YSL Baby Doll

I wonder. Maybe the folks at YSL created a bottle in the shape of a spinning top so that it might withstand all the knocks it gets. The derision toward Baby Doll is so near-unanimous that until recently I basically ignored it, like a movie I've watched and don't even see at the video store anymore. It's on sale perpetually at TJ Max, which seems odd, given it's also ubiquitous at the department store, where, increasingly, the counter space is sparse. Both Macy's and Dillards have "reorganized" numerous times over the last six months to a year, shrinking their inventories by half, yet Baby Doll remains.

I'd imagined Baby Doll to be sugary sweet and mind-numbingly floral. Michael Edwards lists it as "floral--fruity". I thought it must be the quintessential example of the category, the be all and end all of a trend I've been not-so-patiently sitting out. The top notes seemed to confirm the suspicion. According to Osmoz: black currant, orange, apple, pineapple. What else could there possibly be to say?

I was pretty surprised when I smelled the stuff, because while it is sugared and it is somewhat floral, the first and lasting impression is salty and bitter. I mean this in a good way. There's something so tart and puckered about Baby Doll that it reminds me of some dessert I'd enjoy smelling if not tasting at the local Korean restaurant. There's a deliciously pickled quality to it, something that wakes you up and takes you on a joy ride.

Is it childish? I expected it to be; not just because of the name, a dead giveaway, but because of the packaging and the reputation of the juice. Wearing it, I'm not apt to answer so conclusively. There's no question it's not your dress-up oriental. This is not Opium. You don't wear it to a funeral, probably, unless the deceased asked for a party. It isn't stuffy. It isn't anywhere near sophisticated. This is the kind of perfume that enters a lame party and gets everyone dancing by forcing the DJ to change the tune. Childish, to me, is Britney Spears Midnight Fantasy: something you might whip up in your E-Z Bake Oven in a matter of minutes because, really, it's all about the icing.

What I realized, smelling Baby Doll, is that the name is tongue in cheek. This perfume was released ten years ago, before the fragrance industry started so relentlessly marketing to tweens. It speaks to a sensibility and a stereotype, playing with connotations and received ideas in a child-like, as opposed to childish, way. While expecting very little from YSL is understandable at this point, picturing faux-pouty April Lavigne or a sixteen year-old with glittered lip gloss might be just a bit literal. Baby Doll is decidedly adult. It isn't a young girl but a grown woman in a sexy dress and mary-jane shoes with six inch heels, playing off a man's desperate desire for youth with the kind of wit only a mature woman has.

Cassis often does weird things to a perfume, when handled well. The nearest analog to Baby Doll, for me, is Cartier's So Pretty, the brainchild of Jean Guichard. Released in 1995, four short years before Baby Doll, So Pretty's use of Cassis is more openly staid, but the anarchy it sets loose on the chypre template has the spirit of the young in it. Cassis has an air of insolence. Used intelligently, it's a bracing shock to the system, a contradiction, both succulent and puckered. So Pretty is a young girl dressed up in her mother's lipstick. Her image in the mirror recalls her mother's generation but looks straight ahead with a confidence bordering on arrogance. She looks rather silly making faces she doesn't understand, but the lipstick does a lot of the work for her. Baby Doll is the older woman the lipstick belongs to. She doesn't have to make faces anymore. Been there, done that, with an evolved sense of humor and irony to prove it.

L'Interdit (R.I.P. Audrey Hepburn)

Can someone please tell me what the 2002 reformulation of L'Interdit ever did to anyone?

I know, I know, the first one was Audrey Hepburn, all powdery florals and white gloves with a touch of wispy, ephemeral whatnot. I'm sure it was lovely, and in comparison, here comes Raquel Welch, top heavy, shaking it, showing it, lips like a come on, hips like a been there, done that. It's like replacing a Rolls with a Ferarri, I know, but a Ferarri is quite something too, so can we all stop acting as if it's chopped liver and onions?

I'd read so much about the reformulation (and we're not talking about the more recent reformulation, which seeks to restore, some say successfully, the original Hepburn effect) that when I tried it, I was a little shocked how much I liked it. I don't know why these things keep shocking me. When I smelled Parfum d'Habit, more recently, I was surprised too. I'd read customer reviews on basenotes and makeupalley describing it as the most animalic thing this side of a rat's ass; foul, leathery, urinous, and just generally, unforgivably offensive. I couldn't figure out what people were talking about. Medicinal, yes; urinous, no. I smelled no leather, no animal, no wet dog, and really, truth to tell, not a whole lot of anything I'd heard described. Parfum d'Habit is pretty, to be sure, and even somewhat jarring at certain points, particularly the opening, which has the medicinal astringency of witch hazel, but it's hardly the caveman I expected, and the 2002 L'Interdit is certainly no run of the mill fruity floral.

