Annick Goutal - A Rose Splendide

I tried my first Annick Goutal scent about 3 months ago. That might sound a bit late bloomish, but AG isn't a label you see much around here. As far as I know there is only one store in Stockholm, a huge department store named NK, that carries them and when I've been there usually something else has caught my eyes and nose. The brands I used to go for were the ones trying to signal they were cool, innovative or reeked of contemporary conceptuality in some way. The first Annick Goutal I tried didn't work on me, so based on that experience and the old fashioned bottle design I just assumed that Annick Goutal "wasn't me".

But I kept noticing how AG got a lot of love, or just general chatter about themselves, in the perfume community so I figuered, I have to give them another try. So, some time later at NK, I grabbed a handful of paper strips, some random perfume bottles (I think those might have been Ninfeo Mio, Songes, Neroli, Un Matin d'Orage and some more, but I'm not sure) and started squirting. And, some of the scents I tried that day made me speechless. It was as if time had stopped and I just stood there, frozen, having a perfect perfume moment. Everyone around me was stressing and hurrying about, I was blissfully smiling, no doubt looking very silly, lost in my own world.

Now, I've only tried a few random scents so this might not be true for the whole line, I'm very much generalizing here, but there is something delightfully naive and charming about the AG scents. They are super girlie in a way that pre dates the Barbie and Hannah Montana kind of girlie. They take me to a place where pink ribbons and a clean white apron is da shit. A world where time is all I got and I get to use that time experiencing the scent of one perfect rose, lingering in a florid Italian garden or enjoying the feeling of a few precious drops of Neroli oil applied on my skin.

Another thing that I'm even newer to than AG is enjoying rose scents. After discovering Etat Libre d'Oranges Rossy de Plama a few weeks ago I've been lucky to have a few wonderful rose samples coming my way (thanks again, Ines!). One of them was Rose Splendide. That is that perfect rose I mentioned earlier. I haven't worked up a vocabulary to describe rose scents yet (I'm working on it) but this one is a stunner is its purity and simplicity. This scent seems to catch the life cycle of a rose. It starts all fresh and dewy and as it wears it grows sweeter and more mature. At the very end it reminds me of the dry incense like rose of Rossy de Palma.

According to Fragrantica the official notes for Rose Splendide are rose, pear, magnolia and musk. The pear is evident in the into. It works as an opening act, doing it's thing until the rose bud is opens up, and it's than the real action starts. It's also interesting how we imagine colors going with scents. For me, this rose is champagne coloured with pink rims, like the one in the picture.

I've read that AG has recently been bought by a Korean company and I've no idea how that will affect the brand. I imagine that the girlity I get from AG will work in Asia, anyway I sincerely hope that the new owners will preserve the perceived innocence and purity of the brand. Cause, at least me, once in a while, I really need something like this.