This is how far behind I am: Paco Rabanne has already got Olympéa Aqua on the perfume counters, and I’m just getting around to reviewing the original Olympéa. I’ve actually had the sample for a bit, but it’s mostly just sat there, waiting while I reviewed other, more likely candidates. The folks over at Paco Rabanne have done a great job of keeping the brand relevant with the youth market, but have not shown much interest, so far, with the not-youth market, which of course includes me, and partly explains why the lack of interest is pretty much mutual. I did review Black XS For Her (way back in 2007) but I skipped Lady Million altogether.

Kevin, however, gamely reviewed Invictus (ugly, he said, and I wholeheartedly concur), so here I go¹ with Olympéa, the fragrance for the ‘modern day Cleopatra’. As is so often the case with these big designer launches, it took a team of big name perfumers…

Read the rest of this article »