It was a long and eventful summer, and I have fallen terribly behind on reviews. In the interest of saving time and catching up and all that, here are brief reviews on three scents that are nice enough but that did not interest me enough to write longer reviews anyway. How's that for an enticing lead in?
Miss Pucci by Pucci
A light sparkling floral musk from the folks at Pucci. It is pretty, clean, safe, and geared towards a young audience (that is, an audience that likes their florals pretty, clean and safe). Like its predecessor, Vivara, it lacks the verve and punch of the fashion line, but hey, that's true of nearly every designer perfume ever made. Miss Pucci in particular fills the same slot as, say, Gucci Flora or Guerlain Idylle, although I do not like it as well as either of those, and I did not like either of those enough to buy in the first place. I do like Miss Pucci a tad better than Vivara: if they had put Miss Pucci in Vivara's fab bottle, I might have been forced to buy it.
Miss Pucci was developed by perfumers François Demachy, Christine Nagel and Benoît Lapouza; the notes include citrus, lemon, ylang ylang, rose, magnolia, orange blossom, jasmine, cedar, iris and white musk. It is available in 30, 50 and 100 ml Eau de Parfum. Excellent lasting power.
Peace, Love & Juicy Couture
With the exception of Couture Couture, which I likened to some "sort of alcohol-based product scented with grape Kool-Aid", Juicy Couture has done a pretty decent job with fragrance: they're not the stuff of genius, but they're nice enough and the packaging is great fun. The new Peace, Love & Juicy Couture fits the mold. It's supposed to be an homage to "the free-spirited, Sixties-style vibe of Malibu", and what that turns out to smell like is an homage to Chanel Cristalle (the original Eau de Toilette version). In the early stages it's lemony and bright and very green, albeit without the herbal bite of Cristalle; the later stages are more of a fruity floral, not too sweet. The base is just slightly warm, with a pale and very (very) clean patchouli to warm things up.
If you needed a cleaner version of Cristalle but Cristalle Eau Verte did not suit, well, here is your second chance. I do not need any such thing, although if I was forced to choose between Cristalle Eau Verte and Peace, Love & Juicy Couture, I would pick the Juicy Couture: it does not smell so much like air freshener. As things stand, I'm perfectly happy with my Cristalle, thank you.
Juicy Couture Peace, Love & Juicy Couture was developed by perfumer Rodrigo-Flores Roux. The notes include Meyer lemon blossom, wild hyacinth, sweet apple, black currant, sambac jasmine, star magnolia, Malibu poppy, honeysuckle, linden blossom, orris, patchouli and musk. It is available in 30, 50 and 100 ml Eau de Parfum (although the lasting power is probably closer to an Eau de Toilette).
Kate Spade Twirl
Kate Spade hasn't launched a fragrance since 2002, so perhaps they missed the memo? This is a middle-of-the-road fruity floral with a pale, clean base. It's girly but not too too girly, pink but not too pink, sweet but not too sweet. It's older than say, Vera Wang Princess, but still strikes me as an unlikely pick for the sparkly gold dress and night on the town of the commercial.
Twirl is perfectly pleasant and wearable. There are no surprises here, but then, there probably aren't too many more surprises to be had in this genre, and no doubt many women would prefer not to be surprised by their perfume anyway.
Kate Spade Twirl was developed by perfumer Claude Dir; the notes include watermelon, blackberry, red currant, orange blossom, star jasmine, tiare, magnolia, musk and French macaroon. It is available in 50 and 100 ml Eau de Parfum.
I’m liking your attitude, Robin. You go girl.
Probably need another Xanax or something.
LOL! I’m digging your attitude too, woman!
These are all just a big YAWN-N-N-N! Wow, I’m getting sleepy…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Hugs!
Hey you, long time no see! Hope everything is well
Agree – I think many fragrances would work just fine with the “speed-dating” reviews.
Ditto…nicely dispatched, Robin! Nothing to see here; move along please.
I like flora and Idylle
I want my Mum to try Idylle, how do you say it?
but I haven’t been fortunate enough to come across a store that carries Pucci fragrances. well, I went to Harrods once but obv it’s massive and I wasn’t looking for anything in particular anyway
oh, Miss Pucci looks like a watch if you take away the glass and leave the metal(?) frame. the pink logo thing looks like the face of a watch aswell :L
It does look like a watch!
