Earlier this year, the niche line Room 1015 released Power Ballad, "a fresh, spicy and leathery fragrance inspired by the 90's High School years." Power Ballad is unisex and its composition includes notes of bergamot, lime, spearmint, grapefruit, juniper, cumin, coriander, anise, poplar buds, vetiver, labdanum and cedar.
Power Ballad is accompanied by plenty of promotional description, some of it written (I think) in the voice of Room 1015's founder, a "rocker by trade" who goes by the moniker "Dr. Mike":
The 90's. . .Life is easy-breazy [sic], ripe for the taking, full of French kisses and chewing gum. Life is carefree with a close-knit clan in Doc Martens and old leather. Life is rebellious, pulsing to the sound of power ballads, love tapes, Glam rock and first drinking sprees. . . .Metal romance in a flash, nostalgia of a sentimental age in a whiplash. . . .I remember the first French kiss with notes of Gin and Tequila, The chewing gum stolen proudly from the mouth of a lover, like a trophy, An era with Grunge style as a symbol of rebellion: destroyed denim jeans, checked shirts, leather jacket, Doc Martens and bleached hair.
Nostalgia is indeed powerful. Even this Prix Eau Faux-worthy prose, with its erratic capitalization and weird mix of musical genres, didn't put me off: I wanted to relive the memories of my own late teen years, complete with late-night concerts and first love, through a fragrance. I really would love to inhale a perfume that evokes certain evenings spent at Manhattan rock clubs: mint chewing gum, my boyfriend's new leather jacket, cigarette smoke and a whiff of sweat mingled with hairspray.
Unfortunately, Power Ballad just didn't do much for me, either as a bottled memory or just as a niche fragrance. Once you take away the text and the images, you're basically left with a mix of citrus, spice and lightweight resins. It's androgynous but it's not very rebellious. It starts off with the bergamot (nice enough, but why does this story need citrus?) and a hint of the juniper (for the gin, apparently), and it feels upbeat.
Things soon get a little dirtier with the cumin note, and I had hopes here that Power Ballad would truly begin to "rock"...but the sweaty spice didn't last long. Power Ballad keeps going back to its "chorus" of lightweight resins and woods highlighted with citrus. The resin-wood accord is actually quite pleasant, even if it isn't distinctly "cedar" or "labdanum." It's smooth and it wears close to the skin. It just isn't particularly distinctive and, again, it doesn't evoke teen angst (teen spirit?) for me. In fact, you could easily wear it to your workplace. It's much more John Varvatos than CBGBs, if you know what I mean.
And then there's the packaging, in the style that I think of as "post-Byredo," belonging to the same generation as Vilhelm Parfumerie's bottle (with visuals similar to Vilhelm's, oddly enough). Once again, I'm getting cranky over the glut of new niche lines and fragrances that, while wearable and enjoyable enough, don't deliver on their promises and remind me vaguely of many other things I've smelled before. Or maybe I'm just getting old.
Quick poll: Name a power ballad. (My husband's instant response: "Every Rose Has Its Thorn.")
Room 1015 Power Ballad is available at Luckyscent or Twisted Lily in the US, at First in Fragrance in Germany, in 100 ml Eau de Parfum ($145).
Does “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” count as a power ballad?
I was in high school in the late 90s and the only perfume I remember from then is a cloud of Plumeria and Juniper Breeze body sprays.
I know…I was wearing BBW Flowering Herbs for a while in the 1990s. Also, Crabtree & Evelyn EVELYN and Kenzo Parfum d’Ete. I remember smelling lots of CK One on other people.
I think that counts as a power ballad, sure!!
I had bottles of Opium and Tommy Girl, but I never actually wore Opium to school for obvious reasons (can you imagine?!).
Nothing Else Matters! My brother got Metallica’s Black Album when I was at the tender age of four & played it continuously throughout the 90s on the family stereo.
The font this brand has chosen is so very close to Byredo’s that I thought it was one of theirs at first. Surely being easily distinguishable from the competition is a concern when choosing a design? Peculiar! This sounds truly missable, but I like the idea of a perfume projecting nostalgia for a certain era. Are there any around that manage this better?
