Lilac

My experience with this frag has been pretty different: I've never met a more realistic and reliable lilac juice kept in a bottle than C.and M's 'Lilac'! It's a simple soliflore frag - but normally there're also many other ingredients to help with the composition! - Some years ago, I found a 50 ml of it in a good perfumery shop, though I also bought other scents of the same brand I believe that Lilac is the best in their collection, being it very faithful to the flower scent. For me this is a joyous tribute to lilac's season - too short!!!- spring and flowers in blossom. The simplicity of something natural can help to distract from the anxiety and it is also good when you want to relax your senses with something less complicated but unmistakably good: everybody seems to like it no matter age, class or genre, probably because there are very few fragrances - not to say inexistent - (in Europe at least) that have taken lilac in any consideration. Persistence is a tour de force, with a minimum quantity I could go far and wide. Lovely sillage. Unfortunately, since then, I couldn't find another bottle as it seemed the brand has stopped selling in Europe.

My problem with floral fragrances is perfumers doing too much with them. Flowers have already had millions of years to learn how to smell beautiful. I'm happy that this is just lilac to me. It smells like a summer night in my backyard as a kid. Just lilac. I think it's easy to overdo it though. Even though it's pretty intimate and delicate as a perfume, more than one spray would make me feel claustrophobic and ruin the effect for me. It also becomes a little salty on the skin and less like authentic, fresh lilac after a bit. But it's still nice. Used sparingly and with tact, this is a floral I can actually wear. It's a new staple in my wardrobe, and I feel bad for letting it collect dust in my perfume box just because I was afraid of floral perfumes.

I have this in a soap. I was determined to find any lilac fragrance since lilac is hard to find in fragrance at all. I smelled the package of this soap, and that was it. The day of shopping at the mall was over because I had to go home and just had to take a shower with this soap. I loved it so much, I slept with the package nearby, inhaling every wonderful heady fragrance.......and then something strange happened. I got sick of it around 3am. I broke my olfactory nerves! lol I guess I over did it. So, back in the package it went, with the other two cakes, and out of sight, buried on the bottom of my bathroom drawer for about 6 months until my olfactory nerves healed up. I can't say I hate it. That doing was my own fault. But I do like it a lot.

It is a very good lilac. I have the soap, as well. However, Highland Lilac is true lilac to me. I lived in Illinois for six years, and the neighbor across the street had lilac bushes. In the Spring I would open my windows and revel in the smell of those beautiful blooms! Highland Lilac brings all that back to me with one whiff. Goes on true lilac, and stays that way for me.

It's a very intimate, clean lilac to my nose. Leans feminine and I don't pick up any suede. A clean, light soap note sticks around hours later so it's not too bad. Can't see any lilac lovers disliking this it's a nice lilac scent.

I was very disappointed in the Caswell-Massey Lilac. At first, it reminded me of cheap men's cologne. Eventually, it smells more like lilac--yet with a shampoo-y undertone. It was very unpleasant to me, though I did not get a headache. I prefer the Highland Lilac scent (though, on my skin, it lasted less than one hour).

I love visiting the lilacs in bloom at the New York Botanical Garden. Sadly, unless I sniffed intensely, I only got the faintest hint of lilac power in Caswell-Massey’s interpretation, and the experience is over in minutes. On me, the scent disappears faster than a spring shower.

Lilac is my favorite flower and I was born in upstate NY where lovely lilacs abound in spring. I generally try any lilac scent I can find and as a fan of Caswell Massey products in general--I have worn this scent and enjoyed it over the years. I worked for Perfumer's workshop back in the 70's and 80's and their essential oil of lilac was amazing and now impossible to find--I also still have a bit of Alyssa Ashley's French Garden Flowers Lilac that was a bit cheap but acceptable--and the better than average Yves Rocher Lilas Mauve which is lovely but has poor silage- but the best --most accurate to nature--with the green and spicy background fresh living lilacs have--my all time favorite Lilac scent ever, is Highland Lilac of Rochester NY---right here in my own backyard!!

This opens with a lovely intense lilac, as if there were a thousand blooms in a single drop. The force of the initial lilac subsides, and underneath there's a cleanness that reminds me of soap. As if someone sprayed a detergent on the profusion of flowers, and then washed it off. Unfortunately, as the drydown progresses, the scent deteriorates on my skin. Progressively becoming more soapy and less lilac. And then cheap soapy. I don't know if there's something in my skin chemistry that spurs the breakdown, or if the lilac is so synthetic that it degrades. But ultimately it smells like bargain bubblegum soap on me. Sillage and longevity both robust.

Beatrix: your standard rose scent, nothing to write home about Lilac: this carries a strange mild plasticky sourness Peony: has a burnt sweet smell that is really harsh and synthetic Gardenia: has a nail-vanish hint to it Honeysuckle: probably the most agreeable of all the floral scents by Caswell Massey

I love the scent of pure lilac, so I was very hopeful when I ordered this perfume. When first sprayed it was somewhat reminiscent of lilac, then it dried down into nothing but a heavy, cloying, spicy smell. I will not purchase again.