You can blame it on Angel. After all, just about everyone else does. But I have a feeling it's more than Thierry Mugler's creation that created a social climate in which women of any age find it acceptable and desirable to smell like cheap candy. After all, "yummy" scents have existed before 1992. Just think of Nirmala, Molinard's 1955 classic that more or less (more, if you ask me) spawned Angel. Yet, we (as in those of us born before the 1980s) grew up associating womanly, adult scents with Shalimar, Cuir de Russie, Opium, Miss Dior... We dreamed about the day we would be allowed to wear wicked chypres and dangerous orientals or the Queen itself, Fracas. How disappointing it was to come of age and discover the shelves full of marshmallow fluff.
But we're here to discuss the original Hanae Mori for women, a perfume I usually tend to avoid at all costs. I was more familiar with the EDP, so when an EDT sample showed up here I remembered some people saying this Hanae Mori version was airier and less cloying. Which meant I had to try it.
The good news is that I survived.
I don't know what I expected from notes such as strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, red currant, rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, vanilla, praline, patchouli and sandalwood. It was all pink, all the time. Regular readers know I actually like vanilla and many sweet gourmand scents. It's the sticky, sickly synthetic fruit notes that do me in every time. While I've definitely smelled worse than Hanae Mori, it was still like wearing a bag of pink marshmallow. And it's time I face reality and admit I simply cannot deal with strawberry in perfume. No way, no how, not in a million years.
While the late drydown is quite faint and pleasantly vanilla-like, it isn't worth the agony of smelling like I've had an unfortunate encounter with Strawberry Shortcake (and she won).
Hanae Mori EDT ($90 for 3.4 oz) is available from most department stores and the like, while online discounters offer it at half the price. My sample most likely came as a GWP from Sephora.
Photo: cafemunchkin.com
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