You can hear it pronounced at the end of this commercial:
https://nstperfume.com/2010/08/28/this-is-your-love-song/
Very nice! these are like my micro reviews, but actually well done!
I haven´t tried any of these yet. But….
the Pucci seems very “normal”…
the Juicy is a surprise! I’ve always wanted a cheaper version of Crystalle to give to my sister like whenever I want hehehehe (i am just assuming this is cheaper than the actual chanel)
And the Kate Spade… mmmmmm, do you think it would wear well layer over a full bodied (but not expensive) musk like Kielhs?
Also, is it too feminine? (by that I mean floral or sweet)
Thanks!
I forgot to mention there are roll-ons of Twirl & Peace, Love — so you can get the Peace, Love for $18. The 30 ml will be $52. Cannot seem to get the Chanel site to load to give me the price of Cristalle!
Great news!
BTW I tried accessing the CHANEL site too and couldn enter(I usually stay away from that one and hermes´ I am not a masochist, dont wanna suffer seeing all the pretty things I cannot afford hehehehe)
I just tried both the Juicy and the Kate Spade.
Your review is spot on.
I find them very pretty and very giftable, but both are a little more (quality wise) than I expected..
Yes, giftable! And not too spendy.
I hope that means they’re busy adding the smaller sizes of Les Exclusifs…… ok, probably not, but one can hope, right?
They have Cristalle edt and edp on the Nordstrom dot com site.
I may have to give that Juicy a sniff – I was so completely repelled by the original Juicy that I have been afraid to put my nose near any of the others. But this one sounds worth a try, if not worth a buy.
I so wish Vivara had smelled even pleasant, I really liked that bottle.
Viva La Juicy was fine too. Not genius, just fine. Very sweet, so many perfumistas would probably not like it. But this is arguably a bit more sophisticated.
Yes, I think I’ll give that Juicy a smell too – I like Cristalle edp, and am curious to see how this does compare to the edt, which gets all swamp water to me in the far drydown. But I really did prefer my Cristalle edp this year in our hot summer! I’m glad I finally “got it”.
Cristalle is the better scent, mind you.
Hi everyone..i’m a newbie but I’ve got a strong preggers nose that never went away. I smelled the new Juicy and to me it smelled like a mixture of hay and sour grass (can’t you just tell I’m from Bama). Not my thing at all.. I also smelled Twirl and it was cute but boring (an i’m an 80’s baby.. fruity floral lover)..so I bought EL Sensuous that day. Love it…yup I’m growing..
Hi and welcome! Sensuous is a good pick, congrats on your bottle.
Man, I wanted Twirl to be a French macaroon in a bottle. It sounds pretty boring, actually. Peace, Love & Juicy Couture sounds kind of nice though. I’ll have to look for this.
A cookie-ish gourmand would have been more interesting…the macaron note is VERY light.
That Peace Love & Juicy sounds interesting. I have a decant of Cristalle Eau Verte and this might be a cheap option. Have to head over to Sephora! Thanks for the reviews!
This is more like Cristalle than Cristalle Eau Verte…but see what you think!
And just a couple of days ago, the nice folks at Perfume Posse were calling you diplomatic….
You gave me a good chuckle this afternoon, Robin. Thanks! And btw, whoever dressed the Peace & Love model should have watched the Woodstock movie first!
Hey, this *was* diplomatic, really. We should make March review all 3: I promise it would be a blood bath.
That ad is SO Juicy Couture! But hear the clothing line is not doing so well.
Oh! OUCH! I cringe to think what either March or Patty would have said about these!
Not familiar at all with the clothing line, just know that that model is definitely *not* “the free-spirited, Sixties-style vibe of Malibu”. Not sure what she’s supposed to look like other than Halloween.
You know, I’m not even sure what they mean — but I don’t think that they mean “the vibe that Malibu had in the 1960s” but the “faux 1960s vibe of 2010 Malibu”. In which case the advert is maybe perfect? I don’t know, it’s been a good 10 years since I’ve been to Malibu.
I’d guess so… I don’t follow fashion or celebrities anymore, but I did see on the front page of Yahoo or Comcast or somewhere: a link to something about “Hollywood’s new hippy look”… something like that.
I suspect that the only way in which the ’60s are involved is that the fashion stylist may have been on certain substances that became popular around that time, lol.
