By Designer

7 Best Smelling Donna Karan DKNY Perfumes

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Donna Karan became a force to be reckoned with in the fashion world during the 1980s. Towards the end of the decade, she introduced the DKNY brand which provided a more affordable fashion and accessories line to the masses. Among the fashion houses many achievements are the lineup of fragrances for women.

The seven perfumes listed below are among the very best by Donna Karan and as always I have linked them out to where they can be purchased at a good price online.

What are the Best Donna Karan DKNY Perfumes for Women?

Most Popular DKNY

Dkny Be Delicious By Donna Karan For Women. Eau De Parfum Spray 3.4-Ounce Bottle– This Donna Karan perfume is a very enjoyable sensory experience. It has a rich fruity and floral profile that gives off a playful and seductive energy throughout the day.

Be Delicious opens up with its dominant apple note, along with, grapefruit and cucumber.

It is fresh, cool, and crisp from the start. The dry down is less tart and juicy, with the floral notes and some sandalwood coming through. Easy to wear and pleasant all around. Notes include: apple, violet, grapefruit, cucumber and more.

Light and Energetic for Summer

Donna Karan Nectar Love Eau De Parfum Spray for Women, 3.4 Ounce– Nectar Love gives you a different sort of wear for the summertime.

Yes, you get the usual fruitiness for much of the development, particularly in the opening. However, you also get a bright and upbeat aroma full of honey and beeswax.

This one is very sweet, but also very light and playful. This is an easy to wear perfume that won’t overpower but will have one feeling attractive during the day or the evening. Nectarine with citrus, with a variety of delicate floral touches, throughout.

A Lighter Apple Floral

Be Delicious Fresh Blossom– This Be Delicious flanker is a simple one, but a perfume that is easy to wear and can be a great low key daily wear scent. Won’t provide a huge sillage.

The apple is more crisp and sheer in this one, with a delightful grapefruit note coming in as support. Cassis and apricot round out the fruity lineup. Fresh Blossom is closer to the original in terms of how it smells.

However, it does separate itself with more of a jasmine and rose influence in the dry down. Plus, the whole citrus element up top. It’s a spring and summer wear, Fresh Blossom does seem to have a bit of a aquatic aroma to it, but not overwhelming.

Vanilla, Floral, and Amber

Cashmere Mist By Donna Karan For Women. Eau De Parfum Spray 3.4-Ounces– Cashmere Mist is a bit more understated and refined than is Be Delicious. It’s a great casual fragrance that is light and clean, with floral notes and a hint of vanilla.

Cashmere Mist EDP gives you a warm opening where the vanilla begins to waft through the composition. What’s noticeable, is the embrace of the amber note, with a smooth and familiar suede note.

Further along, it becomes a lighter floral with jasmine and lily, sitting among the musk. This is all on top of a base of sandalwood. Not too heavy of a fragrance, but one that is an excellent choice for a daily wear.

The Apple Alternative

Donna Karan Be Delicious Eau So Intense Women Eau De Parfum Spray, 3.4 Ounce– A different take on the Be Delicious concept. This one has more of a spiciness to it while still remaining clean, warm, and feminine. Still has the apple and grapefruit notes along with rose, lily of the valley and sandalwood.

Eau So Intense opens with that same apple note, paired with a bit of grapefruit, and a floral accord led by magnolia. It’s fresh and not as sweet but has a somewhat sour scent, as the original, but with a bolder sillage and performance overall.

Still, this one dries down more moderate, than intense. The apple is the star but violet, magnolia, and lily help to mix things up and give it appeal.

Best Newer Perfume

Be Extra Delicious– Be Extra Delicious is a nice change of pace, while still sticking to the theme of the line. With this perfume, you’ll be getting more pear than apple. Fresh, sugary, with a slight watery element provided by the freesia note.

The apple note smells like its still there, but it’s more of a general fruitiness joined by caramel and the aforementioned pear note. It’s upbeat and sparkling with a warm gourmand heart.

