Bob1

I must break here times a lance for Vanille de Tahiti. Never would I have dreamed that this fragrance so polarizes, as he seems to do it yes apparently...

But first things first. I received Vanille de Tahiti in the form of a 2 ml sample from an online store and, after briefly studying the notes, passed it straight to my girlfriend untested. Sounds quite floral, kind of feminine I thought, and she loves vanilla. At this point I had not even looked in the Parfumo reviews.

A few days later, she had it on. I was there from the beginning, and practically just hung my nose on her neck from then on.

Vanille de Tahiti opens very floral. Not really powdery,more floral-creamy and a hint of sweet-tart. This is the ylang-ylang and champaka, the latter I had not consciously noticed in a fragrance until now. It's probably a magnolia plant with highly fragrant flowers, the oil of which is a popular and rather expensive fragrance ingredient (thanks Wikipedia). Yum!

This floral top note is already carried by the underlying vanilla. The extract here is probably extracted from the pods by flushing with CO2, which is supposed to be particularly gentle on the aroma, and let me tell you, it works fabulously. What a wonderfully authentic vanilla!

As the weighting now gradually shifts from the head to the heart, the gourmand vanilla slowly dries down, but still ylang-ylang purrs seductively along and sharpens my attention, making me feel brightly awake, in fact it does so throughout its life. This combination is incredibly sexy, and I keep wanting to smell it, ever so slightly closer and more intense. It's just to die for.

And then, creeping up quietly on soft paws, it's suddenly there: the animal! The animal, wonderfully wicked, softly panting, darkly beckoning.... and the vanilla billows... and the florals tremble...

And I run, run, run, and suddenly I find myself in the souk!

And as I waited there like that for my bottle, the sample, snatched from my girlfriend, steadily leeching in my hand.... there I read the reviews. And I now also tried to give the animal a name. But no one wanted to fit.

The base is warm, soft and strong at the same time, me not directly cedar wood would have come to mind, but together with the amber and musk it makes the already persistent vanilla to the long-distance runner.

And if you've lasted this far and find yourself in the midsummer horse stables even with Vanille de Tahiti, the air drenched with the sweat of unwashed saddle pads, I have a tip for you: don't spray it on clothes! That's exactly what brings back a memory of urinal notes for me - the shirt with VdT still clinging to it from the day before. This component develops after about 10-12 hours, and that's also exactly when the scent is completely gone from my skin. That's right, it lasts a really long time, even though I often just soak up scents skin-wise. Do I heed this rule, there is no question of feces at any time.

Another word about the sillage, which is just right for me. I pull the first 4-5 hours a clear scent trail behind me, then I have for another 3 hours a wonderfully gentle vanilla cloud oscillating in the nose. This works especially well if you also consider the crooks of the arms with a spritz each.

Well, my girlfriend it is too heavy on her, but now I wear it, often, even in high summer, even outside, even during the day, even on official occasions, and I love it. Because you have to hand it to Vanille de Tahiti. It can be sexy, it can be wicked, but it can also be elegant and understated, depending entirely on the setting. For me, it's like wearing a second skin that heightens my senses while giving me peace and security. So far, just on a side note, those around me also perceived it very positively. A true chameleon. If I had a single signature scent, which I have for the love of the rest of my collection but not, then this would have a good chance to become it.

Thankfully, I don't have to share the bottle. Meiiin Schatzzz!

Vanille de Tahiti is the most beautiful vanilla scent I've had the pleasure of having under my nose. Period. And should it ever be discontinued, it will be bunkered down for all it's worth, that's for sure.

Zara is now notorious for their seemingly endless flood of fragrances that spring up like mushrooms, with what feels like arbitrary naming and wonderfully colorful sounding descriptions of all sorts of scents on the boxes. Just as quickly, however, these releases then peter out again, so that one does not really get behind with the testing. Then again, the fragrances are priced very attractively compared to what you're used to, I'll call it, so you hardly dare write anything negative about them because you'd feel kind of ungrateful doing so. I'll just try now to forget the incredible 10.95 €, which cost me the 100 ml Lisboa, for the rest of the review and only evaluate the performance received for it.

First, about the bottle. It is simple, lies well in the hand and, that really excited me, equipped with a wonderful atomizer, which is far ahead of my Armani Acqua di Gio Profumo with its fine nebulization. Since I am then also the thin plastic cap does not matter, which somehow reminds me of the measuring cups, which have stuck on the cough syrup bottles from my childhood, only not round.

Now that we're on the subject of the AdG range, I can say right away that, contrary to what I often read, Zara's Lisboa is not an adequate substitute for the original Acqua di Gio pour Homme EdT, at least not to my nose. There's definitely a strong resemblance, especially right after spraying it on, I thought, "Yup, this is the perfect inexpensive replacement!" But the AdG smells cleaner to me, cooler, has more depth somehow. There's a slightly synthetic, citrusy, scratchy warmth that resonates in Lisboa, which incidentally I also detect in Vibrant Leather Cologne, which I bought at the same time and whose review is still on the docket. Even after all the reformulations (or should I say waterings down?) of the AdG, it still has a leg up on the Lisboa in terms of H+S. If Acqua di Gio is a record, then Lisboa is a digitized version of it, but at a slightly too low sampling rate and from a less than perfect analog-to-digital converter. But hey, maybe you don't notice that unless it's completely silent around you?

