It's National Coffee Day! Here's 4 Coffee Scented Perfumes

 

There seems to be a designated day for just about everything, but National Coffee Day on September 29th is one I can get behind! In recent years there have been numerous fragrances introduced involving coffee scents, and here are four to consider.

Mancera Aoud Cafe

In the opening moments I get a woody oud note mixed with the scent of coffee. It is very dry and not at all sweet. After about thirty minutes amber mixed with light florals and musk take over. I wish the promise of the coffee at the beginning held up, because an hour into the wear the coffee note is very faint. It is still a nice scent, though. This fragrance is from 2013 and perfumer is Pierre Montale.

Photo from foolproofliving.com

Montale Intense Cafe

This perfume was created by the same perfumer, Pierre Montale, in the same year, 2013, as the one above, but it is a very different creature. Although this is one of those perfumes everyone mentions when they speak of coffee perfumes, for me it is an instant memory of the four years I lived in India. 

The opening notes I smell are rose, vanilla, and amber, a trifecta of smells that smells so much like my life in India when I would walk through the market streets. The flowers for offerings, the fragrant oils on the women's hair, the sweetness of the amber which seemed to permeate the air; it's all achingly familiar.

But coffee? Not so much. I love this scent, but if you're wanting a strong coffee influence, here it is just a small thread in the formula. Move onwards to the next on my list.

littlecoffeeplace.com

Montale Ristretto Intense Cafe

It is as if in 2019 someone at Montale said, "Hey, that Montale Intense Cafe is a great perfume, but it doesn't really have that much coffee scent." The note pyramid for the two perfumes are strikingly similar with rose playing a lead role, but in Ristretto Intense Cafe it is definitely a union of the two notes, rose and coffee; not a solo by Lady Rose. 

Top notes are Italian black coffee and Turkish rosewater. Heart notes are rose buds, roasted coffee beans, and wood notes. The base notes are caramel, white musk, vanilla, and amber. Everything is slightly more restrained in this perfume and the rose mingles beautifully with the coffee but never overpowers it. Again, however, if you're expecting a strong solo coffee note you will not find it here, as it is more of a blend. 

These two Montale perfumes are both gorgeous, but if it's coffee you're seeking, go for the Ristretto, in my opinion.

freepik.com

Xeroff Golden Dallah

This coffee perfume steps up the drama, and is one of my favorites. This is a trip to a souk, wandering through the narrow alleyways past bags of spices, and stopping at a small cafe for a small beaker of coffee. The first spray envelops you in a cloud of exotic spices, followed by faint incense, oud wood, amber, and a rich coffee note. There is also a trace of rose. These blend together to make a lush, rich pageantry of a scent.

Base notes of cocoa, hazelnuts, and tonka beans give a nuttiness to the coffee note. There is a tobacco like sweetness, but it all melds together so well. I love how the spice, the smoke, the coffee, the nuttiness, and the sweetness blend together to make me feel like I've dropped into Morocco for the day. This goes on big, but mellows out after a couple of hours wear. This is part of a series called Coffee Break by Xeroff, and I'm eager to try the other two in the set.

These are just a few of my favorite coffee-scented perfumes. What are yours?

Perfume samples are my own. Top photo by fanpop.com.

Sampling Seven Citrus-Based Scents From Jo Loves

 

On a recent trip to the Alsace region of France I took the opportunity to explore a few of the Jo Loves line of fragrances. Most perfume lovers know the story of Jo Malone who worked in England as a florist and part time beautician, then started her own line of perfumes which were met with great acclaim. The Jo Malone line of perfumes was one of the first successful brands of niche perfumes, and it was also one of the first niche brands acquired by a beauty company giant, in this case Estee Lauder.

Jo Malone stayed with her company under the Lauder banner for about five years before leaving. After waiting out a non-compete clause, she eventually started a new company called Jo Loves. It shares similarities with her original enterprise, unique combinations of notes, simple but elegant bottles, and a tendency toward fresh scents. Trying the Jo Loves scents, I remembered the original excitement of discovering new fragrances in the early days of the launch of Jo Malone.

I took a sample set with me on a trip through the Alsace region of France, a charming area on the border of France and Germany. Century old villages with half-timber houses make one think they've stepped back in time 500 years. 

The town of Kayserberg.

