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The scent of my early 20s. On to independence! (or something like that)
When the fragrance "Incredible Things" by Taylor Swift was announced in 2014 to coincide with the release of the new album 1989, the word "Parfumo" meant nothing to me, and my fragrance arsenal consisted of 2 cheap Victoria’s Secret body sprays that had served me well for years.
As a more or less obsessive Taylor Swift fan from the beginning, I had watched with the smug self-satisfaction of an aging music critic with a cigar in the corner of my mouth from my old armchair as my favorite artist, whose name few knew in Germany until 2012, became increasingly commercially successful and finally reached the German mainstream with the album 1989 in 2014.
Taylor Swift's commercial success has always been based on her own songwriting, combined with a marketing genius that is unparalleled. There was only one thing she could never sell me: her perfumes. With the successful
Wonderstruck Eau de Parfum and the flanker "Wonderstruck Enchanted (Eau de Parfum) | Taylor Swift," I could have been hunted in the early 2010s (And as a consumer-friendly teenager with a Taylor Swift obsession, I would have loved them!) They were too pink, too sweet, too "girly" - even though that certainly has its justification and target audience. I felt a few years too old for that.
In 2014, the first mini-reviews of "Incredible Things" started to trickle in from the fan community - and I became attentive:
“The 1st scent from Taylor that I don’t like.”
“The others were stronger.”
“Not for me.”
“NOT at all like Wonderstruck!”
“Yuck.”
I looked at the fragrance notes, glanced at my ambrette-vanilla Victoria’s Secret arsenal, and made the 1st and last blind purchase of my life. A bullseye!
Incredible Things is indeed different from its predecessors. Yes, it is sweet too, but in a less squeaky way and a bit more mature:
Right from the start, you get a sharp dose of pink pepper paired with the acidity of grapefruit. Both evaporate quite quickly. After a few seconds, however, a creamy floral-vanilla sweetness comes through, which will run through the entire fragrance progression. Then the surprise: an unlisted herb-soapy coriander note joins in. (And yes - that is controversial. I believe that at this point, other reviewers perceive a Piña Colada note. As a confessed coconut hater, I have never smelled that in 11 years. However, I have since held my nose to
Rush and sniffed out the same coriander note there.)
In the further fragrance progression, the slightly ambretted suede-musk base finally appears, which underlies the vanilla. Here I draw (distant!) parallels to "Cuir Béluga (Eau de Parfum) | Guerlain." Both fragrances are worlds apart, of course. But this buttery soft vanilla-suede accord, which confidently takes center stage in the adult Cuir Beluga, finds itself delicately in the background in Incredible Things. Yes, with much less power, but still pronounced enough that after the discontinuation of Incredible Things, I embarked on a years-long search to find this heavenly base in another fragrance.
Incredible Things is an interesting oddity in the world of celebrity fragrances. It naturally moves within its target audience in the rather sweet feminine mainstream. Experienced noses are certainly not blown away by it. However, for me, it represented the entry into the more complex world of fragrances at that time: Until then, I only knew the fruity-sweet uniformity of various cheap brands and limited myself to vanilla body sprays without fragrance progression. In "Incredible Things | Taylor Swift," I recognized the joys of a peppery-sour opening that contrasts with the rest of the fragrance. The coriander note in the middle is bold. It seems that the responsible perfumers were frightened by their audacity in light of the hyper-feminine target audience and preferred not to mention the note at all in the pyramid. The suede base inspired me in my early 20s to expand my fragrance note horizon towards more traditionally masculine notes.
This fragrance reminds me of first dates during my university days, summer afternoons with friends, and the years when I learned to stand on my own two feet, sometimes more successfully than others. The first steps into independence as a young adult - exactly the theme of the album 1989, which accompanied this perfume at the time: “Nice to meet you, where you been? I could show you incredible things…”
P.S.: To my knowledge, there is no good dupe for this discontinued fragrance. The bottles available today are often tilted and/or have extremely short longevity; therefore, I do not recommend purchasing. BUT:
Hypnôse Eau de Toilette comes quite close to a part of the fragrance with passionflower + vanilla. 
