Notorious
Ralph Lauren (2008)

Tje fruity and bright opening blast greets me here. Blackcurrant - a bit faint, bergamot - a nice one - and pink pepper - equally nice and blending wellnwith the fruits. A subtle cocoa impression with white chocolate leads into the drydown.

Later on peonies - labeled as “white frost” peonies - develop a nice floral touch. The base adds a somewhat darker patchouli with a vanilla impression and white musks. A fresh and non-powdery iris makes an appearance too.

I got moderate sillage, good projection, and an excellent longevity of eleven hours on my skin, the last hours very close to my skin though.

A pleasant autumn scent with a good top and adequate heart notes. Overall 3.25/5.

NOTORIOUS by RALPH LAUREN is one of those perfumes that everyone can love or hate it but in my opinion this is a priviege for this kind of perfumes for one reason.this kind of perfumes are unknown for most people so never comes to a common perfume.

I love NOTORIOUS.it represents the essence of femininity.the seductive blend of pink pepper,bergamot and black currant meets with subtle hints of peony touched with vanilla and makes it feminine,classic,little sweet,spicy, charming,romantic, elegant and audacious.

It is a very well mixed combination and I would recommend it for a lady want to make a lasting impression and turn heads especially men as when you wear it men will think you are a femme fatale. it is a nice pal for special moments in autumn evenings.

Genre: Floral Oriental

Lauren's Notorious opens with a weird, pinched, sour accord that ought to be repellent but instead manages to fascinate. It's a bit like a freeway crackup: awful, but you just can't keep from staring. I think this opening is the result of a bright, synthetic fruity note (black currant?) in concert with a savory, almost fungal accent that's vaguely suggestive of decomposition. I know – it sounds great, doesn't it!

Notorious sweetens and deepens progressively until a attains a dark, boozy, syrupy texture that would not be out of place in a liqueur. The odd fungal accent persists in the background, at once preventing Notorious from smelling too “edible” and separating it from the mass of sweet fruity florals that crowd the shelves behind the women's perfume counters these days.

I have to say I'm disappointed that Notorious sheds much of its decadent, boozy character after the first hour of wear, thereby exposing a more conventional powdery floral-oriental structure. If it held on to its more perverse attributes for longer, I might consider Notorious a minor masterpiece. As it is the scent's development is profoundly anticlimactic. A letdown then, but still better than the usual junk.

An initially wet and fruity vanillic powder with some aquatic flowers in the mix and a cool musky/balmy dry down. The note of iris enhances the general white powder and a touch of patchouli (surrounded by a faint berry note) comes out at distance. I agree with Diamondflame in the consideration that this one smells more properly like an oriental (initially slightly fruity/fizzy and finally powdery and sugary) than as a real gourmand despite the listed (and veiled to my olfactory perception) note of praline. I find anyway this juice pleasant but a bit common in its sweet musky/ vanillic powder with floral patterns for us.

Pleasant but forgettable. I've put it on 3x and the next day I cant remember what it smelled like.

Upon first sniffing Notorious, I smell lemony-black currant, which is soon replaced by the chocolate note. The floral notes dance around in the background but never fully announce their arrival. After the initial blast of fruity-chocolate notes recedes, all I smell is a slightly raunchy patchouli for the duration of the 2-3 hours that this scent lasts. It is a notch above the rest of the mainstream plethora, but the dry down isn't as seamless as it could be. Perhaps it will grow on me as my nose grows more accustomed to the arrangement of notes , as is often the case.

Edit** I stand corrected,once again.Several weeks prior to posting above review I had sprayed this scent on my hand at least 5 or 6 times, and was put off by it every time.As I wrote, I was smelling it intermittently, and as the fragrance developed on my skin, it lost that raunchy edge that it has always had. It was replaced with a mixture of patchouli and chocolate. I guess it's possible that the dry down just smelled confused to me before. This is a pleasant scent that should be revisited if one doesn't like it the first time. Perfume truly is the gift that keeps on giving.