Kenzo will celebrate their 40th anniversary this year with the launch of Once Upon A Time, a limited edition fragrance duo developed by perfumers Christine Nagel and Benoist Lapouza:
A brand made of colours, flowers and surprises. This year, KENZO celebrates its anniversary with 2 new limited editions. A patchwork of flower print, faithful to KENZO inspirations.
Kenzo Femme ~ a floral fragrance; "A flower explosion; peony and freesia, printed on a voluptuous bottom notes of sandalwood and musk." Additional notes include amber.
Kenzo Homme ~ a "fresh and intense" woody fragrance with "an insolent originality"; "The character of a classic; nutmeg and vetiver, with a spicy trail of ginger and coriander." Additional notes include cedar and labdanum.
The Once Upon A Time duo launches in October; both fragrances will be available in 100 ml Eau de Toilette, $72. (via press release)
“Insolent originality” sounds good! It’s been way too long since Kenzo’s done something non-blah. Hmm… on second thoughts, “fresh and intense” doesn’t really inspire confidence, does it?
Yeah, it’s hard to be fresh and insolently original.
“fresh” can mean original, meaning is something “new”
but that probably isn’t how it is being used.
Quite so, on both points.
Wow, usually I love Kenzo and look forward to their new launches but this just spectacularly underwhelms me. Especially those bottles!
I agree completely. Love Kenzo (own Ca Sent Beau and Jungle Elephant) but this sounds like something I’ll skip.
It is not the most enthralling project I’ve ever heard…might just be the press release though.
You know, I really like Kenzo. When I looked at my perfume collection recently, I realized that I owned more Kenzo scents than any other line except one (Guerlain). I love Nagel, of course, too and don’t remember hearing of Lapouza – but looking at his list, he made Annam, which is a plus.
So I don’t like to be pessimistic, but the notes and descriptions just don’t light me on fire. Looking at the handy Kenzo house link you’ve created and added it seems as if, like everybody else, they’re launching too much lately. Most of those 800 launches since 2007 weren’t very memorable, apparently. Two recent good flankers (Flower Essentielle and Winter Flowers) and one neat, expensive LE (UFO) and that’s about it. (Oh, okay, the Magnolia Fleur one was fine *grumble, grumble*…) The men’s line – Tokyo, Power, etc. – has particularly stunk, which is sad, because the brand used to put out scents like Jungle PH and Kenzo Air. Suddenly, 2006’s Amour seems a long way off.
I agree that Kenzo has made some spectacular scents for a mainstream brand (well, you might not find them in Macy’s, but Sephora is pretty mainstream, I would think). It’s a shame that it sounds like these won’t be among them. “Peony and freesia” sounds so Bath and Body Works.
I know what you mean, but I do still have a soft spot for Kenzo. Amour was great, the UFO thing was quite fun, Winter Flowers was good…and yes, the Magnolia one was good. That’s more than most brands produce that I like in that many years, seriously! And they almost never put out anything that makes me utterly roll my eyes in disgust.
I’m looking forward to try these!
Robin do you see the flowers bottles still around in the stores?
Here in ARgentina it seems as if the Magnolias, et al were cleared.
At least in the big perfume stores and upscale malls.
You mean the flowering tree series, right? Here, they’ve got only the Prunier on the website — don’t think Yuzu has even made it here yet. I think (?) those were meant to be limited edition.
Exactly! the flowering trees (what a cool name for a band! hehehehe)
And yes, I never saw yuzu nor prunier in buenos aires.
With my luck they are probably wonderful! ehehehehe
I was not under the impression that they were so limited as, say, the eau par kenzo indigo,etc. But well… loking forward to trying these!
I went back & looked…I’m not sure if they’re LE either, but it seemed like they launched the first 3, then they went away, then they launched the Prunier…the Yuzu is out in France but not here yet, so will be interesting to see if Prunier goes away when Yuzu arrives.
Ahhhh Kenzo.
Yes Erin, Amour was so interesting and lovely to me back then.
I remember the days when they used to be enough for me *sigh*.
I like Kenzo generally – and as I also like freesia and peony and sandalwood, etc. I’ll be seeking this out. It might be a good office scent, or just something pretty and nice. Even perfumistas need “pretty and nice’ sometimes, right?
I’ll give these a whiff, just because. Kenzo is a hit or miss with me – I have always liked the original Flower, and I just bought the Amour Parfum unsniffed because I just somehow knew I would like it, and I do. But I have been underwhelmed buy a few things I have tried from them.
Kenzo seems to wobble between safety and daring. Despite the ad copy, these latest offerings seem to be on the safe side, as you’d expect from anniversary fragrances I suppose. But like many other people, I respect Kenzo. The Magnolia is one of my summer staples, and Ca Sent Beau is a great achievement.
I’ll rush out and buy the Homme….every guy wants to smell “Insolenty Original.”
Hmm the first Kenzo bottles I don’t like.
Kenzo are so “masculine” and “feminine”. sure, the bottles (and scents) for women are nice, but for men the bottles are totally boring.
will these be available in the UK, I’d like to try them
I assume so.
I smelled it yesterday, and it’s all flowers. Not in a perfumey way, really real straight up no-nonsens flowers, like a bouquet from an expensive flowershop and then nothing more.
Utterly booring and minimalistic, really disapointing. Not for the lovers of Kashaya, Jungle or Flower oriental, but for the women who like the single notes scent they came out with last year.
Hello,
I contacted Kenzo France press services, and they didn’t know ‘Once Upon a Time’ !!
This 2 perfume are not for the 40th anniversary of Kenzo and its name is not Once Upon a Time.
It’s just 2 limited edition named Kenzo (simply)…
++
That comes from the English press release; perhaps they are not using the “Once Upon A Time” part in France.
I don’t think so : when the senior press manager of Kenzo France says that she didn’t know this perfume… I think it is true
And when she said that is it not a anniversary edition, I think it is true so !
But perhaps Kenzo has a bad communication between France and UK/US… ?
Don’t know what to tell you…my press release says “Once Upon A Time”.