Notorious
Ralph Lauren (2008)

Tje fruity and bright opening blast greets me here. Blackcurrant - a bit faint, bergamot - a nice one - and pink pepper - equally nice and blending wellnwith the fruits. A subtle cocoa impression with white chocolate leads into the drydown.

Later on peonies - labeled as “white frost” peonies - develop a nice floral touch. The base adds a somewhat darker patchouli with a vanilla impression and white musks. A fresh and non-powdery iris makes an appearance too.

I got moderate sillage, good projection, and an excellent longevity of eleven hours on my skin, the last hours very close to my skin though.

A pleasant autumn scent with a good top and adequate heart notes. Overall 3.25/5.

Genre: Floral Oriental

Lauren's Notorious opens with a weird, pinched, sour accord that ought to be repellent but instead manages to fascinate. It's a bit like a freeway crackup: awful, but you just can't keep from staring. I think this opening is the result of a bright, synthetic fruity note (black currant?) in concert with a savory, almost fungal accent that's vaguely suggestive of decomposition. I know – it sounds great, doesn't it!

Notorious sweetens and deepens progressively until a attains a dark, boozy, syrupy texture that would not be out of place in a liqueur. The odd fungal accent persists in the background, at once preventing Notorious from smelling too “edible” and separating it from the mass of sweet fruity florals that crowd the shelves behind the women's perfume counters these days.

I have to say I'm disappointed that Notorious sheds much of its decadent, boozy character after the first hour of wear, thereby exposing a more conventional powdery floral-oriental structure. If it held on to its more perverse attributes for longer, I might consider Notorious a minor masterpiece. As it is the scent's development is profoundly anticlimactic. A letdown then, but still better than the usual junk.

An initially wet and fruity vanillic powder with some aquatic flowers in the mix and a cool musky/balmy dry down. The note of iris enhances the general white powder and a touch of patchouli (surrounded by a faint berry note) comes out at distance. I agree with Diamondflame in the consideration that this one smells more properly like an oriental (initially slightly fruity/fizzy and finally powdery and sugary) than as a real gourmand despite the listed (and veiled to my olfactory perception) note of praline. I find anyway this juice pleasant but a bit common in its sweet musky/ vanillic powder with floral patterns for us.

Pleasant but forgettable. I've put it on 3x and the next day I cant remember what it smelled like.

Upon first sniffing Notorious, I smell lemony-black currant, which is soon replaced by the chocolate note. The floral notes dance around in the background but never fully announce their arrival. After the initial blast of fruity-chocolate notes recedes, all I smell is a slightly raunchy patchouli for the duration of the 2-3 hours that this scent lasts. It is a notch above the rest of the mainstream plethora, but the dry down isn't as seamless as it could be. Perhaps it will grow on me as my nose grows more accustomed to the arrangement of notes , as is often the case.

Edit** I stand corrected,once again.Several weeks prior to posting above review I had sprayed this scent on my hand at least 5 or 6 times, and was put off by it every time.As I wrote, I was smelling it intermittently, and as the fragrance developed on my skin, it lost that raunchy edge that it has always had. It was replaced with a mixture of patchouli and chocolate. I guess it's possible that the dry down just smelled confused to me before. This is a pleasant scent that should be revisited if one doesn't like it the first time. Perfume truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

I actually quite enjoy Notorious and I cannot understand why so many people dislike it.

To me, this fragrance isn't overly spicy nor flowery. It's a little fruity and sweet, but not in a cheap kind of a way. Notorious smells expensive and is really quite classy.

Black currant, bergamot and peony are the most dominant notes when applied to the skin. This fragrance makes me feel very elegant and feminine, I really don't sense any hints masculinity within this scent.

The lasting power and sillage are both pretty powerful which makes this fragrance worth the money.

I think that Notorious would make a wonderful Autumn/Spring fragrance because it is so cheerful and pretty. It just makes me think of beautiful, sunny, cloudless days.

I actually think that Notorious smells a little like Coco Mademoiselle, however I much prefer Notorious.