MossGreen

Vanilla Planifolia, the scientific name for the spice vanilla, an orchid plant. So not vanilla + orchid, or vanilla + spices, no, vanilla = spice vanilla = orchid, just to clear things up a bit.
The hobby of testing fragrances increasingly leads one to slowly but surely become a botany nerd, after all, you want to know what kind of weed you’re currently smelling like. Today (just like yesterday), I smelled like an orchid plant.
And what can I say, it’s wonderful. The scent starts very assertively and directly with a concentrated dose of green, so green that it drips in my mind's eye. Not lawn-mower grass clippings, it reminds me more of freshly peeled or shredded wood from newly cut willow branches. Full of sap, ready to invest all available strength into the young buds and fresh shoots of spring (unless we get shredded beforehand, of course). The whole thing has a slightly milky quality and would quickly turn bitter if it weren’t for the vanilla.
I actually perceive it as very cool, clear, dry, and clean, but also soft and delicate. However, I think that this is more the overall impression of the fragrance that arises from the combination of the milky bitter green wood with the soft, slightly dusty vanilla.
Spiciness as such I do not perceive (thankfully), but I think there is indeed a component that prevents the scent from becoming too cool, even sterile. It could possibly be dill, maybe even a hint of cinnamon. But definitely not discernible on its own.

Clear, delicate, soft, and also quite linear, this experience of wearing the fragrance presents itself, and for me, the scent has everything that makes a skilled composition. Not overloaded with anything, vanilla as an unpretentious carrier, slow unfolding without episodes of one-sidedness.

Beautiful for spring

The title may sound a bit flat, but unfortunately, that was exactly the image that increasingly manifested before my inner eye as I wore this fragrance on a cool early spring day. "Velvet jelly," "Noble brocade dress," "Warm perfection" were expressions that accompanied me, rudimentary snippets of previously read comments, as I suspected.

I let the vibe sink in, "yes, noble and dark velvet, wow... right, a dream!" but at some point, I paused, the voice in my head grew louder and finally wanted to be heard. Alright.

What do you want? "BLAH Cheap Bapp!" ... Excuse me? "BLAHHHHHH Cheap Bapp!!" Yes, I got you, I'm just wondering what that means? This is the noble version of our dearly beloved pear-vanilla cake, don’t you notice? The squeaky start toned down! exactly what could mean THE perfection! "BLAHHHH...Cheap Bapp..." We’re not getting anywhere like this, you need to express yourself more clearly.
"What else is there to say? It smells like La Belle, flattened, straightened, trimmed, and turned up full blast. Loud, artificial, intrusive, linear, like penetrating panne velvet, completely burnt out, overwhelmed by plastic sweetness and slammed right in the face!"
Wow, alright. Ranting doesn’t make you more credible. let me think.
"There’s nothing to think about! Listen to your common sense, stop wanting to like it. Listen to your head! What’s it doing? Right! It hurts! And what does your gut say? Right, it feels sick because it has been receiving the exact same thing at the same intensity full blast over the nerve receptors for two hours: Get it out, it’s not healthy!"
I’m feeling a bit uneasy... "You feel like throwing up!!" But the base is coming soon... "The scent consists only of base! Nothing else is happening!"

What can I say, unfortunately, she was right. She may not be well-mannered but she is always honest. Where the original skillfully skims past the "too sweet-sticky-loud-statement" so narrowly that the fragrance simply fascinates and beautifully develops from colorful to muted, from cake to cream, this Intense variant remains the same. The first hour may still stand out slightly with a hint of licorice from the rest of the progression, which for me feels rather irritating and somewhat Christmassy.
Otherwise, the scent really goes to my head and has nothing noble, deep, or warm for me. To me, it is just loud, intrusive, and one-dimensional, and I have to say that, even though I really wanted to love it.
What a pity.

The longevity can be placed in the upper third, especially the clothing enters into a symbiosis with it.
I could still smell it on my skin the next morning after one spray at noon.

