Pinkdawn

Paris from YSL is a fragrance that always asks me a question: What does the French capital - and of course the French women in particular - have to do with this perfume by Yves Saint Laurent?
I know Paris. Not very good. The way you get to know the city as a guest. I visited Paris in August, the month in which the locals, if they can afford it, flee the metropolis and leave it to the tourists.
After all. In the parks and gardens it bloomed - in the most beautiful colours of summer. There were roses, too. The Jardin du Luxembourg, the Tuileries, the Jardin Anne-Frank and above all the Roseraie du Parc de Bagatelle.
I imagine that Yves Saint Laurent went for a walk there in the early 1980s and was inspired to create his perfume by the lush Damascene roses, tea roses or pale pink bourbon roses that once bloomed in Josephine's Malmaison
That's a naive notion, of course. The perfumer of the fragrance is the Russian Sophia Grojsman, who created fragrances like Eternity, Beautiful and Trésor. But maybe she sat in the rose gardens of Paris and enjoyed her scents.
Paris is known as "the scent of roses". That was also the reason why I was interested in this eau de toilette. I love the smell of roses.
The characteristic bottle made of cut glass with its black and pink cap immediately appealed to me
The fragrance starts very sweet immediately after spraying on, almost too sweet for me. I don't notice much of the citric bergamot. Green notes, on the other hand, are clearly present at the beginning. Flowers also mix in very soon. The rose is present from the beginning and remains so. In the heart note, the fragrance begins to become slightly powdery. The cheerful sounds of green and bergamot have now completely disappeared. The EdT doesn't offer any freshness anymore, only a heavy, almost honey-like sweetness, which is reinforced by sandalwood. In addition, heavyweights such as amber and musk are also driven up to the point of waving.
Paris - I mean perfume - convinced me at the time, which I can no longer understand today. I bought the Eau de Toilette Spray and liked to use it during summer time.
YSL calls the fragrance seductive. It should stand for elegant, cheerful ladies with exquisite taste. The perfume is described as romantic, very feminine and delicate.
There are of course reasons why I still have a half-filled bottle of it. Somehow I liked the scent a lot more in the old days. Today I find it too sweet, too heavy - even as an eau de toilette - and also, yes, somehow old-fashioned.
It's the scent experience you might have when you find an old chest in the attic, open it and find the yellowed bridal veil of your great-great-grandmother in it, in which a perfume from the old days has settled.
I would like the roses to smell fresher and the whole fragrance to be lighter, more sparkling and not so dark and austere. But in fact he has a velvety heaviness that is almost melancholic for me. I don't notice the promised cheerfulness. At best, I can imagine that an attractive, well-groomed lady in black with red lacquered fingernails would wear him to her husband's funeral.
I like powdery scents. But here I encounter dusty pathos rather than a cheerful rose powder scent.
Today I can no longer see what I once liked about this fragrance. At the moment I can't identify with him and apart from funerals I would hardly know an occasion where I would wear him.
Romantic? No. Seductive? Especially not. Feminine? At best, if they're older ladies. You need a certain personality to be able to wear this dominant fragrance at least in the evening without being crushed by it. Sillage and durability are here for an eau de toilette almost incredibly intense!
In my opinion, however, this heavy-blooded scent has nothing to do with the lively cosmopolitan city on the Seine, the city of love and artists. She would have deserved a better or more fitting creation. Something light, floral, with charm and esprit, refined, but graceful and sweet.
But Paris, the scent, has none of this at all.
In Vienna, we have a White Woman who's been bypassing the Hofburg. Supposedly it is about Kunigunde, the unhappy widow Premysil Ottokar II, king of Bohemia, who was defeated and fell in 1278 in the battle on the Marchfeld by Rudolf I of Habsburg. Rudolf then exhibited the corpse of the unlucky king in Vienna for 30 weeks.
The queen's restless spirit is not welcome. Why don't you announce her appearance as a certain calamity? Fortunately, I've never met her before. Should I ever, however, I am sure to recognize her perfume immediately: this morbid scent of withered roses on mourning wreaths, this mouldy, heavy sweetness ..

The apple is known to have played a long and significant role in the history of mankind. He did not contribute insignificantly to the loss of the poor of paradise. Later, it returned as an expensive but highly image-laden temptation in the field of modern communications technology. By the way, similarly successful as in paradise at that time.
In 2004 Donna Karan continued the game with temptation. She created a fragrance that would be particularly seductive. How else can you interpret the name "Be Delicous"? Be delicious! Like a fresh, crunchy, juicy-sweet apple that appeals to the bite.
For me, it all resonated with this eau de parfum, for which at the time the advertising drum was also stirred vigorously. I remembered one commercial in particular. He alludes to the biblical temptation and shows a young, naturally very attractive, brunette young lady in the streets of the "Big Apple" New York. She pauses in front of a fruit stand, attracted by a mountain of appetising Granny Smith apples. A handsome guy also seems to be interested in the green apples. He is already holding one of these vitamin bombs in his hand. Now he sees the pretty lady - and spontaneously hands her the delicious apple. She does not hesitate for long and bites the fresh fruit heartily. For a moment she thinks about giving the apple back to the man. He seems to be waiting for it. But she has decided differently and continues laughing with the bitten apple. Will he follow her? It almost looks that way.
