Perfume Pen Pals: Parfums MDCI La Belle Helene



Katie,

Remember my anticipation over Parfums MDCI La Belle Helene, how enthusiastic I was because it was reported to be an pear/osmanthus/licorice/wood and that sounded ideal?

La Belle Helene: the little marble head means it's classy.

Well, today is the day and La Belle Helene turns out to be an overly sweet, fruity thing of no real interest. It's pleasant, like most sweet, fruity things are pleasant, but it falls a little short even within its unambitious category. Except for its price: it's tops when it comes to price. Though even there, if I'm going to blow a month's perfume allowance on one sweet fruity thing, I'd do better blowing it on Indult Manakara.

I'm glad I didn't purchase this, which is mostly thanks to your initial unenthusiastic response (you said it was so forgetful, you'd forgotten to tell me you had tried it, then promised to try it again before forgetting to try it again, or maybe you did try it again and forgot to tell me you had tried it again). Because if I had purchased it, I would've felt guilty over the price and probably tried to convince myself that I liked it, wearing it over and over, saying unconvincing things ("I like it a little better now that I understand what Bertrand Duchaufour was attempting" or "the licorice wood really starts emerging in hour four"), and feeling an underlying sense of self-betrayal the whole time. Thankfully, I dodged that bullet.

Dan



Dan,

I do remember your enthusiasm! Based only on the description, you said “It's like something I'd create.” Y'know, I've had my LuckyScent samp of La Belle Helene in my "in-tray" (my Sniffapalooza souvenir nylon lunch bag) since forever, always thinking "I need to try that one again so I can report more thoroughly to Dan -- he might love it!" But there were always perfumes I wanted to smell before I tried that one again. Your dismay finally roused me to put some on -- and yep, it's unambitiously sweet and fruity. And dull. It's not bright and crazy and POW fruity peach and anise like Annick Goutal Le Mimosa, fr'instance.

Katie



Katie,

The funny thing is when I wrote that bit about the licorice wood emerging in hour four, I hadn't yet made it to hour four. (Or hour three.) But soon enough it did emerge, and the perfume turned less sweet and more into a kind of subtle, sophisticated Lolita Lempicka, though somehow not as good as "subtle, sophisticated Lolita Lempicka" makes it sound.

Dan

17 comments:

  1. I did not like this one one bit, because of the sweetness and the oddness, which - as I now learn - may have been the licorice wood trying to sneak up on me in hour four or earlier. I think I found it odd from the off, to be honest, and fuzzy and raspy in that bad way Daim Blond goes on me. AG Le Mimosa was another one of those sweet, odd fuzzy scents that did not work for me at all. I've got it in for fuzzy scents - can you tell? Traversee au Bosphore was another one. Fuzz central.

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    1. Traversee au Bosphore fuzz central? It's odd, to be sure, and sweet in a distant, dusty way, but it never pills into actual fuzzballs on me. My idea of a fruity, fuzzy scent is LouLou by Cacharel. But hey, don't you find YSL Belle D'Opium fuzzy? I remember you had a fling with that one.

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    2. So I did! Well, it's the fuzzy exception that proves the rule - and the flittersniffer in me up to her usual tricks. Belle Dope stays short of rasp though, which is key, while Loulou isn't fuzzy to me so much as a fruity mushroom cloud, felling all in its path. Or bringing on a very bad head, certainly. And I speak as someone who once owned a bottle, also of Angel. Though not at the same time, in case you are imagining terrifying layering scenarios.

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    3. You do have a colorful past, Vanessa!

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  2. Luckily, my expectations for this were never high. I only seem to like fruit based fragrances if I adore the fruit that they're based on. And my shameful little secret is that I find pears to be a tad boring. Unless I pair them with cheese. And I'm not sure that the addition of notes of nutty Alpine would do much to enhance La Belle Helene.

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    1. No shame in pear-dissing, Melissa. You can't give a home to *every* perfume, after all.

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  3. I only like pears before they are ripe, because once they are, they have a horrible alcoholic smell that I find sickening.

    Melisa, yes, fruit scents sound good to me(look at us fruit lovers coming out of the woodwork)if I'm told what type of fruit it is--blackberry, peach, etc.--rather than just some horrible ambiguous punchbowl of death.

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    1. Anyone for a nightcap? Punchbowls of death all around? It's horribly ambiguous!

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    2. Nora, I never thought of that before. I can tolerate unripe pears, but once they are soft, forget it. I love plums though. On their own, in tarts and in fragrances. Especially in chypres. But a pear chypre sounds like it could join the poison nightcap club.

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    3. Ooh! I wanna play the fruit-disgust game. It's ripe bananas that yak me out.

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  4. Yes. I have a punchbowl of death.

    *devil horns*

    Melisa, give me an example of a "plummy," fragrance, please. I suppose enough google research could answer that question, but that would defy the purpose of the comments section.

    And rock on with your bad self.

    *devil horns*

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    1. I'm gonna barge in and guess that Melissa will nominate Rochas (yes, yes, I'm pronouncing the "s")Femme for plummy perfume. Am I right, m61?

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    2. Sorry for tugboat-ing in with a reply;I couldn't resist...

      My nominees for 'plummy' are Balenciaga's Quadrille and Guerlain's Parure, the latter with a strange musty directionless-ness thrown in.

      In the non-rare category, I also find Ungaro's Diva scintillating-ly plummy.

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  5. Katie, WHAT???? Ripe bananas??? But doesn't tuberose smell like bananas?

    You can't stop there, you must give examples.

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    1. Don't ruin tuberose for me, Nora. Maybe I go for the adjusted, de-banana'd perfume tuberoses. But it's ripe to freckled bananas that cause my gorge to rise. Greenish are a-ok.

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  6. The greenish ones remind me of bamboo.

    I would never ruin tuberose for you! Are you an especial fan of it? I should hit up TPC for a little set of tuberose frags.

    I own Juicy Couture. Then was crestfallen when you dissed it.

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  7. on the fruit stages of ripeness theme- isn't it interesting how we all have distinct favorite stages of fruit? I will only buy/ eat greener bananas..but know some who like them yellow- almost brown in late stage....to me, mango is the trickiest..there seems to be a one day window with me and mangoes from when I adore them to when they become reminiscent of something found in diapers..but- have found solution in the form of freeze dried mangoes...holy cow-those things are like crisp delish marshmallows!

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