Friday, March 27, 2009

Prada Infusion de Fleur d'Oranger: A Review


Prada’s Infusion de Fleur d’Oranger is the first installment in Prada’s Ephemeral Infusion Collection, which I believe to be a limited edition and will have annual launches. Infusion de Fleur d’Oranger might be a rather long and clunky name, but the perfume itself is well done.

Similar in style to Infusion d’Iris, Infusion de Fleur d’Oranger (PIdFdO) is sheer, gauzy and billowy. PIdFdO starts off with a juicy blast of orange blossom and jasmine that is quite simply nose nirvana. Like most neroli/orange blossom fragrances, PIdFdO is fresh, lively and literally puts a smile on my face. The initial 20 minutes of wearing PIdFdO is when the fragrance shows you its best side – at this point, it’s the most bouncy and potent. Once the fragrance dries down, it becomes a bit limp, like an overtired ballet dancer who can’t quit hit all the choreographed points. PIdFdO, while mostly about orange blossom, does pay a good amount of heed to jasmine. Once dried down, I’d say the fragrance seems less like a purely neroli based scent and more like a neroli/jasmine (white floral) blend. Even so, PIdFdO is still a lovely little treat.

It’s hard for me to imagine anyone disliking PIdFdO, unless you abhor the scent of orange blossom. I would guess that those who adore L’Artisan Fleur d’Oranger might prefer to stick with the L’Artisan as this fragrance seems more focused on orange blossom in a pure sense. Serge Lutens Fleurs d’Oranger is a different experience altogether, it’s much heavier and more potent overall, not meant to be as sheer as Prada.

Prada’s Infusion de Fleur d’Oranger is well done. I’m not doing cartwheels but it’s very good and I’m sure the fragrance will sell like hotcakes and many will be wearing it this spring and summer.

Longevity: good, 3+ hours (more potent than Infusion d’Iris for me)
Sillage: good
Rating: 4 stars

The box and bottle are tres chic.

Notes: orange blossom, tuberose, jasmine

4 comments:

Joe said...

Hi there: Very nice blog; I just discovered it but I'm a big aficionado of a lot of fragrance blogs.

Nice review. I haven't been a huge fan of orange blossom, but I've started warming up to it a lot lately. It's nice to know that this dries down to a neroli/jasmine, as I've been developing a huge crush on jasmine lately as well. I'll be curious to try this; Infusion d'Iris didn't wow me, and I have tried Id'Homme yet.

Another recent neroli scent that I liked quite a bit lately is the Varvatos Artisan; I may just buy a bottle when it comes out in a smaller size. I also revisited a sample of MPG Jardin du Neroli and I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. I have not tried the L'Artisan limited edition nor the Lutens.

Once again, very nice to discover your blog; you do a great job.

Abigail said...

Hi Joe,
thanks for stopping in!
I also love MPG Jardin du Neroli - that's a nice one. In fact, there are very few neroli/orange blossom scents I don't like. My favorite is probably the Lutens because it's the biggest most unabashedly huge orange blossom scent out there - this isn't a shy scent - it's easily a year 'round fragrance.
The Prada Infusion is sheer and truly meant for warm weather (at least in my book).
Thanks for the nice compliments ;-)
A

LuxuryObsessed.com said...

Thanks for the lovely review. I am also considering a small bottle of Varvatos Artisan after Kevin's rave review on NSTperfume.

Abigail, what do you think of L'eau de Neroli by Diptyque?

Abigail said...

Dear LuxuryObsessed,

I like L'Eau Neroli by Diptyque. It is quite nice and I prefer it to this new Prada. The Diptyque is more of a pure neroli/orange blossom with less generic white florals in the mix. Diptyque is among my favorite niche brands so I may be biased - because they make high quality fragrances at a somewhat reasonable price in the grand scheme of things...

For me personally, I have 2 holy grails of Neroli frags. For a light neroli it's L'Artisan Fleur d'Oranger and for a heavier more tenacious neroli I like Serge Lutens Fleurs d'Oranger.

And an ultra inexpensive neroli that's surprising good is Pacifica's Nerola. $19.99 and it's refreshing and gorgeous.