Quel Amour!
Goutal (2002)

A subtle sensuality option for girls who are beginning to feel their femininity blossoming, spontaneously.

Quel Amour opens with a very sweet fruity note which I think is the raspberry and peach. You can smell the geranium throughout, which brings this fragrance a little depth.

A slight sweet rose for a touch of femininity. It just smells so beautiful. The dry down is sweet woodsy notes, amber and vanilla. Although far from that strong, the amber in it reminds me of the amber in Miss Dior Le Parfum.

Powdery rose and peach dry to a tart floral blend with tangerine or citrus elements. Pretty, but too powdery for me.

A potpourri of flowers greets me in the opening burst, with a fruity touch too here and now. A geranium is dominant, with a transient touch of a minty impression leading to the development of a rose note. Initially more rose blossoms, soon the rose leaves become more prominent. a pomegranate appears for a short while, whilst the floral side remains prominent and is enforced by a pleasant peony a bit later on.

Then a another note arises, a lilac that is a bit brighter than usual, and blends in well with the previous mix; it has a lightly ambery undertone accompanying it temporarily. Then the fruits take over: initially I smell restrained mixed berries, and then mainly white peaches, whiffs of pears, and some pallid cherries. Towards the end the florals return into the limelight, where they remain until the end.

I get moderate sillage, good projection, and five hours of longevity on my skin.

A very lovely floral spring scent with a few fruity facets, which is manufactured from high-quality ingredients. Nothing sensational, but crafted very well. The performance is limited though. 3.25/5

What an array of olfactory responses this scent evokes!

Turin smells lilac, but it is not listed. Others smell peony, but it is not listed. One smells mint, but it is not listed.

For a scent primarily described as a fruity floral, and for which there are five fruit notes listed, I get no fruit whatsoever, no sweetness, no candied effect.

My nose detects on my skin a pure rose, initially accompanied by a burst of sharp geranium, which settles down to a distant caraway seed note. From then on it's linear powdery old-fashioned rose!

It's quite lovely as a simple rose soliflore.

Certainly to be sampled before buying, because it seems it is one of the most individualized scents I've come across on Basenotes, being different things to different people.

I'm really glad I decided to buy a sample of this, instead of "blind buying" it. This perfume is really not my style at all! I think I might find it incredibly sexy (or maybe simply just nice) if someone else wore it, but I don't care for it on myself, and I don't think I would ever make it my signature scent!
I also want to say that I really don't agree (at all) with how Turin describes this one in his "A-Z Guide to Perfume." (Actually, I'm finding I disagree with a lot of what he says. I don't think we have the same taste in perfume.) He describes "Quel Amour!" as a "pink fruit cocktail" type of scent, and I have to say, to my nose, it really, really isn't at all. I thought it smelled really sweet and candy-like in the sample tube and on the dropper, but on my skin I really don't get any of the top notes at all! (Which for me is unusual.) I am purely just smelling peony and geranium! Period. I would say this is a floral-floral, NOT a sweet fruity-floral! It actually mostly reminds me of the individual flower-scented perfume oils that The Body Shop used to carry years ago. I used to have their rose perfume oil and it was quite similar to this. In the dry down, "Quel Amour!" also reminds me a lot of "Nirvana" by Elizabeth and James, the white version. Actually, if you want a peony-scented perfume I would probably recommend picking up "Nirvana" (white version) more because it doesn't cost $200!
The other thing I find weird about Turin's review of "Quel Amour!" is that, in other places in his book he kind of says he hates "realistic flower scents" and only really likes abstract floral perfumes. Honestly though, "Quel Amour!" smells exactly like peonies and geraniums that you find growing in a garden! There is nothing remotely "abstract", "modern" or "novel" or "complex" about this fragrance. It's just a very simple feminine flower scent. Really nice for some people, but that kind of thing just isn't me at all!

I can't think of anything positive to say about this perfume - from start to finish I just got sweet and sickly notes like a sugar-laden bag of fruit drops. I tried layering it with 'colder' scents but it just made them smell nasty too. I love other Goutal scents - Songes, Passion, Myrhhe Ardente, Encens Flamboyante, Eau D'Hadrien, but not this one.

A soft whisper of rose is listed on the packaging blurb but it's much more than that, this is a variation on Ce Soir Ou Jamais, a less jammy version. I own both.
Quel Amour opens with a fizzy sherbet lolly, which I hate. At this point I may as well be wearing any generic fruity floral.
Thank goodness that dissipates quite quickly and the lovely tendrils of scent linger on. There's enough tartness to keep it interesting, a touch of incense as the dry down commences and average projection. The dry down is actually lovely and is rather ageless. I can see it equally on a younger or more mature (ahem, that's me) woman. It lingers on scarves in something of a Hermes style; I think that means a lot, it's sylish, there you have it. Conversely, this fragrance would be lovely, emanating off your skin on a warm summers day; you're wearing jeans and a tee and picking fruit and everything is kissable and edible. Oh, to be in love.

