Ange Ou Demon Le Secret (2014)

Holy Grail. This all happened so fast, and changed the game on fragrances completely for me. I just picked up a bottle yesterday from Dillard's and I am immediately hooked. I want to fill a swimming pool up with gallons of this stuff and swim in it forever until I die. I am usually a sickeningly sweet gourmand/sugar fan. I don't mean Prada Candy-esque or Armani Si, I mean Viva La Juicy and Hanae Mori Butterfly, direct fruity sugar blast. Most of my life, I've opted out of the fancier, more mature perfumes because there was just something delicious missing in them, in my opinion. Since I am now in my 30s (And also because I've been somewhat lost ever since they changed Hanae Mori Butterfly to be too heavy on Sandalwood, when it was my signature since I was 18 years old), I've begun to explore other options, starting with Flowerbomb, moving towards the Chanels & Miss Diors (which I do like for some more serious occasions, business meetings, etc), but then FINALLY, THIS GEM. Ange Ou Demon Le Secret is the bridge that filled the void between juicy sugary sweet & mature but sexy & yummy. I don't know how they do it, it's so complex and elegant, yet mouth watering-delicious at the same time. It is the absolutely perfect thing I have been looking for. It works amazingly well with my body chemistry, better than how it smells on a tester, and in a way that I cannot even describe in comparison to the notes listed. I was actually shocked to read the notes afterwards because I was truly stumped on what they put in there. When I first spray it on, it smells like lemons with a hint of tea for a couple seconds - which is very nice & energizing, although I would never want to smell like lemon unless I am cleaning something in my kitchen or using a facial cleanser. Immediately following, I get this amazing scent on my body, and I have never experienced such a quick dry-down that is consistent in scent until it wears completely off - I don't know how to describe it other than soft white leather, if leather were a fruity candy. It's not too sweet, and it's not too musky. I am so happy that I randomly tried this in person before reading the notes, because I would NEVER have known, and the notes actually in this are usually things I try to stay away from. For me, the lasting power is all day (and I live in the desert), but I have also been layering it with the body lotion that came in the gift set, so that might be why. Ange Ou Demon Le Secret is the perfect balance I've been seeking forever - sharp, sugary, sweet, sexy. If sex were a food, it would smell like this. I am sure we will all get different results via body chemistry, but my body chemistry is usually very picky and weird with fragrances (a lot of perfumes tend to sour on me or end up smelling like plastic, waxy, old stale lipstick, or too powdery/losing their bite). This is the most absolutely consistent AND complex perfume I have ever experienced in my life, enough to finally after decades, invite a new signature scent into my life :)

In the top we have tea leaf, cranberry, lemon, grapefruit and orange. And in the first few seconds the fragrance opens up with a beautiful citrucy and a bit fruity, more like red fruits scent but also followed by the tea leaf note which is uplifting and invigorating, just perfect for hot summer or a tropical vacation. It’s a beautiful fresh and fruity composition in the beginning with a lot of green tea note that give a bright and greenish type of vibe. It feels light but very present for quite some time, it doesn’t fade away quickly, so you can enjoy these notes for some time till the middle notes make their presence. I honestly love the opening very much. It’s so well blended with a very summery vibe and it doesn’t feel generic or boring at all. In the middle there are jasmine sambac, peony, water lily, rose and hedione. The most I get from the florals is hedione, which I absolutely love but also some very few jasmine and rose. I almost do not get any water lily nor peony unfortunately, which are also one of my favourite notes in fragrances but here they are in very small traces and almost unnoticeable. The rose is very tender and fresh, and it combines very nicely with the fresh and white floral note of jasmine. This is a very beautiful floral composition that blends in very nicely with the citrucy slightly sweet top notes. They compliment each other very nicely. In the base we have a few beautiful notes like white musk, white woods, patchouli, amberwood and vanilla. Once the fragrance starts to dry down, I can first feel the amberwood and patchouli that give a woody and slightly earthy vibe to it but then it is followed by musk and vanilla (and there is very few vanilla here) and these two notes just smoothen the entire composition and give it a soft and attractive, slightly powdery and green-earthy slightly sweet type of vibe. Thanks to this base the scent stays on my skin for a decent amount of time. I love wearing this scent in hot summer days as it gives me a boost of energy as it is fresh and uplisting and fruity at the same time. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, if you’d like to have a boost of energy and feel an uplisting, fruity and fresh type of scent all at the same time in a hot summer day, then this fragrance is the right one. It is not boring as it develops throughout the entire its performance. PERFORMANCE: And speaking about the performance, the longevity of this fragrance is very good as it stays on my skin around 8 hours if I apply 6-10 sprays. The sillage and projection are also very good as I get a lot of compliments when wearing it. So, I’d give it a strong 8, maybe 8.5 thanks to its blend of the ingredients and their quality but also to its performance. If I’d have to buy it again, I’d definitely do it and would buy at least 2 bottles that much I love it.

