Donna con Ventaglio

[absinthetics]

DONNA CON VENTAGLIO
Donna Con Ventaglio, Gustav Klimt.
A white chypre with bergamot, rose otto, ylang ylang, tonka absolute, lotus root, blood orange, white fig, rock rose, mate, and violet leaf.

A deep, dark scent actually, for something with such bright notes. The liquid is blonde but there is a sort of darkness to this scent. Other than that, it smells exactly the way one would expect with the notes listed. The rose is tempered by the violet, fig and blood orange. After it dries a bit, the blood orange really comes out, along with the lotus. This is a dark, citrus scent that is very mature.

[ChaosKitty]

I swapped for this scent with a lovely forumite, and wasn't sure if this would work on me. As it turned out, I ended up adoring this! The initial scent is very much bergamot, blood orange and with a bit of sharpness, which quickly fades. Tonka is the most prominent note in the next stage (I love tonka) along with blood orange, fig and a small bit of rose and ylang ylang. It is very sweet and creamy. Completely dry after a half hour, it's still mostly tonka with rose and blood orange, perhaps a bit of fig, and the rest of the notes very subtle. It reminds me a little of The Haunted Palace. Very, very beautiful and I'm ecstatic that I took a chance on a bottle!

[Beatrice33]

I put this one on with a number of other decants I received last night, and after a while I started getting whiffs of something that reminded me of Chanel No. 5 (which I happen to love). I thought, "What the heck? Did I forget putting another perfume on before testing?" It turned out to be this lil' number giving off warm, powdery, perfumey vibes in all the best ways. I need to test it again by itself to see if my nose is crazy or not, but so far I'm very excited about this one. Yay Beth!

[Gateau]

Bottle: orange, tonka, bergamot, something a little figgy, something a little flowery

 

Wet: bergamot sharpness and tonka

 

Drydown: like Beatrice33, I got a strong whiff of Chanel No. 5, plus tonka. Then it goes a little bitter.

 

Dry: softens up, and I really like the Chanel-like throw. But I get almost nothing of the fruits and flowers, and the sharpness never quite settles all the way down.

 

It's a very sophisticated and complex fragrance, but I think my particular body chemistry isn't allowing me to enjoy all of its elements fully. I will keep trying it on and use my decant, but I'm not sure a bottle is in the cards.

[countessmouse]

Like Gateau, I'm not getting much on the fruits and flowers for this scent. It's rich, musky and flowery - very perfume-like.

 

Not sure if I'm in like enough to get a bottle, though.

[Aleah]

This is the first "darker" fragrance that I've truly liked. It's warm and a little bit sweet, and I find it to be incredibly sexy. I only bought a decant, and I got the empty bottle, which I'm really happy about, because the art is gorgeous. I just may have to buy another bottle of this

 

ETA: The more I wear DvC, the more I love it! I had to buy a full bottle, I've already blown through my decant, and had to have more. Love, love, love it!!

Edited September 18, 2011 by Aleah

[Blood onmy hands]

Donna Con Ventaglio smells very musky/perfumey on me for some reason, and has a classic perfume feel to it (that I get from a lot of The Salon blends, actually). It goes on with a perfumey, sweet-ish rose and burst of citrus and dries down to a perfumey, slightly sharp floral scent. It's slightly powdery on me in the drydown as well, but none of the listed notes go powdery on me normally, so I dunno...

 

Smells like a classic floral-musky perfume with a warm, powdery edge. I'm disappointed that I can't really pick out many of the listed notes. I wonder if whatever makes up the 'white chypre' is just overpowering on me.

[porcelina]

i really didn't think i'd like this one but i ordered it anyway for completion's sake (and hey, it's for charity). my first impression is SHRIEKING floral notes. yikes. this does not bode well. i leave it alone for a couple of minutes and sniff again. it has definitely calmed down- beneath the florals and the bergamot is a pleasant whiff of tonka, fig and mate, providing an blessedly earthy base for the lighter, brighter floral notes. still, though- this is not me.

[kelpsoda]

This smells powdery/musky to me. It's a chypre for a grand old lady - not something I can pull off. Unfortunately, the powdery/floral/musk is all that wants to come out on my skin. no blood orange for me.