Gardenia and freesia give this one its floral touches. However, it is much more about the fruit notes and caramel. Definitely a sweet one, dessert quality, if that’s your thing.

Herbal Verbena and Peony

Donna Karan pureDKNY Verbena, 100ml/3.4 oz.– Not an overwhelming scent, rather, a citrus blend that is subtle and memorable. A good addition for the late spring and summer months.

Lemon verbena is the star of the show, giving you that gorgeous citrus aroma, that so often gets paired with other floral notes. Here it is going to be peony, mainly. However, pureDKNY Verbena, has a very interesting addition of seaweed as an ingredient.

This sits underneath to provide the perfume with an intriguing scent, but the basil comes into to play off the verbena. Greenish herbal spice. This one is really fresh and gives women a rather unique option, while still maintaining a sense that it’s been done before.

5 Best Sarah Jessica Parker Perfumes

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Sarah Jessica Parker has been a well known actress for decades now. She also happens to have her own line of fragrances for women, which have become quite successful in their own right. These scents are not the expensive design fair that price many people out of the perfume market. SJP’s scents are affordable, wearable, and are quite attractive as a whole.

What are the Top SJP Perfumes?

Best Seller

Lovely– The most popular of the perfumes by Sarah Jessica Parker. It is a mature and moderate scent with notes of musk and apple martini as its main attraction. A great all-around fragrance for everyday wear that is elegant and refined.

It opens up with mostly musk and lavender. This is paired with the apple, mandarin orange, and a nice orchid note. Musk is prevalent throughout, but the patchouli, grows in strength later on. Finally, it’s floral/musky with smooth woods and lavender.

The fragrance is affordable and has good performance, I found it to stick around for 6-7 hours during my testing of it. Does indeed smell similar to Narciso Rodriguez EDP, but a notch below in terms of quality. Lovely Full Review

lovely perfume parker

Fruity Summer Perfume

SJP NYC– Notes of rose, mandarin, honeysuckle, strawberry, rum, and more. SJP NYC is a sweet, fruity, and fun fragrance for those warm days of the year. It is bright, cheerful, and not an overbearing affair. Delicious scent.

NYC starts off with the sweetness pretty strong, for the first hour or so. Strawberry is the main attraction. Then, it will shift to have a more noticeable floral profile, with rum and musky undertones.

The strawberry sticks around, but it isn’t nearly as strong as it once was. Good amount of honeysuckle, which is a plus, if you dig that ingredient.

sjp

Uplifting Lovely

Lovely Sheer– The best of the flanker fragrances from the Lovely perfume lineup. Actually pretty similar to the original, but with its own distinct differences.

Up top, you’re going to get more citrus notes and for a longer lasting time, then with the original Lovely. The apple martini is gone. White floral notes like gardenia and orange blossom are in and to a greater degree.

It has a more energetic feel and the opening is fairly sharp until it settles down. The dry down is clean and musky, but the floral and citrus notes hang around for a long while. Not a massive sillage (sheer), but the longevity is actually great for this price point.

best jessica parker scent

Refreshing Floral Scent

Dawn– Dawn is a very clean floral fragrance with underlying notes of citrus. It’s mostly a soft violet influenced fragrance that is refreshing and crisp. This is a good floral, that is sometimes dewy, and then has a powdery finish.

Underneath the floral and musk notes, this does have a somewhat watery feeling. Orchid and violet leaf, can produce that sort of aroma, in a fragrance.

This is a great subtle daily wear, if you can find a bottle. I think that it’s been discontinued, but bottles, can be picked up online still.

dawn

Woody Gourmand

Covet– Chocolate note with lemon and some florals give Covet a darker and richer mood. The scent has some woodsy notes as well, which help to take the sharpness of the lemon away, and leave something that is smooth and unique.

The opening act can be quite a zesty experience, though, the lavender will prevent it from going too far. But, different people’s skin, will lead to differing effects. The drydown is the highlight of Covet.

