Florence

Personally I have not smelt Mancera's Roses Vanille - the scent that Florence is continually compared to - however, I do own a lot of perfumes from Montale (Mancera's sister company) and find that Florence has a very similar DNA to some of their fragrances. To me, Florence smells like if Montale's Intense Cafe and Mukhallat had a baby. It has the scent of Intense Cafe when it is dried down (so without the coffee note) combined with a hint of Mukhallat's strawberry chapstick aroma. Therefore, if you love Montale fragrances but can't bring yourself to spend the high price tag for them, this is a great dupe. After a couple of hours on the skin the perfume dries down into an aroma that reminds me of sparkling rose wine. The rose is more prominent, and has a jammy quality. This is the second Swiss Arabian perfume I have purchased (the first being Shaghaf Oud) and they continue to blow me away with their longevity, projection and value for money. A truly brilliant and underrated perfume house, I am excited to explore more of their scents and see what this brilliant house come up with next!

This is a sweet, jammy, sugary vanilla rose. A young rose that I'm pretty sure most people would find pleasing. If you stick your nose up to where you sprayed, you will get this sharp, somewhat spicy scent. I think this is the cedar but if you're just walking around you don't get the sharpness at all. The cedar creates a depth to the sweet scent. If you've smelled ISO E Super, that's the scent (very light in the background). It's winter now so this is not cloying so far but I think it's also wearable for summer. Signature scent worthy. Blind bought this and I'm extremely impressed. Love at first sniff. I keep getting whiffs of it as I move around and it's sooo good. I don't get powdery notes (which I hate).

Well, this is just all kinds of delicious. I actually bought it without realizing it may or may not have been intended as a dupe for Mancera Roses Vanille, which I also own (and deeply love), but now that I've worn it a couple of times I definitely see the similarities, at least in the first hour of wear. The dry down is really where these two fragrances diverge. Where RV retains a certain jamminess throughout the lifetime of its wear on me, Florence becomes sweeter and creamier, like the most delicious rose petal ice cream. I don't think I will ever have enough sweet rose fragrances in my collection to satisfy my craving, and I'm very happy to own both of these beauties.

Interesting, boozy, sweet, comforting but not for the faint at heart. I love this!! It has a beer like quality with a mixture of caramel and vanilla. It's moreish.....IMO, it's way more interesting than Cassablanca. However, you may want to test before you buy. It was a blind buy for me, a love at first sniff but I can understand why some may not fall for it as its not mass appealing. It has great silliage and fantastic longevity...the performance is what you want in a fragrance but sometimes you don't get. This does not disappoint.

When you first spray this, it smells like a fresh rose picked from your garden. And you think, this isn't what I want. But give it about two minutes and it begins to develop its sweetness. Give it a few more and it transforms into an oriental sweet rose that you absolutely adore! This reminds me of Mancera Roses Vanille or Montale Intense Cafe, but I honestly prefer this a bit more just because it doesn't have that synthetic metallic undertone that a lot of the Mancera and Montale scents exude. This is an absolute love for me.