Perfume Review: Balenciaga Paris

I had wanted to try Balenciaga Paris shortly after it came out last year. I like violets, and the bottle is pretty, and most of my regular blogs that had reviewed it mentioned that at least it wasn’t a fruity floral. In short, Not As Bad As It Could Have Been. Or, Could Be Worse. I finally got my hands on a sample (my thanks to Undina!) and immediately sprayed it on, to see what I thought.

The ad copy calls it a floral chypre and its creator (Olivier Polge) says of it, “It’s here. When you wear it. You smell it.” A lot of the original release material concerns its “face,” Charlotte Gainsbourg, about whom I know just a teaspoonful more than nothing. Also, I don’t think I’ve tried many Olivier Polge fragrances. I didn’t like Polge’s Pure Poison or Dior Homme (yeah, yeah, so sue me), or either of the Viktor & Rolf fragrances Polge authored. Also also, I like Le Dix and Rumba, but I’m not a big Balenciaga fan so I knew I could manage to be objective about this scent that ‘fume bloggers spent a lot of time discussing last year and into this.

The issue that seems to be getting in my way here is not Balenciaga or its fragrances, but the other scents called Paris. Coty had one, a soft floral focusing on a powdery rose-violet-lilac accord, with accents of carnation and heliotrope, released in 1921 and discontinued at some point before Yves St. Laurent released its behemoth floral of the same name, the vehemently-pink, loud and cheerful yet romantic rose-violet scent that embodies the 1980s so well. I like both of those fragrances, though I’ve only worn the Coty from a dabber vial (thanks, Donna!). I do understand that this fragrance is meant to be the embodiment of the Balenciaga house of fashion, but because I don’t follow haute couture fashion – or, indeed, any fashion at all – the reference is really lost on me.

Balenciaga Paris – hereinafter referred to as B. Paris – is very, very different from those two scents. It’s relatively quiet, and its violet accent is very pleasant, but it’s so… beige. I don’t understand it. A comment on Now Smell This suggests that B. Paris is something like Cashmere Mist, and although they do not smell alike, there is the veil effect that Cashmere Mist does so nicely. I don’t care much for Cashmere Mist myself, since it seems highly chemical to me. B. Paris escapes that chemical aura and smells fairly natural except for its basenotes.

Bergdorf Goodman calls B. Paris, “a lovely paradox. A demure violet with airy blossom and delicate peppery notes. A fragrance that is mysterious and fragile, yet leaves a lasting trail.” Fragrantica lists notes of violet, violet leaves, carnation, patchouli, and Virginia cedar.

I’ve worn B. Paris several times over the past few weeks and each time I have enjoyed the scent quite a lot in its opening stages. It is clearly violetty, a sweet fruity violet that I think is adorable. There is a fresh green cast from the violet leaves. It is a little frustrating to me that this stage doesn’t last very long, because it’s my favorite part of the scent. Although the violet is sweet, it’s tempered by the violet leaf and that dry cedar, as well as some not-listed but clearly-present musk that goes on and on and provides the longevity of B. Paris. I don’t get much carnation, which is a shame. I love carnation.

It’s funny… the more I wear B. Paris, the less I have to say about it, except that it is quite pleasant. I don’t perceive a lot of sillage with it, and the musk portion lasts a long time, albeit very close to the skin. Do I love it? Do I want a bottle? Nope. It’s a little… dare I even say this?… boring.

I mean, I geddit, okay? It’s a violet skin scent. That in itself is really fairly nice; I like violet and I’m happy to see a mainstream fragrance highlight that most old-fashioned note. I have no complaints about it. I’m just not compelled. And forget the description of “modern floral chypre” – I don’t even get a lot of patchouli, that linchpin of “modern chypre” fragrance. It just isn’t a chypre. It is a floral woody musk, with a faintly earthy cast deep into the drydown, like dry clay. I like it. I think it would be impossibly to hate it. I just don’t long for it the way I do some of my other Scent Veil fragrances such as Mariella Burani, or the scent most ‘fume bloggers love to make fun of, Marc Jacobs Daisy.

Other reviews: Katie Puckrik Smells, Robin at Now Smell This, Patty at Perfume Posse, Dane at Pere de Pierre, Brian at I Smell Therefore I Am, and Abigail’s separate review at ISTIA, Grain de Musc, The Non-Blonde, That Smell. Reviews range from “This is growing on me,” to “Nice, but not something I have to have.”

