West Side

I love this scent! As "Francopop" has so brilliantly described, think of over-ripe, fading, potent and sweet Rosepetals harvested in the warm afternoon sun, dunked and drunk on lukewarm Rosé Wine....let it rest and add 5 scoops of vanilla ice cream, more roses, 1 or 2 peony heads, some rose-pedal jam, break in some toasted ice cream wafers, a dash of amber, musk, Ylang-Ylang and sprinkle with some real vanilla pod granules, and let it rest in the afternoon warm sun. Fill up with champagne, dress with more toasted wavers and serve! This is a totally 100% cheerful, feel-good skin scent with very moderate projection (the vanilla accord stays on the longest) starting with that boozy, alcoholic whiff of roses, then the vanilla/ wafer/ baby-skin scent takes over and becomes sweeter and sweeter....nothing much else happens to this reliant "Labrador" of a scent. Personally, I love this for the summer months, despite being a fairly sweet scent and I do funnily prefer it to the more potent and stronger, yet "cooler" and somewhat louder, more complex and crisper "Lyric Man" by AMOUAGE (some people might kill me now but despite liking "Lyric Man" I prefer it on a woman). "West Side" also reminds me of "L'Eau D'Hiver" by Frederic Malle, also a very pleasant skin scent with similar soft (yet more milky and more almondy nature) character and little projection. This is not a "head-turning" perfume but more of an intimate feel-good scent that you might wanna enjoy on those special and relaxed summer evenings.....perfect soundtrack to this would be Otis Redding's "Dock Of The Bay". Very 'gourmand', you cannot stop sniffing, you wanna eat it as it smells so good. Advice, spray also on fabric to intensify scent.

Love. Love. Love. I have been searching high and low for a lush, sweet rose scent. Nothing screechy or harsh. Not a tea rose scent, a sweet pink cabbage rose that blooms once a year and makes the whole yard smell like heaven and honey. I have sampled so many fragrances I'd started to think my perfume didn't exist. And then, randomly, I came across this amazing fragrance in this hideous bottle. Thank goodness my first experience was a decant. So let's get this out of hte way: the bottle is horrid. And it makes absolutely no sense for the scent inside. It's loud and technicolor and makes me expect some over the top modern musical. That's not what you get (thank heaven). This is the freshest pink antique roses, just opened on a fresh dewy morning drizzled with honey and pollen. This isn't some stuffy specimen rose garden full of upright nose in the air hybrid teas. This is a cottage garden where big old antique roses 7 feet tall and 12 feet across are covered with a thousand blooms and jammed in with peony, iris, tulips, daisies, and just about anything else you can think of. All so tight together no ground even shows. The air is cool and fresh and smells like heaven and there are bees buzzing through all that floral madness. Ignore the bottle, what's inside is amazing.

I really (very quickly) fell head-over-heels in love with this one. I'd like to preface this by saying I never thought I'd find a Bond No. 9 fragrance that I enjoyed, and here I am looking at a potential new signature scent! West Side is, in short, heavenly. I was blown away by how, above all other things, SIMPLY PLEASANT this is to wear! The opening is vanilla liquor, very boozy and butterscotch-y in a way, with a deep rose note behind. Velvety, balmy, sugary, blood-red rose. Hints of peony and sandalwood peek through, but they're fleeting. This scent is thick, silky, round and romantic when it hits the skin, and never is sharp or screeching. Into the drydown the vanilla turns more toasted/mildly burnt and crunchy - but in a very charming way - and the roses persists. If you're familiar with "Roses Vanille" from Mancera - it's that type of feel, but done with much more finesse and a gentle touch. A trickle instead of an avalanche. While West Side lasts literally all day on skin and clothes (easily 10-14+ hours), it never feels too bold or overdone. I do love smelling great, but I don't want to worry about always punching people in the face with my cloud of perfum. Something so wearable but still remarkable. 10/10.

My first Bond No 9! I have to say I haven't been drawn to this house - something about the combination of the brand's very high prices and very ugly bottles rubs me the wrong way, as if their target audience is people so rich they can afford to be disdainful of beautiful things. Of course I'm aware it's reading WAY too much into it, a stupid prejudice, but there you are... That being said, though, sampling West Side has dispelled most of my prejudice: this fragrance is obviously high quality, it performs exemplarily, and it smells wonderful. I love rose scents, and this is a good one, warm and comfortable and rather heady - a naturally fragrant rose in a soft bed of warm amber and vanilla, sweet without going overboard. Like others have mentioned it isn't exactly original, but it doesn't need to be. I keep getting lovely, mood-lifting whiffs of it all through the day - you really get your money's worth with this one, which is saying a lot at this price. I obviously like it enough not to want to be without it, but I have enough rose scents as it is, and call me plebeian but I do like to get something I like to look at when I spend 100+ euro - so I guess I'll have to hunt down a decant of this one!

Red wine, roses, expensive clothing store, friday... That's what I think when I smell this. This is an amazing rose vanilla scent. This is like bouquet of fresh red roses with no unneccessary sweetness. And the peony is a nice touch in there! I love peony. Yes there is white musk but it isn't as heavy as it could be, it doesn't give me a headache. I'm not prone to headaches with perfumes but sometimes too much white musk makes me have a headache, propably cos it's synthetic ingredient. Vanilla is great, very much combined with sandalwood. And with that I mean I don't smell either one, but I smell the mix that sandalwood+vanilla makes most of the time (examples would be: Vanisia, Dior Addict etc high quality sandalwoods and vanillas). This scent is evergreen and it doesn't matter whether is day or night when I'm wearing it. It's not too heavy for the day and not too light for night time. Also it has great lasting power. It isn't confirmed anywhere that this would have red wine note but I sure do smell it all the way through. Never thought I'd love that scent so much. But it actually could be just the rose. Also I smell some tonka bean and in the top notes some leather maybe.