Givenchy is probably my favorite next to Chanel. While I find most Chanel perfumes timeless and classy, they are not easy to wear for me. Sometimes they're too sharp, sometimes too heady. I do love some, like Venise, Gardenia or No5, but they don't speak to me like Givenchy creations. I love the perfect crispiness of Givenchy D'Amarige Extravagance, it's one of my favorites. I love L'Interdit, not for myself, but it's great. I adore simplicity of Eau de Givenchy, the juiciness of Hot Couture both EDP and EDT and God, I how much I regret not buying Le Bouquet Absolu while it was still on the market! It was absolutely perfect. Well, most of Givenchy perfume make me smile, even if I can't wear all of them. But I have to say, Ange ou Demon Le Secret is probably the best creation of Givenchy I ever came across. To me it smells like a jasmine tea with juicy rose petals, served on a sunny day that makes everything calm and beautiful. It's such a happy, memorable scent. I kept it in my memory for years, actually. It was a scent my best friend loved and she was wearing since it came out. I was in love with this perfume but never intended to buy it - it was "her" scent, it was perfect for her. Then it was reformulated and she noticed a change. But this reformulated version is juicier, happier and even more beautifully crafted than the previous one. It is everything I was looking for in a scent - soft, floral, watery, feminine, not strong but noticeable for others. Build of my favorite notes. Elegant, timeless and not comparable to anything else on the market. It is so unique. My favorite moment is when the fresh, juicy jasmine tea with citruses turn into a peony-rose drydown that seems to be full of light and sun. I think it suits both day and night, jeans and a dress, spring and winter. It's a mood lifter for sure. Damn, this perfume is beautiful. I ordered a few samples of other scents in my search for a signature scent but for now, this is my number one and I would be surprised if anything could win my heart more than this one.

Since I find this and the older formulation so similar, I have decided to add an edited version of that review to this page. This fragrance is one of my favourite spring fragrances. It opens as a bright and fruity tea. Both the lemon and cranberry gove it a strong tartness, but there is a pleasant sweetness as well. I find the sweetness grows as it dries down. A lot of the sweetness seems to come from the patchouli, which is a a clean and green patchouli that pairs quite nicely with the tea note. There is only a hint of the original Ange ou Demon EDP in this flanker. I notice it, but I have to look for it. All of the darkness and depth from the original was left out of this one. This one could have been simply called Ange, there is no demon in this bottle. I have had excellent performance with Ange Ou Demon Le Secret. It lasts 8-10 hours on skin and even longer on clothes. It has solid projection, a little beyond arms length for about half of the wear time. For the rest of the wear it stays pretty close to the skin. This is a warm weather fragrance for me. I love the tart, juiciness in the opening on a warm day, or when I want to imagine a warm day. I own both this formula (as pictured) and the older one. This review is for the newer formulation. I do find there is minimal difference between them though. The older one has a slightly deeper and more rounded sweetness, while this formula is lighter and more tart. I smell little difference in the dry down with the older formula being a little more patchouli heavy. The performance is pretty similar with this one not lasting quite as long and having a little less projection, but both are pretty long lasting. I don't find them different enough to hunt down one bottle over the other, but if they are both available for the same price, I would choose the older one. I kinda hate the caps on all the Ange ou Demon bottles. They fit poorly. They are also a little awkward to recap, they have to sit just right but the difference between the front and back of the cap is pretty subtle.

Opens with a tart yet sweet cranberry, a refreshing tea note, and sparkling lemon. The florals are well done .. not screechy and enhanced by the top notes. The base notes are very light ... In my opinion, AoD Le Secret (2014) is all top notes, from beginning to end. It’s pretty quiet after 3-4 hours; projection fades as well, starting off strong and bright and becoming a comforting fruit-tea skin scent towards the end of wear. The cranberry is really what sells this whole fragrance ... it is superbly done. At first, it’s tart, but it’s never overpowering or sour. With wear, it gets sweeter and turns into a juicy grape-like note .. but it’s never cloying or screechy. If you’re not a fan of fruity or sweet fragrances, give this one a try. Ultimately, I guess that would be my suggestion to anyone about this fragrance, even if you’re iffy on any of the notes .. Give it a try. I hope you’ll love it as much as I do. (As an aside, I have tried the older formulation and much much much prefer this version. The older one was screechy, sharp, and not as mellow and lovely as this one.)