[tajana]

I find that many of the Salon scents I've tried smell more like "traditional" perfumes, and this is definitely true for Donna con Ventaglio. This is one classy perfume. In the vein of classic chypres, with the bergamot just barely lightening the bouquet of dry flowers, a hint of bitter greenness (I guess violet leaf and mate are filling this role?) and dark, dark deep labdanum. The rose, a bit powdery and dry, is the only floral I can really pick out of the mix here. Which is good, as far as I'm concerned... no yucky sour ylang. Further into drydown it gets less haughty and dry, more friendly and warm. It gets a bit fruity from the hint of fig and the enduring juiciness of blood orange, sweeter from the lotus root, and creamier from the tonka, but still holds on to echoes of that floral and labdanum heart. The longer this wears the creamier it gets, and eventually it is quite a sweet, soft, rich tonka-centered blend rounded out with full-bodied fig and wispy florals.

 

Donna con Ventaglio smells expensive, and I am pretty sure that if you wore this around ladies accustomed to spritzing on classic or vintage perfumes that they would take a keen interest in what you were wearing. To be honest I am not well versed in a lot of classic perfumes, but this does remind me a bit of Guerlain Mitsouko. I mean, DcV doesn't have the spices, and its drydown is ultimately a lot creamier, but both are chypres that start off a bit gloomy and musty and dry down into a warmer, plusher, just lightly fruit-touched base. As a matter of fact, if I didn't already have Mitsouko I would totally run to get more of DcV. Honestly, if my resolve breaks I might get more of it anyway. I think Donna con Ventaglio would be perfect on a rainy day, worn with a favorite pair of jeans, a bit of lipstick, and a lot of attitude. Normally I do not like to go for scents in the mature, dusty, old-fashioned genre, because when done wrong they smell cheap and dismal. But when they get everything right, when they morph so gracefully from austere to warm and plush... there is just something irresistible about their vintage vibe.

Edited August 21, 2011 by findaghost

[angelamaria]

In decant: heady fruity floral. Bergamont, rose, blood orange, fig. Uh, actually...all might be there somerwhere. It's a colorful, almost chaotic and confusing melange of notes, most of them fleeting, always returning, only to flit away again.

 

Wet on skin: spicy--very spicy and deep floral. I don't think none of those flowers are actually "dark", but the feeling that it evokes in me is a sense of dark flowers, almost foreboding. Somewhat incensey, and oh powdery--I cleared my throat and coughed a little, it was rather disconcerting to feel like you've inhaled powder when you haven't, actually.

 

Dry: spicy, powdery, deep, dark florals. Most of the fruits have fled, or are just plain overpowered by the flowers--although I think I can get a bit of the blood orange here and there. It does smooth out a bit more, that the chaotic-ness of the decant is not as apparent when dry, but honestly it's gone mostly powder on me and it's hard to tell.

 

Verdict: the outcome was not too surprising, given the presence of rose in this blend; but even without it, this was a very overwhelming floral mix to my nose that I'd have a headache wearing it for long.

[zankoku_zen]

This one starts as a fruity floral with notes of blood orange and fig, and then dries to a spicy, powdery dark floral. Whatever fruit notes there were have essentially been dominated by the violet, rose and ylang ylang.

[lilyliza]

My skin seems to amp bergamot as well as some other scent I can't place (mate?), so at first it's a very green scent on me with no florals at all. The florals come out on drydown and quickly take center stage. These are very strong, powdery florals, so if that's not your thing, stay far far away from this one. For me, it's a very elegant floral mellowed out with some greenery, but it's a little bit too strong and heady for my taste.

[ljaylh]

Err.. no, not my thing at all. The elements I was hoping to find (blood orange, ylang ylang and tonka) are lost completely in the blazing white light of the chypre and florals. I can't actually discern many individual notes I can smell the violet leaf and also the rose, but that's about it - it's just a sharp, strong, perfumey mix of smells that I don't like at all. Oh wait.. the bergamot - that's pretty strong. It has a real old-fashioned vibe to it.

 

But that's just me - I knew this one wouldn't work, but I wanted to try it anyway. I actually ended up washing it off, because the smell was just way too much for me.. it was like getting into an elevator that's just been vacated by one hundred ladies who had doused themselves in their favourite Avon perfume before leaving the house on their way to Seniors' Night at the bingo hall. I feel bad saying that, because this is a beautiful perfume creation in its own right, but it's just totally not my thing

 

 

PS to be fair, after washing this off my skin - I checked my arm and there's still a hint of Donna left behind.. and it's actually quite nice now. It's like a mix of baby shampoo and soft florals, nothing like it was at full strength. Still not enough to make me want to wear it, but definitely not the Eau de one hundred Avon-wearing bingo ladies that it was before

[milo]

Wet, quite strong citrus perfumey smell to this one, but not in an offensive way, if that makes sense. There is nothing 'drugstore' about this at all, very well blended, sophisticated, regal, strong but gentle. It dries (on me), to less perfumey, slightly woody, and more sweet, creamy tonka. There's something about this that kind of reminds me of Pallas Athene, not sure what it would be, but it does. This one is a big surprise win for me, and will probably at least seek out a partial. It is incredibly gorgeous on me, though I do amp Tonka, one of my fave notes.