While I love Goutal bottles her scents are not my cup of tea. Too light and without great personality. In my opinion they can't become classics, even if I know l'eau d'Adrien is pretty famous and admired. This Quel Amour seems to be divided in two main parts: the first all floral, the second fruity. The first reminds me (I don't know why) of Diorissimo (which is a masterpiece in my opinion) and last only a few minutes. The second part is fruity and sweet without any character. It lasts a little more than the second. I didn't gave QA a thumb down because of the trace of Diorissimo.

I see red! Wear QUEL AMOUR! and you will too: wild roses, rose geranium, red currants, pomegranates, and cherries. Yes, there's an awful lot of red going on in this rich fruity-floral perfume, and all of it is good! The fruits and florals are well-balanced, each carrying their weight and not being drowned out as is often the case in fragrances of this kind. The other primary virtue of this creation to someone like me, with whom fruit notes are notoriously uncooperative, is that these juicy red fruits really are fresh. They are not plastic or artificially sweetened or rotting or sour or vaguely (or profoundly...) emetic. Not at all.

It goes perhaps without saying that I am not really, in my throbbing red heart of hearts, the fruity-floral type, but QUEL AMOUR! has made a believer out of me (along with Ineke BRIAR ROSE, which is even better...). Yes, it is at least *possible* to create a wearable, enjoyable, fruity-floral perfume for adults. For years, I believed that the sheer possibility might be precluded by some arcane law of perfume logic, but this sort of composition, albeit rare, roundly refutes that hypothesis.

Although QUEL AMOUR! is relatively simple, it's quite nice for what it is and certainly leaps and bounds better than the vast majority of fruity-floral BHT nightmares on the market today, most of which are pointless and some of which I find even painful to wear. The red here is saturated, making this perfume rather assertive. The longevity is also good, like a deep red wine stain on a white linen tablecloth. Even after a full night of sleep, the rose geranium, in particular, lingers on...

I was so relieved when I read here that Quel Amour had a note of mint. I spent many hours trying to determine whether or not my nose had become incredibly confused.

Strangely enough, I sensed the mint when I first applied Quel Amour to my skin. It was almost like a breath of toothpaste wafting up to my nose. Although to many that description may be unpleasant, to me it was different and somewhat appealing.

The scent began with its minty freshness, before developing into a rich, romantic and classic floral. Peony and rose are very prominent notes in this fragrance. The scent reminded me of beautiful, old-fashioned trinket shops where the smell of pure rose oil used to fill the store.

Like most Annick Goutal fragrances, Quel Amour has such a charming presence. In my opinion however, you won't like this fragrance if you don't like her previous scents. Quel Amour is more of an old-fashioned, classic, early 1900's inspired fragrance rather than being a modern scent.

The fruity notes in Quel Amour aren't all that strong, although they are present. The peach is hidden in there somewhere however it has been overshadowed by the peony and rose.

Quel Amour is your quintessential, rose scented Spring/Fall scent. Thinking of possible similarities, Stella by Stella McCartney comes to mind, however Quel Amour is much lighter and not as modern.

This fragrance contains all natural oils and ingredients so you are guaranteed no artificial surprises. The scent is actually really long-lasting on my skin, and that is just for the EDT.

Quel Amour! A Love Story:Oh, how I love a fruity floral, but oh, how over-the-top they tend to be these days with a sweetness that's almost suffocating! Although fruity-floral is one of my favorite fragrance families (if not my absolute favorite), sometimes it's hard to find one that doesn't smell like an expensive counterpart to a Bath & Body Works fragrance or one that's appropriate for someone over the age of 25 (not that there's anything wrong with being 25).I also adore the scent of a rose, but every time I think I've found the perfect rose fragrance on paper, it leaves me flat, disappointed - deflated even - not to mention covered in a dry down that smells suspiciously like Playdough or a 70-year-old lady ( not that there's anything wrong with being 70) depending on how humid it is that night.Enter: Quel Amour! Where the heck has it been all my life? It's everything I want a fruity floral to be: slightly tart and almost - but not quite - sweet. It's both sensual AND sophisticated, and best of all, even as an EDT it seems to last forever on me. I kept waiting for the rose to turn into Playdough, and it never did; instead just mingling with the with the tartness of the berries with a very soft powdery veil. Quel Amour! is intimacy and candlelight and Brut champagne with berries bouncing in the bottom of the flute, and at the same time a sunny breeze on a June afternoon when the flowers and berries have just come into bloom and before the summer air has become a sticky, humid mess. I admit, although the flowery notes seem like rose to me, I actually have a sneaking suspicion that what I'm really smelling here is geranium, which is perhaps why it never got around to rapidly aging me into an old woman. I'd forgotten how much like roses geraniums are, but Quel Amour! reminded me.I am so excited about this fragrance that I've written it a love letter and then sprayed it with itself, and that letter goes a little something like this:Quel Amour!, mon amour, you deserve that exclamation point in your name that I admittedly thought was a little wacky at first! You are my new favorite smell and I love you. I love you because you are what fruity florals are supposed to be. I love you because you make me feel beautiful, even in my ugliest nightgown. I love you because when you show up, I can tell you're into me because you linger for awhile. But most of all, Quel Amour!, I love you because when your silky caress is on my skin, I still smell like a grown woman and not an active sorority sister ( not that there's anything wrong with active sorority sisters...sort of ).