EdithLyri

I actually hate it when people write flowery novels about fragrances.
"a woman in dark velour boots trudges through the crackling snow, the air freezes, the last squirrels chortle the longest night of the winter"
Yes, beautiful poetry, great, really great, but I can't do anything with it. Everyone has a completely different association with the scent and I have no idea what someone else's association smells like. I would like to have the fragrance described in factual words. Fresh, powdery, sweet. I can also say "like curry", "like shampoo products from the 90s" or even tangible associations such as "sweet", "innocent", "wicked", "sexy". Okay, I'll go along with that.
Enter Kenzo Amour.
This is one of the few fragrances that conjures up images in my head. Where I see a feeling, a scene symbolized in front of my inner eye. I'm so sorry, I'm becoming one of those flowery gushing reviewers now too.
I'm so sorry, I can't help it.
A city, French perhaps. A town with cobblestones and cute, colorful, stucco houses. Little houses from the baroque era with those moustaches on the facade and the round windows. A town on a hill, a town by the sea. A fantasy town like from Miyazaki's "Kiki's Little Delivery Service" in a fantasy time at the beginning of the 20th century. Sunset floods the city in golden-red evening light.
I'm carrying a baguette for a walk and I'm wearing Kenzo Amour. I fit in here.
What does the fragrance do to me? Something resonates there.
The fragrance is one of those Guilty Pleasures that I have come to know over the course of my Parfumo career. Fragrances that I find perfectly composed, but which only resonate with a very specific facet of my self, just a small niche characteristic. I would never reach for them in everyday life, as they don't reflect me completely and I usually feel other qualities about myself much more strongly. They're more for those very special moments, the little moments when I'm all to myself.
What does this fragrance resonate with? More with my feminine side in any case, with my romantic side perhaps? It also has something carefree about it and it's not afraid to show its beauty. Yes, Kenzo Amour celebrates beauty openly and unashamedly.
What does it smell like now? Gosh, despite my better intentions, I've now rambled all over you. It smells powdery, like that aroma that perfumers and the food industry have agreed to call "cherry blossom". Powdery cherry blossom, in other words. And lots of heliotrope, creamy, plant-based vanilla. Frankincense cools the fragrance down a little, but is more of a mood enhancer than an actual scent. And yet this fragrance is simply incredibly harmonious. Clean, but not too shampooy. Warm, creamy with rice notes, but not gourmand. Simply exactly what you are looking for if you want a perfume that makes you smell beautiful.

I didn't expect that... I must admit, I actually like it. Despite tuberose, despite 80s. It contains ingredients I hate: the aforementioned tuberose, civet and opoponax. When reading the fragrance pyramid makes in me rather the feeling spreads "there fits but nix front and back together!"
In Vanderbilt I recognize a continuation of the aldehyde fragrances of the first half of the 20th century, this ethereal "soapiness". There I have to think spontaneously of all the shower gel fragrances that there are nowadays so, especially in the men's area. Is that perhaps how the aldehydic scents used to be perceived? Sporty, clean, trim? Effectively, today we still carry the note of "I just washed and I still smell like the washing substance," just a little differently, just as washing preferences have changed.
Vanderbilt is no longer as purr-fect, as cuddly as the aldehyde scents before it (that I've encountered), but has a much more tart build. The soap is now pure white, it washes lightly, but only a little, because white flowers now shine above it with a brightness that stands out.
Oh, you tuberose, what you can captivate one, whether one likes you or not.
I was expecting an 80s oriental that creaks and screams about, but that's not Vanderbilt.
Somehow, it's very delicate - like a stained glass window through which light splits into rainbow colors. It's a warm light, a morning light, wafting in powdery ylang-ylang aromas carried gently by vanilla, cinnamon and sandal.
Yes, morning light. That's how the scent works on me. Morning light distilled into a fragrance. A yellow fragrance that welcomes the new day.
The fragrance of a self-confident woman who is not just "woman of X" and will never be. The tuberose is a clear announcement! At the same time, the wearer of Vanderbilt has a sensual side - she is not a power woman who only allows herself to wear pantsuits to look powerful & masculine. No, no, she is in touch with her femininity and is not afraid to be herself. She is in balance and from that she draws her power.

It is late summer. A strange summer. It's cold and wet and foggy, English autumn weather. I clutch my coffee cup a little tighter as I stare outside at the clouds. An unfathomable obsession has taken possession of me.
I must find him, I suddenly realize, the perfect vanilla powder scent.

But let me explain.
A series of coincidences has led me to it.