I admit I'm susceptible to advertising and love perfume. When I hear or see about a new perfume, I start to take an interest in it and can hardly wait to get a taste of it. Often comes along - I will not say the evil awakening, but yet the disappointment on the first sprayer. Too heavy, too sweet, too bland, too cheap, too strict, too much of that, too little of something else - something. And I go on without looking back.
Not like Be Delicous. The unusual, round apple shape, which gives a silver reflective upper half noble value, the beautiful green colour - clearly visible in the transparent bottle -, the successful name according to my taste, the sympathetic advertising, which elicits a smile from you, all this had already captured me once for the fragrance. Now he only had to convince me olfactorically.
I sniff at the small opening where the perfume comes out when you press down the spray button (which, by the way, is not so easy with the round apple shape). I usually use both hands for help). I sniff fresh sweetness, sweet, somehow green - that's how it seems to me - and fruity.
Now I put it to the test and spray some of the grass green liquid on my hand.
I immediately feel surrounded by a delicious coolness that refreshes me, but at the same time has something noble and elegant. The aroma of a fresh, ripe apple is immediately present.
Was I expecting this? Yeah, maybe. I can't remember. The scent impression is so strong that my expectations disappear behind it.
Yes, maybe I would have expected a typical Granny Smith fragrance, a bit sour, but fresh and not too sweet. But that would have been the aroma of a toilet flushing stone or something.
The scent I now encounter is more subtle. It has an interesting depth in which delicate flowers can be felt. I can't identify them individually. It is a luxuriant scented carpet of sweetnesses such as violets, lilies of the valley, roses and magnolias.
Above all the apple floats - ripe, sweet and exquisite.
Over time, the fragrance loses its initial freshness and becomes more pensive, calmer, but stronger, heavier, sweeter. The sweetness is not a cheap one, but one that has substance but never overstrains you or leads you into (mystical) depths.
The fragrance remains "down to earth" - lively, cheerful and lively. If he was a woman, "man" would like to spend time with her. Plenty of time. She would enchant him with her laughter and her urban style. I see a modern woman in this fragrance, but not a cool business lady, but one who loves to live, who can be exuberantly happy, who has something warm and loving and yet is coquettish, cocky and cheeky.
Can I identify myself with that? At first, I believed it. I loved that scent. Wore it day and night. I bought it. I imagined (or hoped?) to be seductive and sexy with it, without being pompous, pathetic or diva-like.
But at some point it turned out that this fragrance was also a typical child of its time. At that time it was trendy for fashionable women to smell fruity. On the streets one met coconuts, mandarins, mangoes, "pineapple", raspberries and strawberries. That was relatively new and fascinating. With "Be Delicious" Donna Karan has created a very contemporary fragrance that embodies the lively lifestyle of the Big Apple.
What some today criticize as "American" and "synthetic" was the strength, the novelty of this fragrance at the time. He was therefore omnipresent and extremely popular.
It is certainly no coincidence that "Be Delicious" was released under the DKNY label (Donna Karan New York). Founded in 1989, this brand is aimed at a younger and less affluent public than DKI (Donna Karan International), the fashion designer's main brand. The then young fragrance was a perfect match for DKNY's streetwear and jeans fashion.
Donna Karan sold her fashion empire to LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) for six and a half million dollars in 2001 - before the birth of "Be Delicious". It is currently owned by the New York G-III Apparel Group.
And "Be Delicous"? Is the fragrance still as delicious and seductive as it was 14 years ago?
I get the apple bottle from my perfume collection and notice that it has hardly been used. The green liquid in the glass belly of the apple is almost unused.
I'll spray it on. There it is again, that feeling of freshness. I think: a good fragrance for the summer. And also the apple reports immediately. Grapefruit, cucumber and magnolia should play the leading role in the top note. I don't notice much of that. Instead of grapefruit, I'd guess bergamot. The cucumber does not produce much and the magnolia disappears immediately in the flower fragrance carpet. The apple, however, is there. Good, juicy, sweet, sweet and clear. It's an apple plus, of course. Plus a relatively indifferent floral scented carpet.
The shelf life is just as good as the fragrance today. Sillage still exists. The bottle still delights with its originality. It lies heavy and smooth in the hand and looks massive and valuable.
The fragrance doesn't look as seductive, cocky, cheeky and sexy to me as it did in 2004, it has become more brave, more tame and has lost the glamour of the once trendy. It is a lovely, pleasing fragrance without any extremes, secrets and refinements. More than a trivial "Mhh, good" you will hardly harvest with it today.
Meanwhile there are also more exciting scents for me, which fit better to me than this former love of scents. That's how it is with fashion scents. And with love.