Strenesse

Preschool. From the moment I opened the box. This smells like I am being a good little girl and behaving nicely. With clean hands, I drink my milk, and eat my apple slices, and admire the flower print on my dress. Play doh, crayons, and glue sticks. Baby dolls and wooden blocks. It's all very pretty, but I'm afraid I am too tall and my hair is too big for me to smell like this. This is just a little too tame for me. I don't see myself re-purchasing when I'm done with the bottle.

Curiosity about the milk accord made me buy this perfume blind. I’d never heard of Gabriele Strehle or her clothing line Strenesse until I stumbled on what seemed a really good bargain on UK Ebay. Let me comment first about the packaging: it is ever so chic, a black box within a white box, and there is an insert with some info about the fragrance in German. Even the protective plastic is of distinction: translucent rather than the normal throw-away transparent. The liquid inside my 50ml bottle is not milk-white as I was led to expect, but translucent and even opalescent, as I imagine the first drops of mother’s milk would be. There is an indentation about the size of a thumb, but without the lines and whorls of a print, again, different from the descriptions below. No matter. Probably just a redesign, or the design of the smaller bottle. The bottle is pure and simple, like something resting on a glass bathroom shelf alongside high end skin care serums and the like. Now about the perfume: it sprays out in huge bursts, and is VERY sweet on impact. It almost burns the nose, but I cannot stop sniffing my palm. It is like a first taste of condensed milk after a period of deprivation. It is in this initial burst that the modeling clay/Play Do note described by some reviewers appears. (It was also in this stage that my husband edged away from me on the couch and clapped his hand over HIS nose: he hates vanilla / gourmands). Shortly after, a faint jasmine note emerges and dies down. And then, the scent (not the sensation of taste) of sweet condensed milk with a dose of vanilla takes over -- and holds. It’s possible others may smell the jasmine at this stage, but my attention tends to be wholly caught by the milk. The milk element is very strong and reminds me of another perfume I own, Arrogant Cat Dawn I, minus the discordant lily and orange elements. I’ve been wearing Strenesse in copious amounts because I love it, but I’ve taken care to spray it on skin beneath two layers of clothing, because as I sit working at my computer in warm spring sunshine, it CAN be a bit much. Waking up one morning, I was disorientated to smell the dry down of Ambre de Cabochard on myself. Then I realized it was the Strenesse from the night before. The two dry-downs are virtually identical, which is a bummer, but at least I won’t be using up my Ambre de Cabochard all in one go, nor lemming for Arrogant Cat Dawn’s twin Dusk, anytime soon. Bottom line is, Strenesse is exactly as people have described: a very sweet milk bath in keeping with the sophisticated-naturals personal care trend, and a great find for vanilla freaks like myself.

I bought this for a ridiculous cheap price, simply because it is signed by Maurice Roucel, one of my perfumery demigods because of Iris Silver Mist and L Instant. Not to mention Musc Rav and even the strangely annoying Dans Te Bras.... What a fascinating thing! It goes on with an almost sour sort of to me unidentifiable top note of wet tobacco, that slowly morphs to,a,dry yet warm vanilla with a nagging musky affect but I am I think a little anosmic to musks now, very natural. Looking at the date, this predates I think the sugar overload that I personally have come to identify with vanilla and candy and don't get me wrong I revel in! Yet it is quite sweet, almost subversive. The secretion magnificent appearance of the juice in my bottle, a creamy milky look, makes me wonder about M Roucel having a little personal joke about skin etc.

I cannot believe these notes are correct. Almond, heliotrope, iris & vanilla are almost a guarantee that I will love a scent. But all I’m getting is a weirdly sour stone fruit scent- peach or apricot? And a lactonic note that is old and spoiled. I could have sworn this perfume had expired, so I bought a second decant and it smells the exact same. This is one of the biggest perfume disappointments ever for me. The notes looked so promising- I just can’t get over how “off” this smells! If you are looking for heliotrope and almond, I don’t consider this a safe blind buy.

After the first potent bitter almond blast it settles down to a warm milk smell with a hint of vanilla.