Cuir Béluga Eau de Parfum is, as already mentioned, the adult power variant of the shy base of Incredible Things. Unfortunately, I have not yet found the pink peppery grapefruit combination in the top note that I liked so much in any other fragrance.
As a more or less obsessive Taylor Swift fan from the beginning, I had watched with the smug self-satisfaction of an aging music critic with a cigar in the corner of my mouth from my old armchair as my favorite artist, whose name few knew in Germany until 2012, became increasingly commercially successful and finally reached the German mainstream with the album 1989 in 2014.
Taylor Swift's commercial success has always been based on her own songwriting, combined with a marketing genius that is unparalleled. There was only one thing she could never sell me: her perfumes. With the successful
Wonderstruck Eau de Parfum and the flanker "Wonderstruck Enchanted (Eau de Parfum) | Taylor Swift," I could have been hunted in the early 2010s (And as a consumer-friendly teenager with a Taylor Swift obsession, I would have loved them!) They were too pink, too sweet, too "girly" - even though that certainly has its justification and target audience. I felt a few years too old for that.In 2014, the first mini-reviews of "Incredible Things" started to trickle in from the fan community - and I became attentive:
“The 1st scent from Taylor that I don’t like.”
“The others were stronger.”
“Not for me.”
“NOT at all like Wonderstruck!”
“Yuck.”
I looked at the fragrance notes, glanced at my ambrette-vanilla Victoria’s Secret arsenal, and made the 1st and last blind purchase of my life. A bullseye!
Incredible Things is indeed different from its predecessors. Yes, it is sweet too, but in a less squeaky way and a bit more mature:
Right from the start, you get a sharp dose of pink pepper paired with the acidity of grapefruit. Both evaporate quite quickly. After a few seconds, however, a creamy floral-vanilla sweetness comes through, which will run through the entire fragrance progression. Then the surprise: an unlisted herb-soapy coriander note joins in. (And yes - that is controversial. I believe that at this point, other reviewers perceive a Piña Colada note. As a confessed coconut hater, I have never smelled that in 11 years. However, I have since held my nose to
Rush and sniffed out the same coriander note there.)In the further fragrance progression, the slightly ambretted suede-musk base finally appears, which underlies the vanilla. Here I draw (distant!) parallels to "Cuir Béluga (Eau de Parfum) | Guerlain." Both fragrances are worlds apart, of course. But this buttery soft vanilla-suede accord, which confidently takes center stage in the adult Cuir Beluga, finds itself delicately in the background in Incredible Things. Yes, with much less power, but still pronounced enough that after the discontinuation of Incredible Things, I embarked on a years-long search to find this heavenly base in another fragrance.
Incredible Things is an interesting oddity in the world of celebrity fragrances. It naturally moves within its target audience in the rather sweet feminine mainstream. Experienced noses are certainly not blown away by it. However, for me, it represented the entry into the more complex world of fragrances at that time: Until then, I only knew the fruity-sweet uniformity of various cheap brands and limited myself to vanilla body sprays without fragrance progression. In "Incredible Things | Taylor Swift," I recognized the joys of a peppery-sour opening that contrasts with the rest of the fragrance. The coriander note in the middle is bold. It seems that the responsible perfumers were frightened by their audacity in light of the hyper-feminine target audience and preferred not to mention the note at all in the pyramid. The suede base inspired me in my early 20s to expand my fragrance note horizon towards more traditionally masculine notes.
This fragrance reminds me of first dates during my university days, summer afternoons with friends, and the years when I learned to stand on my own two feet, sometimes more successfully than others. The first steps into independence as a young adult - exactly the theme of the album 1989, which accompanied this perfume at the time: “Nice to meet you, where you been? I could show you incredible things…”
P.S.: To my knowledge, there is no good dupe for this discontinued fragrance. The bottles available today are often tilted and/or have extremely short longevity; therefore, I do not recommend purchasing. BUT:
Hypnôse Eau de Toilette comes quite close to a part of the fragrance with passionflower + vanilla. Cuir Béluga Eau de Parfum is, as already mentioned, the adult power variant of the shy base of Incredible Things. Unfortunately, I have not yet found the pink peppery grapefruit combination in the top note that I liked so much in any other fragrance.
