Bond No 9 High Line

Bond No 9 is a fragrance brand that I have been curious about for years, this brand is very hard to find so I basically skipped over it for a long time since these fragrances were out of my reach.  Last winter I had been given a bottle of Chinatown from a wonderful Makeup Alley member as a gift and the few times that I used it so far have made me really begin to fall in love with this unique brand.  At the very beginning of the spring season, Sephora began to carry a limited number of their fragrances, I have yet to see them in the stores so I believe they will be online only but this is another avenue for me to order and try this line (Sephora has a great return policy and I could trade a bottle for another fragrance if I ordered one and didn't like it).  Then within the last few weeks, Nordstrom announced that this entire brand would be available on their website and in select stores, opening the brand up to me even more.  I spent some of the time that I was on vacation from work reading about this brand and their fragrances and I then decided to buy several sample from Amazon to start finding a fragrance for me to order.

Yes...I ordered and paid for perfume samples.  There are simply too many fragrances that I thought sounded great for me to try at once when I would actually get to a counter and I couldn't order every fragrance and then return it if I wasn't a fan.  I started with several that I would wear in the spring and summer and will repeat my order with fragrances for the fall months later on this year.  I am using the fragrances one at a time, almost every day, so that I can really try them out and see how the notes react with my skin chemistry.  I already own too much perfume and I can't buy fragrances that I don't love and I love trying the samples out for several days to really live with it and make a solid decision.

I started with High Line for the spring months, I had initially wanted to try the I Love New York; Earth Day fragrance when I saw it on the Sephora website but I couldn't find any reviews and no one on the Makeup alley boards had tried it before.  I visited the Bond No 9 Facebook pages and asked for some thoughts on it and High Line was recommended to me as a more unique and true green fragrance.  I have a lack of good green scents in my collection and I am actively trying to find several to add.  I have been using this fragrance for about a week now and I have started to collect my thoughts and can put a review together.

From the Nordstrom website, "The world's first railroad perfume. Wildflowers, green grasses and urban renewal. The scent starts off with a prairie grazing weed, purple love grass, mixed with citrusy bergamot and zesty Indian rhubarb. The perfume's floral heart is composed of red-leaf rose, Lady Jane tulips and grape hyacinth. Lingering base notes combine bur oak with imported sea moss to evoke the Hudson River's proximity, along with musk and teakwood to ensure Bond No. 9 High Line is a metro-perfume."

The notes of the fragrance are: Bergamot, Purple Love Grass, Indian Rhubarb, Red Leaf Rose, Tulips, Grape Hyacinth, Bur Oak.

This fragrance is a light green floral and I initially fell in love with it and wanted to order a large bottle within the first ten minutes of wear.  I love the initial hit of the grass notes and then the floral heart develops, the rose and tulip notes are the strongest on my skin and this fragrance showed lots of potential to be a new favorite rose scent of mine.  Within about two hours, this fragrance really faded away and I was very disappointed by the lack of lasting power, Chinatown sticks on my through a shower and I have heard that this the norm for the Bond No 9 fragrances.  I did find some reviews of High Line online and everyone commented on the lack of lasting power, so I didn't get a old sample of it by accident. 

I really liked this fragrance and it is a top notch example of a green floral and I have wanted a fragrance like this since last spring.  The big issue that has prevented me from ordering a bottle yet is the lack of lasting power, I would have to order a purse size bottle in this fragrance at the same time and then reapply throughout the day.  This fragrance will remain on my list but I will continue to search for another green fragrance that lasts longer than this formula does.  I don't expect to get the same lasting power from a green fragrance than I would from a musk but I still expected more power from High Line.

photo courtesy of Nordstrom