Golden Cattleya

Intoxicatingly sweet, seductive, surprisingly spicy essence of sunshine. A big bouncy bodacious yellow-floral with enough adult bite to cure any sceptic, and raise a smile from even the most blase cynic like me. No shy flower this: it's huge, almost bossy, grand expansive sillage and thick pillowy almost-waxy petals all the way down. Reads very very femme to me, but anyone with the desire for a barnstorming, honeyed, almost honeysuckle jungle idyll done for grown-ups might find its hothouse-flower power alluring. The sheer floral-ness is almost overwhelming, with a rich round vanillic character, underlaid with warm - almost musky - undefined spiciness. Not a single note of coldness or harshness anywhere to be found; some of the spice hints at earth, but there's no muddiness or green to it either. Overall - both lush and luscious, and this sort of hyper-sensual sweetness often grates on me, but here I swoon and follow it right down the tropic-jungle path. Smelling it blind I kept thinking 'wow, this is like Mardi Gras but even better' and seeing the pyramid, I can see why - it's more complex and less minimal than MG's simple orange blossom-vanilla-musk, so the journey is more interesting, but it shares the same rollicking, fleshy, sensuous, easy-drawl feel. Wowsers. Truly impressive. Occupies the same sort of mental niche for me as Bianchi Under My Skin or Papillon's Bengale Rouge - honeydripping charmers to make even the bleakest day happy. Vast performance and longevity all add up to amazing value, too - if you can keep up with its almost overwhelming insistence that you GO OUT AND HAVE SOME FUN! Scent avatar: Jane Russell in 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' - fully adult bump 'n grind with real muscle, a dirty laugh and legs for days - but always staying classy and optimistic. Bravo!

This is what I imagine a bee-filled flower garden at the peak of spring smelling like. This scent is amazing. The opening is an explosion of honey, cream-soda and orange blossom. The honey here is incredibly rich and deep, while the cream soda is slightly synthetic but very sweet and creamy. They compliment each other incredibly well. Then there's the orange blossom which holds these two together. The orange blossom differs itself from the typical middle-eastern orange blossom (the kind they put in foods eg. exotic craft coffees at hipster-y cafes or shalab) by having this rounded off warm floral feeling. When you dig you can find narcissus and it's balanced just enough to give great depth here. During the dry down a feminine vintage vibe that comes on and it's not my favorite. I think it's the combination of the sandalwood creeping up and the orange blossom changing its scent which create this almond-cream "aunt-like" accord. It overpowers the beautiful floral honey too much and distorts the profile. This isn't quite my style, though I'd love to smell this on a woman (or even a man!). In my head, this was made for a beautiful person with a smile that radiates a solar warmth :')

Honey is not the easiest note on my skin, and at the first moments I thought that Golden Cattleya would be another honey scent that I couldn't wear. Right after spraying it's kind of dusty, as if it was covered in pollen all over, which I'm not the biggest fan of. But luckily I was wrong. This honey is smells very natural, but doesn't turn musty, dirty or overwhelming on me. After about 20 minutes the dust settles and the perfume becomes really beautiful. Creamy vanilla and honey sweetness combined with juicy ripe oranges and their blossoms. A touch of narcissus and amber for even more warmth. And that cream soda note! It's so good, sweet and fizzy and almost drinkable. But this is an equally floral and gourmand fragrance, so the overall impression is not like you spilled a drink on yourself. This is not necessarily a summer fragrance, but it makes me think of summer. It's so warm, it feels like laying in the sun with blooming flowers around you, like the essence of summer. Golden Cattleya is a rich fragrance, but not as loud as Red Cattleya or Blackbird by the same house. This is softer and rounder in character with no sharpness at all. My favorite by Olympic Orchids!

I am so excited that this beautiful line of perfumes is finally on Fragrantica! Although undoubtedly sweet, Golden Cattleya completely lacks the banal, boring, everything-smells-the-same element of most contemporary sweet scents because it literally seems to sparkle. That "sparkling" note is one I can detect in several of the Olympic Orchid "orchid" perfumes, perhaps the perfumer's version of the famed "guerlinade", but one completely original and her own. Its addictive - I may well have to have all her orchid scents! Golden Cattleya is also inexplicably honeyed, fruity ,flowery and yet resin-y/woody at the same time- its truly unlike anything else I have. The symphony of notes goes on and on and on, with beautiful sillage and 8 hour plus lasting power. It has garnered a ton of compliments, and all my other perfumes are languishing for want of attention these days, because I consider Golden Cattleya one of the very best things I have smelled or worn in years. A perfume blog I read referred to the perfumer, Ellen Covey, as a genius. You know what? I couldn't agree more!

I was initially curious about Ellen Covey to compare to her original Bat, now called Night Flyer, to the current Zoologist Bat. Turns out her Golden Cattaleya is everything I wanted from Zoologist Bee! This is gorgeous, golden honey, pollen, beeswax (although that's not a listen note), languid sexy sun drenched. It's somehow both fresh and unctuous. I feel more like a queen bee than a worker bee. This feels like a gold weather scent, but I can't wait to smell it on skin that's been baking in the sun. Some of the sexiness reminds me of what I remember about MFK Absolue Pour Le Soir. I'm amazed at the variety of Dr Covey's creations. I'm going to do a direct comparison with Golden Cattaleya and Bee soon. Update: I wore Bee and Golden Cattaleya on each arm. It was heavenly. I still think they are very similar and either could have been called Bee. Golden Cattaleya is less intense with the honey/pollen/wax and a bit lighter, fresher, and more complex. It also lasted way longer on me. I think Golden Cattaleya is my queen bee!