Anika

The day before yesterday was a warm, sunny day I spent in town. The best friend and I strolled with some bags into the perfumery of my confidence. I was explicitly looking for novelties and discovered an attention-seeking young man dressed in fig leaf. ;)
I've liked him olfactory before.

So I turned into the ladies department full of expectation to get to know the feminine counterpart. As an absolute Gaultier-Addict my heart was beating faster when I sprayed the futuristic looking bottle trustingly directly onto my left forearm.
Surprise: it has no resemblance to Classique (rose, orange blossom) or Classique Essence de Parfum (very similar bottle)!
La Belle starts warm, Christmassy sweet with a synthetic pear note. It could also be pear and apple. I'm not sure if there's a spicy note (I lean out of the window: delicate carnation, cardamom, etc.) in it, because it reminds me of winter time - or if pear Hélène is simply a typical dessert, which is served at our party. It follows sugar (?) if that makes sense for other readers. Typical Gaultier, sugary sweet and full-bodied. After a while vanilla and for me indefinable flowers are still present. The pear still smells. My companion feels the pear more like an almond. In summary, it becomes heavy floral with dominant caramelized pear (sugar shock). Perhaps it would have worked for me if it had been launched at the end of November.

Well, what do I think of the "beautiful one"? Perfume is an offshoot of its time. It reminds me in general strongly of "La vie est belle" by Lancome and the remaining (too) sugary, flowery scents of the last two years.
He develops little, is honest from the beginning in his ingredients.
About durability and Sillage I can say nothing, because I was in a hurry to see my shower again after the city stroll! ;) but who knows the past sweethearts, knows that Gaultier does not let himself be ragged there and gives proper gas.

The bottle is (still) pretty, but the flower chain around the neck looks a bit kitschy. I'm afraid that's not my case. The color of the perfume is exciting and reminds me of Joop Homme, whom I really like.
But it doesn't help anything. You're not my cup of tea!
Meanwhile I wait with much love for the next Gaultierduft and hope it is something for my nose again.

Please play to read the comment "Foreigner - Urgent". (wink)

A little over a year ago I was asked how I liked the fragrance. I liked it well, otherwise I wouldn't have locked it up like a treasure. Two years with the intention to store it, like a great wine.
But I was in a strange mood to rip him open (...) and pulled the shiny package from the shelf. Last Saturday came the day of the days and I opened the transparent film...

I've always thought I was pretty tolerant about perfume. After a few years of perfume affinity, the first men's waters came to me and I wore them as often as the others.
The longer I reflect and think about it, the more I realize that I was not and am not open to masculine fragrances - but that I am actually looking for the man who embodies what these fragrances transport.
(Here I would be very interested whether someone finds himself there.)

An unusually fruity and flowery prelude illuminates the heavy sweetness. Looking at the saffron listed, I may have recognized it. For me, Leather Blend starts more flowery than, as expected, leathery. A mixture of unpleasant cigarette smoke and pleasing cigar smoke accompanies the red-brown flower launch. A little bit of incense triggers the 16-year-old in me. After a good ten minutes, the medium cloud around my forearm gets closer to my body. There she is! The brown leather jacket of the dark-haired, pithy unknown. He masters the balancing act between attractively groomed, pomaded hair, clean shirt and charming different charm, courage to have body hair and a touch of indifference. He's unique through and through. An alpha animal. Peppery appear both his curly chest hair, which self-confidently emerges from the shirt collar (naturally wanted and no oversight), and the present leg note to the sweet leather.
Little anecdote:
Ever been to a leather goods store? Smell the fumes and oil from a vintage car? These are impressions that can trigger a positive feeling and a strong attraction in people throughout their lives.
If I smell Leather Blend, I approach this type of man (at least olfactorily) who can evoke this feeling in me. Big, strong, headstrong, protective, exciting, familiar, ominous charming, humorous, challenging, wild and edgy.

After one hour the following impressions of the fragrance remain:
Warm amber, flowery unisex saffron and weak, sweet leather gently caress my skin. However, only in light to medium strength form. The Sillage is a bit disappointing because Leather Blend is not bad in itself.
Unfortunately, the perfume's performance is not as intense as I like it to be. There remains only hope for the determined man with the sympathetic smile.

I lie on the beach of Cavallino, the sun shines warmly on the white sun hat, stormy waves touch refreshingly my toes. A salesman trudges in sandals and jeans shorts through the brooding hot sand; he calls "Coccobello" melodically. From the portable radio of the Italian family on the towel next to me warble Albano Carisi and Romina Power. When untwisting from the belly to the back, my nose blows around a gush of sunscreen scent.

I never wondered what she smelled like. I would say after long consideration: sweet almond (but an adult sweetness) with bright but angular flowers. You don't question certain things... like the individual notes of your sunscreen you've been buying for years.

That's what childhood smells like! Vacation. Lightheartedness. Happiness. Security.

C'mon, one waits all year longingly for the summer vacation at the Adriatic Sea (or wherever your personal longing goal is...)
To create a perfume that would evoke exactly this elation was THE idea!
There may be some manufacturers and perfumers who have already come up with this idea before Nivea, but I can well imagine that the Nivea sun cream fragrance is so well known to consumers that they are very fond of spraying themselves on for a few hours without a sticky skin feeling!
So do I...
Now I euphorically ordered a bottle and was not disappointed!