Jo By Jo Love

The scent that Jo Malone gifted her name to is my favorite of the bunch. It opens with a bright grapefruit note, and is classified as an aromatic, but to me it feels like a low-key chypre, a little assertive and elegant, considering its simple notes. In addition to grapefruit, it also has black pepper, bitter orange, lime, and spearmint to enforce the zingy notes. Cedarwood, guaiac wood, and vetiver provide the dry base notes.

White Rose & Lemon Leaves

The first hour of this fragrance's life is all about the lemon leaf. Jo Malone seems to love citrus notes, and here the lemon is both bright and a little green. Eventually the rose transitions in, and it is a white rose, which has a lemon tinge and is quite different from the scent of rich red roses. The Jo Loves website says that beautiful white Norma Jean Roses are used in the perfume, and their scent blends perfectly with the lightness of the lemon leaf. 

The town of Colmar.

Orange Butterflies

This scent opens with a burst of mandarin orange and the lushness of neroli. Pettigrain adds a bitter green thread through the scent, and orange blossom adds a sweet orange flavor, like drinking an orange laced lemonade. This is a simple scent but wear it for an instant mood boosting effect!

Jo Loves Pink Vetiver

The pink in Pink Vetiver comes from a heaping of pink peppercorn in the scent. This is just the beginning of the spices. there is also cardomom, cumin, angelica, juniper berries, ginger, and nutmeg. The spice adds an interesting aspect to the dryness of the vetiver and is a combination I have not tried before. Anyone looking for a dry and spicy aromatic scent should give this a try. 

The town of Ribeauville.

Green Orange & Coriander

This is another version of a citrus aromatic scent from the Jo Loves line. The tartness of green orange and the bitterness of the coriander are a unique combination and combine to give an invigorating scent. I love to eat coriander in my food and I also enjoy the smell, but I know it is a divisive note for some. Black pepper and coriander add to the spice, and oakmoss in the base brings out greener notes in the scent and adds deepness to the fragrance.

Pomelo

In some ways this citrus-based scents seems the least complex of those listed here, but there is a beguiling sense of mystery to it, like there is more than meets the eye. The notes are vetiver, pomelo zest, and patchouli, simple, but one of those scents that you can't stop sniffing yourself.

The town of Riquewihr.

Mango Thai Lime

Oh my! This scent does make me miss my years of living in Asia. My palette became used to bright and tangy combinations of food, and in Thailand, a green mango salad was one of my favorite dishes. Thinking of the combos of salty and sweet makes my mouth salivate.

On first spray I get juicy mango, a squeeze of lime, and a sprinkle of black pepper. This is food love! I wish this stage could last forever, but citrus notes are notoriously elusive. This scent explosion fades fairly quickly to a softer version of itself. Notes of mint, freesia, vetiver, and thyme are in the base.

If you love Asian food this fragrance will trigger some good memories for you, hopefully. If not, then it comes across as a nice tropical scent, somewhat akin to Creed Virgin Water. I really like this one. I just wish it lasted longer.

Jo Loves sells a sample set of these citrus-based scents. Although Jo Loves Jo is my favorite, there wasn't one in the set that I didn't like. If I'm rating, I'd say Pink Vetiver would be my last pick, as I'm very picky with the vetiver note. They are all perfect for these 100-degree-plus days we are still experiencing in North Texas every day!

Colmar

I highly recommend the Alsace as a vacation destination! I would have loved to have gone in the December, when just like their nearby German counterparts, the little towns dress themselves up as Christmas markets. They would be so festive! But any time of year one can appreciate the feeling of walking back into the past. Colmar is known as the town that inspired Beauty and the Beast!

If you enjoy citrus scents, you must give Jo Loves a try! It seems to me that citrus notes must be Ms. Malone's favorite!

Parfums Dusita Montri: A Loving Tribute To A Father

                                

Pissara Umivijani of Parfums Dusita introduced her thirteenth perfume in June, Montri, created to honor the memory of her father Montri Umivijani, who is considered one of Thailand's leading modern poets. Father's Day here in America seemed the perfect opportunity to talk about this perfume which is literally an olfactory encapsulation of Pissara's memories of her father, bottled into a scent. Montri is a stunningly gorgeous tribute to the man himself.

