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· January 6, 2008 2:43 AM by
Colleen Shirazi
· January 6, 2008 3:16 AM by
Dain
· January 6, 2008 12:33 PM by
Dain
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Posted by Dain, Sunday, January 06, 2008 2:02 AM (Eastern)
This is the smell of good cheer, neroli and oranges and tuberose and a bit of jasmine, sweet and light. It is very pretty and quite showy, but somehow I prefer the quieter and comparatively unusual Fleurs de Citronnier. Fleurs d'Oranger is a woman we all recognize, though men never, sugary sweet on the outside and nothing on the inside, all vanity and too much makeup. Perhaps she is sincere, but that's not why she is popular. It reminds me of Marilyn Monroe's character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Here is Jean-Honoré Fragonard's The Swing, in all its froth and coquetry. By the standards of the times, it is perhaps an expression of deviance, but it hardly rates as immature flirtation by our reckoning, saved by its aristocratic substance and style. I wonder how Fleurs d'Oranger would manage if it had come from the olfactory crotch of Escada. It is a nice perfume, if a bit too simple and sweet, but thankfully not to the point of cloyingly cute.
As I had expected, the sunny, cheerful Fleurs d'Oranger layers marvelously with Arabie, which on its own is too complex and too dark to suit my taste. A marriage of opposites.
Labels: perfume reviews, serge lutens
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January 6, 2008 2:43 AM,
Erm...I loved Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. :) I think it was around Some Like It Hot that Monroe got desperate over being typecast. But Gentlemen... did very well at the box office, it gave Monroe some bargaining power. (You can see I'm a big fan.)
Fleurs d'...eh. I rather liked it, but, I agree, as a layer over something else. Alone it's too lightweight, for being so $$.
January 6, 2008 3:16 AM,
I really enjoyed Some Like It Hot, so go figure. I think I'd have liked Gentlemen Prefer Blondes better if Monroe's lipstick was better applied, it bothered me throughout the entire film.
I like Fleurs d'Oranger well enough, it just lacks any real intrigue, except what comes easy.
January 6, 2008 12:33 PM,
I just saw The Misfits, and wow, it makes me really sad, it seems somehow accurate in a way, in a way all those dizzy-blonde movies don't, the way Monroe always sought strength in men, not adoration, and was always so disappointed by their failures. I dunno, I just don't like her dizzy-blonde movies, they always strike me as false somehow, an image the studios built up for her. It makes me really wonder what might have been if she hadn't died the following year.
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