Winter here in the Yucatan of Mexico is heaven. Low humidity, moderate temperatures and lots of sun make for perfect indoor/outdoor living. For some reason, this year, the weather is acting a bit strange just as it seems to be for others around the world. Today, albeit cool, it’s rainy and overcast and just a bit gloomy. So I thought why not “think spring” and review a perfume that sounds perfect for the upcoming season. Let’s see if it does the trick to lighten the mood of the day…
WHAT I SMELL: Spring Dance opens with a lightly sweet lemony grapefruit that quickly turns to neroli. I don’t see neroli within the notes, but it seems to be there front and center. There’s a softness to the perfume where right from first spritz there’s a dusting of musk that blankets the perfume and keeps the citrus and the subsequent florals wrapped in fuzzy warmth. As the perfume develops, a full bodied and rounded jasmine begins to emerge. It’s very pretty and I find it to be rather comforting. After some more time, a honeysuckle squeezes its way in. What was once soft and inviting now has a bit of a bite, but that’s not a bad thing because it makes the perfume just a little more interesting. The perfume then settles in to a lightly warmed jasmine infused musk. Spring Dance did a fine job in lifting my spirits, but the sun just came out too.
From the Jusbox website:
Spring Dance is an olfactory concert that celebrates life as an expression of beauty and power, in the moment of its inception. Spring Dance is an emotional composition in which the top notes of grapefruit and LMR Tunisian rosemary open to an ensemble of LMR jasmine sambac absolute and honeysuckle, extolling the blossoming of flowers that saturate the air with a fragrance that is both powerful and gentle at its heart. The elegant rhythms of dry amber and musk are the base notes in an olfactory harmony in which wellbeing and balance are the libretto of an extraordinary opera. Spring Dance is an olfactory counterpoint that interweaves the canon of perfumery art with a contemporary and innovative technique. The allegro of the top notes, which are clean, fresh, soft and discreet, is inserted in a structured and very persistent olfactory intrigue.
Perfume Notes:
Top: Grapefruit, LMR Tunisian rosemary
Heart: Honeysuckle accord, LMR jasmine sambac absolute
Bottom: Dry amber, musk
WHAT IT SMELLS LIKE TO ME: A green gauze wrap.
THREE WORDS THAT DESCRIBE SPRING DANCE: safe, pretty, innocuous
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT SPRING DANCE: None to be found.
BOTTOM LINE: Spring Dance is pretty, it’s pleasant, it’s nice…
- Bone Rating: 3 out of possible 5 bones
- Scent: Floral Musky
- Nose: Dominique Ropion
- Classification: Unisex, but leans feminine
- Expense: Approximately $165 for 78 ml eau de parfum.
*Jusbox is an exclusive range of perfumes whose concept is based on the similarity between perfume and music. Music is the key inspiration for all of their fragrances. Each of the perfumes is accompanied by a playlist of music associated with the perfume. In the case of Spring Dance, Vivaldi comes to life. To play the playlist, go to the Spring Dance page on the Jusbox website.
Sample courtesy of Twisted Lily Fragrance Boutique and Apothecary.
WHAT I SMELL: Purple Suede opens with a dry and warm sweet and smoky leathered lavender that is soon met with a pronounced suede. It’s inviting and wonderfully soft in tone and texture. The perfume moderates the leather with the lavender as if the leather contains a powder from a lavender sachet. This powdery mixture is muted and surprisingly dreamlike like for a leather perfume. But of course as soon as I write about how soft and muted it is, Purple Suede begins to turn to the more robust with an undercurrent of peppered oud that begins to push itself in from beneath. The leather begins to sharpen, and to me, turns from the unisex to the more masculine with a deep and increasingly heavy presence with a nod to the funky with the addition of civet. Thankfully after awhile the leather comes back into play, but it never returns to the soft and muted suede that I liked at the beginning of the journey.
WHAT IT SMELLS LIKE TO ME: Little John, played by Alan Hale Sr. in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). A nice enough fella with a good demeanor, but who might need to clean up just a bit.
WHAT I SMELL: Royal Sapphire opens with an invitingly sweet combination of bergamot and mandarin that quickly begins to warm and infuse itself with the biggest, most full bodied jasmine. It’s heady, it’s intoxicating and it’s almost bubblegum sweet. I might be turned off by that, but the finish of the mandarin and orange blossom seems to hold back the surprising boldness of it all. Now all I have to do is to wait and see if it begins to retreat…and after some time it begins to. After a short while, the jasmine begins to even out and a very subtle, flattened grey amber begins to lift towards the florals from below. As such, the sweetened boldness turns more towards the cashmere. At this point the perfume begins to soften and become a bit fuzzy with just a hint of powder. And ever so quietly, the perfume begins its journey to the pretty as some patchouli brings a lightly sweetened finish to the now muted jasmine and the dried and powdery woods. Don’t get me wrong, Royal Sapphire never really quiets to a point that it becomes mild and meek, instead it remains quite bold throughout it’s life. Royal Sapphire cannot be called a shrinking violet.
WHAT IT SMELLS LIKE TO ME: Royal Sapphire is less like sapphire jewelry and more like a cozy and comfortable sapphire colored throw.
The Scented Hound 