery "popcorn" smell that some gourmands have, and I LOVE bananas and how they smell. However, Banana Bliss is nothing out of this world either. I think this would need to be layered with other gourmand banana products to bring out the most in this.
I have a banana shower gel from Lush (the one with the Minions on it), and a banana milkshake body butter from a local indie company that I use with this to amp it up a little.
The bottle is a little over the top, but it's cute! The sprayer works nicely too.
Overall, I think that if you're looking for a proper banana cream or banana bread fragrance, this might not fully scratch that itch. I like it a lot though, and think it will be perfect for talking a walk on a chilly day when the leaves start to change in a month or two (where I live, at least).

I was so excited to try this because I love a banana scent, but I sadly get more coconut than banana here. On top of that, it smells quite plasticky and kind of musty. All in all, I really only smell coconut and spun sugar and it’s not nearly as creamy as I expected. It has minimal sillage and lasts about 6 hours. In terms of banana perfumes, I still much prefer Donna Sentenza.

Banana cream pie, rich and buttery with a sprinkle of toasted coconut. Very sweet, definitely gourmand, my only complaint is that it leans a bit synthetic. I can see this being quite wonderful in early autumn, but it’s definitely quite a quirky scent and as such probably not for everyone. Worth a sample regardless.