creed: 2 posts

Patricia talks about an endless summer in a perfume bottle, from Bobbi Brown Beach to Estée Lauder Bronze Goddess.

In his novel Remembrances of Things Past, Marcel Proust used petite madeleines, little cakes shaped like scallop shells and dipped in tea as a literary device to bring his character instantly back in time. One sniff of Bobbi Brown’s Beach does the same thing to me. It transports me to a certain carefree summer many years ago, a summer of wearing madras shorts, skate boarding, kissing my first boyfriend, listening to the Beach Boys and Rolling Stones on the radio, and slathering on Coppertone, a popular American sun lotion.

Beach isn’t an exact match for Coppertone, but sweet jasmine and orange blossom combine deliciously with salty and marine notes in a way that is strongly reminiscent of it. It maintains the same balance of notes throughout, and there is no real progression from the top notes to the dry down. Although Beach wears very close to the skin, it lasts from five to six hours on me.

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

Creed Love in White, launched in August of 2005, is promoted as a global fragrance due to the fact the essences comprising it were hand-picked by Creed over five years, as he traveled on his yacht. The fragrance is composed of orange zest; risk husk, iris, white jasmine, daffodils, magnolia, rose; vanilla, ambergris, sandalwood.

Unlike most of Creed’s feminine fragrances, this is a lacy and soaring composition, from the burst of orange in the top notes to the sheer delicacy of the base. Orange sparkles melt into the rich heart of a white bouquet rendered effervescent by hedione, a very diffusive aroma chemical that simulates jasmine. In this sense, it reminds me of another Creed fragrance, Spring Flowers, which is a fruity-floral bouquet, accented by hedione. Unlike Spring Flowers, Love in White is a more transparent composition, lacking a juicy sweetness of Spring Flowers, yet both are extremely tenacious. In the end, Love in White remains a very linear fragrance that I cannot characterize in any other way as loud. The lack of development does not always forebode doom, but in this case, the fragrance does not meld into my skin, striking me rather like an artificial bouquet.

On the other hand, if you like Spring Flowers, you might want to try Love in White. It is available at select Neiman Marcus stores.