Normally I write my content way ahead of time and schedule it to post at 7am every morning, which could give one the impression that I am up and writing about perfume at 6am like a crazy person. I am not, but if someone did believe that I was I would be completely flattered that someone on earth thought I was capable of doing anything coherent at 6am.

Anyway, today's post was not written ahead of time. I had every intention of posting something this morning instead, but I thought that it would be better if I went out first for a quick perfume smelling expedition, which morphed into an all-day event that included Megan and Megan's mom (who's in town for the week), and being a stereotype of my gender, I also bought some shoes because they were on crazy sale.

But look, I'm home now! And here it is – my final review for the Amazing and Obscenely Affordable Vol.1 review series:

PERFUME NAME:
Moon Sparkle

PERFUME HOUSE:
Escada

PERFUMER:
?

YEAR:
2007

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
Fruity. They claim Floral Fruity, but the Floral is a lie.

DESCRIPTION:
Its top notes are strawberry, black current, citrus and red fruits. Heart notes include freesia and sweet pea, and questionably, jasmine and rose. The base notes are raspberry, sandalwood, musk and amber.

CONCENTRATION:
Eau de Toilette

MY EXPERIENCE:

The first thing you need to know is that there is absolutely nothing classy, elegant, or refined about Moon Sparkle. If you are looking for something to wear to the symphony or your grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary, this is definitely not the perfume for you.  If you are looking for something you can wear to work, this is also not for you unless you're a sex worker, a candy store cashier, or depending on the venue, a bartender. It's low brow, it's for teenagers, it instantly makes me think of floozies, and frankly, it's a smell that should have been born a body spray.

Now I need to tell you that I FUCKING LOVE MOON SPARKLE. This fragrance, which smells like really sugary berries and passionfruit in a way that makes me crave Jolly Ranchers, is a guilty, age-inappropriate pleasure that falls into a category of perfumes that transport me to some time and place where I am a different person and I am club hopping on a really hot, humid, summer night. When I smell it it's as if I've already had about four cocktails and a couple of shooters and my girl posse and I are on our way to our 3rd club. My strapless mini dress is out of sorts and I am drunkenly trying to fix it in time to smile at an oncoming group of dudes that I am SO sure ALL want me and holy shit, where the hell did I put my lip gloss? OMG, seriously, where the FUCK is it?!! Can I borrow yours?! HURRY UP!!!!

If you are over the age of 23, this fragrance can only be pulled off with any trace of dignity in the summertime, when the smell of sugary fruit is a more than welcome alternative to the body odor of passers-by.  I would not attempt to wear this at ALL, EVER, with anything that remotely resembles office wear, not even business casual. Don't you worry, though. You'll have plenty of places to wear this stuff. You can easily pull off Moon Sparkle at:
 

• A tropical resort
• Someone's crazy house party
• A rave
• The club
• The bar
• Disney World
• Home, by yourself

Now, if you think you can handle the demanding conditions to which you must vigilantly adhere in order to enjoy Moon Sparkle without consequence, make sure you go big. Get the 3.3 oz. bottle, and when you spray it on, spray it on with reckless abandon. Treat it as though it were mosquito repellent and you're lost in Southeast Asia; leave no bare skin uncovered.

You can go to the store and pay retail for the 3.3 ounce bottle which would be $70 and really silly, or you can poke around online and find it for around $30.

Oh, and don't forget to tune in next week for Perfume Time Machine: Scents of the 80s!

This is actually going to be a really short review for two reasons:

• I'm really tired.
• I just watched a really bad adaptation of Wuthering Heights and I need to go cry for Emily Brontë.

PERFUME NAME:
John Varvatos

PERFUME HOUSE:
John Varvatos

PERFUMER:
Rodrigo Flores-Roux
( Who also worked on DK Gold )

YEAR:
2008

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
Chypre Fruity

DESCRIPTION:
John Varvatos says his wife Joyce was his muse for this fragrance which is so romantic and sweet that I'm actually dying as I type this. Its top notes are apricot and plum, the heart notes are lily, mango blossom, Egyptian Jasmine and Turkish Rose, and base notes include oakmoss, patchouli, Tonka beans and wild honey.

CONCENTRATION:
Eau de Parfum

MY EXPERIENCE:

I used to be a big fan of Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel, a pricey chypre floral that you will never find for less than $75 unless it's a fake or some really old, stale stock. I still think Mademoiselle is a perfectly lovely perfume, but I find that it lacks the depth of satisfaction I get out of the Varvatos because of the soft fruit notes Varvatos layers with its florals.  None of these accords completely overpower the sophisticated oakmoss and patchouli notes that make this perfume a chypre and not a fruity floral, which also makes it a fragrance that's appropriate for all ages.

