I have a confession to make. I like women’s perfume. Well, just one. Dolce & Gabanna Light Blue Pour Femme. Of course, they also make a Pour Homme version, but it’s a bunch of crap. The women’s version is definitely unisex, damn whatever their marketing department says.

I was considering buying it. That is, buy a women’s perfume for myself. Thanks to Versace Man Eau Fraiche I won’t have to because it’s the same stuff in a different bottle.

Why am I finding myself commenting on blatant rips as of late? That aside, the stuff really is good as a fresh scent, which I’m normally bored to tears over. It’s clean, slightly fruity with melon, citrus, and berry notes throughout, set on a base of amber and musk. I’d almost say there’s some light woods in there, but if there are it’s not a main part of the composition. That said, those top notes are present throughout, even when you’d rather they go away.

Sillage is good, longevity is fair to good, I get about the standard 6 hours and then it’s faded to something pretty much unrecognizable. Still, if fresh scents are your thing and you want one that’s…*cough* unique, check this one out.… (More) “Versace Man Eau Fraiche”

Let me say before I go any further that I remain steadfastly neutral with regards to celebrity perfumes. I think equating a complex fragrance with many ingredients to one particular person is pretty much dumb. I own Sean John Unforgivable on the merits of it being an excellent fragrance, and honestly don’t give a damn if it was made for Sean Combs or Sean Connery.

Gratuitously lifting the notes from K over at Now Smell This, Usher He features pineapple, verbena, melon, white pepper, lavender, violet leaf, vetiver, amber wood, black suede, sandalwood, guaiac wood and musk. Upon applying, all I could smell was slightly overripe melon a la Paris Hilton for Men. The drydown was a chemical mess, but I got a little glimmer of where they were trying to take this, and that was to copy Creed Himalaya. Of course, I’m not against this; Unforgivable is virtually identical to Creed Millesime Imperial and I have no problem wearing it (and saving mad bank, to boot). The problem is that they didn’t put the effort into the copy that Sean John did. I get the pepper, and the vetiver/musk duo, but that’s really all that I can pick out, everything else is just a blob of scent.

Color me unimpressed.… (More) “Usher He: *vomit*”

I just got stuff straight with the University of Louisville. That doesn’t sound like much but it’s taken about a month of steady correspondence with UofL to assure that I could go back; indeed today I was on the phone with 5 different departments for about 2 hours, trying to figure out why I could register for the Fall but not the Summer semester.

But now everything’s straight. And it was entirely my own doing; my father’s been in Florida for weeks so I’ve been getting everything in order myself, and if it was for anything else I’d have probably just given up at the complexity of it all; for a university that averages $23000 in total costs a year, they make it really, really hard to transfer back.

So I get off the phone, finally able to relax for a day or two and reach for a new scent. The scent was Mugler Cologne.

I don’t really know what I was expecting out of it, aside from it had to be generally inoffensive for all the pleasant reviews it had on here. What I found was a bone dry vetiver and the fresh scent of dryer sheets, with some pleasant spices lying very close to the skin and a sour, bitter sort of note when heated up that I can’t quite place. It’s a little ozonic to my nose, and overall I think it’s okay but it doesn’t really fit with my personality (I’m pretty much over fresh scents and vetiver is just a bit too heavy on my skin, especially with the coming weather.)

However, I came to a realization tonight at work. Mugler Cologne was going to be my muse from now on; the scent is an olfactory representation of all the work I put into getting … (More) “Mugler Cologne: The Muse”

Wore this stuff out of a sample atomizer today at work, and I couldn’t quite place what I was smelling right at first, though it was hitting me right in the face. It occured to me later that it is in fact a gourmand along the lines of A*Men, or possibly Armani Code. Where it differs from those two is the addition of citrus overtones, and some woods in the base make this an amazingly complex fragrance, especially for a gourmand. Think a toned down Gucci 1 or M7 without the bite, and the lush chocolate-vanilla notes of Angel*Men, and add the tiniest splash of Clinique Happy’s sweet orange notes, and you’re getting close to Hanae Mori HM. Very sophisticated, very classy for what it is.

Still, while I’ve got both A*Men and Code in my wardrobe, I really can’t be bothered to buy another gourmand, even one as nice as this. When I run out, though, it’s a whole different story. If you don’t have a gourmand in your lineup I recommend this sincerely.… (More) “Hanae Mori HM”