D&G Fragrance Anthology

Queridos, let us have a moment of silence for my friend M's makeup, which suffered a terrible death the other day. I cannot tell you exactly what happened, but it involves a lacrosse player who was apparently never properly potty-trained. Needless to say, the makeup could not be salvaged. So yesterday I accompanied M to Sephora to replace her makeup, and while I was there I used my Beauty Insider status to score samples of the new Dolce & Gabbana "Fragrance Anthology". These are five new fragrances that the dashing Dolce and Gabbana say are inspired by various tarot cards. I've been fairly excited about these, mostly because the advertisements feature Naomi Campbell and as far as I am concerned that woman can do no wrong. Seriously, she could throw her cell phone straight into my head and all I would notice is how graceful her arm movements are.

The Dolce & Gabbana brand is responsible for one of the best selling fragrances of all time, Light Blue, which came out in 2001 and remains Sephora's second bestseller nine years later. With its airy "granny smith apple" note, Light Blue is the great-grandmother of the hundreds of "fresh" women's fragrances that grace department store counters today. I regret to inform you, dear readers, that in terms of appeal (and probably success, but time will tell), there is nary a Light Blue to be found among these five new fragrances.

1 Le Bateleur

The D&G website states that Le Bateleur is intended for "a man who gets what he wants." If what this man wants is to smell like slightly spicy cardboard, then I must agree. Le Bateleur opens with some very generic aquatic notes coupled with standard woodiness stemming from cedarwood. Even the website doesn't attempt to identify those top notes, simply referring to them as "an aquatic heart." This lasts for about three minutes before breaking down into straight-up cardboard. Oh, I should mention that this fragrance is also intended for an "accomplished Mediterranean seducer." In my humble opinion, it has more in common with "The Situation", one of the Italian-American "guidos" on MTV's Jersey Shore. Despite the testosterone radiating from his fake-tanned, over-gelled body, The Situation has yet to achieve anything even vaguely resembling success with a woman.

I don't think you were quite what D&G was going for, Situation.

3 L'Imperatrice

D&G tells us that "for L'Imperatrice, life is a movie and she is its heroine." From this description you imagine an Old Hollywood style perfume, something with personality. L'Imperatrice is very pleasant, probably the most enjoyable of the five, but to declare it full of personality would be a stretch. It has a bit of a SweetTart vibe, with a watermelon note providing the sweetness and a kiwi note the tartness. A very nice fruity fragrance (the kiwi note was quite realistic), but still not quite of the caliber I would have expected from Dolce and Gabbana. L'Imperatrice would not be out of place in, for example, the Harajuku Lovers line.

6 L'Amoureux

L'Amoureux supposedly possesses the power to "[melt] the most cynical of hearts." Just off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure I can think of at least one cynical heart that failed to melt. Citrusy at the beginning with bergamot, generic "pink pepper" spiciness- not a terrible start. However, this fragrance soon becomes quite a bit sweeter than a men's fragrance has any right to be. You know, the guys really got the short end of the stick with this whole Fragrance Anthology thing. None of these fragrances seem to have been all that well thought out, but the two men's fragrances are particularly weak.

10 La Roue de la Fortune

Juicy Couture, is your legal team ready? I cannot think of a single valid reason that Juicy should not sue over "La Roue de la Fortune", which is a shameless clone of all three of Juicy's women's fragrances. La Roue de la Fortune begins its life as Couture Couture, the newest Juicy fragrance. This means that it smells like white grape juice. Suddenly the tuberose-and-patchouli combination rears its head, and at this point it is absolutely indistinguishable from the original Juicy Couture. Eventually it settles down into Viva La Juicy, which I have always found to be much too sweet. Of the five fragrances, La Roue de la Fortune undoubtedly has the most personality. It is also a total copycat and is so unbearably sweet that it somehow feels less elegant than the Juicy fragrances it emulates. The Juicy bottles are also much cuter, so I recommend buying the real thing.

