J'DORE by Christian Dior

 

 

The fragrance was very bright and floral when I first put it on. I would also add that it has a soapy component to it that makes it clean –softens the floral a bit which could be the ivy leaf note. It was beautiful from the very beginning, it smelled like a sophisticated woman that wants and knows she smell fabulous. It is said that the current version of the fragrance is very different than the original that was launched back in 1999. Now, I remember getting a bottle of this fragrance in the early 2000’s for one of my aunts and thinking “this is a good fragrance for an older woman like my aunt. Mature, yet still sexy, this is what this fragrance said to me when I smelled it then. In my 20’s I would not be caught dead wearing it. This version of the scent, is softer, and a lot fresher to me which confirms to me that this fragrance was reformulated. Does the fact that I prefer this version over the original which is more liked in the fragrance community mean that the juice is no good? Absolutely not! This scent is beautiful, is sexy, sophisticated and can take the wearer from day time wear to night time and ready for a night out with a couple of spritz, it is definitely a lot more modern and wearable day to day than the original.

 

Top notes:

Ylang-ylang, essence from the Comoro islands

Middle notes:

Damascena, Rose Essence

Base notes:

Sambac Jasmine Absolute

 

The scent lasted about 8-10 hours on me, the middle notes were decadent and beautifully floral. Again there was nothing obnoxious about the scent at no point during each transition. The dry down was soft and floral at this point. You can still smell the floral notes specifically, but at this point they were light in nature. J'dore is an easy fragrance to wear if you like florals. I say this very specifically because if you do not like floral perfumes, you may not gravitate towards J’dore because although it is a floral clean fragrance, the floral notes are the standout.

A definite classic scent for all times, J’dore will continue to allure many women to its beautiful scent.

 

Alexandra

LADY GAGA FAME PERFUME REVIEW

In this day and age celebrities, their image and their brand are pretty much everywhere you go. They are no longer just a singer, actor, they are a brand.


Of course, with every brand comes the need to have products in just about anything you can think of, including a fragrance. Celebrity perfumes over all have not really given us outstanding, amazing and innovative fragrances. They almost always fall under two categories, on the simpler side of the categories. I am talking about the sweet and flirty or fruity floral. Lady Gaga with Fame did not disappoint us. Over all I think Fame is a nice, easy to wear fragrance. It is a non complicated fragrance, one you will get a lot of use of because it can be worn anywhere.

Back when reports came out that Lady Gaga was interested in having her own fragrance it was said that she wanted a fragrance that had notes of blood and semen. Of course when the reports came out people were a bit shocked to say the least, but expected because at this point anything from Lady Gaga was pretty much expected. Of course the perfume does not include notes of blood and semen, instead it includes a medley of notes that can be categorized as very common in celebrity fragrances these days, with a touch of interesting with the belladonna note.

Lady Gaga was quoted saying that she wanted the fragrance to smell like a very expensive hooker. Now, I don’t know what an expensive hooker smells like, but I know that they can do a lot better and wear more interesting notes if they go with something like Lady Vengeance by Juliet has a gun which is a sweet, seductive and sexy with notes of rose, patchouli and vanilla or even the classic Chanel No. 5 which gives us that hint of sophistication, sensuality and clean notes that makes it smell like an expensive boudoir.

Let’s talk Fame by Lady Gaga, the notes include, “"tears of belladonna, crushed heart of tiger orchidea with a black veil of incense, pulverized apricot and the combinative essences of saffron and honey drops”. If it’s one thing, the notes description makes it sounds more interesting than it really is. Fame is a good fruity floral. I would say it’s definitely a step up from the normal fruity floral you get with your main stream celebrity fragrance. Fame really did set out to be a good perfume that can translate in many places and times during the season. And it does this well.

On me fame initially really smells a bit like grape juice. I was quite disappointed with it. Eventually the fragrance starts to get a bit more interesting with the floral sweet, caramel like notes coming in. Its soft yet heady if that makes any sense. I have worn in on warm days and on cool days and it has worked fine on both temperatures. Sometimes the notes change a bit on me and I smell more of the fruity notes, and sometimes the floral sweet notes play at my nose. Coty has expressed that they used innovative technology with Fame “push pull technology” which makes the notes highlight aspects of each other not taking into account which one is more important than the other. It is not a bad fragrance by any means. It’s actually decent. The staying power was what impressed me the most about the fragrance. I smelled it on me pretty much all day. Five hours into a work day and it was still going strong but I felt that it was not offensive for the work place. The fragrance by no means is as innovative as I think Gaga and Coty wanted it to be. The fact that they used black perfume that sprays clear as their marketing gimmick did not make the perfume any more appealing. To me, the interest in the black liquid spraying clear last about as long as it took for the liquid to hit my skin.

Do I recommend Fame? Yes, if you are looking for an inexpensive fruity floral that is not as main stream as the rest of the bunch, and gives you a bit of some darkness with the belladonna note, give this one a try.

Until next time, continue to live an amazing, beautiful fragrant life!!

Alexandra