Had a chance to get a good sample of Covet today, and I really enjoy it. It's a very nicely crafted fragrance, and it's full of personality, something I really look for in a fragrance.

The opening notes are bright and spunky, with geranium leaves, green notes, lavender, Sicilian lemon, and I found the top notes fade fairly quickly and the heart notes really start to take control, and that's where it gets interesting. The heart notes have a gorgeous sweet-but-not-too-sweet chocolate note that I absolutely love, plus a blend of honeysuckle, lily of the valley, and magnolia, making the heart sweeter and gentler than the more strident top notes, but, I'm happy to report, it's not very sweet. Regular regular readers will know that I can't tolerate fragrances that are too sweet, mostly because my particular chemistry makes them go even sweeter and it can be really overwhelming. I'm happy to say that there are a few sweet fragrances I can wear, though, and this is one of them. Yay for chocolate!

The heart notes lasted a fairly long time on my skin before they started to very gently give way to the softly sensual base of vetiver, musk, teakwood, amber, and bois de cashmere. I'd like to comment on that last note. I have no idea what that might be. I did look it up, but I can't find any perfumer references to it. I suspect it might be a "made up" fragrance, in the same way that one Donna Karan fragrance has a note of "white t-shirt" and one of the Britney Spears line has a note of "cupcake". I suspect that "bois de cashmere" is meant to be a cross between an exotic wood and a wool type of scent. Whatever it is, I really like it, and the base of this perfume is a real delight to my rather picky olfactory sense.

I'm not the biggest fan of "celebrity" fragrances, I must admit. I'm generally willing to give them a sniff, but far too many of them are really lacking as perfumes, in my opinion, having no real character or style. Covet, however, is a fragrance worth getting to know. It's got personality. And chocolate. Gotta love that.

Too Many New Fragrances and Stagnating Sales Lead Some Brands to Go Upscale

I have a great deal of respect for Kylie Minogue. I wouldn't say I'm a "fan", exactly, but I recognise that she works very hard and is deeply dedicated to her career. She's also a breast cancer survivor and has come forward to speak about it, which I find courageous and I think it's using her fame in positive ways. I'm afraid I can't say the same for Darling, her perfume.

Oh, it's not horrible. I didn't want to wash my skin or anything. But it was so... ordinary. Pink, fruity, floral, been there, done that, a hundred times. Honestly, the perfume is a yawn. It has apparently become a top seller in the UK, which is fine for Kylie (as I said, I actually have nothing at all against her), but how much must this perfume contribute to the stereotype that the English are boring and predictable?

The top notes are the extremely common and entirely dull combination of freesia, lychee, and (passionless) passion fruit, followed by some other floral notes that apparently include boronia and lily. The only part of the perfume I particularly liked was the base, which is a nicely balanced sandalwood and amber, with a touch of vanilla.

I found the fragrance to be reasonably long lasting, and fairly well constructed, as these things go. What a shame that the fragrance is so very, very dull and so very, very boring. Surely, Kylie isn't dull and boring (at least, I shouldn't think so), so why would she settle for this oh-so-ordinary pink, fruity, floral when she could have had something that would really sparkle?

Maybe I'm just a perfume snob, I don't know. I mean, I've smelled hundreds of perfumes, and I've got a pretty strong sense of what I like and don't like, so maybe that's why I was so completely unimpressed by this fragrance. And my apologies to anyone from the UK (I do know that being boring and predictable is only a stereotype!) and to anyone who loves this perfume. I'm sure it's nice on many, many, many people. Just like beige skirts and brown shoes.

Eau de barrel scraping was the big fragrance of the year, with notes of Z list and undertones of desperation combined to create a new low in celebrity-endorsed perfumes.

Perfume-Smellin' Things Perfume Blog: Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh: The Gifts of the Magi in Perfumery

Wouldn't you like to smell like the Pope? Well, you can! Apparently, The Pope’s Cologne is a classic Old World cologne made from the private formula of Pope Pius IX (1792-1878). It is, they claim, made from an exclusive 150 year old formula, using the original essential oils as were used by the perfumers of old, creating a fresh fragrance with "surprising" notes of violet and citrus. (I can't imagine what's so surprising about violet and citrus, other than possibly it being a suprise that a Pope smelled like flowers and fruit?)