A fateful swap in the swap and give away thread. I give my Rose Essentielle Eau de Parfum blind against "Le Parfum Poudré | T. LeClerc". It's a slam dunk. Exactly the scent that I have missed eagerly, without me knowing.
On the way to work I look in the perfumery, which is on the way. I randomly take the brand Etro, spray Heliotrope Eau de Toilette on, do not think much.
I blindly order a few bottlings, By Night (White) and Le Parfum.
A bottling Shalimar Philtre de Parfum, which unfortunately gives me a headache because of the lemony top note, I put in my souk. I get an exchange offer for 6 samples from my watch list. Pure eVe - Just Pure is one of them.

Testing my way through. Something is striking. I arrange my samples and twirl my nonexistent mustache, my gaze fixed on the innocent-looking plastic atomizers. "You are connected by a pattern," I say to them. They show no emotion. "You all come from the same genre of fragrance."

Is it the power of providence? Perhaps this is my mission, to find the one among you who does it best.
Combine the white hair powder with the creamy soft ice cream vanilla.

I get to work filling my notebook to the brim. I empty one teacup after another, not realizing how much teein I'm ingesting. My eyes become more and more glazed. Lines stretch across the pages, question marks ??? Heliotrope, mimosa? ALDEHYDE ----

Abruptly I wake up from my stupor. I have no idea how much time has passed. It could be weeks or even years. I grab my notebook and stare uncomprehendingly at the scrawl. Enough. I get up with difficulty and wash my face. With renewed energy, I sit down at my desk and try to bring order to the chaos.

THE REPORT

8.0 * By Night (White)
Penaten Cream. Initially noticeable lemon note, creates slight washing powder association in connection with the powder. Heliotrope clearly recognizable. Many notes. Too much jumble. Not so closely related to the other fragrances.

9* Heliotrope Eau de Toilette
Very dense vanilla floral, the dustiest of all. Association powdery butterfly wings, dense in lilac. Also the most gourmand of all with an almond macaron note. Opulent vanilla resins, tolu balsam, Peru balsam. For the grand entrance, in evening dress to the ballet.

the last three are for me just different nuances of the essential same fragrance and which is the best, based purely on subjective preferences. All three are beautiful. If you own one of the fragrances, you do not need the others too.

8.5* "Le Parfum Poudré | T. LeClerc" or now Le Parfum Poudré - Eau de Parfum Iris Blanc
Childhood association. Creamy-powdery-vanilla. Baby cream from the 90s (mimosa???). Creamy due to fig milk, but no fig can be made out, body lotion. Very strong. Very slight washing powder impact, but only at first. Drydown vanilla powder. Sleep scent.

9* Le Parfum
Clearly also cream fragrance. The almond is new in this scheme. Creates marzipan touch. Powdery florals (heliotrope, freesia, no mimosa), white, pure. No washing powder. Very gentle, very intimate, very quick to skin. Remains slightly nutty. Vanilla powdery finish. Very similar to Le Parfum Poudré, differences only in nuances (marzipanig).

9* Pure eVe - Just Pure
Incredibly great aldehyde start. An almost ethereal purity. Talc dusting flax flower, but again mimosa. Soothing, body lotion, creamy. Despite the lack of vanilla, vanilla-like notes. I think of the starchy smell of high-pitched vanilla custard powder. Very similar to Le Parfum Poudré and Le Parfum (Aubade), but even creamier and even straighter. Less playful, already almost android.

The fragrances fascinate me.
They are everything at the same time. Childlike, yet very adult. Very feminine, yet very unisex, can not be located in the gender norms. Very classy, yet still fairground stall soft ice cream vanilla.
In Pure Eve, I have found my favorite. So would I like to smell, I think. With a satisfied smile, I close my notebook and now carry my findings to the world.

As usual with tea fragrances, Tea Escape also starts with bergamot and mint. This is very refreshing, juicy, very cheerful and with it you can not go far wrong.
Flowers underline the whole thing with floral sweetness, in detail here are jasmine and osmanthus.

This is very clever, of course, impresses my tea seller heart. Because jasmine is a very traditional tea flower, it was actually the first flower used in China to flavor green tea naturally. In this process, the jasmine flowers are picked and dried, and then mixed with the tea leaves and left until they have released their fragrance into the tea. After that, the jasmine flowers are strained out again. Fun Fact, unlike jasmine tea, which is destined for the European market, in China it is considered a flaw if flowers are still visible in the tea. We Germans, however, like colorful splashes of color, so the blossoms are often not sifted out. Osmanthus has also been used as a tea flavoring flower for a very long time - although this variation is less well known here. In fact, using osmanthus is doubly clever, because with its naturally apricot honey scent, it perfectly underscores the powdery peachiness inherent in green tea.

