O de L`Orangerie by Lancome

When I'm waiting for people or just have some time to kill I tend to end up in a drug store, sniffing what is there to sniff. This morning I did exactely that as I was early for an appointement. I was greeted by a young and very sweet sales assistant, super enthusiastic about the new O de L`Orangerie by Lancome, a flanker to O de Lancome from 1969. The idea of "Citrus Week" was at the time brewing in my mind so I went for a little trial spray.

O de L`Orangerie starts out with a cheery note of lemon and orange blossoms. The lemons went away almost immediately, giving  the organge blossoms space to sweeten and mature on my skin. After two hours all citrus was gone and what was left was a very generic floral containing jasmine and muguet.

I liked the beginning, just the right amount of sweetness verses tartness. Very appropriate for summer. Thy drydown was one big snorefest.

I'm rating O de L`Orangerie 3 out of 3. Great if you're worried about offending people with your fragrance, there is no way to go wrong with this one. But for myself I like something with a bit more character.


Pic: Fragrantica.com

Burberry Summer 2011

One of my favourite ways of killing time is to go to shopsniffing. Small perfume shops with dedicated salespeople that know what they are talking about are of course the best, but in a jif any type of department store with will do. Today I targeted Åhléns at Skanstull, a very ordinary type of department store with a small room dedicated to perfume. They carry all the most common brands but nothing out of the ordinary.

Walking around in there I pondered how come that 90% of the ladies fragrances seemed to contain notes of muguet. Or lily of the valley in English. It's a pleasant enough, but not very interesting to me. A safe scent.

Then I came to the Burberry counter and I found "Burberry Summer 2011". This one is topped with a juicy bold blood orange note. No peel of bitterness, just lots and lots of seeping fruit, like the orange in the Dexter intro.

So I tried it on, and was very happy for about 10 minutes. Then the fruityness started to give away and guess what was left? MUGUET! Lots of it.

To me this type of fragrance is a "I want to be special but unfortunately I don't have any personality whatsoever to back that up". That might not be the worst thing that is, but for me, the search for the perfect fragrance goes on.

I'm rating it a 3 out of 5.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6 hours later now, and this scent is growing on me. Muguet has faded and now there is only a warm musky and cedary base left. Maybe not super unique but friendly and somehow soothing. If only that mid note muguet could be removed, this is a scent I'd wear.