A year on, Givenchy Dahlia Noir still not so noir

The advert for Givenchy's Dahlia Noir is intoxicating.  Did you watch it?  If not, take a second and enjoy...

Scents n Scentsibility looked at this fragrance last year at its launch; a year on I thought it would be good to revisit it.  Instead of merely testing the fragrance in store, I was able to snag myself a sample so I could properly evaluate this scent at home.  With the ability to analyze over time and re-test, do I still find the fragrance a 'Flower Soixante Plus' - a fragrance for the over 60s?

Hmmm.  I believe it could best be described as "a delicate powdery note as subtle and sensual as the velvety texture of a newly opened flower blossom."  Which, unfortunately for Dahlia Noir, is the product description for Glade's (yes, Glade the air freshener) Soft Petals variant (available in the UK).  It is a heavy powdery-floral-vanilla-musk scent that immediately triggered scent memory cues of grandmothers and old skool aerosol air fresheners à la Soft Petals.  So, to answer the earlier question, yes, I still find the fragrance one for the older generations.

But, that's not to say that you will!  I decided to research Dahlia Noir reviews to see if others had the same opinion.  Some did, but there were many positive comments as well.  For example at Fragrantica, reviewers found the fragrance sophisticated, soft and feminine, and also romantic.

After reading these reviews I decided to give the juice another chance.  I sprayed it afresh and while evaluating the fragrance I watched the advert to get the full impact of the scent.

Doing this definitely altered my experience; it allowed me to ignore my memory cues and appreciate the depth of the fragrance.  The powder, the tiny hints of citrus in the top notes, the soft floral notes in the heart of the fragrance, the warmth of the dry down.

For forty-five seconds I was able to understand how it could be defined as sophisticated, feminine, romantic.  And then the advert ended and it was all grandmothers and air fresheners.  Completely unappealing and absolutely disappointing!

Oh well, at least I tried!

Have you tried this scent?  Do you love it, do you hate it?  Make sure to leave a comment below.

New August Launches: Candy and Black Dahlias from Prada and Givenchy

Since I have a ravenous sweet tooth we'll begin with the sweets - Prada Candy.  I was very excited about this fragrance when I first came across the ad.  It was sassy, vibrant and fun, and with descriptors like 'Feeling gay, reckless, too.  Care free mind, all the time', who wouldn't want to enliven their life with a little bit of Prada Candy?

It is sold exclusively at Neiman Marcus, so as soon as I could I hustled to the nearest one and tried it out myself.  And the assessment?  It didn't make me feel overly gay or reckless, I'm sorry to say, and this was because the perfume was nothing more than ordinary.  It opens with sweet top notes (caramel the marketing claims, but that really just means ethyl maltol) and then moves into deep musks with a base of the powdery vanillic facets of benzoin.  The dry down is very beautifully rich due to the fabulous mixture of musk and benzoin.  While not as dynamic as the ad implies, if you like a sweet fragrance with a rich, gourmand oriental bottom, you may think about picking this one up.


While I was at Neiman Marcus I thought I would take the chance to sample another fragrance that launched there exclusively: Dahlia Noir by Givenchy.  Words that characterize this fragrance are dark, imaginative, mysterious, seductive:

Does the fragrance live up to its marketing?  It is definitely a deep fragrance that is not to be worn lightly.  You can immediately smell the top notes of rose, which are entwined with the heavy, multifaceted middle and bottom notes of iris, powder, patchouli, sandalwood and tonka bean.

Givenchy claims to have created a 'Flower Fatale' in their chypre floral fragrance, but mostly I just think they've create a 'Flower Soixante Plus' - a fragrance for the over 60s.

Both Prada Candy and Dahlia Noir by Givenchy have interesting aspects, but overall neither provides anything new nor exciting to the fragrance world.  I guess I'll have to keep waiting for my new fall fragrance ... remind me again, when does the Tom Ford Violet Blonde come out?