I was lucky enough to connect with Pissara Umivijani at the very beginning of her journey as a perfumer when she launched her company with three scents: Issara, Melodie de L'Amour, and Oudh Infini. One of the first things I learned when speaking to Pissara was that while creating beautiful fragrances was her passion, introducing the world to her father's poetry and keeping his words alive was just as important of a goal. Finding the perfect phrases from her father's work to illustrate a scent or being inspired by his poetry to create a perfume: it was the ultimate creative process and homage. Through her perfumes, with lines of poetry printed on each box, she keeps his legacy alive and introduces the work to a new audience. 

So central was the poetry to Parfums Dusita's raison d'être, I somehow always thought it was inevitable that Pissara would create a perfume in memory of her father. I didn't expect that it would bear his name, but I love the elegant simplicity and directness of it: Montri.

Montri Umivijani was a poet, a lover of literature, an explorer, a world wanderer. He was a lover of nature and his surroundings. Pissara says he appreciated nostalgia more than the modern world. She lovingly drew from these aspects of his life to create a perfume. He always carried a notebook to record his impressions or write poetic phrases that might strike at an moment: leather, paper, ink. Bangkok has extensive spice markets that Montri enjoyed visiting: nutmeg, saffron, coriander, cinnamon, oregano, and a dried fruit accord. Montri's family home in Bangkok was built of wood in the original style, before modern expansion destroyed so much of the city's traditional dwellings: sandalwood, cedarwood, vetiver, and oakwood. Notes of rose de mai, jasmine, and his favortie, orris butter, lend a gentle beauty to accompany the more masculine notes.

Pissara says that Montri was the first time she utilized spices to such an extent in a perfume. For Pissara, the spice notes also represent her father's love of travel to other countries and joy at making new friends in new places. 

Pissara used oud palao in Montri. In a Zoom call where Montri was introduced, Pissara said, "When people think of oud with Parfums Dusita, they always think of Oudh Infini, one of my first three creations. Oud has so many beutiful facets. Oudh Infini is just one of the dynamics. It doesn't have to be like that. Oud can be elegant, tame, and proper as well."

When describing why oud was an important component in Montri, Pissara explained, "For me this is the core of my father, gentle, elegant, kind, very rooted to nature, and sensitive to his environment. I used real oud because it comes from Southeast Asia. It is our heritage." 

Some perfumes are monotone. They always smell like they smell. And if you like it, then that's fine. What I find so interesting about Parfums Dusita's fragrances is that many of them perform as a living, morphing being on my skin. For example, the first time I tried Montri it was all about the oud. I am not a fan of the more feral ouds, but this is a finely polished thing of elegance and perfection. The next time I got leather, wrapped in florals. A leather pouch holding rose, jasmine, and a suede-like iris butter. Today it is all saffron, roses, and oud, reminding me of trips to India and women in colorful saris with kohl lined eyes and braided hair laced with roses. I chose this as the perfume my husband would wear to our daughter's wedding last week. He was handsome in a tuxedo, crisp white shirt, and black bow tie. Montri was the final polished accessory to complete his attire.

The finest perfumes are about emotions. They can bring on memories, or they can cement and solidify a memory that is in the making. The fragrance can dance on your skin and smell this way or that, according to some inner magic the body transmits. Montri is a gorgeous scent that to me seemingly transmits traits of elegance, quiet certainty, intelligence, curiosity, kindness, and immpecable manners. And there is one other emotion that stirs in me when I wear Montri, and it is longing.

The pen is me

And I am the pen:

in writing

The pen gets lost

To become part of the thing

I cannot recall --  Montri Umivijani

Montri Umivijani's lifelong passion was to write poetry. His daughter's passion is to create perfumes that portray in an olfactory manner a moment of his poetry.  Pissara puts the same energy and passion into creating a fragrance that her father put into creating words that would survive him beyond death. With Montri, Pissara adds another totally new and wholly distinctive scent to the Parfums Dusita lineup.

Photos from Parfums Dusita website. Perfume was a press sample from Parfums Dusita. Opinions are my own.

Armani Prive Pivoine Suzhou - Exploring Italian Perfumes

 When I travel I carry either samples or small bottles of perfume. Since I was trying to use only Italian perfumes on this trip to Italy, these cute 7 ml bottles I had from the Giorgio Armani Prive Collection made perfect travel companions. I was looking for a photo opportunity for Pivoine Suzhou, and a field trip to the Grand Hotel Tremezzo on Lake Como provided the perfect opportunity. 

