Mainstream Monday – Sniffing a Popular Perfume
One of the most frustrating things about perfume is that unlike a lipstick of piece of fashion, words and images are helpful but they’ll never truly convey what’s in that bottle. You never know until you try it. Yes, you’ll have to try a foundation even though there are swatches online but you have to admit that with perfume, there’s no equivalent to a swatch.
Our first impressions of a perfume are usually visual. We may see some words written either by the brand or people like me online. If you see it in person, those written words will be replaced by the spoken words of a sales person. All of this hype actually makes trying a perfume more complex than it is. It creates an expectation before we get started.
Dolce by Dolce & Gabbana is one of those that left me flat even though I couldn’t wait to try it. I’m by no means a huge Dolce & Gabbana fan (the brothers are so homophobic and misogynistic but I think they’re working on that) but I do, as much as I hate to admit it, like a lot of the aesthetic¹. I loved Sicily and the original Femme. I keep holding out and believing they’ll launch something else just as good that epitomizes my infatuation with Italy. When Dolce came out, the note listed sounded romantic. The ad campaign was lovely (a grove of white florals). The bottle has a cap inspired by marzipan flowers. I was getting sucked into the hype but that’s exactly what Dolce and Gabbana wanted.
Dolce is a clean, dewy floral. The opening is a heady narcissus with aquatic notes reminiscent of winter melon. It wears like tropical fruits and dewy florals. The fruits have a ripe, “fuzzy” quality to them like peach skin. This phase of the perfume is very short-lived. Most of the wear is a generic, powdery musk.
Dolce doesn’t smell bad but in a world of so many perfumes, I expect to wear something that doesn’t smell bad while also wearing something I’m in love with. Dolce and I share no chemistry. It’s jokes never make me laugh. I yawn at is pre-dinner conversations. It’s not you, Dolce. It’s me.
Plus, Dolce lied in its profile pic which is below. Don’t you see this and expect a white floral?
Notes listed include neroli leaf, papaya flower, white amaryllis, narcissus, white water lily, cashmere and musk. Launched in 2014.
Give Dolce a try if you like aquatic florals. Or perfumes like Alfred Sung Shi, Avon Haiku, Yves Rocher Ming Shu, Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey summer flankers and/or Fragonard Bleu Riviera.
For an EDP, projection and longevity are below average. In fact, I had to check my manufacturer’s sample a few times because I thought it was possible I was confused and actually sampling the EDT.
Dolce comes in 4 sizes (ranging from 1 oz to 5 oz) retailing for $74 to $160 at Nordstrom. It can also be found at discounters like Perfume.com.
Victoria’s Final EauPINION – Aquatic fruity-floral. It’s an OK perfume but it doesn’t reel me in. It’s biggest fault is that it doesn’t live up to my expectations.
¹I’m a sucker for anything that reminds me of nonne, pesto and every Sophia Loren role ever.
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Fragrantica – Member reviews
*Sample obtained by me. Product pic from Fragrantica. Ad from collegefashion.net. Post contains an affiliate link. Thanks!
The thing I like most about this perfume is its bottle cap. Other than that, eh. Also, my brother used to be a big fan of their colognes but since some of their comments he refuses to buy anything from them again.
Cute bottle but the fragrance is the epitome of “meh” to me.
They apologize. I don’t know if they are learning or having a change of heart. OR if it’s all PR and publicity. But, they have said some offensive things in the past. I don’t know why these sort of famous people say such silly things, whatever.
I got a sample of this in a perfumista care package and was happy to have the opportunity to try it, because bottle cap.
I don’t mind aquatic notes, but meh is the very best thing I can say about it.
I didn’t know about their opinions (or their stupidity about various ways that families can be created) so thanks for sharing. I won’t toss my bottle of the original red cap D&G, since they got that money (from my sister) a long, long time ago, but I see no reason to purchase anything new even it was fabulous .
I’ll try anything 🙂 But, I do like to try newer stuff because I think it’s important to see what is trending. And really I just hope to find something great that is accessible.
So, this year they made a collection of same-sex family bags. I don’t know how much of that was them or everyone else in the company going “We have to fix what your big mouths caused!”
http://stylecaster.com/dolce-and-gabbana-same-sex-parents-bags/
I will say something good came from their rant because I didn’t realize Italy was struggling with these family issues. They law doesn’t even view unmarried heterosexual couples as a family! And I didn’t know that surrogacy is illegal in Italy. This incident brought many of these things to light during a time when legislation was needed to be passed.
Anyway, I’m a HUGE fan of that red cap D&G so don’t throw that out! And I loved Sicily which was one of those soapy scents that reminded me of vintage Estee Lauders. Now if they really want to win be over, they need to relaunch those two 🙂
Thanks for the additional information. One of the best lines in the article was, “being gay themselves…” I thought from the first article that I had totally misunderstood past information.
Hard to believe that there is still this kind of resistance to family and reproductive rights.
I too am a fan of vintage Estee Lauders.
It’s complex. And overall makes me sad that there are still such rigid definitions of “family”. Even though there’s a lot of pain in this world, I do think it’s getting better…just in some places slower than others 🙁
I love them. I don’t like modern soapy scents but I like how brands like Lauder did it. It was aggressively green/fresh.