18 La Lune

La Lune is far from the "perfect enigma" D&G would like you to believe it is. In fact, it is simply another copycat. After the pretty lily topnotes fade away after about five minutes, the tuberose note in La Lune makes it eerily similar to Velvet Tuberose, a fragrance from Bath and Body Works. This is not good news for D&G, but if you like La Lune, it's good news for you! Velvet Tuberose is all of $5.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year, queridos! I hope that your New Years involved champagne and was more exciting than mine. I'm not really sure how that's possible, considering that I went to a "pirate show" with my parents, little brother, grandparents, and cousins. Actually, the six packs on those pirates were so impressive that it might as well have been a Chippendale's show. And from this point onward, that is how we are going to say that I spent New Year's Eve.

Oh, Orlando. You can shiver my timbers anytime.

Anyway, y'all, although I know (desperately hope) that in the future there will be more of you, at the present time I have exactly one reader who is not my mother. I love this girl deeply, but it has also come to my attention that she does not wear perfume, and therefore she has trouble relating to many of the perfume related posts. I love perfume. I love the clever tricks that perfumers employ to create new and pleasing combinations of notes; I love the nuances. However, I fully understand that for many people, perfume has no nuances. A perfume either smells good or it doesn't. It is for my beloved solitary reader that I will try to explain the world of perfume in terms of a field with which most people much more familiar: literature.

For example, a perfume like Aquolina PINK freakin' SUGAR is the olfactory equivalent of the Twilight series- insanely popular for absolutely no good reason.

Actually, I just thought of one VERY good reason.

Chanel Coco Mademoiselle and Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue (both of which have been bestsellers for over five years) have more in common with the Harry Potter series- just as popular, but more deserving of their success.

Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor quidditch coach. The actor who plays him is named Sean Biggerstaff. The joke here should write itself.

Along this vein, there are perfumes such as Robert Piguet Fracas, which has been worn by everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna to Martha Stewart. I can appreciate that Fracas is a great classic, but whenever I try to wear it I get the distinct feeling that I am being mugged by a gardenia. I got a very similar feeling when I had to read Jane Eyre in 10th grade, except instead of a gardenia my mugger was the stupidest book of all time.

Jane, that Mr. Rochester is nothing but trouble!

Why don't you marry that nice cousin of yours? You know, the priest.

No? Okay then.

Also, what is UP with those BROWS, lady??

Perfumes such as Chanel No. 5 and Guerlain Shalimar can be likened to "The Great Gatsby," a book that is both widely beloved and a masterpiece (and one of my personal favorites, if you hadn't figured it out yet). Those "Warm Vanilla Sugar" body splashes you can get at Bath and Body Works correspond to guilty pleasure reading, like trashy romance novels or (in my case) JHU Confessions, the Gossip Girl of Johns Hopkins. It is incredibly sad how addicted I am to this website, but how else would I know whether Hopkins students prefer "an Ugly who's awesome in bed or a Cutie who's totally lacking"? (General consensus is the Cutie, if there was ever any doubt in your mind.)

There are books, such as pretty much anything that Allen Ginsberg (author of the incredible but frankly depressing poems "Howl", "Kaddish", and many others) ever wrote, which I find fascinating but too disturbing to read all that often. Creed Love in Black is a good perfume match for these kinds of books. It evokes a patch of violets growing in a forest where dark things lurk.

Finally, we have the books that we read over and over again, our favorites, the ones that changed the way we see the world. A few of mine are: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisnernos, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, and my absolute favorite of all time, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. These books correspond to the perfumes that we wear every day, with which we and others identify ourselves. Mine are Bond No. 9 New Haarlem, Frederic Malle Lipstick Rose, and Chanel No. 5. My hope is that even if perfume plays no role in your life now, reading this blog will help you to see it as a form of art just like a painting or a symphony.

By the way, y'all, I forgot to mention that the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has guidelines concerning blogger endorsements. Basically, if a company sends me free samples or pays me money to write a good review, I have to let you know. All of the perfumes that I have reviewed thus far I have either bought from Sephora or tested in stores. But in the immortal words of Biggie, "I gotta let it show, I love the dough". I am a college student who does not currently have any time to work and therefore has no source of income. If a company did send me free samples or something to review, I would not turn them down. However, I can promise you this: I will never write a review that a product does not deserve. Pink Sugar has no glowing reviews in its future no matter how much money Aquolina tries to throw at me. (Although they're certainly welcome to try.)