Image is from Fragrantica.

 

 

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Discontinued Saints

I blame Left Coast Nose for this one.  She mentioned a scent she liked in a comment, and then helpfully pointed out that it’s discontinued.  Which got me to thinking… how much of the stuff I actually own and wear is no longer being produced and sold at retail?  A bunch of it, that’s how much.   Edit:  I should explain, I bought nearly all of the following at online discounters, where most of them are indeed still available at the time of writing.  Exception Shalimar Light, which is getting scarce as alligator feathers.

I had titled this post “Love’s Retail Lost,” and then when I went looking for a photo to accompany it, I found this:

which, although not precisely on topic, was too good not to share.

I checked my Excel file, where I keep notes on what I’ve tested, what I’d like to test, and what I’ve bought, to find out.  To be fair, I excluded my (extensive) collection of vintage miniatures, which I bought primarily because they were vintage/discontinued/hard-to-find.

Mariella Burani edt.  I think Mariella Burani is still making some kind of fragrance, but the eponymous one is no longer produced.  When you find it at the discounters, it’s likely to be very cheap because stocks have been dumped.  This does not reflect its quality.

YSL Paris Pont des Amours Printemps Edition 2008   Again, another LE.  I can’t really complain about limited editions not sticking around, however much I’d like to (I’m still mourning over the L’Artisan Jacinthe de Bois I never got to smell).

Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur   I have seen Black Orchid recently in a retail store, but not VdF, and I can’t find an online listing for it at a retail establishment. 

Balenciaga Rumba.  Another “let’s just dump it at cost” scent because it’s been discontinued and there’s tons of old stock sitting around.  It’s a very 80’s style fragrance, big and rich and vampy, and that is quite unfashionable these days.

Donna Karan Gold.  Recently discontinued, along with a slew of other Karans.  I am saddened to report that they are still making the (hideous, IMO) Be Delicious and all its sugary little flankers.

This one’s in question: I can’t find Givenchy Organza Indecence, whether the original or the Les Mythiques version, anywhere.  But March says in her comments to me on this post she was told it’s not discontinued, just really hard to find.  Givenchy should get its act together – this one was a both a big seller and hugely popular among perfumistas.

L’Arte di Gucci.  It doesn’t surprise me that this one’s kaput, to be honest.  It’s too… too big, too lush, too animalic, too shrieking, too everything  for current tastes.  (Except marshmallowy and fruity.  It’s not fruit-flavored-candy enough for current tastes.  And now I’ll stop snarling about the fruity gourmand fad, at least for now.   I admit to liking Hanae Mori.)

Stetson Rich Suede, which was probably an LE to begin with.  Oh, well.

Ines de la Fressange 1999, the Calice Becker fruity floral  – there’s a newer version in a tall bottle with gold leaves, a gourmandish thing by Alberto Morillas, but I think it too has been discontinued.  I know I snark about fruity florals from time to time, but this one is done just right: light-hearted, tangy, a bellini in a bottle.

Okay, okay, fine, I’ll cop to this one: Victoria’s Secret Pink.   This would be the original Pink, not Pink Beach or Pink Angel or Pink Panties or whatever the heck those ever-sluttier Victoria’s Secret execs are coming up with these days, an airy green peony-freesia floral that is still pleasant to me, and which I bought another mini of this past year, to replace the old one that was getting really low.  My excuse? The CEO likes it.

Victoria’s Secret Victoria.   The very first fragrance VS released, waaaay back in the… late 80’s, I think, a beautiful floral chypre that nonetheless has a difficult opening due to age.  I’ve now smelled three different bottles of this, and all three are off in the topnotes – decayed bergamot, or something.  I never owned this when it was new – I couldn’t afford it.  But it’s lovely, when the weird top burns off.  VS used to carry really beautiful, elegant nightwear – I had a gorgeous teal satin spaghetti-strap nightie that I wore for years – heavy satin, with four-inch-deep soft ivory lace.  Victoria smells like that thing felt – elegant, luxurious, pretty.  

Crown Perfumery Crown Bouquet.  I hereby curse Clive Christian to live, without diamonds and Lexuses and cash, sleeping in a tent and eating local food, in a miserably poor place for three months.   Perhaps he’d give up this ludicrous “most expensive perfume in the world” nonsense, and all the teddibly posh trappings of his current perfume business, which just annoys the %#** out of me. 

