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June 3, 2008

Badgley Mischka

by Elizabeth Arden, 2006

This one is an unusual case, how it smells in the bottle or even on paper is absolutely nothing like its scent on skin. I usually go thru perfume aisles sniffing the bottles themselves (please don't have a heart attack, it works for me!), stopping & spraying when I find something different than the usual. Badgley Mischka's bottle smelled oily-coniferous and vaguely musty, not musky, with some unidentified fruit waving frantically on a desert island while the ocean liner bulk of rest of the perfume sailed past. On a paper strip it smelled a little more coniferous, a lot less musty, and the musk started to come out; the fruit caught the attention of several passengers on deck, even distracting some from a shuffleboard game (that they wanted find an excuse to end anyway).

When I put it on my skin, the ocean liner ran aground on the desert island (was the helmsman distracted by the frantic castaway?). The carved fruit displays on the 24-hour buffet splatted on the dinner theater floor, the showgirls in the Carmen Miranda Extravaganza! show lost their footing on the 100% more banana peels than was in their contract, adding the contents of their costumes to the total, now approaching 1000% tropical fruit in addition to the random explosions of pineapple when sliding audience members accidentally kicked them in a bid to rediscover "upright" due to the tilt of the run-aground ship. Meanwhile, on shore, the castaway gleefully boards, bringing his entire supply of fruit and the occasional coconut he scavenged to stay alive on the island. Saved at last!

So, I was a little surprised at the difference.

BIG FRUIT. Big! Reaaaallly big. Luscious, juicy, fruity... um, something... Heavenly pineapples? Rainforest peaches? Opium gooseberries? Not sure which fruit this would be... some designer's idealized fruit punch. With musk. And something that smells (to me, anyway) of black locust tree blossoms. No matter, it ages rapidly, in one hour you're left with a light powdery muskiness and one sweet unknown fruit note, the riot has disembarked and the cabin boys swept the mess over the side. At $90 for 100ml, it's too expensive a ticket for a 3-hour tour (if you're lucky). Bon voyage!

1 comment:

Tante Kat said...

I read such good reviews of Badgley Mischka, I had high hopes, but as in your metaphor, it was a definite shipwreck. A hot mess of a perfume that isn't sure what it wants to be, I only know I don't want it on me. Sigh, another one with great reviews many places bites the dust.