We're in Italy for my daughter's wedding, and The Grand Hotel Tremezzo is where she was staying when she fell so in love with Lake Como. The Hotel was built in 1910 in the Belle Epoque style and from the first it was a getaway for the wealthy. It is colorful, flirty and a little over the top, and looks like the set for a Wes Anderson movie about a hotel in Lake Como. The color orange is accented everywhere, but you also see a lot of red and pink. This seemed like a great setting for my Armani perfume, which feels like something the rich and elegant would wear!

Grand Hotel Tremezzo, Lake Como

The fragrance was created to recognize the Suzhou Gardens in China. The peony is a beloved flower in Chinese art work through the centuries. I've never lived where peonies could thrive, so my only reference to their scent is through perfume. Usually a rose with fresh notes added is used to give a peony scent, and Pivoine Suzhou is no different. Notes of pink pepper, raspberry, and mandarin create a fresh and fragrant opening, with a little fizz to give a floral chypre effect. This perfume feels happy and effervescent when I apply, like opening a fine chilled bottle of Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé.

The heart is the scent of peony and rose, but the fresh and slight fruitiness remain. There is nothing groundbreaking about this perfume, yet I love it, and when I wear it makes me feel my look is elevated. Some perfumes are able to make you feel that you've got that polish of putting your look together, and this one does that for me. I don't know what has happened to me, but since this covid pandemic, I find myself appreciating simpler, non complicated but pretty perfumes more than I ever have.

The Armani Prive Pivoine Suzhou Soie de Nacre is what I'm craving to add to my collection, as much for its beautiful pearescent pink color as for the scent. Let me know if you've tried it and detect any difference in the fragrance between this and the perfume.

Perfume is my own. All photos my own except the bottle photo which is from the Armani website.

Carthusia I Profumi di Capri Mediterraneo, the Perfect Sunny Scent

 Sometimes you just need to be in the perfect place to discover the perfect scent. Whenever I'm going on vacation, deciding what perfumes I'll take is a much more painstaking process than deciding what clothes I'll need. I try to imagine my surrounds and what feelings I want the scent to invoke. On this trip to Italy, I decided to stick almost solely to Italian brands of perfumes.

I had received several samples from Carthusia I Profumi di Capri when I participated in a recent sniff-along with Beautyhabit, and I brought them along. My husband and I were hiking on the Cinq Terre trail between Corniglia and Vernazza. It was a perfect sun-kissed day, 78 degrees, the Mediterranean sparkling about 300 meters below, so the perfume, Carthusia I Profumi di Capti Mediterraneo, seemed an obvious choice. 

Carthusia is based on the island of Capri, a place I would love to visit one day. Surrounded by sea and sun, many of their fragrances reflect this lifestyle. This is certainly true for Mediterraneo. The tag line for the the fragrance says, "The freshness of lemon leaves mingles with the sparkling note of green tea to create a sun-filled and dynamic fragrance." This is a good synopsis of the scent, because it does feel sunny and cheerful. I had tried it before in my home environs, and while I thought it was nice, I wasn't Wowed. But when I put on this scent, perched high above the ocean, with Corneglia, the town where our hike started, visible in the distance, this scent just seemed the absolute perfect expression of a sunny Mediterranean day! And I was Wowed!

It opens with a very fresh lemon. I didn't quite get how important lemons were on this coast, but it is lemon season, and there are lemon slushies, lemon gelato, anchovies marinated in lemon and pepper. It is a staple of life here. The lemon in the perfume feels so fresh and fragrant. It is complimented by notes of mint, eucalyptus, red thyme, and litsea, all of which help to illustrate the plant life we experience along the trail. Then a beautiful clear note of white tea comes into the scent. It smells so cooling and refreshing. Lighter notes of jasmine, cardomom, wild flowers, tangerine, and green tea join in, but it is lemon and a light tea note that are most evident. It's simple, yes, but oh so perfect when you experience the landscape the perfumer is trying to encapsulate into a scent.

If you ever find yourself hiking the Cinq Terre trail, look for the restaurant sign pictured below as you get closer to Vernazza. It is amazing how they have carved out this charming restaurant at the top of the peak with no roads, and the views are amazing! 

I look forward to exploring some more of the Carthusia scents while I'm on this trip!

Perfume samples my own. Photos my own.

