Review of five Maison Margiela perfume samplers

In my review of the LookFantastic Autumn Scent Edit, I commented that I couldn’t see the fuss around Maison Margiela’s Lazy Sunday Morning fragrance. On FeelUnique, the site where I have been getting perfume samplers for the last few months to share my thoughts on here, they conveniently had several other Maison Margiela fragrances as samplers. Thus, I thought this would be an opportune moment to see if my ‘meh’ response to Lazy Sunday Morning was an anomaly, or if this brand as a whole wasn’t to my taste. 

Review of five perfume samplers from FeelUnique - part 8

You know the drill by now – my brief thoughts on five little samples of perfumes!

Alive by Hugo Boss Eau de Parfum

With top notes of Madagascar vanilla, plum, cinnamon, apple and blackcurrant, there’s no denying that the creators of Alive EDP were aiming for a distinctively fruity scent. The middle notes of jasmine sambac and thyme, and base notes sandalwood, cedar and olive tree aim to complement the traces of fruit with woodsy scents.

Review: LookFantastic Scent Edit Autumn 2021 box

Getting perfume samplers in the post were one of the little treats that served as a fantastic pick me up during the seemingly never-ending period that was lockdown. As I have now exhausted all the perfume samples that are available on the FeelUnique website, I had to look elsewhere, and was alerted to this very tempting offer from LookFantastic.

It's a box with five fragrances in, luxury-sized (so larger than the usual 1.2ml sample-sizes I reviewed from FeelUnique), with two other non-fragrance samples thrown in. The box costs £55, which may seem pricey… until you consider that the box comes with a voucher code, that gives you £55 off the price of a full-sized bottle of any of the five perfumes it trials (and I made use of this voucher!)

Here are my thoughts on the seven items in the box:

Review of five perfume samplers from FeelUnique - part 7

My dedication to sampling all the perfumes that are out there continues, with a little help from FeelUnique! June and July was a busy period during work, so I didn't have time to produce much blog content, and as such, I've built up somewhat of a backlog. I will endeavour to increase to frequency of my reviews, going forward!

Chloé Rose Tangerine

This Chloé scent features just five ingredients (tangerine, blackcurrant, rose, cedar and white amber), attesting to that age-old adage that it's quality, not quantity.

Review of four perfume samplers from FeelUnique - part 6

I'm slowly but steadily making my way through all the perfumes that FeelUnique are letting you sample. And it's proving to be a lot of fun! With department stores re-opening and putting out testers again, it means the thing that I was missing, which led me to order these samplers to begin with, are reinstated. But I've gotten so used to making my monthly FeelUnique order, that I shall continue with the tradition!

Review of five perfume samplers from FeelUnique – part 5

FeelUnique have lifted their moratorium on pick and mix samples, which means I can pick up where I left off and review more scents!!! I have to say, when lockdown began over a year ago, I would not have predicted my film blog pivoting to doing perfume reviews was going to be one of the side effects! 

For my most recent thoughts on FeelUnique hauls, click here.

Review of perfume samples from eBay pot luck – part 4

Graciously, the FeelUnique Pick and Mix sample deal is back! I had been missing it a lot, and in lieu of it, I'd bought a pot luck of assorted perfume samples from eBay. As my previous reviews (un et duex et trois) attest to, the collection had been decidedly unlucky.

Fortunately, now that FeelUnique is letting me order samples again, I needn't venture to the eBay samples any more, and thus, part 4 of reviewing them will be the final instalment.

Red Door by Elizabeth Arden

Review of five perfume samples from eBay pot luck – part 3

You know what this is about by now! I was missing the FeelUnique '5 samples for £3.95' deal (which in itself was a response to missing being able to test perfumes in department stores pre-Covid-19). So I bought a sample of 50 perfume samples for £23.50 off eBay. The only issue was that I didn't have any say in the perfumes, and alas, some of them weren't to my tastes (see previous reviews of the eBay pot luck, here and here).

