Rock Star

I get a pleasing earthy, celery, pepper impression from Rock Star, maybe some other culinary spices, but none of the official notes. So many fragrances to love in the Rich Hippie line if they could drop the price by 2/3.

This line is laughably expensive, even for samples, but when TPC was having a 75% off sale I picked up a set of samples at prices that were more or less in line with the usual going rates for other, “normal”, samples. What I have is labeled as a “perfume oil”, but it most definitely goes on as an alcohol-based perfume, since I can even feel the alcohol evaporating. Maybe this is why the samples were on sale. Huh. Very interesting, but not an auspicious introduction to this line. Not only does it go on like alcohol, it’s nowhere near as strong as I would expect from a perfume oil, falling more or less in the weak EdP or strong EdT range. The fragrance starts out with a “natural”, herbal scent, far from anything I would associate with a rock star or even a hippie, rich or poor. It is by no stretch of the imagination “racy, dangerous and sensual”, as described in the advertising blurb. It’s more like baby Bambi frolicking in a field of mild clover or a prim and proper retired gardener puttering among her mildly scented plants. I have no idea what flowers and herbs went into making Rock Star, but it ends up being a generic take on miscellaneous plant extracts all dumped together. I don’t smell flowers at all, I just smell something vaguely camphorous, green, earthy, and ever so slightly spicy. As with so many all-natural perfumes, there’s very little sillage. In less than hour the mixture has faded to a sweetish, grassy, clover scent that’s only detectable right up next to the skin. Just as there are sometimes wonderful surprises in perfume sampling, there are also dismal disappointments. This was one of the latter. Rock Star’s not bad, but that's only because it doesn’t have enough character to be either good or bad. It’s not something I’d pay big bucks for (or even small bucks) since there are any number of all-natural perfumers who do it infinitely better, with less pretension and more reasonable prices. As a fragrance, I'm neutral about this, but I marked "dislike" because of the exorbitant price and over-the-top advertising.