Cheap As Chips: A Day At The Beach With Jennifer Aniston

Do you like to wear perfume when you go to the beach? I enjoy wearing some of the pricey perfumes made to artistically mimic the perfect day at the beach when I wish I were at the beach, but I am in actuality not anywhere near the water. But when I actually go to the beach I want to enjoy nature. I always like to smell good but I don't want to blast a scent trail, which makes the notoriously short lived and minute sillage spreader, J by Jennifer Aniston a perfect choice.

Actress Jennifer Aniston, who will forever be identified with the iconic role of Rachel on the television show Friends, has carved out an image for herself over the last twenty years as the ultimate California beach babe. Dressing in minimalistic colors, sun streaked hair and sun-kissed skin, she exudes the healthy and wholesome vibe of life lived on the beach, toes in the sand with waves washing over them. Thus is was a good fit when in 2010 she came out with her first perfume, inspired by life by the beach. 

Over the course of the last ten years I've tried many of the Jennifer Aniston brand perfumes, and I have a vague memory of wearing the original one, simply called Jennifer Aniston. I remember it having more of a sunscreen vibe in the beginning, which morphed into a gentle floral pretty quickly. I don't have that one, now, so today the first perfume I will talk about is J by Jennifer Aniston. This perfume does give me beach vibes, although maybe more tropical beaches than the Australian coastline where I took the above photo. It has aquatic notes of water lily and "sea notes", and I do get a slightly salty tang. Then softly muted florals enter the picture as if carried by the breeze, including notes of jasmine, magnolia, and freesia. Base notes are vanilla, musk, and sandalwood, but quite honestly this is so short lived that base notes are pretty fleeting.

I find this a pleasing scent to wear on the beach precisely because it is so light and non-combative to the nose. I paid twelve dollars for my bottle so I am not expecting miracles. Are the notes a little synthetic? Yep. Is it, "Spray ya, see ya later"? Yep. But I honestly don't care because for the money, its an enjoyable scent which I can spray with unfettered abandon should I so desire. In countries outside the USA the price point may vary, so take that into consideration.

The second perfume from the brand I own is Beachscape. This fragrance was launched in 2016 and has notes of sea, sand, wildflowers, and woods. It is meant to be a more realistic version of the beach itself.  My usage varies. On the beach I did get the sensation of smelling salty air and brackish seagrass. But when I spray it in my home on an overcast day, I get a totally different sensation. It is as if I am Jennifer Aniston sitting in my Malibu beachside house. My minimalistic decor is on point and my luxuriant white linen sofas will never come in contact with a grain of sand. But looking through my sheet glass windows at the beach before me, it is all very clean and sterile. This is not unpleasant, in fact, there is a whole category of scent dedicated to the smell of fresh laundry. The mystery is how I get such different takes on the perfume in two different settings. Maybe the first time I was actually smelling the beach and not the perfume! Or maybe it needs salt air and sea winds to take on its true character. Quite a mystery cast by a twelve dollar bottle of perfume! In any case, it is a simple and easy scent to wear if you don't want to smell too scented.

Last up from my collection is Near Dusk created in 2015.  Ms. Aniston said this fragrance was meant to capture the fleeting moments of sunset, that glowing space of time when daylight transitions to night and the sun is put to bed. This photo taken on an Adelaide beach shows the warm glow of the setting sun, and I think that Near Dusk does a decent job of capturing this. Like all the Jennifer Aniston perfumes, this one is lightweight, but there are a few moments in the opening of spicy sizzle, warmth, and maybe slight smoke from a beach bonfire, and these notes translate to that golden glow. 

Opening notes are pepper, sea notes, coconut, and nectarine, but I don't get any coconut. Jasmine, peony, and orange blossom are in the heart, and the pepper note continues to dominate the florals. Base notes are musk, vanilla, white amber, and woods. 

I enjoy wearing J and Near Dusk. I'm not a fan of clean scents, so Beachscape is less of a hit with me. If you can get these for a good price, as I did, then their fleeting nature is not such a concern. They're also worth considering if you need "office friendly" type scents. I know many perfume lovers will turn there noses up at these drugstore scents, but there is a time and place for everything. Sometimes you want to be wowed with crème brûlée or crêpes Suzette, and sometimes you just want a Dairy Queen soft serve vanilla cone. I find that lately with heartbreaking images on the news, and the foreboding of existential nuclear threats, I just want the soft serve. The easy choice. And that's what these perfumes are: not high art, not groundbreaking scents; they're the soft serve. And they serve comfort, ease, and prettiness at a fantastic price.