Cuir de Lancome.  A perfume with brains and beauty and a backbone?  Of course it’s discontinued, because no one under the age of 21 bought it.  Look, I’m not being ageist.  I think young women should wear what they like, even if I happen to find the popular fruity-sweet style ditzy and unpleasant.  It just burns my shorts that Lancome should decide not to continue producing a beautiful scent and selling it to “mature women” because they’d rather concentrate their efforts on selling things like Miracle So Magic and Tresor In Love.  Which I doubt very much will sell better than Cuir – they’ll just sell to the right demographic.

Shalimar Light.   News Flash: Eau de Shalimar is not an acceptable substitute.  Whose bright idea was it to bottle the smell of lemon baby wipes?

Guerlain Terracotta Voile d’Ete.  This may have been intended as limited edition as well, but I can’t find anything that says so definitively.  (Note to self: Aha!  This is what Agent Provocateur Strip was reminding me of!  Not an exact match, of course – this is spicier – but similar in the floral-amber category.)

I’m not even including reformulated things like Ralph Lauren Lauren – the reformulation of that one was like taking Sigourney Weaver and turning her into, oh, Blake Lively* – and Kenzo Parfum d’Ete – which has been changed into a different, but still pleasant, scent.  (*Please don’t hate on me for the Blake Lively comment.  Blake’s fine as she is, but in my opinion, Sigourney is Too Much Woman to be turned into someone young, blonde, and… hmm, how to say it?  Naive.  Blake should aspire to be Sigourney, not the other way round.  RL Lauren used to be kind, interesting, beautiful, classic and strong.  Now it’s merely pretty. )

So if I count up the discontinued scents, ignoring the reformulateds and the vintages, that’s, like… (frantic scrambling to get the calculator) a whopping 28.6% of my full bottle wardrobe.  This is a little scary.  You think so?  On the other hand, it might tie in to the fact that I am a Total Sucker for stories of lost love.  This is probably even more scary when you consider that I bought all of these bottles knowing that these fragrances had been discontinued.

Anybody else as crazy as me?

Image is I’d rather be a perfect sinner by theilr at flickr.com.

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Perfume Review: Bal a Versailles, or Hurrying Time

Perfume Review: Jean Desprez Bal a Versailles
Date released: 1962
Perfumer: none listed
Sample provenance: parfum bottle won summer 2009 in drawing from parfum1, parfum de toilette mini bought from eBay 2009 (labeled vintage, but who knows for sure?)

The CEO dislikes Bal intensely in its early stages, and I understand why. It smells, mostly, of heavy floral perfume, and reminds him of the elderly ladies at church during his 70’s childhood. Bal is the epitome of what I think of as “French cathouse.”

You know, French cathouse – like when teenage you goes out with some friends, wearing your tastiest clothes and a generous swipe of Cheri’s plum eye pencil, not to mention Carlynn’s coral lip gloss and Kelley’s Sand & Sable, and your father stops you at the door and gives you The Look. “Young lady,” he says, “you’re not going out of this house like that. You look like a clown, and you smell like a French cathouse. Get back in this house, go into the bathroom, and wash that stuff off!” You roll your eyes, but you comply, dabbing off the lip gloss and the eye makeup with tissues and muttering under your breath, “He just doesn’t understand… there’s nothing wrong with it… I don’t know what his problem is.” You swipe at your neck and wrists with cotton balls soaked in rubbing alcohol. You sniff back a tear or two, then re-powder your nose to cover the pinkness, and march out to the front door again. You pass inspection. You receive the reminder of curfew without rolling your eyes, and you escape. Twenty minutes later, you’re again bedecked with the bounty of Cheri, Carlynn, and Kelley, making a mental note to hide the evidence before you go home from the skating rink.

Yeah, that “French cathouse.” The smell that is almost toooooo much. It’s a heavy, rich smell that opens Bal a Versailles, and it is somehow, quintessentially, French.

I recently read a review of Teo Cabanel Alahine by Brian at I Smell Therefore I Am, in which he compared Alahine to Bal a Versailles. I didn’t get it then; I don’t get it now. Alahine is pure happiness to me, while BaV is the kind of scent you wear when you don’t want to go home alone, shall we say. They’re completely different in feel, as well in actual scent.

