theNotice: a beauty blog

The product: Chloé Love, Chloé Eau de Parfum Purse Spray

I have, admittedly, been sitting on this review for quite a while – but can you blame me? There’s something just so utterly photogenic about a well-designed perfume bottle, and the purse-sized Love, Chloé is no exception.

Anyhow; I ended up being more than a little overwhelmed by the chic gold casing of this particular flacon, and the number of photos I had sitting on my computer was… a bit intimidating, to say the least.

The scent

Love, Chloé is described as “[the embodiment] of all the olfactory vocabulary of cosmetics… a fine, powdery scent, light and sensual with a flowery wake, iridescent and musky with talc and rice.” And, to be entirely honest, I don’t think it can be put any more succinctly than that.

Created by Louise Turner and Nathalie Cetto-Gracia (Givaudain), Love, Chloé features top notes of orange blossom and pink pepper; heart notes focusing on iris absolute, but adding a blend of lilac, hyacinth, wisteria blossom, and heliotropine (for its suggestion of almond and vanilla); and finally, base notes of musk, talc, and rice powder.

What I love about this scent is how effortlessly feminine it is - feminine, not the overly-powdered girlishness of so many celebrity fragrances. It’s certainly not for everyone (my sister, who hates powder notes, can’t stand this one), but I was quite surprised to feel as strongly about it as I do.

The blend of powders, florals, and musks is just so, and despite quite disliking about the original Chloé, I’ve been reaching for this one much more often than I’d anticipated.

The packaging

The Love, Chloé Purse Spray is actually a small, refillable casing about 3 1/2″ tall and 1 3/4″ wide. Its build is plastic, surprisingly, with a glossy outer finish – giving it a more expensive feel without sacrificing its lightweight nature.

The refills (10ml x3) are the usual glass-and-spray combination, and fit quite securely into the bottle. The chained lid is a good fit as well; it’s nice not to have to worry about losing the cap on the go, and it sits snugly enough that I wouldn’t worry about it coming off in my bag.

My one qualm with the entire product is the twist-off base – I changed the refill just to see how it would go, and warped the slot a bit while I was at it. The purse spray is limited edition at the moment (and I’ve got my fingers crossed that it’s still on shelves), but I’d really like to see it added to the permanent Love, Chloé lineup.

In which case: it would be really nice to see the addition of a metal base, Chloé!

The bottom line

Packaging aside, I fell a bit in love with Love, Chloé this winter. It’s not my typical sort of scent (I tend to stray more toward unisex fragrances; think amber and patchouli rather than soap and citrus), but it snuck under my skin and I couldn’t (didn’t even want to) get it out.

Love, Chloé smells like something from the past; a classy, demure blend of powder and florals that would pair just as well with ’40s hair and red lips as it would with a neutral eye and a silk shift.

Availability and a couple more photos »

Oh my god, you guys. These sound amazing! They’re tiny ($32 US for 0.5 fl oz), but – um, yes please.

From the Anthropologie site:

“Each of these four scents from niche perfumers A Lab on Fire, are created by a famous “nose,” batched in a state-of-the-art facility, and packaged and labeled by hand in Brooklyn.

• What We Do Is Secret: the olfactory footprint of A Lab on Fire; bergamot, nutmeg, pepper, leather, jasmine, sandalwood patchouli and birch (SPICE)
• What We Do In Paris Is Secret: developed by perfumer Dominique Ropion; a blend of bergamot, honey, lychee fruit, Turkish rose, vanilla, heliotrope, tonka bean, sandalwood and ambergris (SPICE)
• Rose Rebelle SC-7545: an explosion of Bulgarian and Turkish roses, blended with valerian, red currant, ivy leaves, musk and labdanum (FLORAL)
• L’Anonyme ou OP-1475-A: developed by perfumer Olivier Polge; a rich blend of bergamot, geranium, blonde woods, white amber and leather (WOODSY)”

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I’m dying over the notes listing for What We Do Is Secret. Bergamot, nutmeg, pepper, leather, and patchouli, all in one little bottle! It sounds like a dream come true – but I’m wary to order, seeing as the four A Lab On Fire EdPs are online exclusives. Has anyone tried? Thoughts; opinions?

(And Olivier Polge; they’ve gone and gotten themselves a Polge! It’s no secret that I’m head over heels for just about any Polge creation, be it by Jacques or Olivier. Now that is a family with talent.)

More images »

The product: Calvin Klein forbidden euphoria (eau de parfum)

Marketed as yet another “fruity floriental,” I wasn’t expecting all that much from the latest euphoria flanker. And, okay, it’s more or less what I’d expected – but in some respects, that could be a good thing.

