Aviance Night Musk

A bottle of Aviance showed up on my door step, courtesy of a kind Fragrantican, and I’m happy to give my opinion on this classic 80’s fragrance. It is subtle and sweet and quite musky. Not a white musk, but still fairly light with a light incense note that is, I think, giving it the sweetness. Is that the cloves + vanilla? No incense is listed. In a way, it reminds me of Ciara, but while Ciara has what I think of as a cherry pipe tobacco note (the raspberry and oppoponax, I think), Aviance does not have that fruity sweetness or heavy tobacco-incense. I think there is still an incense note....can a perfume have a “light richness”? Is that the sandalwood? I love sandalwood, but really don’t smell this as a sandalwood-heavy scent. I see this is compared to Ellen by Ellen Tracy, and I can see the similarities especially as Aviance dries down; both have that light, sweet, musky richness with a hint of spice that catches slightly in the back of your throat like powder or honey, but which isn’t either of those things. Aviance is more incense-y and balmy than Ellen, and Ellen has more fruit/floral. Aviance is very well blended, and does not evolve much over time. I see this voted in as a night, winter fragrance, but I’m wearing it on a spring day to work and think it is doing just fine. It’s not heavy or bold, but neither is it shy and retiring. Aviance is comforting and soothing to me. Longevity 4 hours so far and still as strong as when I applied it; sillage is moderate at least. Edit: this gets sweeter with age. After about 7 hours, I can still smell it, but it is mellower and more vanillic. Nice.

Got my vintage bottle and mine still smells like I remember. I always got a lot of the apple underneath when I smell it. This is a sweet oriental musk. Apple has always been seen as a forbidden fruit and this used to drive the boys wild back in highschool. It's musky, spicy, fruity and sweet. Basically everything that makes a great perfume. This is kind of what "gourmand" was back in the 80s. Like EA Red Door. Perfumes like that. They had a tempting sweetness that smelled almost forbidden. Not like the syrup sweet food bakery good candle fragrances that people clamor for today. Hail to a drugstore classic. Did I pay a drugstore price? No but I wanted the memories. Now I have them because they don't make perfumes like this anymore. Go into Ulta, Sephora and they all smell like a bakery except the Gucci Bloom line. Ah, ah! The cinnamon. Oh how I miss cinnamon in perfumes. There it is bright and delicious on my arm.... I'm back in 1985 again...

I would do terrible things to own a good sized vintage bottle of this perfume. I wore it in my teens, my first bottle was a gift from my best friend for my December birthday. At the time it was probably a bit too mature for me to be wearing but I was head over heels crazy about it. If time travel were a thing I'd go back to that year and stock up on that vintage/original formulation. Finding it now is an exercise in financial pain, I've only scored the tiniest, used bottle in the last 10 years and when it was gone I was sad. I also have not been able to find any newer formulations in big box stores though formulations of Wind Song produced by Prince Matchabelli run rampant wherever I look.

One of te best blind buys ever. Bought it just because it was so cheap and based on reviews and I have to say that I'm still amazed by the fact this one is so cheap. why? It smells absolutely gorgeous. A perfect frag for the rainy days, when you want to smell something sweet and positive. Aviance night it's a perfect combinatioon of 3 very warm notes: sandalwood,cinnamon and cloves. Add a little bit of vanilla and here you have a perfectly created magic potion. More people should try this one!

I purchased a small aerolsol can of this from wal-mart over ten years ago and was instantly hooked on the sexy scent.Everyone adored it. It was reminiscent of getting all dressed up with black stockings and red lipstick for a fun evening out somewhere. Sadly it has been reformulated and the bottle I bought some years back smelled much less vanilla and much more musk. I don't normally like much vanilla but with this scent it balanced out the strong musk, and now it is no longer. Too bad.