Hong Kong Garden

With production of Ava Luxe perfumes seemingly in limbo, I fear that Hong Kong Garden, one of perfumer Serena Ava Franco's most exquisite creations, may not be long for this world. Hong Kong Garden is, in a way, one of the least "Ava-like" perfumes in Franco's lineup. Nothing vanilla, little of musk, devoid of overt sexiness, Hong Kong Garden is like a dew drenched blossom growing in the middle of a metropolis that is serenely unaware of its beauty and vulnerability and thereby flourishing where it should have instead perished. The top notes are a charming interplay of greenery and something akin to lime peel, bright without being harsh and tart without being, well, sour. Midway through the fragrance iris makes its debut, and what a debut it is. Earthy and cool in the vein of other great iris-themed scents like Serge Lutens' Iris Silver Mist, but also effervescent and almost aldehydic in the vein of, say, Chanel No. 5. The iris is nicely balanced with a pure, clean rose and some honeyed violet. What I like best about the scent, though, is its drydown: tons of oakmoss and vetiver, which imbue the scent with a damp, glorious green, and then just a hint of the orris root balanced with the smooth spiciness of sandalwood. All in all, this scent takes me on a journey the like of which I haven't experienced before. And I keep wanting to go again and again.

This is one of my Ava Luxe samples and Oww I so love this scent. It opens fresh and green, a bit citrusy ,but then I can start to smell some flowers. Violet and rose soft but noticable. Also the sandalwood I can smell very good on my skin.The dry down is a warm and woody floral scent. A bit powdery with the orris and vetyver. If the gardens smells like this in Hong kong I will emigrate amidiatly ;-) Sillage and lasting power are fantastic still smell the scent the next day

I've come back to this one today, mostly as a weird, delayed goodbye, and I still have no idea why you'd call ANYTHING 'Hong Kong Garden'. I lived in HK for 6+ years and there are, literally, no gardens in HK -- land is in such short supply, if you owned land and you wasted it on a garden, well, yeah. Nonetheless, HK is such an overcrowded, polluted and unfortunately steel-and-concrete kinda place, I doubt you'd seriously want to spend any amount of time in a garden, anyway... All of that aside, this scent is rather pleasant and works well. It's floral, smooth and fragrant and really functions well as a unified scent. Nothing is out of proportion and nothing is too subtle. It's a great 'beginner' scent, I feel, with the smooth sandal-rose combo forming the backbone of the scent, with the orris and iris riffing well off each other. It's a little too 'simple' for me, and not anywhere near weird enough. I would recommend this without any hesitation...

I got the sample and was reticent to actually try it in case it DID smell like a Hong Kong garden. Luckily, it did NOT, and was actually quite pleasant! Resiney and floral, quite nice! Not 100% my cup of tea, but, and let me be 100% clear, this does NOT smell like any Hong Kong garden WHATSOEVER.