Chocomania The Body Shop

Desirability: Full bottle and a back up

Source: www.thebodyshop.com.vn

No frills chocolate.

It's not complicated and there's little development of the plot, just straight up chocolate from start to finish, that begins a little powdery making me think of cocoa powder mixes like Nesquik or Milo but the powder disappears quite quickly and the rest of the time I smell like a good quality chocolate cake with a restrained use of sugar. The vanilla isn't overpowering either which I had a problem with in Guerlain's Gourmand Coquin which was more of a vanilla scent than a chocolate one. 

It doesn't last long but the projection is decent and overall Chocomania is a very realistic chocolate scent that is worth far more than its price tag. 

For those counting calories or simply curious about how the different chocolate powder mixes add up, I found this blog entry that compares Nesquik, Milo and Cadbury. Personally I am an Ovaltine fan.

Boum Vanille Sa Pomme d'Amour Jeanne Arthes

Pomme d'Amour is an apt name for this fragrance. I'm not into roller-coaster rides so the highlight of my Euro Disney trip was having my first candy apple, which became a total of five in that same afternoon and so bad was my infatuation with them I wanted to go back to Euro Disney just for more and luckily found them being sold along Champs-Élysées. 

Source: flickr.com

A linear gourmand fragrance based on sugar coated apples and cherries but not fresh ones, more like maraschino cherries, that has a good projection and longevity surpassing some niche gourmands four times its price, Boum Vanille Sa Pomme d'Amour is a plain and simple comfort fragrance that conjures up images of funfairs or Euro Disney in my case and thankfully lacking any plastic/synthetic notes that plagued my experience with similar gourmand scents in the same category. 

Conaffetto Hilde Soliani

Desirability: Full bottle

Bye Bye Alessandro (Mazzolari). Hello Conaffetto. I will start by saying that Conaffetto needs to be sampled on skin not paper, I tried both and on paper the bitter almond is overemphasized and wipes out its companions whereas on skin...it's heavenly...

Bitter almonds galore on opening. The sweetness from both the orange flower and sugar notes starts as a suggestion but as the scent warms on your skin, they warm up as well and the bitterness fades until you have the perfect marriage of bitter and sugar with orange blossoms instead of confetti scattered about. Like I said...it's heavenly...

wedding send-off with confetti

Ok so throwing in some trivial knowledge. Raw almonds can taste mild and nutty and sometimes have a cherry smell to them(which disappears with roasting them). Why do raw almonds smell like cherries? Well they are related, both belonging to the family of "stone fruit", genus Prunus, including nectarines and apricots. The trees get hybridized to achieve different fragrant profiles and hence you get almonds that smell like cherries and vice versa.

There are sweet almonds and there are bitter almonds.Sweet almonds are the ones we see in nut mixes and cakes. Bitter almond is poisonous and only its oil or extract are safe to use.The term bitter almond is sometimes used interchangeably with apricot kernel which bears a similar appearance and shares the same poison as well as taste profile.

 Apricot kernels are used together with almonds in the making of Amaretto and Amaretti biscotti as well as apricot preserves and marzipan. These bitter almonds/apricot kernels are rich in vitamin B17 or amygdaline, used in alternative cancer therapy. Ingesting as little as ten of these bitter almonds can result in cyanide poisoning as amygdalin releases cyanide in the gut through enzymatic action. 

The almond in Conaffetto is decidedly bitter but not poisonous as I'm obviously still typing this as I wear it. What's really precious about Conaffetto for me is that it has the bitter almond note like Mazzolari's Alessandro and retains the warmth of Alessandro while passing on the powdery dry down of the Mazzolari which was a negative point for me. Then there is a fresh and lovely orange blossom note to brighten and sugar to sweeten the bitterness but both notes playing a smaller role compared to the almond. Conaffetto approaches but never quite becomes a gourmand for which I am thankful, enjoying it the way it is, blissful and with an air of nostalgia. It has an average projection but is tenacious and lasted more than a day on clothes. 

Kate Moss' wedding dress designed by John Galliano is still number one for me.