The perfumer for all these fragrances is Jean-Marc Chaillan.

Perfumes are my own. Photos are taken by me, at Adelaide beach.

 

Essential Parfums - A Quick Look

 

Essential Parfums began with a modest proposal: to hire senior and celebrated perfumers to create scents and give them free rein. Then present these perfumes straight to the consumer at an accessible price point. They do this by cutting out the middleman, expensive advertising campaigns, and fancy bottles. All the money is put into the scent itself and savings make these perfumes an affordable luxury. After trying all the scents in the discovery set I can agree that they did an excellent job at delivering quality at a very affordable price, 75 Euro for 100 ml, a true bargain in today's market.

I've been dabbling in Instagram posts, and I took this discovery kit with me on a trip to Krakow in autumn. I had a lot of fun exploring each scent, describing them in a few words rather than a wordy review, then finding scenes around town to superimpose with the scent descriptions, thus making my exploration of Essential Parfums and Krakow a joint discovery. I am going to review the line here and use some of the photos I posted. I will start with my favorites from the line.

Bois Impérial by Quentin Bisch

An opening of thai basil, peppercorn, and grapefruit give an unexpected sparkly and bright opening to this woody perfume. Vetiver and cedar wood enhance the aromatics and make this refreshing and very sniffable. Eventually it deepens with akigalawood, which is an uncycled patchouli. This lends a spicy and earthy aspect and translates to a beautiful piece of ancient wood, burnished and polished to a shiny hue. Below is one of the slides I posted to help describe this fragrance. It's a favorite, not just with me but reviewers in general!

Divine Vanille by Olivier Pescheux

I'm not always a vanilla fan but this one won my heart. Rather than playing up the sweetness of vanilla, the perfumer used cinnamon, black pepper, and clary sage to give it a spicy and aromatic opening. Osmanthus gives a suede-like creaminess and there is a slight whisper of incense. Tonka and resins blend with the vanilla to give a boozy gourmand sweetness, but it's light on the sugar, which suits me fine! This is on my buy list.

Rose Magnetic by Sophie Labbé

This opens with a pretty note of litchi, mixed with playful notes of bitter grapefruit and mint. Like the perfumes above, it is an aromatic opening. The rose floats in an at first is light and pretty. Eventually cedar wood, musk, and vanilla deepen the rose and make it rich, strong, and a truly unisex choice.

Mon Vetiver by Bruno Jovanovic

Once again we have an aromatic opening, this time with a gin accord from notes of Mexican lime and juniper oil. It is a fresh but elegant opening. Lavender is present, but it is an herbal, not a floral lavender. The vetiver is joined by patchouli and cashmeran wood, which amplify the scent's earthiness. I don't always love vetiver but I quite like this one.

Orange X Santal by Natalie Gracia-Cetto

This starts with the smell of a bright pithy orange; skin, juice, and all. Then fairly soon creamy sandalwood smooths everything out. This is simple, fun, easy-to-wear and a great summer scent!

Nice Bergamot by Antoine Maisondieu

A burst of Calabrian Bergamot mixed with soft notes of rose petal, jasmine, and ylang ylang give this a light and pretty opening that speaks of easy breezy summer days. Tonka gives it a gentle creaminess and sweetness, grounded by cedar wood. I like this very much but unfortunately, as is usually the case, the citrus notes are elusive and gone fairly quickly. 

The Musk by Calice Becker

A musk is a musk is a musk, unless that is, it's in the hands of a master perfumer like Calice Becker. These fragrances are all created by different perfumers who worked independently, but it's surprising how many of them started their scents with unusual aromatics. This one opens with notes of red ginger and spicy lavender. It smells warm, like skin. Musk and sandalwood form the base. I like this scent  a lot, but it doesn't have great longevity on my skin. The good news is these perfumes are reasonably priced so repeated spraying is not unreasonable!

I like all of these scents and consider them good value. I particularly like the first three in the list here. Their discovery kit is reasonably priced and a great way to try out the line. I would be surprised if you didn't find something to love!

Photos are my own, all taken around Krakow. I purchased the Essential Parfums sample set myself. Opinions are my own.