Lilacpond

Are you a gourmand like me? Do you like cookies? Do you like almonds? 
Then the following fragrances might be something for you. On the one side (that is my left wrist) we have Acqua di Parma Parma Blu Meditteraneo Mandorlo di Sicilia (launched in 1999 and thus it has a couple of years on the market) and the other hand (which is the right hand!) we have Reminiscence Do Re (launched in 2008). Both are so called gourmand perfumes, and are supposed to smell a bit like something you would like to put in your mouth. Let's start with the first and then go further to the other, shall we?

 

Mandorlo di Sicila opens up sweetly with the scent of star anis and almond liqueur in the top. It is indeed very sweet and without the star anis, I believe I would feel like the scent was just sweet and a bit uninteresting to my nose. Instead, what I got is the sensation of delicate Sicilian anis cookies dipped in almond liqueur (Amaretto perhaps?). Somewhere in the background, a fresh and firm fleshed peach is lurking, to cool for entering the sugary cookie scene, but cool enough to be watching the from the shadows. 

To me, the scent keeps it steady and linear during the whole time and what is prominent is the almond cookie note. It is easy likeable from my side, since I tend to like sweet scents and star anis is one of my fave notes. I want to smell like a cookie sometimes and with this, you really do. A cookie on an Italian holiday!

 

Longevity (on my skin) is a few hours more or less. Let's say 5-ish hours? 

Top notes are orange, bergamott, star anis, green almonds

Heart or middle notes are ylang-ylang, white peach and jasmine 

In the base are tolubalsam, musk, cedarwood and bourboun vanilla

 

Sicilian anis cookies. click on photo for source!

 

Reminiscence Do Re (launched in 2008, by noses Zoe Coste and Jacques Flori) is part of the Les Notes Gourmandes collection and is both looking and smelling like a piece of wrapped candy. Or a pastry. Do Re is actually what the perfume was called in 2008 and today it is called Heliotrope, still part of the Gourmandes collection, with same notes and bottle design. Sidenote. 

 

 

In the beginning of the wearing of Do Re, it smells weird and plastic like a dolls head I kid you not - like someone accidentally poured out a glass of cold milk on a the poor dolls head, creating an rather unpleasant mix of chemical plastic rubber and milkyness. Nice huh? I believe the heliotrope is guilty here (a note I experience as hard for me to like in perfumes). When the worst dolly part has stopped being so dolly, the scent transforms into a soft, light, innocent and harmless little loveliness. I can definitely see a Rococo teenager wearing this together with a powdered face and a pastel silk dress (although the scent isn't really that powdery). The loveliness is truly gourmand and it reminds me of a soft cake, like simple white cake batter mixed with almonds. Or even more, it reminds me of the Swedish classic cookie called mandelkubb - simply an almond cookie with with both hard and soft texture, sprinkled with pearl sugar. When I was a kid I was a true cookie monster and I used to eat those mandelkubbs and dipping them in a glass of milk while visiting someones grandmas (since my own grandma didn't like to keep cookies at her home, she preferred eating carrots and low fat yogurth...what a pity.)

 

 

In the end of the staying of Reminiscence Do Re, I can actually smell a puff of musky wood on my skin (I say "actually" since I didn't smelled that before when wearing it). Over all it is a pretty and cute little scent, comfortable and inoffensive (except for the doll part beginning...). Pleasant and not overwhelming. And the bottle of is so godess damned cute and girly, it is like it was made for standing on someones bureau or make-up table! It looks like a green golden pastry with a bow or a wrapped luxurious candy. 

  

The top notes are: green notes and figs
Middle or ♥ notes are: patchouli, almond, sandalwood, heliotrope and cedarwood
In the base we find: musk, tonka beans, vanilla and benzoin