You can even get a free sample (USA only, I would imagine, given postal laws regarding shipping hazardous goods and flammable liquids). The website even has a collection of interesting pictures of the Pope you can smell like!

First, a spoiler. I'm not impressed. I'm happy to explain precisely why I don't like it, of course, but if you don't want to read an unimpressed review, stop reading right now. (Better yet, hop out to a shop and try it for yourself; perfume is a very personal thing, so you may find you love it!)

Okay. If you're still reading, I'll continue...

First of all, it's pink. Yes, it's Yet Another Pink Perfume. The design for the box is lovely, though, with a solid black rose on a field of pink, very stylish. The bottle is pretty ordinary, but nice enough. Not iconic or anything.

My initial response to the top notes was, "Wow, I wasn't expecting that! What is it? That's different...." It's a floral-spicy sort of opening, featuring notes of forget-me-not, orange blossom, and pink pepper, and it's the pepper that got my attention. Nice.

Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there. The heart is pretty ordinary lush floral arrangement of rose, peony, and lily of the valley, although the lily of the valley is not prominent (normally I recognise it right away, because I love it, but I was surprised to see it's there when I looked up the notes!). It's a nice blend, and the pepper seems to linger for a reasonable amount of time as the heartnotes take full control, but my overall reaction is just... eh. It's nice. Well-balanced, but nothing that excites me at all. I will say that the heartnotes seem to last a good long while. On my skin, anyway, this fragrance has good staying power.

Base notes are very ordinary patchouli, sandalwood, and musk. Lingers nicely, but I'm so unenthused about the fragrance in general that I don't really care. It seems a shame that a well-balanced, long-lasting fragrance of obvious quality is so... well... unexciting.

I would really have expected a perfume with a Kate Moss brand to be a little more unusual. She's this heroin-waif, rock-and-roll-chick, cocaine snorting, rehab woman with the face that launched a thousand ads. I would have expected a note of maybe leather, or to have that nice pepper note carry through the fragrance in a more meaningful way. It's a nice fragrance, and I'm sure people will like it and it will do well enough, but it just makes me feel like I've smelled it all before. Then again, with the way Kate's face has been ubiquitious, on every billboard, in every magazine, on every tabloid, maybe a fragrance that has been there and done that says more about her than I think... For some reason, this fragrance just makes me think "bandwagon".

Anyway, it's a nice floral fragrance, and I do urge people to give it a try on their own (as I always do). If you're a fan of well-balanced florals with a woody base, you might find this suits you quite well.

Okay, this is a fairly classic perfume, and it's a bit of a shock that I haven't reviewed it before now, but, well, I haven't. However, I'm going to make up for that now.

My first impression of this fragrance is a lush floral, and it is, but it's actually quite a bit more subtle than I first thought. There's a very distinct but very delicate green aura to this, a slight freshness that takes some of the edge off the stronger florals.

The opening is floral/fruity and slightly fresh, with notes of fresia, bergamot, peach, and pineapple. You'd think that would be quite sweet, but the blend is only just sweet (anyone who has read my reviews knows I'm not a fan of sweet fragrances, but I do like this and I don't find it overpowering at all).

The heart of the fragrance is found in the green florals of lily of the valley and jasmine, softened by rose and violet, giving way to a base of cedar, sandalwood, iris, musk.

This is, as I said, a classic fragrance. Therefore, it's fairly well-known and easily recognised by anyone familiar with fragrances, and it's also a much-copied fragrance. I tend not to like to wear perfumes that smell like "everyone else" but I'm happy to take that risk with this one. I find the subtleties of this fragrance quite wonderful, although I must say, it doesn't last as long as I'd like (perhaps that just my skin, though I have heard others voice the same complaint). The soft, woody, musky base does linger well, although it's very close to the skin by the time it gets down to the base notes (at least it is on me).

I'd recommend this to any fan of classically feminine floral perfumes, although, as always, you should probably try a sample first to make sure it suits your chemistry.