valandria

Here is another beautiful Guerlain limited edition scent in their Terracotta line-up. Definitely an ode to Tiare and orange blossoms - it's quite beautiful, and smells very tropical. The coconut doesn't make a big appearance on my skin and I do detect a bit of vanilla but it's not dominant. This is lovely. I'm sure this is what the ultra wealthy ladies smell like when at the French Riviera. Or at least I imagine they do! There isn't a suntan lotion vibe here really and yet I can completely see how this scent could be used in a high end after sun lotion as well. This was a blind buy for me based on how much I love Voile d' Ete - where VdE is about the spiciness of the carnation, Terracotta Le Parfum is about the tropics. Thank you Guerlain and Thierry Wasser for making my spring and summer just that much better!

Of all the perfumes I own, this is hands down my number one compliment getter. It is a divine cherry scent, a little sweet and a little savory. I had a woman stop me in the post office the other day and tell me how good I smelled. Then she came back and asked me the name of it. I don't find it too sweet or too heady with the white and yellow florals either. The sillage and longevity are quite good as well. Of Cartier's line up of perfumes, and there are many, this is undeniably my favorite - and my most favorite cherry! Thanks to Belgwen for sending me a sample of this beauty, which led to a FB purchase!

In the Bvlgari advertising, they say that Indian Garnet is an exotic and mysterious scent.... well, this *could have* been so exotic and mystical - what happened Bvlgari? Synthetic orange in the opening along with some heady white florals. This isn't at all what I was expecting and if there is any amber here I'm having a tough time smelling it. There's a little bit of a metallic vibe to this - not unlike some others in the Bvlgari line-up. This one goes on strong but is not long lasting. Probably a good thing because it's disappointing to me.

L'eau en Rose opens up on me like a big floribunda rose with the musk scent in the background. I could already tell when I first applied in the morning that this would stay with me most of the day. And it did. The musk seems to really anchor the rose to my skin, however, I get very little of the berry notes in this at all and so I'm disappointed. There is definitely a hair-spray vibe in this from the mid point on, along with a soapiness for extra added strangeness.

To me, this is a typical musky rose scent. Not bad, but certainly not ground-breaking, either. Too bad Givenchy didn't spend a little more time coming up with something gorgeous instead of something that kind of makes me say "whatever."

The opening of Tory Burch is an uplifting grapefruit that quickly fades into a brash, bold nightmare of a mess. For lack of a better description it is so "perfumey" somehow and gave me a bad headache besides. The color of the juice is misleading I think also. It should somehow be a green color since it's got such a bite to it.

Two excedrins and approximately 1 hour later I recovered.