Wait! Don’t click away! Had I not smelled Pretty Woman by Barbara Orbison, I, too, would have been tempted to scroll past this review. There are enough celebrity fragrances on the market to carpet Mars, and, as far as I’m concerned, another planet is exactly where most of them belong. A fragrance named after the dead wife of a dead rock legend (Roy Orbison) doesn’t inspire cheers of delight.
And then I smelled Pretty Woman. It’s not fashionable or pandering, but neither is it overly clever or challenging. Instead, it’s a warm, heady 1930s-style perfume with rich sillage and a long simmer on skin. Pretty Woman is kind of a lame name for it, really. It smells more like Sultry Broad.
Barbara Orbison’s granddaughter, Emily Orbison, explained that Barbara Orbison worked with perfumers in California to create the fragrance, which she released in 2009. A flurry of marketing followed, including putting Pretty Woman in Grammy gift bags. Keith Urban reportedly bought bottles of Pretty Woman for Nicole Kidman. When Barbara Orbison died in late 2011, the fragrance stayed in production, but the Orbison company halted marketing.
Just recently, Emily Orbison decided to ramp up marketing again. Unlike many celebrity fragrances produced by giants like Coty, the Orbison family manages the fragrance’s production1 and marketing, and it’s evident in the fragrance’s decidedly non-slick website. But the flip side is that the perfume is an oddity among celebrity fragrances: it has personality.
Pretty Woman’s website describes the fragrance as “a complex blend of hundreds of individual floral and spicy notes,” and specifically mentions bergamot, stargazer lily, red rose, carnation, fresh amber, patchouli, vanilla, atlas cedar, and sacred incense. What I smell is a flash of bergamot and raw cedar quickly cushioned by the unmistakable combination of incense, patchouli and amber. The fragrance is spicy, too, like it was sprinkled with clove, nutmeg, and even a dash of cinnamon.
Rose adds a wine-like touch to the composition, but I can’t pick out lily. What I do smell is a vigorous dose of orange blossom, as if the perfumer were determined to balance the headiness of Pretty Woman’s base notes. The orange blossom adds a clean touch that fades after an hour or so, but the spices do more to make Pretty Woman’s sable-weight warmth sparkle.
In short, Pretty Woman is a mature, warm, spicy fragrance rich with incense. It hints at Estée Lauder Youth Dew without being dowdy, but it owes the most to Jean Carles’s amazing Tabu. If you get Pretty Woman on your cardigan, you can count on the fragrance’s gentle waft of spicy patchouli and ambered incense until you wash your sweater next.
I asked Emily Orbison what her grandmother was like. “Comfy,” she said in her charming Nashville accent. All right, I can see Pretty Woman being comfy, although that’s not the first word I think of. “She liked to wear velour sweatpants and matching tops.” Hmm. Velour tracksuits don’t really say Pretty Woman to me, either. “And she loved leopard print. She always wore leopard.” Ding ding ding!
To buy Pretty Woman by Barbara Orbison, your best bet is either the Pretty Woman Perfume website ($60 for 50 ml and $16.95 for an “on the go” set of three 2.4-ml spray vials) or the Roy Orbison website ($80 for 50 ml and $15.95 for the “on the go” set, plus you can get free Pretty Woman samples if you order something from the Roy site. (Don't ask me why the websites, both run by the Orbison company, list different prices.)
1. Pretty Woman's concentrate is mixed by Sarah Horowitz Parfums, and it's diluted and bottled by Cosmetix West.
Similar to Tabu and Youth Dew? I’m in–but not with $9.95 shipping on a $17 order. Also, how was the longevity, Angela?
Yikes! That is a pretty stiff shipping charge. The longevity was really good, and it stayed interesting–i.e. didn’t devolve into a faint amber wood–right up to the end.
Where are you ordering from? The shipping charge on the store.royorbison.com site is 4 dollars.
$4 is plenty reasonable! Is it the same on the Pretty Woman Perfume site? Maybe that’s the difference.
The Pretty Woman website linked in the review showed Flat Rate Shipping at $9.95.
This actually sounds really good. I’d like to be a sultry broad. Lol.
I have a feeling you are!
Count me in too, Poodle! I aspire daily to be a “Sultry Broad” as opposed to a “Broad Broad”
Or maybe a Broad Sultry?
I like the notes, and I definitely like this backstory better than “spoiled pretty wanna be actress acting sultry with a very pretty very gay guy in a lovely setting – don’t you want to be them?” backstory that is a lot of mainstream fragrance marketing…
I have to laugh at your way too accurate description of most ads! Add a sunset, disco, or fancy hotel room, and it’s complete.
Not to be snarky or anything…
Never!
LOL!
This sounds good and I have an old sentimental love for Mr Orbison <3 <3 <3
His voice is unmatchable, I think. That high note at the end of Running Scared gives me chills!
Most of the things he sang gave me chills. “Crying for You..”
Crying Over You is a classic!
Oh, yeah, pick a preposition, any one will do!:-)
You were probably so overcome with emotion from thinking of the beautiful song that it slipped your mind!
“Sultry Broad” is pretty awesome, and I had remembered being interested in this, with alllll those floral notes listed… at least I have a vague memory of this one showing up as a New Perfume here.
However, Tabu and Youth Dew are not, NOT things I can do, so I’ll pass, with the comment that I’m very happy to hear it’s worth wearing if you like that sort of thing. Kudos to the Orbison peeps.