I’m just as confused by the visuals as all of you are. At a launch, I watched a video of this model rolling around a ‘landfill’ of flowers, clothes, dolls, paper, and colorful cakes in a broken-down refrigerator. Um, so…yeah.
I JUST smelled this last night. And thought it was very familiar.
Chanel Cristalle EdT is my go to scent. And my other go to is A Scent by Issey M.
Both my husband and I thought it smelled identical to A Scent by Issey M.
Well, that makes sense since A Scent is often compared to Cristalle.
Ditto what Rapple said about the good chuckle. Especially when I got to the end – ” There are no surprises here, but then, there probably aren’t too many more surprises to be had in this genre, and no doubt many women would prefer not to be surprised by their perfume anyway.” haha
Well, you know — it’s absolutely true, on both counts! I can see Twirl selling just fine.
Oh and I LOVE Vivara. I wish Miss Pucci was so “kiddie”
I would say Vivara & Miss Pucci are geared towards about the same age group, probably? Young, but certainly not “kiddie”.
Hey Robin. The only thing that made my ears perk up at all was the fact that you’d pick Peace, Love, Juicy over Eau Verte. I like Eau Verte, so now you have me curious… not that I need nor plan to acquire *anything* Juicy, ever.
I never tried original Vivari, but I thought a couple of the “Variazioni” flankers were moderately interesting. I’m still sort of lemming the yellow Variazone “Sole” bottle.
Well, bear in mind that I don’t much care for Eau Verte.
Yes, one of those flankers was ok, now I can’t remember which one. Didn’t strike me as great though…just marginally more interesting than Vivara itself.
Definitely not great. “Marginally interesting” is about right. “Wearable”… in other words, unnecessary… I still just want the bottle, but you’ll notice I’ve been thinking about it awhile and still haven’t found a good reason to buy it.
Ho-hum, eh? It would be nice to see a real earth shaking fragrance come out of one of these new releases, wouldn’t it? Something that isn’t so blah! Are we just tired? It seems that one fragrance breaks some ground, and we all go ooooooh! Then the rest are rehash after rehash. Guess invention doesn’t happen very often!
I’m testing out the new Kilian Love and Tears today. I have to say, I’m loving it. Phooey on all the cheap carbon copy mass release scents out there that bore us all to death. So happy there are some companies out there that are still cranking out the good stuff. And the Kilians aren’t really all that bad when you get the refills instead of pay for the expensive bottles…
Very few perfumes make the earth move these days, niche or mainstream…
Well, with 1000 new releases each year, I guess it would be pretty difficult for the perfume houses to make the earth move 1000 times per year.
Yep, that’s how it turns out!
I’m having a lot of trouble ‘reading’ that Twirl ad. Why is the bloke done out in 1950s style (heavy glasses, slicked back hair)? Why is she in that strange, saggy, unattractive dress? There seemed to be something weirdly retro about this. I thought the naive charm was supposed to have meaning and I was looking for encoded messages. Turns out that the fragrance is quite mainstream. Maybe it’s just that I am so used to overt sexual messages being used to sell perfume that when they are absent, I’m confounded.
It is true that the dress does not look good on her, but I kind of liked that ad. The perfume is not even slightly retro, although it’s IMHO it’s already dated.
Peace Love & Juicy sounds like the most interesting out of these, although I feel like Juicy needs a new bottle style at this point. Maybe the Couture Couture bottle did not go over very well, and they’re retreating back to the well-beaten path.
It’s my favorite of the three, at any rate.
Twirl smells just like Harajuku Lovers Lil Angel. Well to me at least. : )
You have a better memory than I do — I have utterly forgotten Lil Angel
I thought twirl smelled like a slightly more fruity version of d&g light blue!! which was surprising because light blue is soooo fruity already…..and i couldn’t catch the french macaroon note at all, unfortunately.
How cute is the Miss Pucci bottle!
Very cute, although cuter in pictures than in person IMHO.
I really liked the new Peace Love And Juicy, Robin. I don’t know why I have passed on testing most of their scents, I agree with you that they’re decent, more than decent!
The Pucci bottle is cute but I’ve only sniffed this on a paper scent strip.
I tried Twirl last week at Macy’s. I thought it was awful, thin, disconnected, and will probably show up on the TJMaxx perfume shelves in about a year. I can’t see anyone falling crazy in love with this. It is so… nothing.
Twirl is surprising…you would really think that after such a long time, they’d go out of their way to do a bang-up job?