Saturday

Apparently I’ll be one of the lone voices on here that actually likes this fragrance lol. This is the one in the Long Weekend range I was most nervous to try, based on the online reviews...surprisingly, it ended up being my favorite of the lot (tied with Friday, admittedly) and I now have a full bottle. I think this is just one that is very dependent on skin chemistry, so definitely sample before you buy. The unique bottle design and bright colors really reflect the contents here. Saturday is bright, cheery, happy, and fruity. As the name suggests, it is a great weekend scent. It instantly reminded me of the tropical fruit cocktails I drank on my honeymoon in the South Pacific. It’s a more unique take on a fruity summer scent profile. Saturday came across as the most unique of the Long Weekend line to me. Saturday also is extremely passionfruit-dominant. It really is a true-to-life passionfruit scent (complete with the indolic undertones that I can understand some people interpreting as “BO” or “rotting fruit,”) so if you don’t like passionfruit, you’re really not going to like Saturday. It definitely has that “fruit gummy” quality that others have pointed out. I will say it didn’t change or evolve much on my skin, so I continued to get the lovely fruity notes throughout the duration of wear.

I really didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did. I expected something linear or cloying since the top notes are all so sweet and fragrant. At first spray, I was disappointed– I got a weird, chalky-but-sweet smell with a hint of butyric acid, like a pink SweetTart. I couldn't register the passion fruit at all, which was disappointing because PF is one of my favorite fruits. The second and third times I tried it, I found Saturday so much more pleasurable. It's effervescent and fizzy (the fruits really bring out the best in each other, e.g. tart rhubarb and passion fruit balances out sweet peaches). For some reason, I also get a bit of juicy blackcurrant, which is fantastic since it's a fruit that really hasn't been done justice (Looking at you, One Umbrella for Two by Floraiku). Saturday is not juvenile at all, as the dry-down is graceful and becomes an agreeable, saffron that melts into the skin and makes you smell clean. I agree that it kind of smells like Byredo Pulp pre-funkiness, but both are wonderful and sophisticated in their own way.

I originally blind-purchased this scent simply for the fantastic presentation, designed for Arielle Shoshana ( I discovered after a little research) by a Brooklyn based studio called Wade and Leta. I love the big, bright colors and crazy dimensions - it's great pop-art all by itself. I also liked the concept of a fragrance conceptualized around a specific day of the week - something that I don't think I've run across before (they also make a "Sunday"). Fortunately, the fragrance inside matches the zest and fun of its' container. Passionfruit is clearly the dominant note here (and a beautiful, tangy passionfruit it is), but there is just enough iris and magnolia to tip the scales towards this being a slightly feminine scent - just barely. Some men would have no problem with it at all. Comparisons have been made to Byredo's Pulp (one of my favorites) because of the fruitiness, but Pulp is based in the danker green fruit and vegetable notes, while Saturday is much lighter with the floral top that Pulp completely lacks.

First of all, can we talk about how "perfumer Cécile Hua used a proprietary CO2 extraction technique to create the first natural passion fruit extract in perfumery history?" It's no wonder that this was the first perfume in the Arielle Shoshana collection, this is an amazing debut for the brand. One thing I find so interesting is that when you take a natural fragrance and extract and concentrate it, sometimes it can take on new qualities. I love passion fruit (I had fresh passion fruit with breakfast every day when I visited Vietnam) but Saturday goes beyond the familiar: this EDP smells somewhere between a mouthwatering fruit candy like HI-CHEW and a delicious sparkling passion fruit mocktail. The passion fruit note is present throughout the dry-down: it's tangy and tart and somehow reminds me of grapefruit, which I love. The rhubarb note marries perfectly with the passion fruit and I love how present it is in this fragrance. Overall, I'm very impressed.

Saturday has a little more "throw" to it than Sunday, but disappears more quickly from the skin. Which is a shame, because it's a really unique scent. I've never smelled passion fruit in a fragrance before, but it shines brightly here in an appealing mix of sweet and sour / tangy (the rhubarb keeps the fruit from becoming sugary). The passion fruit never leaves, but a sandalwood base makes itself known eventually. I'm also pleased to say that the iris in this fragrance behaves well (by my standards): normally iris / orris root turns into suffocating talcum on my skin, but here the iris takes on an earthy, subtle carrot quality. I don't really get any of the other floral notes, or vanilla. Edit: I tried layering this over Svensk Parfym's "Prakt," of which I have a deluxe sample. Prakt is longer-lasting and has an impressively vegetal rhubarb note, which the passion fruit of Saturday melded with beautifully.