Hey there Junkies,

You know those serendipitous moments? You’ve been searching for a long discontinued fragrance that someone sent you a sample of. Had you known it was discontinued you may have chosen not to try it and passed it along to a friend. One more freaking impossible lemming may send me to the poor house. Anyway, you’ve basically given up the search and one day you’re in a SALE, you look down and there it is….. All alone, lidless, friendless and looking kinda beat up. A just over half full 50ml TESTER.

I picked it up and walked over to the counter. There I proceeded to tell the story of this fabulous fragrance, how it was now long discontinued, they’d be getting no more stock, it was a sad but hopeless case to find it anywhere. Could I please buy the tester? Half the retail price? Are you mad? Look it’s been used and badly stored in light and the heat of a shop. How about a quarter of the retail? A third? SOLD!

GUCCI Eau de Parfum by Daniela (Roche) Andrier for GUCCI 2002

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Orange blossom, heliotrope
Heart: Caraway, iris, thyme
Base: Incense, leather, sandalwood, musk, vanilla, cedar essence

I Smell Therefore I Am gives these featured accords:
Top – orris, heliotrope, orange blossom, vanilla absolute
Heart – cistus, cumin, thyme
Base – patchouli, vanilla, deep musk

I put both these note lists here to show how arbitrary they are, yet both have pieces to the puzzle that are completely valid to me.

Daniela (Roche) Andrier is nose from well known fragrances like: Bottega Veneta Pour Homme, Tardes Carner Barcelona, Angélique Noire Guerlain, Marni, Prada Candy and Infusion d’Iris. That’s quite a roll call and only a fraction of her output.

That opening spritz! It reminds me of two of my favourite fragrances that see quite a bit of wear around here Oriza L Legrand Jardins d’Armide and Terry de Gunzberg Ombre Mercure. It’s a fabulously plastic/powdery iris/heliotrope/violet thing that my nose aches for, in a good way. All of them have white flowers as a raft to float the rest of the fragrance on too. Similar but different. Succulent and desirable GUCCI Eau De Parfum is not huge but it is insistent.

Photo Stolen Pixabay (searched for something succulent)

As we move from that fun opening GUCCI Eau de Parfum becomes happily lived in. Human/animal/fleshy but not skank really, more clean healthy flesh in the early afternoon. It doesn’t scream sexual tryst or workout, there’s no rankness. The seeds/herbs/roots are curiously sweet, quite inviting. Not bakery sweet but they have a burnished quality, like you are smelling them through lightly ambered glass. Yes as an analogy that is particularly clunky but that’s how my minds nose is seeing/smelling GUCCI Eau de Parfum.

There is something slightly sweltering about GUCCI Eau De Parfum, a let your hair down, relax and let go-ness about it that is very calming.

Photo Stolen WikiCommons

I can absolutely see why Abigail finds patchouli in the base. Now that I’ve read it I can smell it clear as day, a very clean waxy patchouli surrounded by a very soft leather and vanilla with musks that I can smell softly playing back up. All through its life GUCCI Eau de Parfum is a sheer veil but fragrant, not something that will skunk those around you but a designer fragrance from the days when GUCCI knew how to make perfume.

This is how sexy you’ll feel wearing Gucci Eau De Parfum (My mate Brad Mc)

Further reading: I Smell Therefore I Am and Scented Salamander
eBay is selling around $100/30ml
Posh Peasant has samples starting at $4/ml

Did you ever spend time with GUCCI Eau de Parfum? Do you have any other favourites from the house?
Portia xx