Ditto! + Wind of change – Scorpions
hhahah, now I need to go back and listen to that one…
Winds of Change and Nothing Else Matters are great contenders!
Lovely Metallica story!
I agree!!
I tried Phoenicia Perfumes’s Gone but Not… a while back, and I found it really intriguing. It was more of a “smell” than a perfume, but it did evoke rock & roll life more than this one does. I need to “revisit” it.
I agree! This looks a lot like a Byredo. I thought it was at first glance.
When Byredo first appeared on the scene, we all said that it looked like Frederic Malle/Editions de Parfums, and then they changed the bottle caps, at least… lol.
But Byredo has done so well, it wouldn’t be a surprise if other niche brands were taking its design as “inspiration.”
Poeter ballad: Bon Jovi, Living in sin! or Celine Dion, Think twice.
I also ordered a sample, based on the storytelling and the fact that I was young and doc Martens-wearing in the nineties.
I was also very disappointed. The scent is no fun, and not serious enough to go with the post synth part of the era either. It also lacks hints of Marlboro lights, back then everybody smoked. Can’t do a scent with that storytelling without a serious dose of tobacco,
I know!! Where is the cigarette smoke?! I didn’t/don’t smoke, but everyone else did. Scary, to remember that smoking was allowed in those cramped concert venues…right?
As a NJ native, I’m very partial to Bon Jovi.
Ahhh, love Bon Jovi, “slippery when wet”;)
Bon Jovi is a great band!
Hmmm, seems to be missing a malt liquor note, too. It’s a shame the bottle is so dull, because I think the box is really cool and playful.
Power ballad: “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”
I don’t really think of gin or tequila for 90s rock club nights, either… beer would be the background beverage note in my scenario.
I’ve sold toilet paper to Bonnie Tyler and her bodyguard. She was much shorter than I thought.
WHAT
Oh wow.
Weird situation it was, in the beginning of the ninetis when I had a summer job in a small grocery store. She was staying at a nearby hotel, so why would she need go buy extra toilet paper? I still wonder…
How cool!
Wow!
Yeah, the power ballad to end all power ballads! :^)
Power ballad, Black Sabbath Changes.
And the perfume sounds boring. Oh, if they could make one of those 90’s evenings live again on my skin…
I know…I know. I wish I could have “bottled” certain evenings. I knew at the time they were special, at least!
I knew it too. 🙂
My DH would approve of this choice.
Nothing to add on the perfume. I am getting kind of tired of seeing the same font on so many bottles. Boring!
Power ballad: one of the first I ever heard: “Beth” by Kiss.
Oh wow. I think we’re contemporaries, Jalapeno.
I was in elementary school at the time it came out. Had to look it up on Wikipedia to verify the time frame… 🙂
In sad that everyone is so disappointed by this. I haven’t tried it, but I’d love a touch of high school nostalgia. I wasn’t into metal, but did my fair share of punk and ska in my very late 90s high school days. There’s no better memories than concerts in Seattle followed by 4am deaf Dennys. 🙂
I really wanted it to be something different. Alas!! I’d get more emotion from sniffing a spritz of Aqua Net…
You know, when I think of power ballads I think of the 80s. Oh, well.
I immediately thought of “Open Arms” or “Forever Yours” by Journey.
I associate them more with the 80s, too…including Journey! That’s what I mean by the weird mixing of genres and decades…grunge people were NOT into glam. They’re polar opposites, no?
Yes! I found the cultural touchstones more like cultural patchwork in the description!
One 100% agree.
Yeah it’s totally a 70s and 80s thing and nothing to do with grunge. This ad copy is the worst. But of course I’m a crabby old lady from the 70s and 80s!
We’re two of a kind. 😉
I feel I’m being told to remember the good ol’ days of bebop and hip hop! Errrr?
Agreed, but I feel like there are some 90s songs that count–More Than Words, for example (I’m pretty sure that was early 90s).