That being said,
I do not smell the green tea, unfortunately.
I don't doubt it's in there, but it's drowned out by all the aroma.

The fragrance wants very much, he just can not decide.
Is he a Chinese jasmine tea?
Is he a Gui Ha Sweet Osmanthus?
Is he a green Earl Grey?
Is he a Moroccan mint tea?
All I end up smelling is a floral fruity summer perfume, and emphasis is on 'perfume'. After all, tea is usually flavored with EITHER jasmine OR osmanthus OR bergamot OR mint, but not everything together. And milk does not really fit from the fragrance profile to the tangy-fresh bergamot and to the flowers also only partially.

The milk would have been super if the tea had been allowed to shine as a single note. Or if a more suitable flavor would have been chosen, so rather what in the gourmand direction. For example, green tea vanilla with milk or green tea caramel with milk or green tea walnut with milk.

It still smells delicious. The puffed rice brings an exciting, slightly toasty note. And again, I must say, very clever! This is reminiscent of teas like Genmaicha Tokiwa, a green tea with roasted rice and roasted corn (essential popcorn) that is popular in Japan. However, the Genmaicha has an entirely different flavor profile, cereal-roasted, as you can imagine. The milk would also have gone well with this.

All the individual notes make total sense for a tea scent! So someone has already sat down and thought a lot. But all the notes together act as a fragrance again arbitrary, which is a total shame. It smells good, but it could just be a fruity floral from Escada.

As I have already mentioned more often, I work in a tea store and therefore know the scent of different teas quite well. So far, I have not found a "tea scent" that really had an authentic teen note. The "Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert | Bvlgari" smelled more like pure coumarin/hayflower/woodruff - which I happen to love, too, so I fell in love right away - but you really look for real green tea notes in vain there, too. Many other tea scents, for example the Green Tea Eau Parfumée just smell like iced tea, so primarily lemon aroma. Many tea fragrances follow this recipe and create an Earl Grey, in which bergamot is in the top note and something tart in the base (patchouli or similar is also suitable). This is also quite nice and often smells good, but the tea is so lost. I find that always such a pity, because if you sniff every day at pure tea, then you notice
what a wonderfully delicate hay-sweet, partly powdery-peachy-fruity scent of high-quality green tea has,
what a floral-pudgy, rice flour-related, very, very delicate fragrance white tea has,
what a malty-bread-like, sometimes powdery-lime scent oolong tea has,
what a bright, fresh, tart-bizzy fragrance Darjeeling tea has
and what a dark spicy partly sour-malty, smoky fragrance dark black tea (Assam, Ceylon, Java) has.
And all the flavors that you add so, lemon, orange, apricot, mango, raspberry, etc. etc. only mask that and the tea loses its character.
Well, I started this comment, euphoric - you can probably guess - because Bvlgari's blue tea has a really authentic malty oolong tea note! The Se Chung Finest, an oolong tea from China, an inexpensive variety, but full-bodied and of good quality. It is rarely bought, oolong is not particularly well known in Germany. But there are lovers and they take then equal to half a kilo.
But, woe oh woe, the Oolong lingers unfortunately only very briefly. As the top note says goodbye, lavender & shiso fused to herbaceous freshness, can the lipstick accord, the iris powder nothing more offer the forehead.
Now it becomes very proper, mid-parted and shirt-blousy. Was Thé Bleu initially very unisex, a kind of powdery Fougère, for which women's and men's perfume from the 1920s simply mixed together, it needs for the fragrance now already a man who likes powder, who loves flowers and has an androgynous charisma. (I would find the fragrance but great on a man, I like something like that).
Scents like Misia Eau de Parfum or L'Heure Bleue Eau de Parfum come to mind. For comparison I have Misia times aufgesprüht: I find him actually similar, but Misia is again 5 levels drüber, sweeter, raspberry, elf.
At least now I understand the naming, it is apparently to be understood as a timeline. First tea, then blue, in the form of IRISVEILCHENPUDER - capitalized, in yer face. I've already wondered what should be blue tea.
I like it anyway. This combination has not come across me so yet.
An echo of the lavender lingers into the heart, preventing the blue powder from becoming too feminine, and a reminder of the oolong grounds the scent, keeping it grounded before it can develop fairy wings. After a while, the blue powder finally weakens and indeed the lavender dares to emerge again! Only slightly powdery, rather lavender-minty-herbaceous-fresh the fragrance then remains for me until the end. The tea comes unfortunately not again.
Without consciously sniffing the fragrance, I perceive it as a refreshingly clear aura, which drifts now and then even slightly into shower gel. I'm not entirely sure I like it. I vacillate between "mmm soothingly fresh" and "boah eh shower gel, wash it off"