Intrusion by Oscar de la Renta

Review of five perfume samples from eBay pot luck – part 2

This blog is part 2 of my testing out the assortment of perfume samples I got for £23.50 from eBay. My thoughts on the first few are here!

Review of five perfume samples from eBay pot luck – part 1

The perfume samples deal on the FeelUnique website that I've gotten a bit used to for the past few months is currently on hold. For the uninitiated, that's 5 samples for just £3.95, making it a very cost-efficient way of exploring whether a perfume is for you in this new world order, where department stores no longer put on testers.

These FeelUnique samplers had been a marvel for me, and four batches of five samples each, meant they'd kept me busy for the last four months.

Feeling I needed my kick of a few new fragrances to test out and review, I looked elsewhere. On eBay, quite a few sellers offer bundle deals, where you get a range of perfume samples. The price per sample works out to be cheaper than if you'd ordered them on FeelUnique, which is only fair as in these cases, you can't pick and choose which brands you get; you get what you're given (and the samples available on FeelUnique are more up-to-date and thus for perfumes that currently retail at higher price points).

Review of five perfume samplers from FeelUnique – part 4

You know the drill by now! I order 5 perfume samples on FeelUnique, pay the £3.95 Postage and Packaging, and report back on what I thought of the samples, particularly, whether I'd ever buy a full-size bottle of it! November's opinings.

Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa '62 Eau de Parfum

As the name suggests, the Sol de Janeiro seeks to emulate the rhythms of Brazil in a perfume, in particular, capturing the essence of Brazil in the summer.

Thoughts on five items ordered from the FeelUnique luxury samples

Unlike the other three sample reviews I did (most recent one here), the five items I ordered in this review weren't part of the pick and mix for £3.95 deal. Instead, these samplers were part of the 'deluxe samples', where it is £16.90 for five samples and postage and packaging.

Thoughts on five samplers ordered from FeelUnique - part 3

Unlike my two previous FeelUnique hauls (reviews here: un et deux), I got more than just samples of perfume for my third haul. The two different products I got this time were a night cream and a shampoo/conditioner combo.

So, here are my thoughts on November's treats...

Thoughts on five perfume samples ordered from FeelUnique - part 2

My obsession with smelling new fragrances means that I'm ordering five samples from FeelUnique, subject to their limits on ordering (one order of samplers per month).

Below are my thoughts on October's batch!

Thoughts on five perfume samples

The new world order that we're currently in means that shops are being a lot more careful about putting out samplers. In most cases, they're erring on the side of caution and not leaving out samplers at all. This makes perfect sense from a health and safety perspective, but I do so very much miss being able to try fragrances before you buy!

Graciously, a neat little workaround of this problem is to order five samplers from the Feel Unique website. You then just have to cover the price of the postage and packaging, of £3.95. You can use this amount to spend on your next Feel Unique order too!

The five I ordered were: YSL Libre, Viktor & Rolf Bonbon, Issey Miyake L'Eau d'Issey, Jean Paul Gaultier Scandal, and Kierin Nitro Noir. Aren't the samplers just darling?

My thoughts on the fragrances, from left to right:

Fragrance review: ICY BURST EAU DE TOILETTE (Adidas)

 

I got this in a pound shop purely out of curiosity a while back, and have been alternating between wearing this and the CK Eau de Toilette for work. 

It's a lot less musky than the CK one, smelling not so much icy as sharp, but with a fragrant floral twist. Strength-wise, it doesn't hold up against the CKIn2U, as by the time I get to work, the smell as worn off, meaning I probably won't be repurchasing it. 

For a quick fix, it's a sweet enough smell, packed in a small enough bottle that you can carry it around with you. A word of the wise though: for it to actually have any lingering effect, you'll need to top yourself up with it, a lot.

 

Grade: C

For more of my fragrance reviews, click here.

Fragrance review: CK IN2U HER (Calvin Klein)

Eau de toilette is, by definition, a diluted form of perfume. Considering I live my life very much by the mantra “go hard or go home”, then, it would appear that the very essence of Eau de Toilette would imply it wasn’t for me.