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title, description, date, tags, synopsis, imageURL, imageAlt, mastodon_id
| title | description | date | tags | synopsis | imageURL | imageAlt | mastodon_id | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reviewing Devotion by Dolce & Gabbana | That’s right, I’m reviewing a perfume this time. | 2025-09-19 |
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That’s right, I’m reviewing a perfume this time. | /img/dolce_gabbana_devotion.webp | A perfume bottle with a rather gaudy gold heart / bow sort of thing stuck on it. | 115233758284247441 |
I'm not a big perfume guy. I've been wearing 212 Men by Carolina Herrara (well, actually by Alberto Morillas, Rosendo Mateu and Ann Gottlieb) for years just because I happened to have bought a bottle at some point1 . Perfumes are expensive. They're strong; they cling to you for days, making it difficult to try new ones even if you do have the money and fridge space. Fragrances can also make it hard for people with sensory issues to be around you, even if you don't over spray (which may "frag-heads" do), and depending on your job, it may not make sense to wear any fragrance at all. No one wants a noseful of oud, lavender, camphor, and lime oil when you're serving them a flat white with vanilla syrup and an everything bagel. I mostly work from home these days, and I'm not exactly a social butterfly (I run a blog for christ's sake), so I often just don't see the point of putting on fragrance every day.
Further, as much as I like smelling things, reviewing them is another matter. Whether you're tasting spirits or wines, listening to incense, sipping tea, or cupping coffee, It's hard work to pick out notes, and while I have more practice than a lot of people, I still have a long way to go. This is especially true with perfumes. The bulk of my experience is with incense on the natural and botanical / whole-plant side. The aromatics used in this style of incense-making tend to smell very, very different when reduced to an essential oil, as would be used in natural perfumery, and may be yet further removed from the synthetic compounds that make up 99% of modern perfumes. Even when oils or synthetic approximations come close to their whole-plant counterparts, their sheer strength can make the notes seem wholly dissimilar. People who are really into perfumes can name the compounds responsible for a note in their favorite fragrances: I cannot. But, in all likelihood it is more useful to people to describe perfume in terms that non-enthusiasts (or chemists) can understand, as one would with whiskey, pu-erh, or incense, and so, I will do my best. On to the review.
My partner recently received a sample of Dolce & Gabbana's Devotion (by Olivier Cresp) and left it on my desk for me to try. The perfume opens with a subtle sugared lemon note that was fleeting on the skin, but seemed to linger a little longer on paper. Beneath this lies a bed of very sweet gourmand notes and a hint of spice: angel food cake, toffee, salted butter, and a blink and you'll miss it hint of nutmeg. I had to go hunting for the orange blossom note that is meant to be present; I find it tucked subtly amidst the gourmand notes providing a clever floral lift for what would otherwise be an utterly cloying sticky toffee pudding and/or stack-of-pancakes accord; there is just enough brightness in this perfume to hold it back, kicking and screaming, from crossing that line into total sickliness. On my skin, I also noted a delicate ambrette-like powderiness in the dry-down. This is not a fragrance I would like to be trapped in a car with, nor is it one that I would subject the public to except in the dead of a Chicago winter. That said, I like it. To my humble nose, the composition is clever, carefully balanced, and just plain satisfying. It's simple, well executed, and fun to smell.
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Sort of. The full story is that I was once given a bottle of 212 NYC by my horrible ex-girlfriend, and I bought a bottle of 212 Men when I ran out thinking that it was the same thing. I've been occasionally wearing 212 Men since. ↩︎