Perfume Review: Giorgio Beverly Hills
Date Released: 1981
Perfumer: Bob Aliano
Sample provenance: miniature bottle bought retail 2010
I wasn't going to bother with this. I blame Luca Turin yet again, for reviewing it in the downloadable updates to the original Perfumes: The Guide. I should have known better from that stupid Insolence experience, but nooooooooo. Also I was blinded by nostalgia and a fuzzy memory of what Giorgio actually smells like (which is, actually, not Turin's fault). He does make the excellent point that "many people harbor a sneaking fondness for the bad old days" of the excessive eighties, pointing out that outrageous and surprising perfumes like Angel are still succeeding, in these times of post-post-decadence. Here are portions of his review (go read it in its entirety if you can, it's an interesting and informed take):
**** Giorgio. Fruity tuberose... The secret of Giorgio was the discovery of an accord that could stand up to a monstrously powerful tuberose while extending it in interesting directions. Two heroically strong aromachemicals were drafted: one being... reminiscent of pineapple, and the second a... base made between... a fresh-almondy-marine material and... the Concord grape smell... The result was a cute, twelve-foot-tall singing canary, at first impossible to ignore, and at length too big to love. But if any composition embodies what makes... classical perfumery great, it is Giorgio.
Okay, first off I'm going to say yet again that it is definitely not fair to give four stars to something that doesn't smell good. I do not give a flying flip whether it "advances the art of perfumery," got me? I only want to wear scents that smell good. Secretions Magnifiques four stars, anyone? Didn't think so. Now, I'll wade through some difficult opening notes to get to something beautiful, or at least to something interesting. And granted, people's opinions on What Smells Good tend to, duh, differ. I love tuberose and hate balsamic resins. I think vetiver is boring. I like rose and aldehydes. You may think I'm nuts. But for a reviewer that keeps dissing tuberose he calls "synthetic," it was downright immoral of LT to praise this *&#^%^@(*@ mess.
Disclaimer: I went to high school in the 80's, all right? And while I was wearing polite applications of Chloe from my dabber bottle, big spray bottles of Giorgio were all the rage. Black rubber bracelets, banana hairclips, leggings and big tunics, Swatches and enormous abstract-art earrings in pink and aqua... and Giorgio. Which I kind of liked then - I had a friend who seemed to have all the disposable income a girl could want, and she wore it in discreet quantities. At the time I thought she smelled fine.
I freely admit I couldn't afford it back then anyway. And never mind all the science-chat about anthrancilates and whatnot, descriptions of Big Bird and grape popsicles, what Giorgio smells like to me now is money, humiliation, chlorine, and bad taste.
If I was going to attempt to wear Giorgio, this was the day to do it: The CEO just left on a trip to the Farm Bureau National Convention, Bookworm's gone for the day to an indoor track meet, and the boys are supposedly cleaning up their rooms but they keep sneaking down to the laundry room to visit Sara the ailing calf. Here's a transcript of our conversations about Giorgio:
Me: I'm trying this out. What do you think?
Taz (who never sniffs me if he can help it): Eww. It makes my throat hurt.
Gaze (trying to be diplomatic, but failing): I don't like that one. It smells like... really bad Halloween candy. The hard kind in weird flavors, like you get from the people who don't like kids but they don't want people to think they don't like kids. So they give you stuff, but it's nasty.
Me (secretly pleased): Really?
Gaze: And the pool. It smells like the pool. You know, on really crowded days, when they put too much chlorine in there?
Me: Ha ha ha ha ha!
Taz: Mom, I think Sara's better, she's eating that hay now.
Me: Ha ha ha ha ha!
Taz: Hey, Mom... Mom, why are you laughing?
Gaze: I don't know. She's acting weird. Maybe that perfume is making her sick.
Me: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... (maniacal giggling)
Taz: Mom, will you stop laughing and make us dinner now? Mom? Mom! Stop laughing. This is important. Please go wash your hands, I don't want my hot dogs to smell like that.
It would probably be pretentious of me to repeat that old saying about the mills of God grinding slowly, so I won't. But I will say that the taste of vindication is sweet.
I have a nasty headache now that I didn't have when I put on this dab of Giorgio edt. Thank the Lord, I can go take a shower now. Maybe now I can cease the maniacal laughter. Sample of Giorgio Beverly ILLS is going out with the trash as soon as possible.