When you go with a generically seductive fragrance from a brand known for its pretty-but-mainstream offerings, you’re not going to find anything riveting. Which sounds terrible, but it works both ways: the more adventurous a brand is with their scents, the more likely it is that everything is going to end up in a terrible mess of overdone scent molecules and trying-to-hard sillage.

forbidden euphoria, like the classic it is based off of, plays it safe: it’s the kind of scent that most people will kind-of-sort-of like, but perhaps not love.

Launched September 2011, the bottle is a spin on the original just as much as the scent is: the same shape, and the same idea, but this time in a gorgeous, translucent berry. I could photograph this for ages – and, to some extent, I suppose I did. (It’s so easy to go overboard on photo-taking when you’re working with a product that looks like this.)

The Calvin Klein house describes forbidden euphoria as a younger interpretation of euphoria, which is a description I’d have to agree with. It lists top notes of sparkling mandarin, peach blossom, passion fruit, and iced raspberry; heart notes of  pink peony, tiger orchid, and jasmine; and base notes of cashmere woods, patchouli, and skin musk.

(And I’m sorry, but I cannot use the name “forbidden euphoria” without quotation marks or stylized text. I just can’t do it. Please, for the love of grammar, capitalize your bloody product names, industry; you’re driving me crazy.)

Silver to the sides, or silver to the front and back? The adverts say translucent facing forward, but I think the silver looks rather cleaner.

The bottom line

I get an indiscriminate kind of fruity from this scent; soapy and very sweet. (“Soapy” as in commercial soaps and shampoos, not “soapy” as in aldehydes and Chanel No. 5.) I think iced raspberry was a very apt description of it – it’s like someone theorized a raspberry syrup that you’d make a tasty (and extremely alcoholic) drink from, created an absolu, and infused it into forbidden euphoria.

If I had to sum this all up in one word, I think I’d go with “tasty.” (Because, seriously, it’s more mouthwatering than any fragrance has a right to be.) I doubt forbidden euphoria will be winning awards for innovation anytime soon, but it plays its strengths – and (god help me), I kind of find myself accidentally enjoying it every now and again.

It toes the line of headache-inducing and I definitely have to use a light hand with this one, but it’s also the perfect guilty pleasure. Let’s keep that between the two of us, though, yeah? ;)

There’s more! (No, seriously, really is; keep reading.) »

The product: ck one (on-the-go packaging)

ck one has always smelled like a cologne to me, with its hard, fresh, too-synthetic edges. I mean, I do have quite a bit of respect for it (how could you not respect something so iconic, something that has changed the perfume world this much?), but it’s never really been up my alley, so to speak.

At first spritz, ck one is sharp and almost aggressively clean, with notes of bergamot, cardamom, pineapple, papaya, and green tea. I can’t imagine anyone not recognizing the scent–remember when it was everywhere, on everyone, for like, a decade?– though perhaps a generation of fragrance lovers who’ve never so much as heard of ck one is upcoming. I don’t get a lot of fruit out of it (the bergamot and green tea pop out the most, on my skin), but they’re tucked away in there.

Launched in ’94 and crafted by Alberto Moriallas and Harry Fremont, ck one was the first “big” unisex scent. The full-sized version (I’ve photographed the rather unique travel-size bottle), designed by Fabien Baron, features a screw-top lid and and an almost flask-like frosted bottle, which was – intriguing, to say the least.

The sharp top notes fade quickly, revealing a softer layer of florals (rose, violet, jasmine, and a nice, comfortable nutmeg) and a woodier base (musk, amber).

At the end of the day, I think what I respect ck one most for is that it made unisex cool. It was sort of the groundbreaker, the fragrance that said “I can smell like this because I want to smell like this,” you know? And that’s definitely something I can get behind.

ck one is, admittedly, not for me – and probably not for a lot of us. The nineties were a long time ago (can you believe that this scent is already seventeen, eighteen years old?) and fragrance trends have changed, but I still think it’s worth giving a sniff. To me, it’s one of those scents that every ‘fumehead needs to try, even if just for reference. It was huge, iconic, and I do think it’s still relevant to some degree. ck one is a classic; it’s the Shalimar of the Gen Xs and Ys, the Angel of the nineties tomboy.

Give it a try. Who knows? Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you’ll love it.

Keep reading »

The products

• Paul & Joe Ornamental Self-Select Eyeshadow (pan only), $20.00
• Philosophy Hands of Hope, $10.00
• Harajuku Lovers Jingle G, $19.99
• MAC Dazzlesphere! Smoky Berry Eye Kit, $32.50

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Okay, confession: I like this one way more than yesterday’s natural skincare feature ;) (Not that I didn’t like that one! I just like this one rather a lot more.) This is the only other spread I have done right now, but I’d like to fit in one more before Christmas if I can!

No promises, but fingers crossed. I’ll try to make time :o) The holidays, you know? They’re crazy for us all.

(It’s a pity you can’t delegate to cookies. I would totally delegate to cookies. And then eat them once they’d finished their tasks. It would be gloriously efficient and so tasty.)