This SJP fragrance, becomes creamy and have a luscious almost dessert-like quality. Not super sweet, but the chocolate/lemon pairing with the woods and musk highlights gives you some beautiful moments.

covet

Coco Mademoiselle vs Chanel Chance EDP Comparison

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Chanel perfumes routinely dominate the best seller lists, year after year, in the women’s space. Not only the main or classic formulations, but also, flankers using their predecessor’s names. Two of the most popular options for ladies are Chanel Chance EDP and Coco Mademoiselle. In this post, I want to compare them, and declare a winner as to which is best. Which smells better? Which has the greater performance metrics?

Tale of the Tape: Coco Mademoiselle vs. Chance

Coco Mademoiselle

Notes include: jasmine, rose, orange, patchouli, vetiver

Click here to try: Coco Mademoiselle

Read my review: Mademoiselle

Chanel Chance

Notes include: vanilla, jasmine, iris, patchouli, pink pepper, and musk

Click here to try: Chanel Chance EDP

Opening

Chance has both an EDT and EDP version, along with many flankers that are quite popular. I am going to be talking about Chance EDP, in this post, as I am comparing it to the EDP version of Mademoiselle. So, keep in mind that it applies to these releases specifically.

Chance EDP has much less of the patchouli note, than the EDT version. This one is a floral scent with clean vanilla highlights. It is led by both jasmine and iris, as its main floral notes.

You get a mix of sweetness, with musk, and enough earthy spice to keep things interesting. There does seem to be some light fruit notes, but it isn’t as much. The patchouli, will play a bigger role later on, but it is kept in check up top.

Meanwhile, Coco Mademoiselle begins more as a fruity floral fragrance. More specifically, it is a blend of citrus, neroli, jasmine, rose and ylang ylang peaking through. The musk is not as heavy, as in Chance, but it also has about the same level of patchouli.

Which is better? It’s a close call. However, I think that Mademoiselle has the more appealing start. I really like the citrus start, that transitions into an array of floral notes. These two do share similarities, but Coco Mademoiselle gets a slight not, in my opinion.

Edge: Mademoiselle

Projection

Neither of these perfumes are going to disappoint with a weak sillage. The EDP versions, are both strong. Which is stronger? I’d say that Mademoiselle packs a stronger punch, than does Chance.

I don’t find either to be all that extreme, but they can project themselves, very well. Mademoiselle, is just a notch above.

Surprisingly, Coco Mademoiselle still has great sillage and overall performance, after all these years. Chanel hasn’t seemed to skip out on the quality with this best seller.

Edge: Mademoiselle

Longevity

Chance EDP will go a full workday, and perhaps, a few hours longer. Expect an 8-10 hour performance. Which is enough for most purposes. But, it still falls short of what Mademoiselle delivers.

Coco Mademoiselle will last for over 10 hours, most of the time. It’s got a really great longevity and doesn’t want to seem to quit. I’ve tested it out to over 12 hours before. It has a pretty wide range, once you get above double digit hours.

Again, Chance is no slouch, but it’s competitor is a bit better.

Edge: Mademoiselle

Versatility

In this category, I don’t really see a winner. Both perfumes perform well year round and in a wide variety of situations. These Chanel fragrances are truly all around gems and can be the anchor of just about anyone’s collection.

Edge: Push

Overall Scent

This head to head match up, really is a difficult choice, since both are really great scents. I’d say that you probably can’t go wrong with either. However, which one is truly better, even if by a little bit?

Chanel Chance EDP is fresh, floral, with a great pink pepper spice. It’s not overbearing, but performs well. I really like the jasmine and how the pepper hangs around the edges, of the musk/patchouli heart. Really nice, overall.

Coco Mademoiselle, I prefer it to Chance. You get better performance, but I also think that it smells somewhat better, as well. The beautiful and classy citrus opening, sells it right away. Beyond that, the floral notes, with musk, and sweet creamy vanilla are so good during the dry down.

