Today we ducked into Lush to pick up a few things, and I commented on how much I love the smell of the American Cream, and, much to my delight, I was informed that they offer the scent in a solid perfume! Yay! Of course, I got some, and I'm very pleased with it. I put just a bit on the backs of my hands and my wrists, and a little in my cleavage and it's just yummy delicious. Subtle, but I can definitely smell it, and I'm definitely enjoying it.

What's more, it's darned affordable and will undoubtedly last a long time. Mmmm. I'll have to try a few more of their solid perfumes when I get the chance, but I don't get to Lush very often to do that. I must say, The Olive Branch sounds like it'd be just the sort of thing I enjoy.

Anyway, if you've got the chance to try out some of Lush's solid perfumes, I say go do it. Very worthwhile.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- At first, fire officials suspected that carbon monoxide or some other toxic fumes had sickened almost 150 people at a Texas bank call center. It turned out that perfume was to blame.

MedStar ambulance spokeswoman Lara Kohl says 34 people were taken to hospitals, 12 by ambulance, after reporting dizziness and shortness of breath Wednesday at a Bank of America call center in Fort Worth. An additional 110 were treated at the scene.

Fort Worth fire Lt. Kent Worley said the incident started with two people complaining about dizziness after a co-worker sprayed perfume. Others reported being sick when an announcement was made that anyone with similar symptoms should exit the building.

Investigators do not know what type of perfume was sprayed.

Google News Article

Fantasy is one I like the least. On me, it smells like cupcakes in a lolly shop, with a syrupy undertone. Seriously way, way too sweet. Yuck. I will admit that I let my daughters wear it, though (I had some in stock that I couldn't move no matter what I did, so I gave it to my kids). My daughters are currently ages nine and seven, and it's appropriate for a little girl to smell sticky sweet like lollies and cupcakes.

Midnight Fantasy is, in my opinion, actually worse. It's got a sort of fake grape thing going on. I don't mean actual grapes, but that yucky bright purple fake grape flavour you find in certain lollies and sticky drinks. To me, Midnight Fantasy comes on like fake grape cough syrup, and doesn't get any better as it develops. Double yuck.

Believe is also a fruity floral, though not quite as sticky sweet as Fantasy and Midnight Fantasy (can't figure out why they made it green; it's not a "green" fragrance at all). Believe isn't too offensive to my nose, and it's okay on my skin, but it's got very little character and personality (I will refrain from making a joke about Britney here, but you can assume I thought of one).

And that all being said, today I tried Hidden Fantasy, mostly because I heard it had a cherry note and I quite like cherries, even though I was expecting cherry cough syrup. I will say right now I was pleasantly surprised. Hidden Fantasy is, so far, the best of the Fantasy line, at least to my personal reckoning.

It is, of course, a fruity floral (surprise!). It does have the promised cherry note (or a combination that has a cherry accord, anyway). Happily, the sweetness of this perfume is tempered with citrus, which combines to cut the syrupy quality (sweet orange, tangerine, and grapefruit blossom, to be precise).

After the top notes fade, the heart is mostly floral, but it's a sweet floral, with verbena, jasmine, stargazer lily, and sweet Napolitano cake, because, of course, everyone wants to smell like fruit, cake and flowers. Again, I didn't find this too sweet, and the cake is a nice almond-cherry-vanilla type of mood scent. I actually found it pleasant.

The base notes are pretty standard and unremarkable, including vanilla bean, jacaranda wood, fluid sandalwood and amber. Basically, the base is solid, sweet, and nothing you haven't smelled before (though I will admit, I liked the amber note, which lingered quite a while, if very close to the skin).

Overall, I think I'd say this is an acceptable perfume. I'm very unlikely to buy it or wear it, but I imagine it'll be a hit. It's better than the previous Fantasy offerings, in my opinion, and if someone held a gun to my head and forced me to wear one of the Britney Spears fragrances but forbade me to choose Curious, I'd pick this one. Fortunately, that's extremely unlikely to happen.

Just as an afterthought, if you're looking for a somewhat sweet fragrance with a cherryish note (okay, it's actually heliotrope, but heliotrope has a definite "cherry pie" accord, which is why it's called the cherry pie plant, go on and look it up), go for Dior Dolce Vita. It's a much better fragrance, has excellent lasting power, and wouldn't you rather say you're wearing Dior than say you're wearing Britney Spears? I know I would.

Fascinating article on olfactory works of art at the New York Times (note: You may need to sign up for a free account to view the article; I've had an account with the NYT for so long that I just keep a permanent cookie on the hard drive and almost never need to log in to view their articles, though. It's worth signing up if you haven't already.)

I like the names (yes, I am a Star Trek fan, in case you wondered), but I really have to wonder about the licensing of the Star Trek name to fragrances (and other quite improbable schemes; see link above).

