Posted by Robin
on
5 March 2010


Iris is the first new fragrance to join the Donna Karan Collection, which up until now was made up entirely of relaunches from the line’s back catalog. The Collection scents are all done up in opaque black glass; the packaging is handsome if rather functional looking (see below) and the bottles have a nice heft. They’re in limited distribution, making this a sort of niche-from-mainstream kind of line along the lines of the Chanel Les Exclusifs or the Armani Privés, although the prices are more reasonable than that perhaps implies.
On paper, Donna Karan Iris smells at first mostly of iris — not the rooty, bold, turnips-just-pulled-from-the-earth sort of iris à la Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist, but the buttery-soft sort of iris that you get in Chanel’s 28 La Pausa, albeit without that elusive Chanel touch that makes so many of the Les Exclusifs fragrances smell like money. Later, Iris takes on a more floral character…
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Posted by Robin
on
3 February 2010

Donna Karan will add Iris to the Donna Karan Collection this spring:
The latest edition to Donna Karan’s iconic wardrobe of fragrances is Iris, a unique and mysterious scent…
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Posted by Robin
on
2 February 2010


From Calvin Klein, the 2010 version of CK One Summer. This year, the notes include watermelon, pear, mandarin, kaffir lime, violet leaves, marigold, verbena, water lily, patchouli, skin musk, vetiver and cedar…
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Posted by Robin
on
20 January 2010


Donna Karan will launch Pure DKNY, a new floral fragrance for women, in February.
Pure DKNY is built around a “drop of vanilla in water” accord…
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Posted by Robin
on
19 January 2010

Donna Karan’s fresh apple fragrance, DKNY Be Delicious (2004), has spawned a multitude of flankers and collector editions, of which the Candy Apple Trio — Ripe Raspberry, Sweet Caramel and Juicy Berry — is the latest. Apologies to its fans, but the original is not a favorite of mine, and of the flankers, only Delicious Night really captured my attention — and even that one is not really something I would wear. So I suppose you should take the following with an even larger grain of salt than usual?
DKNY Delicious Ripe Raspberry Candy Apple (red bottle, shown below; with notes of apple, lime, peony, lily and cola accord) is not as berry-ish as I’d expected — there’s much less berry than in Delicious Night, although this fragrance also has a much paler, fresher base so there’s less to counteract what berry there is. A nice shot of citrus in the opening keeps it from being too sweet while the raspberry calms, and overall, Ripe Raspberry strikes me as more fresh than candied…
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