Perfume Review: Gold by Donna Karan
Donna Karan Gold has been on my much anticipated new releases list the minute I read about it on Now Smell This. Then yesterday Cait from Legerdenez wrote a gorgeous review, and I had to run out and smell it. I was lucky enough to actually obtain a whole sample, so I can delve into it and lay out my impressions here. Gold is composed of the notes of Casablanca lilies, amber, acacia, white clove, jasmine, balsam, and East Indian patchouli. I must say when I first read the notes, my attention was grabbed entirely by amber, jasmine, balsam, and patchouli. I have no idea why I completely overlooked the lily. I guess I was just mesmerized by the ad image - its opulent golden colors translated into a rich floriental in my fragrant brain. Yet lily is the center of attention here, undoubtedly. I’m still swooning over Cait’s excellent imagery, so bear with me as I try to find my own words to describe the scent - her description is just so perfect I feel like adding anything else would be redundant. Nevertheless, here’s how Gold reveals itself to me: a sparkling, verdant lily, with a hint of crisp, indolic jasmine, enveloped in sheer, powdery acacia, and carried away by soft amber. If there was a champagne made of lilies, that’s how it’d smell. The overall effect is a bit heady but not to the point where it makes you gasp for fresh air - on the contrary, it’s intoxicating, and you just can’t get enough of it. The only other lily that ever appealed to me in fragrance is Un Lys by Serge Lutens where it’s softened by musk and vanilla. In Gold, however, the lily is stripped down and unabashedly so. If it was personified, it’d be a queen, accompanied by her servants - jasmine, white clove, acacia, with balsam and amber being her footstool. It’s the kind of scent that gently woos you and eventually wins you over (I find myself at the point of utter inability to resist its charm).
Gold is available at Nordstrom’s, although I’m not yet sure if every store carries it. I imagine it’ll show up on their web site in the near future.
P.S. One other thing I forgot to mention is that there’s a somewhat animalic note in Gold that becomes very apparent in the middle and base notes. It’s some sort of a mix of sourness and decay but it’s intensely appealing and adds certain rebelliousness that makes it even more irresistible.
12 comments September 18th, 2006