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Sherapop
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Oxymoronic Angel
I need to begin with a full disclosure of my feelings about ANGEL edp. In a word: yuck. I missed the ANGEL boat back in the 1990s, and when I finally got around to trying it I probably--okay, definitely--overapplied and suffered greatly for it. It might seem, then, that I would be the perfect candidate (target market niche, to the gurus at Mugler) for ANGEL edt. Somehow, however, it depresses me.
No, I did not--and do not--like ANGEL. I decided to throw caution--and my olfactory receptors--to the wind tonight and do a side-by-side comparison of the eau de parfum and the eau de toilette, as I have minis of each, thanks to the gurus at Sephora, who, in close partnership with companies such as Mugler, do everything in their power to conquer the pockets of resistance still lurking out there in the vast cosmos, waiting to be illuminated by the starlight of ANGEL, that's right, those contrarian consumers who managed never, over the course of two entire decades, to buy a bottle. Their last ditch effort strategy is to create mini coffrets through which the consumer has the opportunity to test several perfumes and then acquire a full bottle of one of them using the voucher included in the box, worth the price of the coffret. I'm a real sucker for those deals, or I was until recently, when they reduced the choices to only four or five. Slim pickins indeed, in these days of vat-produced sweet laundry juice.
But I did manage to acquire these charming minis of ANGEL edp and edt, though of course they did not become my full bottle selections. ANGEL edp is not that appealing to me, even sparingly applied, in part, because I don't like the Mugler synthetic vibe. I found it in A*MEN as well, of which I have a small bottle and which I may or may not wear again. I tried a few times, but it just smells very artificial and unappealing to me. On occasion I'll don it before a coffee bath. Yes, I have expresso bath gel.
ANGEL edp shares that je ne sais quoi artificiality with A*MEN. The problem with ANGEL edt, is that it just depresses me. A dilute knock-off of an iconic perfume--produced by the very same house? Isn't that an act of desecration? To me, ANGEL edt is a lot closer to Van Cleef & Arpels FEERIE edt (not the edp!), except that it does not smell nearly so good. It smells weak, effete, tired and, above all, trite. I just cannot get excited about this flanker at all. I do like some of the Jardin d'Etoiles flankers, VIOLETTE, LYS, and LA ROSE, and I am convinced that ELIE SAAB should have been launched as ANGEL FLEUR D'ORANGER, but ANGEL edt is just a bore. The big omission from the pared-down note list of ANGEL edt: flowers. There are no flowers here at all.
I am not opposed in principle to perfumes taking ANGEL as an inspiration, but the ones I like (including Bond no 9 NUITS DE NOHO), provide some extra interest somewhere which I'm not finding here at all. Désolée.