Lady Day

Billie Holiday's gardenia. The house says it's an enfleurage extract from gardenia flowers themselves rather than a simulated accord so this is a relatively rare and expensive thing and I can understand why this release comes in parfum strength. Lady Day is a fragile white floral with some greenness. There's an initial note of camphoraceous sweet mint, a facet of the gardenia. The Peru balsam for the base is light, powdery and neutral. Unlike other reviewers, I only get a little galbanum dancing around the edges, much of the green freshness coming from the gardenia itself. Being a parfum it requires skin warmth to come to life. Lady Day doesn't project much at all but apply enough and a beautiful, light, green-white floral slowly blooms, painfully slowly, taking at least a couple of hours to develop. While you wait it can seem a little insipid, not much presence or personality, but eventually the gardenia wins through. At the 4 hour mark it's an exquisite delicate flower, both light and intimate, sensual but not too waxy, creating a transparent, tropical-yet-cold, white floral scent bubble around the wearer. Cool and ever so slightly melancholy from its greenness. The scent of gardenia truly is a wonderful thing.

Lady Day is definitely not for everyone but it would be a hit with fans of green florals, like Cristalle and Mito by Vero Kern. The songs of Billie Holiday are of the hopes and dreams of people, sung with a wistful and melancholic air of someone whose own life could have done with some realised hopes and dreams. Lady Day combines the bitterness of her life and the sweetness of her songs in one. As with all of life, there will always be the bitter with the sweet. Galbanum as always is striking and uncompromising in its characteristic bitterness, there is a sharp and peppery almost astringent quality to the opening of Lady Day before the bitter and the green allow the gardenia to slowly unfurl its petals and release its youthful and innocent beauty. Gardenia is noticeable but subdued in Lady Day, until the drydown where the herbal green elements seemed to have burned out, leaving the flower standing alone. The projection and longevity is modest but Lady Day isn't a perfume to be showcased on a night out, rather she should be listened to with undivided attention and silent appreciation of her unique attractiveness.

Truly excentric, and where's the gardenia? I love galbanum but must admit that the opening is so powerful on me that it almost smells like crown dill. That calms down in some minutes and settles into distinct greenness. Then, completely opposite to the green freshness comes the sweet, aromatic, "purple" Peru balsam. Familiar from the likes of Prada Prada, CH 212. Some hours later the Peru balsam recedes and something like a vanillic white floral shines through. Lady Day is a beautiful, ever changing journey. It's parfum concentration but wears quite lightly. Lasting power is about 6h on me. I'm amazed by shipping from the MCG eshop, my order arrived(north eu) the next day!

a light colony of gardenia. nothing more. almost zero performance.

Hmmmm....! it's almost water & i can't smell anything unless i stick my nose to me wrest! This is not really a gardenia! It is more of a green jasmine, like a green cut fresh raw jasmine! maybe it has a bit of gardenia but mostly it is jasmines! This is overly wear and very close to skin! that IF it stayed more than few minutes!