I think that Coco Mademoiselle just does a bit more, in its entirety versus Chance. Frankly, I think Chance is a great perfume…just not to the same extent.

It isn’t a blowout, by any means. However, I’m giving the win to Coco Mademoiselle EDP.

Winner: Mademoiselle

7 Best Smelling Cacharel Perfumes for Women

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Cacharel is a French ready to wear clothing, fashion, and fragrance brand. It’s fragrance line was launched in the late 1970s and has been going strong ever since. The faces of the advertisements of this design house have been as famous as the perfumes themselves and include models, Kate Moss and Gisele Bundchen. For this list, I have selected seven fragrances from their line which I consider to be the cream of the crop.

What are the Best Smelling Cacharel Perfumes?

Fabulous Selection

Yes I Am Fabulous– Updating this page with a few newer perfumes, I had to add at least one from the fairly popular Yes I Am line.

Fabulous is my first pick out of this collection. It utilizes blackberry as the main note, but only adds to the unique vibe with other notes like hazelnut and milk. Add to that, one of my favorite underrated floral notes in heliotrope.

This one opens up with the blackberry which comes off juicy enough, yet the milk adds a creaminess which really sets the tone. Not too sweet nor too tart, Fabulous comes across as delicious and the hazelnut here just works in the mix.

A nicer heliotrope powdery aroma in the dry down. It isn’t super powerful, just a nice and fun perfume.

Easy to Wear Cacharel

Noa– A light blend of fruity notes with an underlying bouquet of floral notes. Noa is a soft and womanly fragrance good for most occasions. This one is a clean and soapy sort of perfume, but it feels like it has its own unique take on it.

Yes, you have the layer of musk and floral notes. However, the secondary wave of coffee bean and vanilla give Noa a slighter sweeter aroma in its undertones. This isn’t some scent that overwhelms and demands attention, it just simply gets it with its soft and quite beautiful aroma.

noa

Most Popular Cacharel

Amor Amor– Probably the most popular of the bunch. A great everyday wear, Amor Amor blends fruits, floral, and woodsy notes to create something seductive yet playful.

The floral notes are lighter and different. But, you do get a very close citrus vibe to Happy. The main difference here, is the inclusion of vanilla.

Amor Amor is a very good take on a sweet fruity perfume, that is a solid choice for daily wear. It actually has way more depth, than one might expect. It is warmer, creamier, with nice amber notes and tonka bean in the dry down. A fairly similar fragrance to Clinique’s Happy.

amoramor

Chocolate Gourmand

Yes I Am Delicious– Another option from this line for those who want an indeed delicious blend of chocolate and the hazelnut note.

This one really goes heavy with the chocolate, more so the hazelnut. You get both a refined sort of dark chocolate, raw cacao, vanilla, and the nuttiness. Super rich and delectable.

Up top you will get mandarin orange with a spicy cardamom before the sweets-fest begins. The floral notes are more present in the back end. Jasmine and orange blossom. Warm and cozy for the colder months. This won’t be for everyone, still a nice smelling scent.

Most Unique

Eden– Eden changes it up a bit from the other perfumes on this list. This fragrance is for those who like a spicy and somewhat exotic scent. Eden does feature some lighter fruit notes, but it is mostly a very floral undertaking.

So, obviously avoid, if you don’t want a bouquet effect. That’s mostly at the start, though. As it moves forward, Eden, takes on more of its patchouli note and it feels less floral and more greenish plant-like.

Finally, there are the spicier layers of this perfume. Not super peppery, but coriander is the main attraction. This is more of a niche fragrance, but one with a bold profile and performance.

eden

Classic Cacharel

Anais Anais– A wonderful floral perfume with added notes of leather and cedar. It’s a classic scent that is clean, fresh, and wholly feminine. Being an older fragrance, it has obviously undergone some changes over the years, but Anais Anais still retains a lot of its magic.

This is more or an old school fragrance, because it does date back to the 1970s. Floral and highlighted by notes of lily of the valley, hyacinth, and jasmine. At times, it feels more like a green garden, before setting itself up as a powdery scent.

