Formosa

I had high expectations for this perfume and was disappointed, starting with the presentation. The perfume arrived in a very simple box, which in my opinion, given the price I paid, should have been presented better. The fragrance gave me a headache, a floral and I expected a well-constructed citrus like Yve Saint Laurent's Le Vestiaire des Parfums to match the bottle, but it doesn't really match. The fragrance reminds me of my grandmother's perfumes. Honestly, I don't think it was worth investing in this perfume.

Rose-centric with citrus at the top. I don't get much else for flowers or fruits. Formosa lists sweet mandarin and candied lemon as the citrus notes, but I'm not sensing sweetness at all.

Well I finally received it and I’m pretty disappointed honestly. The juice isn’t yellow like pictured, it’s clear and somehow that takes away from it’s charm to me (silly I know). The bottle is still really cool though, the shape that is. The cap feels like cheap plastic though and the box it came in was pretty flimsy which surprised me considering it’s an expensive fragrance. Now onto the important part, the smell... Nothing remarkable to me unfortunately. It’s pleasant but rather boring. It’s a soft perfume, not a huge sillage. Closer to the skin but has good lasting power. It feels clean to me but not in a laundry detergent way, clean in a fruity/musky way. Hope that makes sense. Overall it’s pretty, just not my type of scent, too basic for me I suppose and I was hoping for something more tropical feeling I guess even though I’m aware it does say it’s a chypre floral and I agree with that, I just wanted it to be more juicy. I wanted the fruits to pop more & they never did. I got mostly the floral aspect with musk. I’ve never been to Taiwan so I’m not sure if this does it justice or not but I was left unmoved by it sadly. I ended up returning it. This is an okay option if you like office safe, chypre floral clean fruity fragrances but at this price point I’d say there are much better ones out there. As much as it pains me to say, I think the best part of this perfume is the bottle and the inspiration behind it rather than the juice itself.

Well frag fam I couldn’t resist... so I pre-ordered it. The chances I’d be able to sample this are slim since I don’t live in NY so a blind buy it was! If anything, that bottle design will be a great display piece in my collection although I never intend to buy a perfume just for the bottle alone but when it’s this unique of a piece of art I had to bend my rules. The notes seem nice, love the inspiration of the beautiful Taiwan so I’m hopeful it will smell lush. Not sure when it will ship out to me but I will give a proper review of this beauty when I receive it. Just a tip: If you do want to order it and have never signed up for BG rewards before, you can get 15% off with your email at sign up and use it for this purchase ;)

The bottle is a work of art! Bravo to the designer(s)! And to the photographer!