[grnwoodtree]

Received an empty bottle from a forumite - and the scent continuously wafts from the bottle to me!

 

This is one of the VERY FEW BPAL floral perfumes that I can wear, and that smells so deeply mature and satisying, that I must find a partial bottle.

 

The scent is as other's have stated, grand, regal, classic, and expensive. Blended SO well that note one of the typical amping notes comes out to kill it for me.

 

Im SO so happy I found this one! I had about given up on finding ANY BPAL florals that would work at all. Its nice to be astonished.

[Ghost of a Rose]

In the vial: I can sort of see why people have compared this to Chanel #5, but to me it's only very slightly similar. It doesn't have that aldehydic sharpness, nor the soapiness of #5. Also, this is much gentler, and warm rather than bright and sparkly. Oddly, when I first sniffed it (before looking at the ingredients list), the impression I got was wood. And even after checking the list, I still don't detect any of the individual notes, just that vague and mysterious hint of wood. A true designer scent. It's pleasant, but doesn't make me go "oooh" like floral scents do. In spite of the flower oils in it, this is definitely not a floral fragrance. More like a headshop fragrance.

 

On me, wet: On my skin, the orange pops out immediately, but then is gone almost as quickly as it appeared. The "woodiness" is even stronger, but I can detect a faint effervescence of ylang ylang floating over it.

 

On me, just dried: It has developed a whang that smells chemical, almost medicinal, and which makes it resemble Chanel #5 a bit more. It also makes the scent sparkly and bright rather than soft and warm like it was in the vial.

 

After 10 minutes: Wow, what a morpher this is - it transforms every few minutes! Now it's lost most of the "woodiness" and has gone floral, which makes me like it much more. There are hints of rose and violet. It still has that chemical sharpness, though, to give it the character of an expensive designer perfume. Emphatically NOT a headshop scent anymore!

 

After 15 minutes: The lady is edging ever closer to Chanel #5 - now even a bit of the strong soapiness of that scent has appeared.

 

After 30 minutes: The sharpness has softened, and once again I'm picking up some woodiness (but just a hint this time.) Otherwise, it seems to have stabilized and is pretty much the same as it was 15 minutes ago. I'm wondering if that woody note could be from the lotus root.

 

After 1 hour: It has gone powdery, while still retaining the basic stabilized scent. Now this is indeed very much like the drydown of Chanel #5. Very intriguing!

 

After 2 hours, it is almost completely gone.

 

My rating: 5 stars

[rhubarb3point14]

This is a very interesting fragrance. In the imp, the first thing I smell is the lotus root (which I recognize from having bought some at the Asian market and fried it up). It smells a lot like peanuts. Weird.

 

When applied to my wrist, it is very fresh, citrusy, and green-mossy. It's a little chaotic, and it's hard to pick out individual notes, but it's a pleasant, sophisticated mix.

 

Unfortunately, over the course of the dry-down, this goes very powdery on me. I end up smelling like an old lady.

[grrrlennyl]

Donna con Ventaglio

On: Wood and bergamot with a bit of the blood orange. I have the feeling this won't develop well on me.

Overall: I didn't keep very close track of how this developed on me. It was just OK; sort of a sweet/wood scent.

[brilliantcat]

I should have been wary of this one with the rose note but the rest of the notes sounded so lovely I had to try it. In the bottle, I got a slightly powdery bergamot. I can deal with this! I love bergamot! On me, I get the same but with the addition of the hated rose. However, it's behaving itself. At first. Eventually the whole thing warms up to powdery rose and I can't get it off fast enough. Not for me.

[ramblingrambler]

For some reason, this wears as a deep, dark men's cologne on me, something my father would have worn when he dressed up to go dancing with my mother when I was a kid. I contemplated giving it to him to try, but he is way past his prime in wearing cologne (doesn't seem to wear anything anymore, not me projecting an age thing here ), so off to swaps it goes.