Monday, July 3, 2017

Playing for Keeps: The Curious Case of Dior's Poison Girl

Perfume people love to diss a new release aimed at millennials, and this is what happened in part with Dior's Poison Girl when it first hit the counters. Outrage! Is it because quite a few perfume lovers are beyond the millennial age bracket? Or is it possibly because they consider their tastes evolved beyond the basic package promoted to millennials, aka super sweet fragrances that revolve around candy floss and synthetic berries molecules with a smattering of patchouli for good measure, making everything smell the same? I kinda feel the latter is more like it. And with good reason. And this is why I have to give it to Poison Girl. Because it doesn't quite do that. It does so much more and manages it without being either innovative or Art with a capital A. Damning with faint praise? Well, no, so read on please.



Dior decided to play their hand into making something new with Poison Girl, while at the same time featuring something old. Like the basic bride's mantra they're borrowing from both worlds in order to attain two necessary goals: lure in new customers, yet not alienate older customers at once either. Surprisingly the bet works and hit the jackpot! Poison Girl a year and a half after its official launch is selling very well indeed and also has the eau de toilette version to prove it.

But the real question is: Why does Poison Girl succeed where others fail?

The rest is on Fragrantica. Bottom line: Poison Girl succeeds where other flankers fail and there's a good reason for that. Take a read and see.

Friday, June 23, 2017

The Body Shop Red Musk: fragrance review

When I first discovered The Body Shop I was a teenager. This also happened to be a time when the company was run by its founder, Anita Roddick, and not by the conglomerate that is L'Oreal. It gave a wholesomeness to the concept which I sorely miss.

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I also miss (sorely!) some of those fabulous, early perfume oils with imaginative and totally incongruent names: Japanese Musk, Azmaria, Ananya and Woody Sandalwood (the latter was a huge hit on my crush!). These are no more... Thankfully, in an array of mainstream and much more forgettable scents that get discontinued at seemingly lighting speed, there are still a couple The Body Shop fragrances that manage to capture my interest. The latest has been Red Musk.

I discovered Red Musk on the recommendation of a friend from a fragrance board and I thank her for it. I bought the perfume oil on the spot and didn't regret it. The advertising copy insists this is a spicy and unconventional fragrance for fiery situations, but what I get is the cozy core of the original White Musk powdery scent drydown, ornamented with the lushest tobacco and dried fruits overlay. In a way it's like a lighter, subtler Burberry London for Men, a very fetching scent in its own right. Red Musk is like a fluffy terry robe that a handsome man who smokes pipe tobacco with apricot flavor has worn for a few days; it has that soft, enveloping lived-in feeling that is both a consolation and a longing, and I happen to be a total sucker for this kind of scents. Maybe you are, too?

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

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