It’s not a Big White Floral–or even a little pink floral!–but I think people enchanted by Tabu will adore Pretty Woman.
I wasn’t going to click away in any case (although you nearly lost me at the mention of Tabu). Ignoring the song, I immediately thought that the ‘pretty woman’ concept goes back at least to Jolie Madame, perhaps earlier in perfumes now lost to us. Sonoma Scent Studio did a ‘Femme Jolie’, now d/c. And then there is Rochas Femme and Ormonde Woman, where you can fill in the adjective yourself, or not. Interesting heritage.
It would be interesting to sample the various “woman”-named perfumes side by side and see what an interesting crowd we’d conjure.
Yes, and same with ‘beautiful’, ‘pretty’, ‘lovely’, ‘sexy’, and so on. Interesting way of measuring perceptions of femininity over time.
…or perceptions in marketing. Calling something “Black”–Black Orchid, Black Opium, Coco Noir, etc–seems to be the big deal these days.
Oh my goodness, I have a bottle of this that’s been sprayed once. I swapped for it on one of my last swaps on Makeupalley, not long ago. The one spray came from me, the bottle came to me sealed, and as I recall I hated it! The notes sounded good and I am a fan of Tabu so I’ll have to give it another go – maybe it was the orange blossom that bugged me. Anyway, I put it on my Swapmeet list and didn’t get a nibble, thanks to this review, maybe it will move next time. Great backstory, I love Roy’s voice and the way he could shift to falsetto with no break in tone; In Dreams is one of my favorites.
Give it another try! It just might take roots this time. This evening it’s chilly and rainy here, and I sprayed on some Pretty Woman, and it’s just right.
R, just add “talked up by Angela” to next to it on your swapmeet list and someone will swoop in!
I think “Sultry Broad” would do it!
I may have been the one who swapped for a bottle of this with ringthing. It’s exactly what I hoped it would be, that is, strong incense but not woody, dry, chemical/screechy or anything offensive. I like it better than Messe de Minuit EdC (second formulation), actually, and I can’t think of a scent with a strong incense note that I enjoy more! This is what I thought niche would be like when I was a newbie, but found that most were unwearable or just not as pleasant as the designers I enjoyed. I’d gladly swap for a backup bottle !
It sounds like you just might get that chance!
Interesting that you were disappointed with niche. I completely get where you are coming from. Maybe this is not the right place for a ‘smells niche but isn’t’ discussion, but my list includes odd birds like Habanita and Niki de Saint Phalle, plus any number of classics like Rochas Femme and Dioressence. These aren’t niche but smell so different from the mainstream that they may as well be.
I really cherish those niche-yet-not fragrances!
The story of the development and marketing of this perfume is really interesting, Angela. It must have been fun to talk with the daughter. I’m glad you got what sound like her natural responses, but she would be well-served to do further research on what her mother wore back in the day.
It was the granddaughter I talked to–Barbara Orbison didn’t have any daughters, I believe–and she was super charming. It was refreshing to talk with someone for a change who didn’t sound like a human press release. Plus, it sounds like she’s contemplating launching her own perfume, too, for the younger market.
What a review, Angela! I would have never given this perfume a second look/thought after just glazing over the name – and now I’m very curious to try it. Great job!
I had that thought initially, too. There are so, so many perfumes out there! But I was glad I tried this one.
The fragrance is not my thing, but I love the review.
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I’m a big Roy Orbison fan so gave the review more than a glance, then you had me at Tabu! I have written on here before about an old & dear friend of mine, sadly no longer with us, who wore Tabu – & I also mentioned she’d nicknamed it “Instant Brothel” (which quite a few people found amusing enough to respond to what I had written) – so I’m sitting having my afternoon cuppa with many happy memories coming to mind. Thank you, Angela!
I’m glad the review brings happy memories! Hey, there’s a reason Tabu has endured all these years….
When I tried this several years ago, they also offered a perfume oil (5ml, I think) and it was lovely. It was just as Angela described, but wore close to the skin, was lovely, and did manage to make me feel like a sultry broad ( a feat indeed, if you know me). I might order the “on the go” set, but I am disappointed that I can no longer order the oil.
Thanks for the review, Angela.
I’m glad you enjoyed the review. If it helps, the fragrance is pretty intense and dabbed might wear a little more like an oil than many perfumes would.
Well, I’ve been late to everything the last few months, but thought I would let anyone interested know that you can get a sample for $3 for the shipping on the RoyOrbison website. Great deal.
Thanks for the info!
Hmm, $52.18 at Amazon with Prime shipping. So, so tempting….
It sounds like the samples are a great deal, though, at $3. Why not give it a try?
I admit that is the wiser course of action. But I could have it in two days! Which would be awful if it didn’t work on me! I concede your point entirely.
Angela scores an anti-enabler point! To a mixed response of cheers and catcalls!
The crowd waits with baited breath! Will the final play be “Sensible Samples” or will the Blind Buy with 2 day Delivery win out in the end???
Mossygreen, what say you?
A great morning laugh!
If my opinion counts, I say you should order the On-the-Go size. The price is in the middle of these two options, and I promise it’ll be delivered quickly.
The perfume is made of organic materials which unfortunately, do not have an infinite shelf life. The bottles last about 5 or 6 years, and I have heard that some people who ordered from amazon received an old bottle
Thanks for the tip!
Oh, I know the dilemma! I’ve bought many a bottle unsniffed, and no one’s died because of it. It’s so fun to get one in the mail, too.
Gambling on a big win is fun!