Rhubarb - what is it actually? A fruit? A vegetable? Or perhaps the oversized cuckoo child of garden herbs?
A quick search revealed that we are dealing with a vegetable, more specifically, a knotweed.
And if it is a vegetable, why does its seemingly sole purpose consist of being processed into sour, hard-to-chew cake?
Apparently, I just didn't get the right rhubarb cake in front of me during my childhood, because this dessert seems to enjoy great popularity throughout Germany.
I never understood the fuss every summer when mothers, grandmothers, neighbors, and aunts enthusiastically gathered around the coffee table, discussing the size of this year's rhubarb leaves, presenting their individually baked cakes, and showering each other with compliments.
Today, I suspect that rhubarb actually doesn't taste good to anyone, but rather holds a social significance.
And that the appealing, delicious scent it emits when fresh out of the oven somehow gives everyone a sense of correctness. That now everything is in order, because there is, as every year at the same time, again the same familiar cake, the same well-meaning frozen tons of leftover stalks, the same mountain of giant leaf clippings, and the well-stocked shelves in grandma's cellar filled with preserves.
So, does rhubarb keep the world in order? Stabilizes the social constructs of neighborhood and family, which are so easily shaken at their core, and which one cannot choose, as we all know.
Maybe it’s just a seasonal vegetable with red stalks that some people simply enjoy growing and some even enjoy eating.
What do I know.
In any case, Delina conjures up this image before my inner eye: a wonderful sunny afternoon in the most beautiful late spring, the air is pleasantly cool and smells of grass and flowers of all kinds, there is nothing to disturb. The pink-covered coffee table with the snow-white porcelain, the bouquet of the finest peonies, and the fragrant coffee fits perfectly into this picture. The only thing that disturbs is that the ladies, who are smilingly gathered around it, are eating rhubarb cake and gossiping, while deep down they actually can't stand each other.
Yet they appear to be the perfect friends at a perfect coffee table on a perfect spring day with the perfect rhubarb cake.
Which none of them actually likes to eat.

Delina

First of all: long intro full of uninteresting life story! Here it goes:
As a teenager, I wore "Chloé (eau de parfum)" and didn't like it. Tempted by a pretty, oversized, and no less impressive, far too perfect face on a rose gold advertisement and a harried saleswoman who rightly suspected a lost, directionless person like me to be an easy target, I bought this bottle without much hesitation from my hard-earned Christmas money.
I wore it extensively, regularly, almost obsessively, always carrying the perfect face in my mind, full of hope to transfer some of that beauty onto my lackluster appearance, perhaps to convince the right man for life that I was a top candidate.

But we never really matched. And it worked, as one might suspect, only in my head. Several years have passed, the time for searching for a partner is over (thankfully! Hopefully?), and Chloé became a forgotten relic of another time in my life.

Until I found a sample of this fragrance here. It had sneaked into my collection despite being on the watchlist and was already threatening to lead an unnoticed existence until I read more closely. "Absolu" ah... probably like the original, just with a lot more volume. Or like so many Absolues, Intenses, extraits, and whatever else is out there, just throw in vanilla and tuberose, shake vigorously, and re-market.
Nevertheless, I tested the sample. Just like that. And I was transported back to another time. Uncertain, full of overwhelming emotions but also full of passion.

And like me, Chloé has grown up. The Absolu presents itself clearly but not strictly, minimalist but not overly structured, warm but not lulling. Like a woman who has simply let go of much that she long believed she needed.
The Chloé DNA, that typical strict rose, shines through clearly and doesn't lose itself in the fragrance, yet the vanilla softens it right from the start, rounds off the edges, tames the thorns, and gently accompanies it to a grounded, unspiced, and soft base.
Don't get me wrong: the fragrance is still clean, it fits perfectly in a dentist's office, an office, or a car dealership. It's just that it's no longer the pretty lady with a center part, pressed blouse, and white nails at the reception; she's more like the warm, friendly, and well-groomed woman from administration, the one everyone likes to have around, who always has an open ear and occasionally brings the best cookies for everyone.
But one doesn't really know much about her life, as she always remains professional and clear.

I find it dreamy.
And it's the first fragrance in my life for which I will probably get a bunker. You never know with these Absolus, limited, extended, anniversary, special, and other editions...

A little commented fragrance, samples here, no bias from background information of any kind and just nothing to do: perfect for a blind test.


The scent starts immediately with something green. I think I recognize galbanum, but this one is very different from other interpretations that I consider quite successful.
Since the Untitled fragrances, I have been enamored with this green-herbaceous, juicy little bush and I am always delighted when it appears somewhere in a fragrance pyramid.
Here I have it in my nose now, but fresh and juicy there is nothing here, and if they hadn't been mentioned, I would never have guessed bergamot or mandarin in a million years.
I absolutely do not perceive any citrus freshness.
Instead, there is an indefinable and overloaded, almost milky creaminess that, in combination with a synthetic sweetness that also reminds me of gummy bears and the lost little boxwood, somehow evokes the impression of fermented green cuttings.

With this image in my head, which has fully formed before my eyes after about half an hour of wearing it, it is difficult to continue following the progression neutrally.
The boxwood noticeably recedes into the background, the milky note (I suspect it is supposed to be fig leaf) and the sweetness gain momentum, and it indeed leaves the impression of melted gummy bears in the bag.
Now this "remaining composition" faintly reminds me of a kindergarten changing room.
Squishy rubber boots, forgotten sweets in heavily used backpacks and jacket pockets, dried-out greens from the adventure playground in the woods that have found their way into hoods and lead a miserable existence there until Mom shakes her head and collects them from the folds during the next wash.

My poor galbanum...