Varvatos definitely has depth but it's still delicate, and although I would describe it as serious there is nothing somber about it. As beautiful and sunny as it is, I definitely wouldn't describe it as "seductive", which makes it a great work fragrance, but in the event that you do want get hot and heavy with your significant other (or a stranger) while wearing this perfume, you are in no danger of a PowerPoint presentation showing how sales have been slumping this quarter being whipped out of nowhere unless that's what you guys are "into".

Up until about 3 weeks ago, I thought my most inexpensive option for purchasing this masterpiece was paying $40 from one of the multitudes of discount perfume stores on the internet, which considering that the 3.3 ounce bottle continues to fly off the shelf for $85 at Nordstrom, is a pretty good deal.  You know what's a better deal? Getting it for $19.99 at TJ Maxx, that's what.

I know it seems like I've been giving TJ Maxx the blow job of a lifetime this week, but it's because perfume miracles happen every time I'm there. They aren't paying me to say these things, although they really should.

PERFUME NAME:
Gold

PERFUME HOUSE:
Donna Karan

PERFUMER:
This one was actually created by a team of perfumers: Yann Vasnier, Rodrigo Flores-Roux & Calice Becker.
( Individually these folks have made other scents like John Varvatos [ For Him and For Her], Badgley Mischka Fleurs de Nuit, and Lola by Marc Jacobs )

YEAR:
2006

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
It's often listed as an "Oriental Floral", which is sort of accurate, but not as accurate as "Aquatic Floral" would be.

DESCRIPTION:
Notes include lily, white cloves, acacia, musk, amber, gold balm, golden pollen, and patchouli, and it's said to be "sparkling, warm, and seductive."

CONCENTRATION:
Eau de Parfum

MY EXPERIENCE:
This perfume was the first perfume to tip me off that a high quality, mainstream department store fragrance could become inexpensive, which opened up a whole new world for me and forever ensured that my perfume habit would be obscene, at least to normal people. Falling in love with really fantastic, inexpensive fragrances not only grows my collection at a maniacally rapid pace, it also has the added advantage of making my really pricey perfumes last much longer.

Gold, much like Stefani's L, started life as a much pricier gem, or rather in this case, a much pricier gold bar. My first bottle came from a blind perfume swap with someone on Makeup Alley. I swapped some perfume I didn't really care about for this fragrance based purely on its bottle design, which, as you can see looks like a big ol' gold bar with a black hunk of wood on top of it. There is a genius in the simplicity of the bottle, and when I opened it up and sprayed it, I was excited to find that the genius had seeped into the perfume and made it smell exactly like a golden spring day.

It opens with the smell of lilies carried on a breeze over a sparkling pond. I've read reviews that go on at length about the amber in this fragrance, and while I do smell the amber, it's not nearly as powerful and spicy as everyone makes it out to be. Actually, the amber is more like a warm ray of sunshine on this lily pool, but strangely, it's a sexy ray of sunshine that also shines at night. This particular lily-filled ray of sunshine would probably smell good on just about anyone regardless of their age, which is nice considering most smells are limited to one of the following groups: "young", "mature", and "nearing death's door". 

The lily notes never leave me, and in fact, this perfume seems to last forever. If I spray it on in the morning, I would still leave a sillage ( and possibly some cartoon bluebirds) behind me long after the sun has gone down and I've started on my third whiskey and water for the night.  Although this scent works very well on a warm night,  it's also a great daytime smell, but it might be a little too sultry and dramatic for office wear. Well. Unless you're having sex with your intern or your boss — in that case it's perfect.

I have yet to see DK Gold pop up in any brick and mortar discount stores, but you can almost always find a 1.7 oz bottle of the EDP for under $20 online. In fact, I think my most recent Gold purchase was actually $10. I'm not sure why it's so inexpensive – only 4 years ago it was in the $50-$75 range, and Donna Karan's fragrances tend to retain their value even after they've been around awhile. It can't be a lack of popularity because this perfume actually has a fairly sizable fan base, one that includes some of the most intolerable yet highly regarded perfume elitists in existence today. Many of these fans also wonder why it's so affordable and periodically freak out that it's a sure sign that Gold is going to be discontinued even though there is absolutely zero anything confirming this speculation. When it comes down to it, I don't actually give a shit why it's so inexpensive. I'm just happy that it is.

