Jennifer Lawrence’s bottled tears.
This is department store white musk and Earl Grey tea with cream. She might have a rose in her teeth, but it’s faux silk and plastic.
Joy by Dior has none of J-Law’s fun spirit. The musk is too cheap, the citrus too sharp, the rose too artificial.
I’m sad, too.
Hey, Philosophy, with that bottle color, you mean “Caucasian,” not nude.
But the magazine sample was free, so:
Smells like a bouquet of over-bred pale tea roses in a hospital room. Pretty but generic, with an odd note of bleach musk underneath.
There are soooo many better rose scents out there. Lush’s Imogen Rose is heaven. Tea Rose by Perfumer’s Workshop is a great bargain for an awesome rose. Annick Goutal’s Rose Absolue is a petal bomb. Filch your grandmother’s YSL Paris if you have to.
But roses shouldn’t ever be beige.
And nude is an absence of clothing, not “white people skin.” Not the best marketing moment for a product line called Pure Grace.
This song came out in 1992. Feels like we’ve actually slid backward since then, but more likely, we’re finally seeing what has always been.
Roses in Vaseline.
Pretty bottle, though.
Edit – 10/10/21
Today I pulled this one out of the “meh” box–the bottles that never inspired more than a bit of snark, but didn’t quite deserve to perfume the trash bin–just to see if anything had changed.
The rose is still coated in an odd layer of petroleum jelly, perhaps the saffron at the top hitting the cypriol oil on the bottom, that sadly masks the caraway and jasmine sweetness.
I bought Mystique during my search for a signature rose scent. (I gave up on that rather quickly–turns out I’d rather have a whole rambling garden rather than singular perfection.)
Lancome has discontinued it, and bottles are hot commodities now.
At current prices, one could snag a big bottle of Amouage Epic Woman–a rich caraway rose, and a 50ml of Imaginary Authors’ saffron delight Slow Explosions.
Or get the Elizabeth & James Nirvana Rose vetiver power suit for about $20.
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Keep an ear out for Saffron Collins, a talented teen from Dubai.
Opens with lots of roses and some other greenhouse flowers my grandfather grew in patio pots and brought inside in the winter.
There’s an edge of citronella and underneath, some cedar notes, but it doesn’t tell much of a story.
I love the marketing on my little magazine sample–yes to gorgeous Black women with natural hair and real women over fifty! But I’m disappointed that there is none of Kate Spade’s trademark whimsy of typewriter purses and flowerpot bags in this scent.
Edit–2/18/2020
Three years later and here’s a mini in a box of curiosities I don’t remember ordering at all, and I manage to splash it all over the house while opening it. Now I have rosy cedar floorboards and an annoyed cat, but there’s a quirky cottage-core vibe that I like (and didn’t get from the peelie) so I’ll tuck it into my linen closet until I find a good home for it.
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Rest in Parfum, Kate Spade. I’ve loved your fun designs.
This hit me with pruned roses in a vase, overly sugared lemonade, then amaretto non-dairy creamer–gorgeous wild things tamed and tempered to be generic.
I felt the need to mind my dirty mouth, to check my shirt buttons for too much cleavage.
Then the guy said, “You smell like my mother.
So that’s that.
I’m not often one for acapella, but this is kind of amazing.
This one started sticky and turned to mush on my skin, like fermented fruit, ending in a rosy wood alcohol. I gave it to the props mistress at the children’s theater and on her it became frosting flowers and sass.
Pinkest song ever.
I got this at a mission store in Stockholm for ten kronor, and didn’t open it until I got back to the States…
…where it smelled like every Victoria’s Secret store distilled into a bottle. Entirely too girlish sweet almond, rosebuds and muted citrus with some obligatory white musk underneath.
On my early twenties daughter-child it became Earl Grey tea in a rose-patterned china cup, elegant and perfect.
Dammit, I’m old.
This Swedish song (Oriflame started out in Stockholm) was a hit in 2016, too.
A noncommittal and tired rose–a little dusty (the blooms might be fading a bit)–in some canned mixed fruit, heavy on the pink grapefruit wedges.
Boring, and not even that high end.
I’m rather sad about it.
Edit – 1/5/2022
I had to go back and give a re-sniff, just to see if my negativity might have been the weather, or just my dreary mood, but nope, this is definitely a disappointment.
Oddly, it was designed by the same guy who did Teazzurra, which is one of my favorite scents ever.
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Looks like rain.
TokyoMilk No. 14 advertises linden, honeyed rose, wisteria petals and white musk, and yep, that’s all in there, for two hours.
Soft clean lime notes and honeysuckle vibes, with a gritty musk that takes it out of the country and into urban garden territory–grape-sweet wisteria hanging from pergolas, but with some city grunge in the background.
I prefer a mazurka.
Edit – 8/15/21
Found this one in a box with a post-it marked “Try In the Summer?” so here I am.
87 degrees F, and 84% humidity on the east coast of the Bluegrass, today.
The linden has a much bigger presence on warmer skin–greener, with bright citrus florals–and the musky rasp at the bottom seems less synthetic than I remember.
I’m always fascinated by how much perfume changes with temperature and weather.
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You can waltz (or mazurka) to this one–
TokyoMilk #05 touts Wild Rose, Osmanthus Chocolate and Vetiver, and while it’s not the pits, it does fizzle out pretty quickly.
The fragrance sprays on like the waxy chocolate one dips fruit in on Valentine’s Day–then turns into a sporty woody rose for a few minutes and is gone.
Nice, but too pricey for zero longevity.
I also bought the candle, which sadly smokes like a chimney, but makes absolutely divine furniture polish–my cherry wood table perfumes the room when the sun shines on it.
Edit – 2/27/22
Lasts longer in spring, with more herbal apricot than in my autumn test–or maybe the juice has ripened a bit over the past 5 years–but still doesn’t set off any fireworks.
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kira a. gold 