At the moment of the spraying, you wrap yourself 1 to 1 with a warm spicy sun cream bouquet.
My mother had in my childhood a Nivea Visage Anti Age sunscreen in a dark blue tube.
She smelled intense and very "perfumed". Almost more perfume than cream. But in connection with the memories of the positive days at the seaside, the scent is of course a mad lucky maker!
I am inspired to be able to spray on the most beautiful time of my year now, whenever I feel like it.

For me personally, the perfume smells stronger than the shower gel with sun cream. The latter was already a beach holiday to take a deep breath... but the eau de toilette tops everything!

I would be very happy about a Nivea Sun Intense in the near future!
Bravo e grazie Nivea!

Amber means "amber" and is soft orange, golden. So is the liquid of this Mugler offspring. Only for an alien connoisseur, the scent doesn't smell amber at all. (Eye wink!)
Here you can smell an amethyst purple, which should ring in your mind...
This offshoot in a pretty bottle is very similar to the original alien. I am therefore very surprised that only three scents are given here. There's got to be a lot more to this!

To describe the fragrance I refer to the purple-coloured classic (heavy and pompous: jasmine, cashmere wood) and add a perceptible amber cloud after ten minutes.
The perfume is a room filler and a spray is enough to be clearly noticed in the environment. Les Parfums de Cuir is a little weaker in intensity, but still "strong".
I think that as a passer-by one can hardly distinguish whether the wearer wears "Alien Eau de Parfum" or "Alien - Les Parfums de Cuir". Such subtleties can only be noticed in direct contact.

After another ten minutes, candied fruits can be seen on the wrist with the nose, if you try to take all facets apart. The floweriness of the amethyst alien is present through and through.
I, for my part, would have wished for more individuality in this perfume. I expected a sweet, warm, different perfume and got a younger sister of the famous alien. I think even if you liked Alien, you wouldn't have needed that slightly different scent. It carries the name "Alien", which suggests that it belongs to the family - nevertheless I imagined more amber and fruit. I don't miss leather completely, because it is perceptible after a good half hour (again only very closely). It still should have been more for my taste. Leather always gives scents something wicked, something deep that I find unlikely to please.
But as wonderful as my imagination might be by the notes here on Parfumo, I was unfortunately disappointed. It's a shame that the search for the perfect perfume is unfortunately not abandoned by such low blows and purchases of this kind are made again and again... rest in peace bank account.

By chance I discovered the metallic-green cardboard in the After Shave shelf of a drugstore during my holidays.
That's crazy: that's my dad's After Shave!

At the end of the 90s my father worked together with young Americans in gastronomy. "Official language" was English. They shared an interest in vintage cars, music, the American lifestyle and didn't take themselves too seriously, laughed a lot. To this day it seems to have been the best time of his life when he talks about these days. At his request, a colleague brought him a bottle of After Shave from the supermarket for Americans stationed in Germany. A transparent plastic bottle with a black screw cap. Looks like nothing special for now... Today it is all the more so.

I remember exactly how my father smelled back then. But when I was a kid, I didn't realize he smelled like After Shave. The smell was: simply he.
As a little child I loved to sit on the washstand and watch my father shave his face in the steaming, warm bath after taking a shower. "How much I'd love to be a man later, I could be as great as my dad." He winked at me, let his big hands run full under the tap and washed his face with hot water. The water pearls dripped from his blond eyelashes. The towel followed.
The final step was the clapping application of the after shave to the cheeks, neck and neck. I can hear it until today when I think about it.

Mennen Skin Bracer smelled intensely sweet, then as now.
I find it hard to take it apart. Because it's one in my olfactory memory. A scent. A smell.
Immediately after the application on the skin something massive is to be noticed. Herbaceous somehow. Lavender? Lavender may be in it, too. In any case, menthol is there that you can smell and "feel". The After Shave lies wonderfully cool on the skin. Vanilla is the main actor in Skin Bracer.... sweet and very present, but never cheap. I also mean to smell tonka bean, amber and this green note that doesn't open up to me. Something mossy, angular. It only lingers a moment. Almond could also be in it - something that smells like "care" and is very gentle. I can also make out a citric, sweet note. Grapefruit?
At first Mennen Skin Bracer is very intense and strong. That will resolve itself in the first ten minutes (unfortunately). The further course is exclusively sweet and powdery. I associate baby powder.
As a woman, I like to wear it today, too. I don't think he's clearly male. I have to say that I have always liked men's fragrances and therefore I do not necessarily have to be agreed with. Unfortunately, after a short time I no longer perceive it in myself. I have to go to the forearm with my nose to smell it again. But it's an aftershave and not an eau de parfum...
At my father he still smelled after hours at a distance of 2-3 meters. Was Skin Bracer the victim of a reformulation? My father recently denied my suspicion

Two years ago I gave my father a new bottle.
Now there are two in the bathroom. The same, almost empty bottle from that time and "mine". I am happy for my father that he can use his Mennen After Shave more often again. If it gets empty, he now knows that he will be able to get his scent from good days without any problems.
So for my dad it's "Mennen - No better way to face the day" again - like in the commercial.

I love you, Daddy.