I should have known, with Jean Guichard at the wheel. Everytime I smell a Guichard fragrance I'm again reminded how much his son Aurelien has inherited from him, and you can see links between L'Interdit and the light/dark achievements of Visa and Azzaro Couture. Like father, like son. Papa Guichard's genius, to me, is persistent radiance with an inner edge which somehow turns things inside out or upside down. Rather than getting brighter, and lighter, Guichard Sr.'s best work dries down to a burnished, heat seaking core, revealing unexpected, unsettling dissonance. So Pretty by Cartier has a straightfirward succulent fruit note up top and a darker, contrasting pit of angst deeper down. Eden seems so bright, so cheery and floral at first, and yet the picture Cacharel uses to package this fragrance gets right to the bottom of its attraction, showing a tangled jungle of competing white flowers and the somewhat unsettling suggestion of something like a poisoned apple beyond all the distracting foliage. Fendi Asja achieves this contrapuntal effect by turning berry into heady red wine. Go down the list, and you'll find these magic tricks throughout Guichard's oeuvre, right down to the weird, doughy jasmine of LouLou.

Guichard's L'Interdit sprays on like an easy going if steeply pitched fruity floral, but there's something in there which doesn't quite fit the image, and you start to see it very soon after the initial notes start wearing down. I'm no chemist, but judging by the pyramid provided by Osmoz, I would guess this has something to do with the combined effect of iris, frankincense, and tonka bean in the dry down. What I kept thinking, before I'd seen the notes, was that someone had mixed some incense into my bottle. How could a stereotypical fruity floral dry down into something so resinous and compelling? The answer: this is no stereotypical fruity floral. Givenchy seems to have known this, and after you discover the fragrance's weird complexity, the red label and box make perfect sense. Yes, red for rose--and passion.

That iris and frankincense combination gives L'Interdit a rooty incense accord I find pretty intriguing, making L'Interdit anything but a 1950's nice girl perfume. That isn't to say you would notice iris in the mix, before or after you know it's there. The tonka bean gives it a sturdier platform to stand on, suggesting cinammon, hay, clove, caramel and, especially, almond. This trifecta of contrasting basenotes gives L'Interdit a curious quality, making you wonder what it might do next. The Audrey Hepburn prototype died with its source, and what Guichard seems to have been saying or suggesting with his reformulation is that it might be high time we redefine what we mean by "nice girl" in the first place. In the fifties, being a nice girl meant that you knew your place and didn't rock the boat. You were to look pretty and to defer, always demurely. You refrained from showing more skin than absolutely necessary. Guichard's L'Interdit is a celebration of the nice girl's emancipation into sensual and emotional complexity, allowing her the freedom to be outspoken and even contradictory without reducing her to total transparency. Whereas the original evoked soft, powdered skin, Guichard's version celebrates the dewy prespiration of a woman too busy experiencing life to let the tought of a little sweat trouble her.

The accomplishment of this 2002 remake is its ability to balance light and dark, sweet and salty, hot and cold, and a world in between.

Cartier So Pretty: A Review

Brian told me Cartier’s So Pretty was really good. I bought it unsniffed. He says I’m highly suggestible. He’s right, but I also trust his nose.

So Pretty arrived a few days ago. It is aptly named. Perhaps more appropriate would be *SO* Pretty. Before writing this review, I poked around online, to find the list of notes and see what others have to say about it. I’m surprised to find very few reviews. The Non-Blonde just wrote a review a few weeks ago where she noted her surprise at how little has been written about this gorgeous perfume. (Brian, is there where you found out about So Pretty?!).

So Pretty is an ultra feminine scent, but it’s not girly. A real adult woman can wear So Pretty with confidence. So Pretty starts off smelling like a fruity rose floral hovering at the edge of a modern chypre. I know I just wrote the dreaded words “fruity floral” but So Pretty is not insipid or thin instead it’s quite classic with some “heft” and depth. I agree with The Non-Blonde that So Pretty is a classic floral in the same vein as Annick Goutal’s Grand Amour and Guerlain’s Chamade – I would also include Yvresse, Joy, Rive Gauche, 1000 and Parfums de Nicolaï Odalisque as being perfumes in a similar style with So Pretty. If I had to categorize So Pretty I’d call it a classic *fresh* floral – it doesn’t have much in the way of spices, musk or woods – so it’s mainly a well-blended abstract dewy floral scent.

Cartier So Pretty is a beautiful fragrance and one that deserves more high praise.

Longevity: excellent, 5+ hours
Sillage: good, depending on application could be strong, 2-3 spritzes are plenty
Rating: 4 starts

This review is based upon the eau de parfum – I do not know how the eau de toilette compares.

Basenotes list the notes as: mandarin, dewberry, neroli, iris, diamond orchid, rose, sandalwood, musk