PERFUME NAME:
L (According to Stefani, the "L" stands for "Love")

PERFUME HOUSE:
Gwen Stefani / L.A.M.B.

PERFUMER:
Firmenich
( Also the perfumer behind Gucci Flora, Kenzo Flower, Kenzo Amour, and about a billion other fragrances you know and possibly love. )

YEAR:
2007

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
Aquatic Floral

DESCRIPTION:
Top notes are said to be leafy green hyacinth, fresh pear, violet leaves, white freesia, and "sparkling green freshness", whatever that is. Heart notes are jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, sweet pea and orange blossom, and the base notes are comprised of peach skin, frangipani (also known as "plumeria" for any old school Bath and Body Works fans out there), heliotrope & sensual musk.

CONCENTRATION:
Eau de Parfum

MY EXPERIENCE:
L is not only the first perfume to be reviewed in the Amazing and Obscenely Affordable review series — it is also the first celebrity fragrance in my adult life that I have liked enough to actually purchase. Sure, that purchase was marked down to the point of being practically free, but I'd do it all over again if I had the chance, and I would definitely plunk down the extra $10 for the gift set.

Although I often claim that I am not a total elitist when it comes to perfumes, there is a part of me that naturally assumes that any celebrity fragrance is either going to be made out of ingredients so cheap I can smell the discount the second the cap comes off, or that it's going to be completely age inappropriate. Occasionally I will pick one up at random and smell it in passing as I'm walking through the mall, after which I often forget who made it or that I'd ever even smelled it at all.

Despite being 40 years old ( that's actually her real age ), Stefani has quite a following of teens & early 20-somethings when it comes to her music and her clothing line, so I assumed that her fragrance would be aimed at that same audience and ignored it for a few years. Those were L's "expensive" years, when she debuted as a Nordstrom exclusive, then quickly began slutting it up with all the other mall department stores — Dillard's, Belk, Macy's, Sephora —  until finally one day, L had been around the block one too many times and started giving herself to discount outlets and online gray market resellers.

It was around that time that I realized that L was in stock at every single TJ Maxx* I visited, even after Valentine's Day when the perfume sections had been torn apart by savage boyfriends and panicked husbands. The packaging was admittedly very appealing to me, which was perhaps the first clue that I was the target audience for this fragrance and not Miley Cyrus. At some point I looked up all the notes online and also read that it was a floral aquatic, an olfactive family I am particularly fond of, and that's when I decided to throw caution to the wind, take off my bathrobe, put on my jacket, drive the 3.2 miles to TJ Maxx, and put a wager of $14.99 plus tax that I was going to like this shit. Low and behold, it smelled fantastic.

In the same way that every single Miss America contestant looks like she is exactly 30 years old regardless of her actual age, this perfume smells exactly like it was made for women in their late 20s through mid 30s. This fragrance is sweet, but in no way a gourmand, and I don't get many of the fruit notes from it even though they comprise a good chunk of the concoction. There is always a point just after spraying it on when the top notes trick me into thinking this is going to turn into something sickeningly saccharin and possibly headache inducing, but it never quite gets there. Instead it pulls back at the last second to make way for a slightly creamy, white heart that eases its way into an alluring dry down of softly sweet plumeria with a distant echo of rose.

I can see how this perfume could go terribly wrong on an unfortunate few, and I sincerely hope that none of you are included in that group, but for the lucky and the brave this is a fantastic spring scent that is flirtatious enough for a date, but tame enough for the office.

I like to think of L as a fallen woman; perhaps she started out as a Baroness, but she lost her fortune because of her wayward ways and subsequently became my maid. She has the education, mannerisms and style of a well-bred, properly raised lady, but now she is always at my beck and call.

*L is also available all over the internet for a song in case you don't feel like changing out of your bathrobe off long enough to drive to TJ Maxx.

Compared to some perfume collectors, my stash is modest. Compared to the average person on the street, I have every perfume ever conceived of in the space time continuum. In my defense, my purchases are all calculated, each perfume serving a specific purpose. Some of those purposes include:

• Making me feel rich while I'm grocery shopping
• Ensuring my perspiration smells like fruit so strangers will think I'm magical
• Keeping people's attention during work-related meetings
• Confirming that life is devoid of all hope as I'm crying alone in my bedroom during week 4 of my birth control pill pack every month
• Alleviating the symptoms of spring fever
• Boosting my self-esteem by eliciting compliments from total strangers

and obviously the most important of all:

• Exponentially increasing my chances of making out with someone really hot

Given that the aforementioned purpose is usually pretty high up on my list of priorities, it makes sense that I have more perfumes that serve that purpose than any other, and even more sense that my personal Holy Grail of all the fragrances I've worn is the one that has brought me the most success in that department.

