Howdy APJ Fumies,

The other day Jin and I went to brunch with the lovely Cassandra F and her daughter. We had some serious perfume business to attend to and what better way to do that than with a meal and some frag sniffing? So Cassandra and I happily chatted about frags as I was buying a couple of Cassandra’s unloved bottles (which you’ll get to meet here in the near future) while the other two ate and chattered about other stuff. I have often wondered about today’s fragrance, the bottle has always intrigued me with its fun pink repeat GUCCI linked logo pattern, so reminiscent of the linings, bags, ties and shoes of the label but most reviewers are so outraged that they changed GUCCI Envy that they miss this ones merits completely.

GUCCI Envy Me by GUCCI 2004

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Peony, peach, cassia, pineapple, mango, pink pepper, jasmine
Heart: Peony, litchi, rose, pomegranite, white tea, jasmine, musk
Base: Tobacco, musk, tonka, sandalwood, teak wood

GUCCI Envy Me is no incredible, earth shaking fragrance that will change your life and send your mind spinning in heretofore undreamt directions, nor will it need you to sit down and follow a lengthy story progression. GUCCI Envy Me will though be an excellent, wearable fragrance that I could imagine becoming a signature fragrance for a non perfumista. This is spritz and wear perfume for people who want to smell pleasantly fragrant, who enjoy wearing perfume and feel undressed without it.

Photo Stolen Hartwig HKD  Flickr

Opening with a green and fruit fizz the synthetic pink pepper reminds me of so much else available now but done nicer, it feels more expensive than a lot of the zingy fruit openings currently but is also eerily similar to some of the celebuscents we’ve seen in the last few years, it also feels cooler. Remember that GUCCI Envy Me was released in 2004, Tom Ford’s last year as Creative Director. I can’t remember but if he had anything to do with it it must have been a bit cutting edge then.

Photo Stolen See-ming Lee Flickr

The heart gives me a musky blur of fruity flowers, it’s a bit like one of those fruity roses in the garden but sweeter than any I’ve smelled. If the tea were a little heftier or blacker it may have been more rose-ish and more interesting. The dry down doesn’t happen on my skin, one minute I’m a musky fruit tingle and then musky and then scentless. Around 3-4 hours on my scent hungry skin but the good thing is you will never overspray or skunk anyone.

As it is GUCCI Envy Me suffers on my skin from a lack of base, it’s a pretty, amorphous and ethereal sweet wash that has quite good sillage but not too much projection, maybe elbow length away in the first 2 hours thewn it’s come in to hug me and get a waft.

Photo Stolen DeviantArt

Further reading: Scent Addicts and Ellen’s Blog
Fragrance Shop has 50ml starting at under $50 ($41 with coupon)
My Perfume Samples starts at $2.50/ml

Did you try GUCCI Envy Me? Thoughts?
See you tomorrow,
Portia xx