Nina Ricci's perfume distribution in the US is spotty. You can find the old classic L'Air du Temps at Nordstrom or Macy's, and Macy's also has the youth-oriented Nina. That's about it. Bloomingdales, Saks and Neiman Marcus don't have anything (although Neiman Marcus has some lovely items from the fashion line at the moment), nor does Sephora. I never saw Ricci Ricci or Mademoiselle Ricci here at all, although admittedly I did not look all that hard.
I was curious about L’Extase, the latest, which is geared older than Nina but younger than L'Air du Temps. +1: it's a musky floriental from perfumer Francis Kurkdjian. -1: the advertising, with Laetitia Casta, is the usual drearily predictable writhing we've already seen a million times over.
The list of notes (white petals, roses, pink pepper, benzoin, Virginia cedar, musk and amber) leaves out the undisputed star of the early stages, which is an barrage of sweet blackcurrant-ish berries. The berries linger longer than I expected (or maybe a better way to put it is that they lasted longer than I'd like), but once they start to fade, L'Extase's lineage is more obvious: what we have here is Lancôme's La Vie Est Belle via Armani Sì.1 L'Extase is more rose-y (and more floral in general) than Sì, with less patchouli, more woody musk. The pink pepper is quite strong for a time, the powdery dry down has a distinct edge of cotton candy.
Verdict: L'Extase smells both new (it hits all the current trends) and old hat (it smells like so many other fragrances you'd be hard pressed to name them all). It's reasonably wearable but I found its sweetness irritating in our current humid summer weather, and while I might have found it more palatable in early spring, it's not likely it would be a favorite of mine in any weather. It does, as advertised, smell older than Nina, but it's hardly what I'd pick if I wanted to smell sophisticated or elegant, and personally, I did not find it even slightly sexy. If I was wanting a spawn of La Vie Est Belle — not likely, but if — I'd stick with Sì.
Nina Ricci L’Extase is available in 30, 50 and 80 ml Eau de Parfum.2
1. Which, of course, means it's an nth generation spawn of Thierry Mugler Angel.
2. So far as I know, there are no plans to distribute L'Extase in the US. When distribution plans were detailed in Women's Wear Daily earlier this year, the US was not mentioned. The rest of the world should either have it already, or will have it by the end of the summer.
I will always have a special place in my heart to Nina Ricci fragrances. L’Air De Temps was the very first perfume I owned. I must have been about 11 yrs. old when I received it. I wish I could get a bottle of L’Extase. Since I live in the U.S. , I guess I will have to wait. I do need to get a bottle of L’Air De Temps, just for old times sake.
I had a bottle too — I think White Shoulders was my first, but I definitely had a small dove bottle of L’Air du Temps when I was young.
Betcha the discounters will get L’Extase, even if nobody else does.
I tried this when you mentioned a while back that you were testing it and I didn’t care for it at all. This is hardly surprising, as La Vie Est Belle and Si are two recent fragrances that I deeply dislike. I don’t think they smell bad and I know rationally that there are much worse offenders out there. But they are so boring and all the missed opportunities (fragrances for grown-up women! Cate Blanchett!) just irritate me so much.
I don’t like them either, but would have sort of expected this to be an improvement. Offhand, not sure I even like it as well as La Vie, which does surprise me given it’s Francis Kurkdjian.
I often smell otherwise attractive and intelligent people wearing perfumes like this and think how sad it is that they (or whoever gave it to them) are hoodwinked by the marketing and clueless SAs.
Or, they just like them? Everyone is always saying the French are more sophisticated fragrance consumers than we are in the US, but La Vie is a huge seller there.
I don’t know about the French, but I’m pretty sure most people here have only tried what is most prominently displayed in department stores or Sephora.
Probably true! I most certainly never bothered to investigate past that, back when.
Here in Uruguay there are poster signs all over the place and they play the commercial a lot. I love the fragrance and I would love to add it to my collection:)
So good to hear from you there in Uruguay!
Thank you!:)
Hope you will get some then!
Amazing review, Robin.
I wanted my partner to test it, as Casta is very sophisticated in the commercial.
So the question is; what would you pick if you want to smell sophisticated or elegant, and sexy? I know it’s a bit OT, but your review triggered my question
Great question! I don’t tend to gravitate toward “sexy” anything in my life (unless yoga pants and green/chypres are sexy?). I’d love to see responses to this.
Not sure you’re still checking for answers here, but I thought I’d chime in. . . For me, the scents that make me feel sexy tend to be darker and complex. Examples: Older versions of Shalimar (even just back to the 80’s have a deeper feel), spicy roses like Amouage Lyric or OJ Ta’if, and surprising scents that make me feel pretty like Lipstick Rose.
Thank you.
Definetely, even the newest versions of Shalimar, are sophisticated and sexy.
We’ll check the other ones you mentioned.
The first scent that came to my mind was Frederic Malle Dries Van Noten, but that just reminds me that “sexy” is so personal. I doubt many people would find it so. Ditto with the 2nd that came to mind, which was Hermes Eau des Merveilles, which I then found I mentioned in my review of the Frederic Malle. And my third choice: Dior Eau Sauvage, although they’ve made that cleaner these days and I don’t like it quite as much.
Most of the polls we’ve done asking about sexy don’t ask for sexy, sophisticated and elegant all at once, and so people tend to mention bigger, more animalic fragrances.
Personally, I find almost anything with “real” (not a molecular fraction) vetiver sexy.
Robin,
I like your first two suggestions, and I personally don’t like Eau Sauvage (and all its flankers).
Shouldn’t we have a poll for the three adjectives at once? 😉
Sure!
I tried this at a duty-free shop in the Minneapolis airport yesterday, where it was prominently displayed.
My verdict: a scrubber. I couldn’t get past the cloying berry smell. And, yeah, it did remind me of a lot of other scents.
Hope you managed to remove it!
Robin, I think your review is spot on.
I am not so au courant with the new trends, so for me it just smelled like another iteration of all the perfumes that… well let’s put it this way: My aunt used to go play Canasta with a group of middle aged ladies, all very classy, but all favouring this kind of power-scents. Think late 80’s… My aunt’s strongest fragrance were First (by JCE) and Nocturnes de Caron… then Caleche, Ma Griffe.. you get the idea..
So L’Extase smells like my aunt’s Canasta playing buddies…
Of course this concept is polished to an inch of its life and not so cloying as in the late 80s.. but still. a tad too sweet, a tad too much.
Maybe there is one lady out there who’s body chemistry makes this fragrance go from good to great… but I haven’t smelled it yet.
Hey, I would prefer the perfumes of your Aunt’s buddies! Caleche is way more yummy than L’Extase. But I do know what you mean 🙂