Michael Kors Michael Kors

The namesake fragrance from the fashion and perfume house Michael Kors has somehow been ignored by me for the past few years.  I have multiple friends that wear this scent but I had always skipped over it for the longest time.  I had been told that it contained a very strong gardenia note, a floral note that I tend to skip over since it and I don't always seem to get along.  When this note is combined with many others, I can wear it well but when it is a soliflore fragrance, I tend to develop headaches after wearing the fragrance for several hours.  When I was told that this fragrance was a strong gardenia scent, it just seemed to be for the best that I skip over it all together.
Earlier this summer, one of my friends had on this perfume that smelled amazing and when I asked her what she was wearing, I was quite surprised when this scent was her answer.  After smelling it, I wanted to try it one of the next times that I went to Sephora.  I was very happy to see that the sales associate dropped a sample of this scent in my bag when I was shopping there last weekend.  I sniffed my sample when I got home and then went to the Sephora website to look up the notes.  First and foremost...this fragrance contains a strong heart note of tubernose, not gardenia!  I don't quite understand why gardenia doesn't always work well with my skin chemistry but somehow magnolia, jasmine, and tuberose always garner me compliments...

From the Sephora website, "Michael Kors is tuberose reinvented.  Creamy florals explode into exotic spices, tamed by Moroccan incense.  A fragrant creation with a wealth of personality that will capture the heart of every woman."

The notes are: Dewy Freesia, Tamarind, Chinese Osmanthus, Incense, Fresh Tuberose, White Wings Peony, Blue Orris, Arum Lilies, Cashmere Woods, Musk, Vetiver Haiti.

This fragrance reminds me very much of Annick Goutal's Gardenia Passion, except it smells much better on me and doesn't trigger an almost instant headache.  The namesake Michael Kors fragrance is a rich, creamy floral with a good dose of spice.  I have also found that certain fragrances with a strong mix of spices can cause the same type of reaction that I get from the gardenia notes but the blend on this one is just so perfect that it all works together.  In many other fragrances, this note combiantion would give me an awful headache but all the pieces come toegther so well in this fragrance that I must go out and buy the large bottle of it.  I find that this fragrance is stronger than I would want to wear in the warm weather months so I will save the rest of my sample for fall and then go out and purchase it.

The fragrance starts out as a freesia scent on me but then quickly deepens and the tuberose heart comes front and center.  The tuberose note stays on my skin the entire time that I wear the fragrance however it does begin to fade after 7 or 8 hours of wear.  The last notes of the fragrance to develop are the incense and the musk notes, these develop after an hour and then stay with my skin for the rest of the wear time.

The lasting power of this fragrance is one of the best that I have used recently.  The tuberose note does cause the fragrance to last all day on me.  I put this fragrance on mid-morning when I first tried it out and it lasts all the way until the end of the evening.  This is one of the few fragrances that was still in evidence after I got out of the shower later on that night, I will never have to worry about re-applying this fragrance throughout the day.  This is the style of wear that I tend to get from fragrances that contain tuberose or magnolia, there is something with my skin chemistry that causes these two notes to sink right in and last forever on me. 

When I was looking at this fragrance on the Sephora website, I saw that it is offered in Eau de Parfums of varying sizes and seems to be the base fragrance for many of his body products (the bronzer stick for legs came out immediately).  It also comes in a double-sized rollerball with the fragrance on one side and a shimmering gold lip gloss on the other.  If I like the lip gloss shade, then the rollerball set might be the way for me to go but I know that I will at least buy one of the larger sizes in this fragrance since I can see myself getting a lot of wear from it.

photo courtesy of Sephora

Island Michael Kors Bermuda

Early this spring, Michael Kors released his latest fragrance that joins the popular Island series. I really like the original fragrance of this collection but haven't really been taken with the others in the series. Many of them smell very much alike to me and therefore, never really gave me much of a reason to purchase them when the original serves me just fine.

The latest fragrance is called Island Michael Kors Bermuda. It is housed in pink bottle that is shaped exactly like the others in the collection. Here is the description of the product taken from the Sephora website, "Introducing Island Michael Kors Bermuda - an escape into breezy, floral fragrance bliss. Experience the exotic blend of tropical passion flowers and smooth cedar wood that will transport you to a world of relaxed luxury. Once you get there, you will never want to come back".

The notes - Freesia, Hibiscus, Cassis Buds, Tiare, Peony, Jasmine, Passion Flower, Driftwood, Soft Skin Accord, Cedar.

On initial sniff of this fragrance, I feel that this one is farthest from the original and therefore is the most worth purchasing of all those in the series. Another point in the favor of this fragrance is that it contains mostly floral notes and less of the fruit notes that others in the collection contain. Peony and jasmine continue to top the list of my favorite notes that can be contained in any fragrance. I might not purchase a bottle of this until I finish up my original bottle of Island but so far it is the only member of the collection that I am really looking forward to picking up.

photo courtesy of Sephora

Island Michael Kors and Spinoffs

I have been a fan of the original Island Michael Kors since I first smelled it in the summer of 2005. I bought the largest bottle that it came in and have been using it faithfully every summer since. This fragrance has inspired a bunch of spinoffs, which got me very excited to buy more and more products in this family. I have received samples of all of the fragrances and very disappointed to realize that none of them are all that original and all smell very close the original island. The notes for comparison...

original Island - "dewy, sparkling top notes of chinese kiwi, honeysuckle, and parrot tulip; lush vibrant heart notes of champaca flowers, gingerlillies, bulgarian rose, and stephanotis; woody smooth base notes of white bark accord, driftwood, and rice fields accord" (from the Michael Kors website)

Hawaii - "orange, orange flower, gingerlily, jasmine sambac, balsam (from Sephora.com)

Capri - "orange bigarade, bergamot, violet de parma, dark fig, olive tree accord, white moss" (from Sephora.com)

Fiji -"kauai waterfalls accord, oxygenated water accord, cactus par, mango mist, chinese kiwi, hydroponic honeysuckle, parrot tulip, tiare flower, jasmine sambac, gingerlillies, bulgarian rose, plumeria, stephanotis, galapogos driftwood, rice fields accord, birch wood, white bark accord" (from Sephora.com)

To the best of my knowledge, Fiji was the first of the Island spinoffs to come out, which is why I believe that it is the closet of the fragrances. A large amount of the notes are matches and really Fiji just seems to be the original Island in a different colored bottle. For the next fragrance (Hawaii) the company seemed to try and branch out and made orange and orange flower a huge part of the fragrance. Quite frankly, if they wanted to release another Island, they had to do something very different to it and give the public a reason to consider purchasing it. Capri returns back to the Island base with a bit of a fruity note with the fig but its still not far enough away from the original to make it its own fragrance and let it stand alone.

In a nutshell, Michael Kors should have created Island and let it alone. The series of fragrances are not different enough to be worth purchasing and will eventually detract from the original if they continue to be Island in different colored bottles.