To me, it’s unique versus what you get from perfumes nowadays. Though, this doesn’t feel stale or boring. Yes, different, while still being modern and dynamic.

anais

Older Sweet Pick

Amor Amor Forbidden Kiss– A warm and energetic take on the Amor Amor name. Grapefruit, coffee, pink pepper, and peony make this one a unique and exciting perfume from Cacharel.

We get away from the floral scents and break into something fruitier and much sweeter. Yes, the fruity notes are enveloped in a warmer cloud than usual, but this is still an attractive option for the colder months. The coffee and pink pepper notes, really make Forbidden Kiss what it is, and it doesn’t have that winter fragrance heaviness.

amoramorfor

Perfect by Marc Jacobs

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I received a sample of Perfect by Marc Jacobs by mistake. With an order, they sent me a whole host of women’s perfumes, when I ordered samples for men. Oh well. As such, I am going to add to my ladies’ fragrance reviews, and start things off with this 2020 release. How does Perfect smell? Perform? Is it worth a try?

What does Perfect by Marc Jacobs Smell Like?

Notes include: daffodil, rhubarb, almond milk, cedar, cashmeran 

Click here to try: Marc Jacobs Perfect Women 3.3 oz EDP Spray 

My Full Review

Before we get into my own review, let’s see how Marc Jacobs describes it: A bright daffodil and juicy rhubarb accord meets soft cashmeran and comforting notes of almond ilk. Dazzling and unexpected. Perfect, just like you.

The opening is quite bright and juicy. The rhubarb accord comes across like strawberries mixed with a greenish aroma. There also seems to be some other fruity note or at least the impression there, smells sort of like cherry to my nose.

That’ll stick around for a little while, as the daffodil gains strength, along with the light and semi-sweet almond milk. The almond milk actually isn’t too heavy in the mix, don’t expect a huge creaminess or anything, but it is there.

The top is juicy and candy-like (sweet/tart), while this one will dry down into something more woody fresh and musky.

As it moves along, the cashmeran will be the main player alongside the daffodil. It actually never turns into a pure floral play, but is rather balanced in how it presents.

That sweet-tart aroma of the rhubarb accord will fade. It is a clean, slightly soapy scent, with a milky woody base. Not too complicated, but very nice.

Projection, Longevity, and Versatility

Sillage wise, it is fairly strong, while the rhubarb is around. Then, it will be a lighter to moderate wear, without much of a trail.

Overall, I’d say it’s above average, but it’s not going to project like crazy.

The longevity is also good, but not amazing. I get about 7-8 hours of wear, on my skin. So, around a workday, which is fine unless you need a marathon performer.

Seasonally, this one is a spring and summertime wear, all the way. It completely matches a daytime of sunshine and greenery.

It’s not a ‘teenagers’ fragrance, even if they can also where this. Though, it does have a youthful energy. Probably not going to be something that you wear formally. However, it’s safe enough to wear for most other occasions.

Not really a romantic or nightlife wear. Stick to the daytime, but you can use it a whole lot in that timeframe.

Overall Impressions of Perfect

Overall, do I like Perfect? I do enjoy it. It doesn’t live up to the name exactly, but it is a very nice and uplifting perfume from Marc Jacobs.

I like the opening with the rhubarb and how the daffodil starts to come through underneath. It reminds me of a sunny spring day and it all just has a nice energy to it.

As it dries down, I appreciate that it doesn’t go full on floral or green, but instead takes a more balanced approach. The almond milk isn’t all that forceful, but in its limited role (at least on me), it does add a nice touch.

The performance is good all around, even if it isn’t a powerhouse. I don’t think most people would be disappointed by it.

Maybe you should avoid, if you don’t like that sweet tart strawberry/cherry like vibe. If that’s you’re thing, you will probably get plenty of use out of this in the spring and summertime. It’s pretty, not overwhelming, and has some decent versatility.