However, I would call both of them symphonic – very richly compounded, very layered and complex, greater than the sum of their parts. Maybe that’s what Brian was getting at. (I should ask him. And while I’m at it, I’ll put in a plug for ISTIA. Great writing by two people who love perfume, go check it out.)

March at Perfume Posse calls Bal, in parfum, “candied incense,” and I don’t get that either. **But her take on the edp (similar to my pdt concentration) is “floral sex,” and that is spot-on. Spot. On. Big florals, with something honeyed and rich, followed by warm skin that is not quite sweaty… I’d say Bal in parfum is “floral sex, with candles burning.” Maybe my “candles burning” is March’s “incense.” And candied? Well, I just said “something honeyed.” Maybe I’m closer to her description than I thought. (** It’s in the comments of a recent post which wasn’t actually about Bal, and if I can find the darn thing, I’ll post the link.)

If I were to compare Bal a Versailles to any other perfume, I’d say Balenciaga Rumba. Rumba is similarly dense with complex florals and honeyed fruit, and contains a beautiful note of burnt dust that I for one find very pleasant. It’s not exactly the candle wax of Bal, but in both scents there is that hint of heat and consumption – the dust burns, the candles melt, and underneath it all is the smell of warm skin and hurrying time, with a faint reminder that death waits for no man and decay will someday take this warm flesh.

Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
(from To His Coy Mistress, by Andrew Marvell)

That breath of mortality is something you won’t find in many modern fragrances. It makes me want to seize the moment, because I suddenly remember that my moments are not infinite. It’s genius, it’s philosophy in a bottle. It’s why I forgive Bal her French cathouse florals, and wear it again and again.

Notes for Bal a Versailles – an “everything but the kitchen sink” recipe if there ever was one:
Top: Rosemary, cassia, lemon, bergamot, mandarin, neroli, orange blossom, jasmine, rose, Bulgarian Rose.
Heart: Lilac, ylang-ylang, muguet, sandalwood, patchouli, orris, vetiver.
Base: Tolu balsam, amber, musk, civet, benzoin, resins, vanilla, cedar.

Notes for Balenciaga Rumba, just so you can compare:
Top: Orange blossom, plum, raspberry, peach, basil, bergamot
Heart: Honey, magnolia, carnation, tuberose, gardenia, jasmine, orchid, marigold, heliotrope, muguet.
Base: Leather, sandalwood, plum, amber, tonka bean, patchouli, musk, vanilla, oakmoss, cedar, styrax.

Both images from fragrantica.com.

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Tuberose Series 9: Michelle

This was a lucky eBay find for me. I’d had it on my Watch List for about a week, and then a review at Perfume Shrine (see below) made me decide to snag it.  I think the words “ginormous heart of tuberose and rose” were influential, and my thanks to Helg for the review and the push.

Perfume Review: Balenciaga Michelle, vintage parfum
Date released: 1979 – now discontinued. (*Note: I can’t find out when it was discontinued, but my guess is that it was several years ago.)
Perfumer:  Francoise Caron
Sample provenance: Small spray bottle of parfum in sealed box, bought from eBay seller in 2009.

Subcategory: Rich oriental-chypre base tuberose composition

The first time I talked about Michelle here was early in the fall of 2009, when I’d had this epiphany about really radiant perfume. I’m still not a big fan of that – I feel positively rude when people can smell me from farther away than a yard – so I restrict my usage of Michelle to times when I can wear a scent just for me. In any case, I no longer automatically cross a scent off my list if it’s loud, I just wear less. (Duh. For example, one tiny dab of Ubar was enough to keep me smelling great all day. I wouldn’t spray that one.)

My bottle of Michelle is, as a matter of fact, a spray bottle of parfum (see top photo), which strikes me as being one of the most decadent ways to wear perfume, ever. Spraaay… parfum?? Wow. Luxury squared.

When I reviewed Michelle earlier, my experience wearing it was that it was essentially a tuberose scent decorated with carnation, and with a lovely oakmoss-rich base. But when I have worn it since then, the rose has had a far greater presence, partnering with the tuberose and carnation in a circle dance, Three Graces powerfully linked.

Michelle does still start out with a bug-spray accord that lasts about five to ten minutes – and it still reminds me of the decomposed aldehydes-and-bergamot openings of various vintage fragrances.  Ergo, it doesn’t bother me.  I can spare ten minutes.  After that, we’re on to the Big Dance, rose and tuberose and carnation tearing up the floor while the ylang and jasmine look on, standing near the punch bowl.

