Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Perfume of Feminists


Hola, queridos! The other day I braved the Baltimore Sephora just to test new perfumes for you. You guys, the Baltimore Sephora is a very scary place. The saleswomen are mad grumpy and very unknowledgeable and they get even grumpier when it becomes clear that you know more about their products than they do. Then they glare at you like they JUST KNOW that you are about to steal their precious perfume about which they are completely unknowledgeable. Sephora in general seems to be having some problems with people stealing perfume, as all of the perfume is now kept behind plastic boxes, but come on, lady. Am I really going to risk some jail time for a bottle of Paris Hilton's finest?

The answer is no, Baltimore Sephora lady. The answer is no.

Anyway, so while I was at the Baltimore Sephora, I was looking mostly at the new releases. Marc Jacobs Lola? ADORABLE bottle, but the perfume itself was completely unimpressive. The new Ed Hardy perfume? Finally, I can achieve my long-cherished dream of smelling like Jon Gosselin.

Eau de I hope you can afford the therapy costs for eight children.

And then there was the new Kim Kardashian perfume. Y'all, I am ashamed to tell you that I actually could not bring myself to smell this. Does everyone here understand why Kim Kardashian is famous? I will tell you.

Kim Kardashian is famous for three things. The first is for being the daughter of attorney Robert Kardashian, the man who got O.J. Simpson off the hook for (I have been advised to add the word ALLEGEDLY here) killing his wife and her alleged boyfriend. O.J. Simpson is HER GODFATHER, you guys. The second is for having a sex tape. The third is for being bootylicious. Perhaps I have not made this particularly clear, but I am very much a rabid feminist. As in, you will contract rabies if I bite you. I went to two Hillary rallies while she was still in the running, and I have very, very strong opinions on why women such as Kim Kardashian and Jessica Simpson- two very pretty and entertaining women who have more in the way of boobs than brain cells- are destroying feminism. Yeah, I said it.

OH MY GOD, KARDASHIAN. PUT IT AWAY.

Ladies, you do not need to be a porn star. You do not need to have a sex tape. You do not need to play dumb. The kind of men that you attract with this behavior are not the kind that you should want. Are Kim Kardashian and Jessica Simpson happily married? Far from it, and by the way, both women turn 30 this year. Not a week goes by that the tabloids don't cheerfully report on how Jessica just got dumped by John Mayer or Tony Romo or some other nogoodnik. You guys. We have J. Lo, Beyonce, and that stripper chick that Kanye West insists on dating to satisfy our national appetite for bootyliciousness. We do not need Kim Kardashian. Let her go.

Much like Cinnabons and Indiana Jones, the original is still the best.

The point to what seems to have turned into a very long rant is that I tested many new perfumes at the Baltimore Sephora and was unimpressed by the vast majority of them. However, exactly one new perfume line did stand out to me. They're actually not exactly new, having been out for two years or so, but just go with it. I'm referring to the Harajuku Lovers line, 5 perfumes created by Gwen Stefani. Now, I am very much down with Gwen. Anyone who sings a cover of "If I Were A Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof is pretty much my hero. I also think that Gwen is a far better role model for girls than the women I mentioned above. She writes fantastic music (including the girl power anthem, "Just A Girl"), shows off her great style rather than her sexuality, got married BEFORE having kids, and has an adorable and highly successful clothing/accessories/perfume line. Are you taking notes, Kardashian?

From the "Rich Girl" music video. Because if Gwen Stefani were a rich girl, she would be a pirate. I think that we can all agree that is awesome.

Now, onto the perfumes themselves. I did try all five, and I am very happy to review them all at some point, but frankly this review has become considerably longer than I had intended. For this reason, I will only discuss the best one, which is called "G" and is meant to represent Ms. Stefani herself. First of all, the bottle is the cutest thing that I have ever seen in my life. Words cannot do it justice: you'll just have to see the picture.


See? See? So freaking cute! The other four perfumes are housed in equally cute bottles, but G is the only one of the five where what's inside the bottle is anywhere near as nice as the outside. G is a very, very enjoyable combination of coconut and apple skin. There are other notes (mandarin orange, freesia, sandalwood) but those are the only two that I can smell. The apple skin note is unexpected and adds a lovely freshness to the very milky-smelling coconut. G is pretty much the opposite of sophisticated, but it smells great and would be perfect for lying on the beach in the summertime.

Now, about the pricing. G is currently only available in 1 ounce bottles that cost $45. To put this in perspective, 1.2 ounces of Chanel No. 5 costs $50. $45 is quite unreasonable for a simple little perfume like G. HOWEVER. Every winter and summer, the very wise Ms. Stefani repackages these perfumes in the appropriate seasonal apparel (bikinis for the summer, big jackets for the winter... and you thought those bottles couldn't get any cuter!) and sells them in 10 ml bottles (one third of an ounce). Since G is best suited to warmer weather anyway, I recommend holding off until the summer.

Do you see those flowers in her hair??? I can't handle the cuteness!

2 comments:

  1. Seriously?? Another Baltimore perfume nut? I thought I was the only one!

    - Kristy Victoria
    Specktra.Net Fragrance Writer

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  2. Ahhh! I'm so thrilled to find another one!!! Where do you shop for perfume here? There's Sephora and Nordstrom at Towson, and a bluemercury in the Harbor, but other than that I'm lost. Advice would be VERY welcome! Thank you for reading!

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