And I'm sorry, I really am. I should have known better. But, see, this is why I love perfume. Two drops of yellow gunk (which have consequently contaminated the air around me for seven hours) suddenly returned me to the horrors of being fifteen. What else could do that so quickly? What else could go straight for the jugular like that? Nothing else taps so elegantly, so directly, so brutally, into the emotional center as perfume.
Top image from fragrantica. Lower image from paper_antiquary on ebay.
11 comments:
Why, oh, why does your review make me _want_ to smell this? What is wrong with me? I also went to high school in the (early) eighties; I certainly have no desire to relive any of it. If I put it on and played "Dirty Laundry" I'd probably need to... OK, I don't know. Drink?
But I'm tempted all the same.
In any case, great review. :)
I think I suffered from even worse fashion sense by going to high school in the 70s - well, it is a close run thing, perhaps! : - ) So I associate Giorgio with one of my first work colleagues, a ballsy woman with blowsy hair. I may have tentatively tried the scent myself on paper once in the last year, but I held the strip very far away from my body, so my recollection of it is too dim to be useful.
CF, if you want this thing I'll wrap it up in yellow Do Not Cross tape and send it to you! (Have you smelled Secretions Magnifiques?)
Flitter - blowsy hair probably goes great with Giorgio. You know, it's certainly possible that it used to smell better. There's a harsh quality to it that I didn't remember it having when it was new.
All the time I had it on my wrist I was miserable, and at the same time I kept breaking out in nervous giggles. The boys actually thought I was losing it.
See, I used to wear Giorgio Red and keep thinking that I need to sniff both it and Giorgio again. The only thing that's been stopping me is the sinking feeling that they've been cheapened and reformulated beyond all recognition.
After all, I may be wrong, but I don't remember a big bottle being sold in Walgreen's for $20 back-in-the-day. I've already had my memories of Emeraude destroyed by the horrible reformulation, so I'm not sure that I want to try this one.
This is just a really funny post!! Somehow I missed Giorgio altogether, so I'm a bit in the dark about the actual smell, but having your kids vindicate your inner fifteen year old girl IS pretty sweet...
Cynthia, I'm pretty sure you could only get Giorgio at a department store back then, which is why I didn't own any. Maybe that was just in my area, but it was certainly more exclusive than the drugstore frags.
I didn't remember it being so chemical-ly, so you're probably right about reformulation.
What's been done to Emeraude makes me SICK - I loved it ages ago. (Luckily, good vintage is still available on ebay. I have several bottles of parfum and pdt now, and they seem to have survived well. Orientals seem to take aging in stride better than some other types.)
Well, Taz and Gaze are the most wonderful young men ever!
I went to an all girls school and then finished up in a regular high school in a small town. At the girls school there was little to no emphasis placed on perfume or makeup ---funny how no boys around curtails a lot of unpleasant behavior in general. When I moved to the public school I was about the only senior female who didn't slather on make up and cheap perfume (my Chanel no5 went largely unnoticed...probably because it had no defense against all the cheap and loud molecules clogging the air). I graduated right after my 17th birthday in 1980--egad, that makes me pretty darn old.
So I didn't meet Giorgio until college....It was BIG and made me feel a little ill , and girls who wore it were very concerned about making sure everyone knew they were wearing Giorgio....I could care less...by now I had learned to fight back by wearing YSL Rive Gauche....ha! take that ! hmmm...now I"m longing for a bit of a sniff of Rive Gauche, I haven't sniffed it in at least 25 years. By Junior year I had moved on to Ralph by Ralph Lauren--which by the way was apparently quite appealing to college age guys.
You know, I don't think that I ever wore the original Giorgio, just the Giorgio Red. I saw GR at Marshall's the other day, but it would have to be $10 and not $20 before I'd risk it - especially since I'm sure that it's been ruined.
I was mostly an Obsession girl back then, at least until everyone started wearing it. Then it was GR and then, I think EL's Spellbound - but there may have been something else in the middle.
I was out of college before the 80s rolled in, so I associate Giorgio with Dynasty-style big shoulders, and Judith Krantz sex-and-shopping novels. (Giorgio was that expensive boutique in Beverly Hills, remember? Maybe that last sentence has some redundancies...). Although I'm sure I must have smelled it on someone, I don't think I could identify it today. But I too have a perverse desire to test it.
And I *love* Gaze's take on the people who give kids nasty Halloween candies!
I can't help but remember the shop's entrance with its distinctive yellow and white striped awning.
perfumes online
Post a Comment