Eventually the florals (except the tuberose) fade, and the base reveals itself to be a rich, lush composition of moss, vanilla and sandalwood, covered with a light veil of tuberose.  I have a hard time calling it woody, chypre, or oriental – it’s just rich.  And beautiful.  The only modern fragrance that reminds me of this drydown is (the rereleased) Amouage Ubar.

Notes for Balenciaga Michelle (from Perfume Shrine):
Top: Aldehydes, gardenia, green notes, coconut, peach
Heart: Carnation, tuberose, iris, orchid, jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose
Base: Sandalwood, oakmoss, musk, benzoin, vanilla, vetiver

The Bottom Line :
Quality:     A-   Bear in mind my bottle is vintage and the top notes are slightly off.
Grab-scale score    8
Short description    Tuberose-rose-carnation powerhouse
Cost     $   (only available at ebay and a very few online discounters)
Earns compliments:  From The CEO, yes.  From my kids, no.  I did wear it to work once, and no one commented, either positively or negatively.  Of course, that day I mostly spent hiding at my desk among the brake rotors, so it’s hard to make assumptions based on that experience.
Scent presence   Very strong.  One small spritz (parfum) lasts 8-10 hours.  Big sillage.
Review Report: Perfume Shrine

Top image is Michelle by Balenciaga, sold by fiera1966 at ebay; my bottle looks just like this.  Bottom image is Three Graces, from artist’s website: http://tomaszrut.com/pages/rut-editions.html.  Wish I could afford it myself.

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Perfume Review: Balenciaga Michelle, Or, I Begin to Understand Loud Perfume

Today’s review: Michelle by Balenciaga. Created in 1979 and discontinued some time in the 90’s, so far as I can tell, this oomphy floral carries some of the weight of 80’s-era perfumery, when everything was BIG and LOUD. Remember Opium? Poison? Obsession? YSL Paris? Giorgio Beverly Hills? If you don’t, you probably weren’t born yet. (Although I admit that I never smelled Paris until a few months ago, or at least I don’t remember smelling it before. It must simply not have been popular where I live.)

This is, by and large, a Tuberose Fragrance – not exactly the straight-down-the-gullet tuberose overdose that Fracas does so gloriously, or the richly sweet Estee Lauder Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia version, but the tuberose does dominate it, and it is rather effusive in the classic tuberose manner.

Here is where I confess a thing or three:
1) I love tuberose. I used to wear tiny dabs of the original Chloe; I never minded the clouds of Giorgio Beverly Hills that ballooned through the halls of my high school; I used to swoon with jealousy whenever a friend of mine, who wore Sand and Sable, walked by; I adored the original tuberose-and-spice Tatiana perfume; after years of scrimping on perfume and using one bottle at a time of drugstore fragrance, it was Bath and Body Works’ Velvet Tuberose that propelled me headlong into Perfume Love.

2) My mother despises tuberose. I bought a small bottle of Sand and Sable once, after a judicious spritz from the drugstore tester, and my mother made me take it back, claiming that I wasn’t old enough for it (I was 17) and that she didn’t want it in the house anyway. Mom – and by the way, we get along very well! – is queen of powdery florals. She wore No. 5 eau de cologne, Anais Anais, and Coty’s soap-and-baby-powdery L’Effleur.

3) I despise huge, resiny orientals like Opium and Tabu and Youth Dew. Gah. If I were ever to be tortured by SPECTRE or some other nefarious crime ring, there’d be no need for the Chinese water torture or sticking bamboo needles under my fingernails: put me in a small room with a person doused in Opium, and I’ll be begging for release within minutes. Just shoot me now, please! And since those huge, resiny orientals all seem to be Big, Loud Perfumes, with monster sillage, it follows that I hate loud perfumes. I honestly thought that Poison, although not resiny, was one of the worst things I have ever smelled.

It has always seemed crude and socially irresponsible to me that some people seem to bathe in their scent, radiating their favorite smell around them the way Pigpen, in the Peanuts comic strips, raised a cloud of dust everywhere he went. Sure, wear what you want – it’s a free country! – but I resent having someone else’s scent forcibly shoved up my nostrils. Particularly when that scent is as noxious to me as one of the Big, Loud Ones. And doesn’t it seem to happen that the people who are drawn to those SMELL ME! scents are usually the same ones who overapply? I mean, I’ve never smelled someone who seemed to have bathed in, say, Borsari Violetta di Parma, a scent so quiet on me that it utterly disappeared within five minutes.