So, here it is. My Holy Grail of fragrances:

PERFUME NAME:
Miss Dior Cherie

PERFUME HOUSE:
Christian Dior

PERFUMER:
Christine Nagel

YEAR:
2005 ( reformulated in 2007 )

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
Chypre Fruity according to fragrantica.com but I'm going to veto that and say it's a Floral Fruity.

DESCRIPTION:
Top notes include wild strawberry leaves and something called "green tangerine". I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as a green tangerine, but I appreciate the sentiment. The heart notes claim to be caramel popcorn, violets, wild strawberry, and pink jasmine. The base is musk and patchouli.

CONCENTRATION:
Eau de Parfum

MY EXPERIENCE:
I am not looking forward to the day I look 35 (which at the current rate I am aging should happen when I'm about 46) because that will be the day this sweet, intoxicating smell will officially be age inappropriate and I will have to retire it. This fragrance is clearly marketed to the hip, modern gal in her early 20s to early 30s as evidenced by its fruity, carefree scent and this commercial directed by Sophia Coppola:

While I'm not much of a bicycle rider and my French, though persistent, is really fucking terrible, this young lady and I clearly share the same MO: Making out with hot dudes then immediately flying away with a bunch of balloons, allowing everyone in town to see our underwear.

This fragrance is criticized by many as not being "sophisticated" enough for the Dior line, but those people are missing the point of this fragrance entirely. The name of this fragrance is Miss Dior Cherie after all, not "Matronly Dior" or "Dior Spinster".  

Miss Dior Cherie is a joyful blend of sweet, ripened berries and a hint of soft, romantic flowers – probably pink ones ( definitely not violets, as claimed in Dior's description). This fragrance comes dangerously close to being a gourmand scent, which based on my scientific research is a positive attribute for me and about 70% of the heterosexual male population. 

This perfume smells like warm, sunny days free of obligation, silk bows, heart-shaped lockets, reckless abandon, and someone who has really shiny hair. The dry down lasts for quite awhile and remains faintly sweet, but that faint sweetness comes with a tart, woody accord that prevents it from turning into maraschino syrup. This aspect is especially appreciated in the event that you still need to smell good when you…you know…wake up in the morning.

I wear it often and for many reasons: when I need to lift my mood, when my outfit is particularly well accessorized, when kittens are cute, when pink is for girls, when the sky is blue, when rainbows have colors and because of its track record of success, when I need to achieve a minimum of second base with a hot guy and subsequently fly away.

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THERE'S STILL TIME TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!

The prize you receive probably won't get you any hot action unless you're going for the 70+ set, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to win! All you have to do is leave a comment on any entry on this website and you will be entered in a random drawing to win a gag-inducing miniature bottle of Shatimar – err, I mean, Shalimar. The winner will be chosen on the evening of March 4th and announced on March 5th. 

PERFUME NAME:
Eau de Charlotte

PERFUME HOUSE:
Annick Goutal

PERFUMER:
Annick Goutal

YEAR:
1982

OLFACTORY FAMILY:
Floral Fruity

DESCRIPTION:
From Goutal's website: For the mischievous, romantic woman. Close your eyes and imagine the boldness of blackcurrant bud, and the sweet roundness of mimosa and cocoa. A blend of fruit and flowers for a sweet and spiritual scent with a hint of romanticism.

Other databases name lily and vanilla as additional notes.

CONCENTRATION:
Eau de Toilette

MY EXPERIENCE:
I must admit, I'm somewhat of an Annick Goutal fangirl. I've yet to smell any fragrance from the AG house that didn't smell like it was made by a heavenly creature dressed in layers of sheer, white fabric that billowed in the wind as she brought the first, magical moments of morning's light to the darkest corners of the universe by way of a unicorn pegasus.

Eau de Charlotte is one of the very few exceptions to this rule. It does not smell like morning's first light, but rather a breezy, early summer afternoon in a meadow surrounded by berry patches and filled with fluffy bunnies and wildflowers.

The blackcurrant notes are immediately noticeable and generously last throughout the distinct but fleeting scent of unsweetened cocoa. I am never able to pick out the mimosa or lily notes out on their own, but instead find that they replace the sweetness of the berry note with a soft, refreshing floral, which is what prevents this fragrance from being juvenile or turning into jam.

