Hot Mama Tip: 10 Perfumes, 1 Choice
By Glinda
For Christmas, Santa was kind enough to bring me one of the things on my list, the Sephora Scent Sampler. It gives you 10 sample sizes of some of the hottest scents Sephora carries, and you can try them on at your leisure. When you have decided which one you like best, you simply go to a Sephora store with your certificate, and they will give you a full sized version. Even better is that you only pay $50, and the full-sized versions cost $70 and upwards.
A perfume addict, I was pleased to have so many different scents to explore. Usually when I go to a perfume counter, I have to try on at least a couple, and we all know where that leads. It leads to confusion over which scent is which, and often the mingling of scents to where you’re not sure what smells like what.
So I was glad to give each scent the attention it deserved by using only one a day.
Which one will I choose? Well, let’s start with the first four….
Givenchy, Very Irresistible Givenchy Sensual
I was prepared to like this scent, as I have liked Givenchy perfumes in the past. This one smelled nice enough, but there was nothing there that really knocked me out and said, “Wow!” And I like my perfumes to say “Wow!” It is a pleasant scent with a slight hint of muskiness. It didn’t last quite as long as I would have preferred.
I don’t have anything bad to say about this fragrance, which is sweet and has a fairly strong bottom note of vanilla. It is light, floral, and perfect for warm weather. I was pleased with its staying power. I could still smell it the next day, before I went into the shower.
Now this is where I find myself at odds with thousands and thousands of other women. I really, really hated this fragrance. It was extremely overpowering at first, to the point where I could almost “taste” it. After it faded a bit, it just smelled like soap. And not very good soap, either. I foolishly kept lifting the crook of my elbow up to my nose, thinking it would smell better than the last time. It never did.
My absolute favorite of the four I’ve tried so far. It has a beatiful, wait for it, vanilla scent that is pure and fruity due to the whole grapefruit things. It makes me happy when I smell it. It lasted the longest, and smelled the best. This perfume has made it to the semi-final round.
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:20 pm
I bought the Vera Wang, Princess perfume for my daughter when she was 18. It was a perfect scent for a teen. She has since moved on to another scent but I’ve received many samples from Sephora and ended up loving one for myself based on those samples. I probably never would have heard of it had it not been for the samples. By the way, it was Marc Jacobs’ Daisy. My favorite flower in a great scent …for me.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:32 am
Liz, Daisy is one of the perfumes in the sample set!
But it is interesting how one person’s perfect perfume is another’s nightmare, like my hatred of Amazing Grace. It is a huge bestseller. Ah well…
January 4th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I’m another fragrance junkie, and I’m not fond of Amazing Grace either. It just does not seem special or interesting in any way.
God, I wish Vancouver had a Sephora store. Sigh!
January 5th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I’m with you, raincoaster. When the hubby and I honeymooned in NYC, I absolutely fell in love with Sephora, and made an excuse to go into one about every second day. (Mind you, on the second visit, I had an excellent excuse: the night before, lacking a proper opener, I had drunkenly tried to open a bottle of Stella Artois with my Shu Uemura eyelash curler. No, it didn’t turn out well.)
At least they ship here now, which is nice. I fell in love with Too Faced Lash Injection and haven’t wanted to use anything else since.
I’m sure Vancouver will get one soon — Calgary has two of them, for Pete’s sake.
January 5th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Their online store is just as good if not better. That is if you know what you want. I don’t have a store near enough to me either but I have had great success with ordering online. From the sounds of it, I think I would be overwhelmed in that store anyway. I don’t know a thing about make-up but my daughters turned me on to the fragrances there and they are so good about sending out samples that I found a scent that I like. They do free shipping with a $50 order in the States too. I’m sure they must have a similar deal in Canada.
July 11th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
[...] like the lovely perfume sampler I talked about earlier in the year, Sephora has just come out with a new sampler for those of us [...]