Herbstblond

Womanity I fell for long before Parfumo.

It was a summer that burned itself into the soul, I lost almost simultaneously my grandma, with whom I had grown up, and my job - the latter, however, was not bad, because the last job pushed me physically and also psychologically to my limits. So now I was without a job perspective for the time being, grieving, and on top of that standing in the pointed shambles of a long-term relationship that I should have ended a long time ago.

On one of those days, I sprayed on Womanity at the perfumery, having read on various blogs how gross it was supposed to be. Gross, no. But very, very different. This scent doesn't want to please at all. Not a "crowdpleaser", almost even "niche" - words I first read about much later here on Parfumo.
Honestly, decisive for the purchase was the visibly disgusted reaction of my then.

For him, it was even a provocation that I bought a perfume that he found repulsive. After all, the woman had to please the man.

For me, however, it was a small revolution - a first step in setting myself free, free from all that blackens the soul, imprisons the small, intimidated bird. That day the bird peered tentatively out of the cage for the first time, though it would be some time before it spread its wings and left everything behind.

Womanity is much more than just a perfume to me. It symbolizes strength, power, courage, resistance - the rebellion against social conventions, for new beginnings.

Significantly, that's exactly the message of the campaign Mugler launched at the time. Womanity, a fragrance for women among women, for community, cohesion. A distinctly feminist idea.
Women can achieve so much when they fight for their rights, and it's sad that equality is still a pious wish in many countries around the world today.

Unfortunately, the beautiful message behind the fragrance was not accessible to the masses, as was the fragrance itself. Too strange, too contradictory the components, sweet and salty, even fishy, I read, or even associations with the smell of female genitals should have had one or the other - to this I say only, man sees what he wants to see (or not) and smells what he wants to smell.

Just the word caviar in the pyramid leads to the fish link in the brain of many.
Womanity doesn't smell fishy, though. Womanity smells of salty sea breeze, sweetish, of warm skin, woody, and yes, it also smells metallic, animalic, a little sexual. However, it's the interplay of the components that make Womanity, I don't know of a comparable scent.
Durability and sillage are out of this world.

The salt accord is now in many fragrances, but when Womanity came on the market, it was still too early for such olfactory avant-gardism, especially since it was not marketed exclusively, but quite normal in the perfumeries of the inner cities. I'm sure today, under a niche label, it would sell well.

Unfortunately, you can no longer find him in the perfumeries, even on the Mugler homepage you have to search a bit.
Meanwhile, L' Oréal has the rights to Womanity, which should mean the death sentence sooner or later, the fragrance just does not sell well enough, too unconventional for today's target audience.

The bottle, once a work of art, monumentally futuristic, is now only available in the 90ml variant and is also no longer as beautifully finished. The metal was once oxidized and resulted in a wonderful pattern, today it is just boring silver.

Womanity is for me great art, that was the last, real Mugler.

A fragrance like a dazzling personality, a kind of Freddy Mercury, whom I idolize, as well as Womanity - the symbol of my freedom.

Today I very rarely wear it, although I have stocked up, just to be on the safe side. But when I do wear it, I am immediately ten inches taller, and feel equipped for whatever the day may bring.

Kind of a shame that it meets with complete rejection from so many. But maybe that's the way it is with those who swim against the (scent) tide, they polarize, and eventually they disappear, quietly. But sometimes they don't. Then they make history. That's what I'm hoping for.

There. I have finished :)

Who does not know the catchy duet of Eros Ramazotti with the great Tina Turner? Even now it still plays toothlessly on the radio from time to time, 22 years after its appearance. Dolce & Gabbana's golden donkey The One did not yet exist, not to mention the Essence. And yet I immediately associate this song with this fragrance - and my three-week road trip through Tuscany, the most beautiful holiday of my life so far. It was eighteen years ago now, I had just finished school, and I was young, free, full of life, enterprising, and felt as alive as you can only feel at that age. Together with my uncle Salvatore, my aunt and my teenage cousin we drove for 2 days in an old Mondeo station wagon in Salvatore's old home country, listening not to Eros but to Iron Maiden, Guns N Roses and the Ramones until we pitched our tents in Genoa on a campground directly at the sea. On top of the rocks you could hear the sea rushing by night, and the moon threw flashing will-o'-the-wisps on the water. Down on the shore often sat a boy who played the guitar. A few days later we went on to Florence and Pisa, until we spent another two weeks in Follonica, we camped in a pine forest, sunny during the day and warm, azure blue water. In the evening we strolled through the little town, everything was colourful and cheerful, at night the sea roared, it smelled of pines, sand and sun on the skin, and the cicadas sang. This summer I lost my heart to Italy, they are wonderful memories, but there is also a little bit of melancholy, because time and youth cannot be brought back - but this attitude towards life, even if only for a moment. I wasn't aware of it myself until I sniffed at The One Essence. Because that's what I smell here - happiness, light-heartedness and sun on your skin. This fragrance radiates so much warmth and cordiality, starts with good-humoured citrus notes, then becomes pleasantly floral; the most beautiful, however, is the amber vanilla base. The comparison with the warm peach cake is already there - for me not only a winter scent, but also, precisely because of my association, a scent for balmy summer evenings. The fragrance never disappears, but is in perfect harmony with the skin, gently plays around and remains perceptible. Nevertheless I understand the critical voices who wish for more perseverance and Sillage for an Essence. At least he lasts much longer than his big sister, who is not developing as beautifully as TOE. In the hair or on scarves or collars the durability is also much higher. The bottle is beautiful, straightforward, typically Italian, chic into old age and with a casual implicitness that was unknown to me until then - it was the first time I saw old ladies and gentlemen who, unlike at home, radiated so much pride, elegance and joie de vivre.
Back in Germany, life went on as usual, I lived on my very healthy skin colour for a while (which I never reached again afterwards), and Tuscany was more and more forgotten. Until I met the golden liquid of The One Essence. Cose della vita, smash Eros. Sometimes it is the (small) things in life. Thank you, Dolce & Gabbana, for this time travel