People often complain about the lasting power of AG's fragrances being too short. I am lucky in that they generally last several hours on me, however it is worth mentioning that Goutal herself has said that she intentionally makes the fragrances with the intention of changing what she's wearing over the course of the day or even layering them. For this reason, Goutal is one of the few perfume houses from which I prefer the EDTs to the EDPs, since this concentration is how she intends them to be experienced when they're created.

I don't know that I'd agree with Goutal's website's assertion that Eau de Charlotte is mischievous, but it is absolutely romantic, and one of my all time favorites.

*   *   *   *  *

THERE'S STILL TIME TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!

You, reader, yes, YOU can win a miniature bottle of one of my all time most despised perfumes! It's an easy giveaway. See March 1st's entry for details.

The problem with starting a perfume blog or anything for that matter is that you're starting something, and beginnings are hard. Do I do an awkward introduction? Do I apologize for my broken archive page? Or do I just dive in and lay my negative review of Shalimar right here on the Internet table? I guess I'll do all of those things.

Hi. I'm Kerry. My archive page is broken right now and I'm not sure when I'll fix it. My deepest apologies for that inconvenience.

I curse a lot, so if you do not think "fucking" is a good adjective for a smell, you might want to avoid this website altogether. I'm in no way trying to be the Andrew Dice Clay of personal perfume blogs, but when I hate things, I like my hate to be peppered with curse words, and when I love things, I love the fucking shit out of them.

I should probably also be up front about how I love fruity florals even though it's apparently gauche and pedestrian to do so.  It's also not okay to dislike Shalimar according to most perfumistas, but I hate it, and instead of leaving it at that, I'm going to take this opportunity to segue into my official Shalimar review:

PERFUME NAME:
Shalimar

PERFUME HOUSE:
Guerlain

PERFUMER:
Jacques Guerlain

YEAR:
1925

OLFACTIVE FAMILY:
Oriental

DESCRIPTION:
Named for a garden in a story of an Indian emperor, Shalimar has notes of bergamot, iris, opopanax, and vanilla.

CONCENTRATION:
Although I have smelled the pure parfum in the past, this particular review will be written using the strongest sample I have at my disposal, which is an Eau de Parfum.

MY EXPERIENCE:
I'm actually resmelling it right now – right this very moment, in fact – and my nose is burning with a smell that is almost citrus-like except that all the pleasant things I might find in a bergamot note are completely obstructed by an overpowering nail polish remover accord. That pesky almost-citrus smell is now giving way to a complex blend of varnish and cat piss. The more minutes that pass, the more acrid the stench becomes. I must say,  this aspect of it is impressively just like real cat piss.

( I'm letting some time pass now in order to describe to you the "radiance" of this fragrance.)

Aaah. Here it is. RELIEF. The ammonia smell is fading out and being replaced with a blend of baby powder and some sort of inedible vanilla. This isn't so bad. I'm not going to be replacing my bathroom spray with it anytime soon, but still. When I think about how my eyes watered and my sinuses burned less than 35 minutes ago, this is…better.

I understand that this is a classic and there are scores of perfume fanatics who would name this perfume as their favorite without letting a fraction of a second pass. Many of those people have suggested that I learn to love it, just as they have. Here's the thing though: I don't want to learn to love it. There are literally tens of thousands of other fragrances for me to choose from, and at least several hundred of those are smells that I already know I like; some I even love. Why on earth would I waste my time training myself to like something simply because it's considered a "classic"?

Perhaps it's just my peer group's lack of refined culture ( my peer group being "people born way after WWI" ) showing itself, but I can't help but think that if I have to train myself to like something, what the hell are other people thinking when they walk past me covered in this awful smell? I can assure you that it's not "Gee, that smells like a classic!"

I mean absolutely no disrespect to Jacques Guerlain; he's created plenty of masterpieces, ones I truly love, and I'm sure Shalimar is a chemical opus, but for the love of all things that can smell, please do not put that on me. Or near me.

*      *      *      *      *

AND NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY!

Do you love Shalimar and think it would be better off in the hands of someone who can appreciate its ethereal beauty? Have you never smelled Shalimar before and want to know why I hate it ( or why others love it so inexplicably)?  Do you also hate Shalimar and wish you had a bottle of it so you could pour it through the open window of your enemy's car on your lunch break? Well, today is your lucky day!

While I don't have any of the EDP sample left, I do happen to have a mini of the Shalimar EDT right here next to me.  If you'd like me to mail it to you, simply leave a comment and a winner will be chosen at random on March 4th.