So today I'm trying out Ormonde Jayne's Frangipani. My first reaction is a great big WOW. The top notes are absolutely delicious on my skin. For a while I almost felt like licking my wrist because the scent was that scrumptious. The top notes are linden blossom, magnolia flower, lime peel, and boy does that lime work with the florals. Absolutely enticing, at least to my nose. Fresh and definitely tropical. Yummy.

The heart notes are white frangipani, jasmine, rose, and tuberose absolutes, water lily, plum, and green orchid oil. I have to say, I'm not the biggest fan of tuberose. I have experienced perfumes that use it well, however, and this is one of them. I often find tuberose to be pretty overwhelming. That's not the case with this scent, though. In fact, the heart notes combine to have an almost gardenia-like effect on my skin. It's quite beautiful, and certainly floral-tropical. Gorgeous.

The beautiful heart notes give way after a reasonable length of time to the base of amber, musk, cedar, and French vanilla abolute. I'm not a big "vanilla" fan (as many of my reviews have noted), but the vanilla here is a creamy, subtle part of the base, so it's not too overpowering. In fact, the thing I detect the most is the amber, which suits my sensibility fairly well (I love a nice amber note). The musk is very soft, and, in fact, I find the base generally quite subtle, and very close to the skin.

My overall reaction to this perfume is that it is, like all of the other Ormonde Jayne fragrances I've tried so far, exceptionally well-crafted and elegant. I'm a big fan of florals, so this fragrance really works for me, and it works on me, as well. I get pretty tired of fruity florals, but in this fragrance, the fruity notes are a nice addition, not too sweet or too fruity. They add a nice splash of freshness in the top notes, and the plum in the heart notes just nicely rounds out the blend.

This is a floral fragrance I could and very well might add to my permanent perfume wardrobe. That's how much I like it.

I was completely overwhelmed by the top notes, and not in a good way. The top notes are davana, pink pepper, coriander seed, and bergamot, but I can barely detect the bergamot, and the pink pepper is just barely noticible on my skin. Mostly I am overwhelmed by the coriander and davana, and my reaction to it is... phew. If I wasn't well familiar with the development of fragrances, I might have been tempted to go and wash it off, that's how overwhelming I found it.

Once the heart notes start to develop, though, the fragrance is much more pleasant on my skin and to my olfactory senses. Iris, sambac absolute, pimento berries, and bay are the middle notes of this fragrance, quite an unusual combination (something I do appreciate in any perfume). The first heart note I could really detect was, unsurprisingly, the iris, but the bay was actually quite interestingly notable, as well. I have to admit, I don't know what pimento berries smell like, so it's hard to say what effect they have on the blend, but I do admit that I find the heart of this fragrance intriguing, and certainly more pleasant than the overwhelming top notes.

I do like the base in this very much, and, happily, they last a good long while. The notes are incense, patchouli, myrrh, Chinese cedar, and gaiac. I'd actually love to get incense that smells like this. It's sufficiently mysterious and just spicy enough without being too over the top. Very well done.

Unfortunately, for me the perfume doesn't really work, and that makes me a little sad, because I'm always interested in a well-crafted perfume with a unique character. You definitely won't smell like everyone else if you're wearing Orris Noir! I certainly recommend giving this a test run if you're interested in a well-crafted, moody oriental.

Top notes are lychee, grass, oil, bergamot, and magnolia, and my first impression was that it was familiar, but not too familiar. It's a really nice, rich combination, surprisingly so for top notes, which tend to be rather light and wispy in most perfumes. This is quite beautifully clear, and I like it, particularly the grass oil in combination with the lychee (I'm not the biggest fan of lychee, generally, but this is good). I'm also not finding myself overwhelmed by the bergamot. I quite like bergamot, but a lot of perfumes that use it in the top notes smell like a cup of Earl Grey tea. Not so this blend.

The top notes lingered for some time before gracefully and elegantly giving way to the heart notes of sampaquita absolute (apparently, the sampaquita or sampaguita is the national flower of the Philippines, so there you go, learn something new every day), freesia, muguet, rose, and water lily. The first note of the heart that I could detect was the muguet, mostly because I like it and I can almost always notice it in any blend, but it's not overwhelming. The more the heart notes develop, the less obvious the muguet becomes. The jasmine-like sampaquita note is subtle but detectable, as is the rose. The note I most notice is the freesia, not really my favourite floral, but this is a quite sophisticated blend, and none of the floral notes are especially overwhelming to me or on my skin. In fact, the blend of heart notes is extremely well done, and once the heart is fully opened and developed, they work together in perfect concert to create a delicious, unique, and sophisticated floral character. On me, it's an intense floral that's quite close to the skin.