(I apologize right now to you if you are one of those people who wear Youth Dew or Opium or Coco, or their ilk, in tiny amounts designed to keep the sillage within a two-foot radius of your person. There aren’t a large number of you delicate Poison-appliers.)

Opium is the reason I feel this way, obviously, and just as obviously, there’s a story: It is 1980. I am twelve years old, and I have been saving my piggy-bank money to go see the summer’s blockbuster movie, The Empire Strikes Back. I’ll be in the company of some friends, and Kelley’s mom will drop us off at the Tanglewood Mall Theater and then pick us up afterward. I’m so excited. I’ve only got enough cash for the movie, but Kelley and Beth get buttered popcorn and sodas. As we’re standing there choosing seats in the nearly-full theater, and Kelley’s offering me a sip of her Dr. Pepper out of the “spare straw,” we get a faint whiff of perfume. It disappears. We sit down; the theater is filling up rapidly. Just before the movie starts, an older woman with husband in tow sits down next to me, in the last unclaimed seats. She has bathed in Opium. It rolls off her in waves. My stomach turns over. I trade seats with Beth, but I can still smell Opium Lady, in nauseating detail. Halfway through the movie, I have a pounding headache and a roiling stomach; I have to spend most of the rest of the time sitting on the lobby carpet, breathing deeply and trying not to cry over missing the movie.

You see? Do you SEE why I hate loud perfume?

Sorry for shouting. Loud perfume gets me exercised… which brings me back to Michelle. Yes, my rant notwithstanding, this is actually a perfume review.

I bought a small bottle, for less than $7!!! on ebay, of vintage parfum spray recently. (Parfum spray! Drastically luxuriant!) I had liked both Rumba and Le Dix from the house of Balenciaga, and for seven bucks, I thought it would be worth trying Michelle. Then I read a review (see the bottom of this post) of Michelle that mentioned its “ginormous heart of tuberose and rose,” and I was hitting the “Bid now” button faster than you can say, “Ginormous tuberose.”

I wasn’t too worried about the “bug spray accord” Michelle is reputed to have in its top notes. I’ve tested enough vintage perfume by now to ignore the first five minutes, which frequently contains less-than-pleasant “bug-spray”-like notes, which I had assumed to be stale aldehydes. In any case, the aldehydes are gone quickly, and there is a hint of watery, tropical coconut-and-flowers that says “Hawaii” to me. And then we’re down into the heart of Michelle, which is a glorious tuberose-and-carnation party. There seem to be other florals swirling around the walls at this party – the rose is lovely, the ylang and orchid creamy – but the tuberose and carnation are doing the samba in the middle of the room, with the music turned up LOUD. I mean, LOUD. I applied the perfume about twenty minutes before getting into my minivan to drive the kids to school, and the whole vehicle smelled of it by the time I dropped them off, fifteen minutes after leaving home. I radiated tuberose for hours! If Michelle reminds me of any other perfume, it is Diane Von Furstenberg’s rich tuberose-and-spice Tatiana, which I wore in my late teens. However, Michelle seems more complex and has a lovely drydown of some depth, which Tatiana lacks. The base has an interesting twirl of moss, vanilla, and sandalwood, but compared to the three hours’ worth of tuberose, it is very quiet. The tuberose seems to persist through the drydown, trailing loveliness whenever I move.

And here is my revelation: People wear loud perfume because they love it, and they don’t care what anybody else thinks. (If you’re thinking, Well, DUH!, I wonder how many people you’ve smothered in your past.) I just did not give a flip that some people hate tuberose, because I was swooning in its voluptuous embrace, and it was beautiful. Sometimes you just have to make yourself happy. But I’ll play nice, and not wear Michelle to the theater.

Notes for Balenciaga Michelle (from Perfume Shrine):
Top: Aldehydes, gardenia, green notes, coconut, peach
Heart: Carnation, tuberose, iris, orchid, jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose
Base: Sandalwood, oakmoss, musk, benzoin, vanilla, vetiver

Helg at Perfume Shrine has a much more rational review of Michelle here: http://perfumeshrine.blogspot.com/2009/09/balenciaga-michelle-fragrance-review.html. Thanks to her for pushing me into buying this unsniffed.

photos from flickr, some rights reserved

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