True Love
Elizabeth Arden (1994)

Blech. A rare miss for Sophia Grojsman. Beware that the "iris" so many reviews mention as a prominent note is not the root, but an approximation of what the flower smells like. I've never encountered an iris that had a smell, but I guess this recreation of green and soapy notes comes close enough. What annoys me most though is the inclusion of the aquatic element, which lasts from beginning to end. Unnecessary "freshness".

Hermes did a better, higher quality rendition with Iris UKIYOÉ, although the price difference is dramatic.

You can find this for less than $20 for 100ml bottle. The bottle is cheap and lacks a collar around the sprayer, which is just frugal to a new, drugstore level. Tacky.

I don't know what's going on with this one in terms of the formulation, whether the EDT I picked up recently at a discounter is the same juice others are reviewing.

But what I have has nothing to do with jasmine and lotus, and reads as a Sophia Grojsman peach/apricot and rose. It goes through a lot of "green" and lily of the valley in the early stages of its development, and that's the phase I like least - it's got that American good girl thing you get with others from around that time, like Jessica McClintock.

Though the heart - I kid you not - is like Nahema rendered a tiny, impoverished infant in its hyacinth-ish green/peach/rose character. I find Nahema to be the olfactory equivalent of being in the Mojave without sunglasses - so powerful and bright and of a certain high frequency that it produces a LITERALLY stunning feeling in my head. I can't wear it because it hurts, though I'm drawn to it on a primal level, just like I'm drawn to the Sun.

So True Love speaks to me, because it's the amount of that particular green/peach/rose accord that I can personally take, and it's ridiculously inexpensive. Of course the quality isn't as high as a Guerlain - please don't think I'm saying it's a substitute - but I respect the craft behind it and think it's really good for an offering at the low end of the market.

True Love is a misnomer here; it should be called True Like. This is a simple and comfortable woody-floral frag which screams of 90's ingredients. I admit that if this were to be remade with niche-level components it would probably be a real hit. As it stands, True Love is just a pretty good iris-jasmine and I don't fault it for that. It smells cool and relaxed.

While the opening is a bit sharp,
I did like the mid and basenotes.
White florals mainly with a touch of spice
Shame it's discontinued

Short and sweetAn iris opening with jasmin and a sweet floral note that is a bit synthetic on my skin - the lotus. A white musk forms the end note. Two hours on my skin. Not particularly memorable on me.

Another impulse buy that I couldn't wait to get through with.

While not bad, not very original, just a scent that says "perfume". A light floral, not unpleasant, but certainly not memorable.