As the heart notes gave way to the base notes, the fragrance got even closer to the skin. The base notes are musk, vetiver, moss, and ambrette seed (also known as musk seed). I detect primarily the musky notes as the floral heart notes recede, with just a hint of the vetiver. The base is sensual and earthy, and, on me, very subtle. The rose heart note seems to linger the longest into the base, and then the base dries down nicely into the rather long-lingering base notes.

The entire development was very "close to the skin" for me, so if I were wearing this perfume just to wear (rather than to test/review), I'd make sure to put it in multiple locations and in sufficient amount to create good sillage, though I must say, the close-to-the-skin fragrances are very nice for summer wear or for wearing in a situation where you'll be in close proximity and you don't want to overpower with your perfume (office, threatre, etc.).

Overall, I'm fairly impressed with this fragrance, not so much for the specific notes, though I do like them, but for how really well-crafted it is. It's exquisitely balanced, the stages degrade so gracefully and elegantly! The notes are not particularly uncommon or rare, but they're expertly arranged. This is a high quality fragrance, from top to bottom, with unique character and tremendous elegance. Beautiful.

I will note that the packaging is extremely lush. The perfume came wrapped in an absolutely gorgeous subtly sparkly paper (dusky olive, with tiny gold flecks, really beautiful), in a beautiful rich black velvety pouch with a dusky olive satin lining. The entire presentation is just really luxurious and lush. I am hoping that the perfume is as delicious as the packaging.

So, tomorrow, I hope, I'll have some new perfume to write about (today I'm already wearing perfume, and I like to do a review with clean skin and a "fresh" nose).

I'd like to personally thank the nice people at Ormonde Jayne for this lovely sample set. As a perfume lover, I'm delighted, and as a perfume writer, I'm so so pleased to have something new to write about. Life is good.

The opening notes are bright and spunky, with geranium leaves, green notes, lavender, Sicilian lemon, and I found the top notes fade fairly quickly and the heart notes really start to take control, and that's where it gets interesting. The heart notes have a gorgeous sweet-but-not-too-sweet chocolate note that I absolutely love, plus a blend of honeysuckle, lily of the valley, and magnolia, making the heart sweeter and gentler than the more strident top notes, but, I'm happy to report, it's not very sweet. Regular regular readers will know that I can't tolerate fragrances that are too sweet, mostly because my particular chemistry makes them go even sweeter and it can be really overwhelming. I'm happy to say that there are a few sweet fragrances I can wear, though, and this is one of them. Yay for chocolate!

The heart notes lasted a fairly long time on my skin before they started to very gently give way to the softly sensual base of vetiver, musk, teakwood, amber, and bois de cashmere. I'd like to comment on that last note. I have no idea what that might be. I did look it up, but I can't find any perfumer references to it. I suspect it might be a "made up" fragrance, in the same way that one Donna Karan fragrance has a note of "white t-shirt" and one of the Britney Spears line has a note of "cupcake". I suspect that "bois de cashmere" is meant to be a cross between an exotic wood and a wool type of scent. Whatever it is, I really like it, and the base of this perfume is a real delight to my rather picky olfactory sense.

I'm not the biggest fan of "celebrity" fragrances, I must admit. I'm generally willing to give them a sniff, but far too many of them are really lacking as perfumes, in my opinion, having no real character or style. Covet, however, is a fragrance worth getting to know. It's got personality. And chocolate. Gotta love that.

Oh, it's not horrible. I didn't want to wash my skin or anything. But it was so... ordinary. Pink, fruity, floral, been there, done that, a hundred times. Honestly, the perfume is a yawn. It has apparently become a top seller in the UK, which is fine for Kylie (as I said, I actually have nothing at all against her), but how much must this perfume contribute to the stereotype that the English are boring and predictable?

The top notes are the extremely common and entirely dull combination of freesia, lychee, and (passionless) passion fruit, followed by some other floral notes that apparently include boronia and lily. The only part of the perfume I particularly liked was the base, which is a nicely balanced sandalwood and amber, with a touch of vanilla.

I found the fragrance to be reasonably long lasting, and fairly well constructed, as these things go. What a shame that the fragrance is so very, very dull and so very, very boring. Surely, Kylie isn't dull and boring (at least, I shouldn't think so), so why would she settle for this oh-so-ordinary pink, fruity, floral when she could have had something that would really sparkle?

Maybe I'm just a perfume snob, I don't know. I mean, I've smelled hundreds of perfumes, and I've got a pretty strong sense of what I like and don't like, so maybe that's why I was so completely unimpressed by this fragrance. And my apologies to anyone from the UK (I do know that being boring and predictable is only a stereotype!) and to anyone who loves this perfume. I'm sure it's nice on many, many, many people. Just like beige skirts and brown shoes.