Oh for sure. I think it’s sort of ‘timeless’ once it’s started!
I graduated in the late 80s but moved to NY in the early 90s. I tended toward goth and industrial clubs, but liked grunge music. You couldn’t dance to grunge, really, could you? So my power ballads of that era were of the Everyday is Halloween by Ministry ilk. I still love that song, but I dress like a normal person now 😉 And I don’t quite remember how people smelled in those clubs. It just always smelled like spilled beer.
Anyway, thanks for reviewing this. Doesn’t sound like I need to hunt it down.
spilled beer, ha! so true.
Yes!!
I come from before grunge was grunge and there was the mosh pit, for those who didn’t mind getting hurt, and bouncing around on the balcony for those who did.
I tagged along to some hard-core shows with friends, and I stood waaaaaay in the back…but I was fascinated by the mosh pit!
Elisa, they smelled like clove cigarettes, among other things. 🙂
Very true
My pick for power ballad, “It’s Late” by Queen.
Queen is always the right answer, no matter what the question is!
Seconding that thought:)
Sounds… boring. I do love the idea/story behind this and would be interested, like Parley, to learn of perfumes that, as she says to well, “project nostalgia for a certain era”.
The gin & tonic doesn’t fit, but I am on board with the other notes.
Nice of you to review so I don’t have to bother 😉
Hah, I am here to spare everyone the trouble… 😉
I am apparently too old to remember a single 1990s power ballad… Probably for me the most hormone infused memories associated with a power ballad actually go back to a 70s hit, Meatloaf’s “Two out of three…” But REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t fight this feeling any more” for me captures the 80’s power ballads….. no grunge, all corny lyrics!
“Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” actually came up in the extended conversation that my husband and I had — I was thinking of power ballads that were actually just really sappy!
Challenge: Name two un-sappy ballads! All of the one’s I can think of are very corny, but so much more delicious for it!
The Replacements had a genius for non-sappy, gut wrenching and gut wrenchingly good power ballads: Bastards of the Young and Answering Machine are two great ones. But they also had a genius for pissing off radio stations and promoters so most people have never heard these songs!
Interesting… and now I am thinking of Bowie’s (1970s??) Young Americans, and several songs by Squeeze….
Yes Bowie for sure!
Oh, Squeeze, yes! Up The Junction: unforgettable.
Cold November Rain!!!! Ultimate power ballad.
YES!!!
Easy-breezy, carefree, rebellious: the nineties?? That makes me so sad. The nineties were full-blown Aids, horror in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, domestic terrorism in the US… that’s just off the top of my menopausal memory — if they now seem carefree, what does that say about what we’ve since lived through?
End of rant.
Bette Midler, The Rose:)
I know…it’s easy to be nostalgic about one’s own teen years, in a blinkered way. Here in the US, the 90s looked like a pretty upbeat era at the time…but nothing was really that simple, of course. 🙁
“The Rose” was a very popular choice for school talent shows for a loooong time! Great stuff.
A favorite for karaoke when we tought we could harmonize and sound good.
+1
The first wave of AIDS was tough.
Yep. I remember that moment in the late 80s when so many celebrities (actors, artists) died within a short span of time. And slightly older friends of mine remember it as a time when their own social circles were horribly, sadly diminished. Tough stuff.
I wasn’t paying enough attention in the 90s to play the power ballad game, but I’m enjoying the musical era retrospectively by looking up the songs I’m not familiar with on YouTube. This is a brilliant way to salvage a disappointing perfume selection, Jessica! 🙂
I had that idea just as I was finishing the review — I’m really glad I included it! 🙂
Weezer Say it Ain’t So. I discovered Weezer in the early aughts when Napster was all the rage.
Yes, the perfume sounds like a cranky inducing letdown. I was raising little kids in the 90s so I missed it, my decade being late 70s early 80s, but I am so with you on the mediocre niche overload!
I was in grad school for a chunk of the 90s, so I was out of touch with most pop culture — still catching up! 😉
Heart Alone