I'm going to try my hand at the scent pyramid, er, the scent notes, because the whole thing is, to my mind, very linear from the time the alcohol has evaporated. Citrusy notes carry the scent, both lemon and orange I can relate to. The green, somewhat woody notes make me think of the peel and branches rather than the fruit juice. Orange blossom is, after all, also a note in the original AdG, presumably it is it along with the green components that is mainly responsible for the similarity. I don't think so much of jasmine in Lisboa, but rather of musk. Probably that is the previously described, warming accord, which lays like a cloudy veil over the fresh fruitiness and takes away its sharpness, so to speak.

The sillage is average for me, slightly below that of the AdG Profumo (note: EdP concentration) and even slightly further below that of the normal AdG (EdT). The longevity is also average, you get a good sense of it from 1.5m away for 1-2 hours, after which the sphere quickly shrinks. After 4-5 hours, the scent is very skin tight on me. At this price (ok, I must mention it yet), I like to treat myself in between a few sprays to refresh, the flat format of the bottle makes it fortunately very portable.

The fragrance gets at warmer temperatures (> 25 ° C) a slightly better sillage, however, I then also perceive this synthetic component more strongly, so this is a double-edged sword. But even at 15-20 ° C you can wear it well and noticeable. Ultimately, it is just a citrus fragrance with the associated advantages and disadvantages, so somewhere will be reached temperature-wise a limit.

All in all, I quite like Zara's Lisboa. It's a bargain for lovers of citrusy aquatic scents, and I highly recommend trying it on yourself. One should simply not approach with the wrong expectations and expect a 1:1 copy of Acqua di Gio, then you can have a lot of fun with this bottle.

So, this is my first review here, and then immediately to such a polarizing fragrance. Let's see...

The title already sounds pretty crude, but right off the bat, that's exactly how I feel when I spray on this scent. Why would anyone want to smell like this? Honestly, I don't know, maybe we'll find out together.

Despite all the warnings, I picked up Rien Intense Incense as a blind buy. I expected something really demanding, and in so far I was not disappointed already times.

Individual fragrances from the pyramid to smell out here is somewhat difficult for me. The eponymous incense? Well, smoke is, but then from burnt rubber. That would be the subway brakes. I stole that association from another review, by the way, thanks for that. This rubber band holds up valiantly from the beginning to the bitter end.

If leather is to be smelled, it's a pretty dirty, sweaty sour one, and only after the first few hours too. I think I once had a shoe polish that reminded me of that note.

I don't get rose and rockrose here at all, there aren't even remotely floral notes. Maybe something powdery, that will be the iris, but it doesn't come out until about 3-4 hours later, tentatively at first, then a little more clearly. Luck had, because I can bear rose fragrance if at all only very sparingly dosed.

Let's move on to the spices. Cumin and black pepper so it should be. I smell directly after spraying something tingling, already slightly sharp biting, which even overlays the rubber band. However, the whole thing then goes submersible after just a few minutes before those tingling notes reappear after 4-5 hours, interestingly enough. They cool the fragrance down for me in an exciting way, giving it a clearly perceptible metallic touch, just the sparking train tracks.... but it could also just be the aldehydes. They're probably also the ones that contribute this slightly fecal note - oh my god, why do I even devote myself to something that can be described like that?

As for sillage and longevity, well, quite a bit has been said here. I can only agree with that. Two or three spritzes, and you fill with it whole rooms. Although not immediately upon entering, but after a few minutes, the subway shaft atmosphere is perfect. The scent is easily perceptible for 8-10 hours, and my skin is actually quite complicated in this respect. Even the next day, it's still skin-deep. From the shirt, which I wore on the first day and test times unwashed have left, came after two weeks still a good RII breeze.

Well, and now you're probably wondering why I gave this fragrance rating. Now as I write this, I do too. However, I think Rien Intense Incense is just awesome! It's a real love-or-hate scent, a brilliant piece of perfumery, and despite the irritating associations it evokes in me, I'd probably wear it more often if.... yes, if it weren't for my better half, who clearly belongs to the latter faction. When she walked into the room where I had applied two squirts of RII to the back of my hand a few minutes earlier, she literally stood rooted to the spot and held her breath before excitedly asking if an electrical smoldering fire had broken out somewhere before I then proudly presented her with my latest acquisition.

She said then although somewhat crestfallen that she could try to get used to it, where I like the scent so much, but the whole rest of the day she wanted to be as far as possible not near me, and when she could not stand it at dinner with me at a table, I made the spook with a heavy heart first of all an end.

What I do with the bottle, I do not know yet. Due to the brutal durability, it will probably be difficult to wear the fragrance only times just in between, when I'm out of the house.

So, that's the sad story of my encounter with Rien Intense Incense. We are probably like the two royal children who were simply not allowed to come to each other.