Aqua Allegoria Cherry Blossom 
Guerlain (2009)

Think you're getting a bargain when you find a so-called Guerlain perfume for $30? Think again. Aqua Allegoria CHERRY BLOSSOM is nothing if not a cruel joke on the sorts of people who congregate about the Emperor in his new clothes. I recognize that the revelation of this cruelty may itself sound cruel, but sometimes the truth hurts: those single-digit dollar bottles of radically reformulated SHALIMAR that began flooding low-brow drugstores some time ago were a sign of impending doom. I wondered, with the launch of CHAMPS ELYSEES, what was happening chez Guerlain, but I still managed to keep the faith, for some time. Yes, I continued to acquire bottles scent unsniffed on the strength of the illustrious Guerlain family name alone. Sadly, the Guerlains all seem to have passed away. My beloved MITSOUKO appears nowhere to be found (I've tried now two replacements, the reformulated edt and edp, both of which are pale shadows of their namesake.) If you are looking for Guerlain-quality perfumes, as used to be available back in the twentieth century, I encourage you to explore the house of Parfums Nicolai.

As for Aqua Allegoria CHERRY BLOSSOM, this synthetic, weak, yucky pseudo-perfume is unbefitting even of a mass-market house, and that, it appears, is what Guerlain has become. I realize that in these trying economic times they're trying to straddle all market niches simultaneously--not unlike the fashion designers who have both haute couture and Target or H&M or JC Penney lines--but I'm afraid that the result in this case has been muddled, even disastrous. How, in particular, I ask sincerely, could any self-respecting perfumer have launched such a scent as Aqua Allegoria CHERRY BLOSSOM?

Is there an allegory here? I'd call it "The Fall".

Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Cherry BlossomNotes: cherry blossom, green tea, peach and bergamot (from NowSmellThis)I am not sure exactly what I should be smelling, but what it SEEMS like I am smelling is hairspray. Powdery, bitter, sour, plastic flower hairspray. I do not smell anything even remotely approaching natural peach, bergamot or any kind of flower blossom, let alone a cherry blossom. CB's opening notes are so much like hairspray, I was starting to wonder if this was a light fragrance intended to capture the Guerlain Insolence crowd. I find the top notes to be so unappealing as to be nearly nauseating. Thank goodness this stage burns off after about 10 minutes. What is left? Tea. Yes, the same tea accord we have seen almost everywhere else, including Bulgari Eau Parfumee au The Blanc and its ilk. I am thankful that I really like Bulgari's tea fragrances, otherwise this Guerlain would be unsalvageable for me. Just when I thought it was a lost cause, the smell of leather and tobacco started drifting to my nose. I thought perhaps there really WAS a tobacco note, and I was about to get excited that Guerlain might have taken some risks with this year's AA offering. Alas, Cherry Blossom gives the impression of being cheap and derivative. It gets marks for not giving me a headache or other allergic reaction, but thumbs down for being boring! As with all the other AA's, longevity is middling, around 5 hours, and it swings toward the feminine side of unisex, mostly due to the tea accord.