If you're so smart, tell me, why are you still so afraid?

Calvin Klein Euphoria EdP

As I've been saying, I am making a concerted effort to make the best of this whole "being unemployed" situation. As my friend Cameron said to me the other day, "This whole being unemployed thing makes it really difficult to enjoy all this time off." And he's right. In my ideal world, where I have enough to eat and a place to live -- which I do for the next solid year thanks to my husband's job -- if I can't find work, there are a lot of things I can do. I have creative projects to work on, things that are already in progress. I have books to read. Things to teach myself about. Doctors appointments to make and (finally) get around to going to. Better health practices to engage in (exercise, diet, whatnot). Why not do those things and look for a job, too?

Now, onto the perfume!

When I first started this perfume business, it was all because I wanted to buy myself a nice bottle of perfume for my 30th birthday. At the time, I happened to work at a nonprofit with Angela from Now Smell This! I remember I was trying to decide amongst three department store brands -- Chloe EDP, Barberry Brit, and CK Euphoria, specifically -- which I had choosen based on scent strips out of magazine (my first mistake!), and went to Angela to ask for advice. She ended up turning my life upside down by bringing in five samples that were NOT any of those three. Needless to say, those scents were left in the dust as I embarked on the great olfactory adventure we call perfume.

Except....

Except that actually I wanted to know just how bad my first instincts were. So I bought a mini of the Chloe EDP off Ebay. And then I saw a great deal on a BOTTLE of Euphoria and went ahead and bought the entire bottle scent unsniffed, which was the first time I ever bought a bottle blind. It arrived. I tried it...annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd immediately I also experienced my first bout of itchy-perfume-trigger-finger buyer's remorse. Into the back of the perfume cabinet the bottle went, banished from my sight, behind my Bonds and Chanels and CB I Hate Perfumes.

Over time I've acquired a small but respectable bottle collection and the Euphoria has just been back there....sitting. Waiting. Rejected. It reminded me of the Rainbow Bright doll I got one Christmas. In my house we were allowed to open one gift of our choice on Christmas Eve if it was decided we'd acted nicely over the course of the day as we were dragged around to relatives' houses and forced to open gifts like socks and ugly sweaters with smiles on our faces. (My bio-parents? All about the bribery for good behavior.) I remember this particular Christmas, I carefully chose a package I'd been ogling since it had gone next to the tree (approximately a week, which was FOR-EVVVVV-ER in my child-mind), and when I ripped off the shiny paper, I was overjoyed. Oh rapture! Oh ecstasy! My VERY OWN Rainbow Bright doll! I hugged her, patted her orange yarn hair with love, and trotted off to bed to hold her with all the strength my tiny arms and tiny heart could muster.

My love for her, tragically, ended the next morning, when I opened another package and found my first Cabbage Patch doll. Yep. The holy grail of toys that year, I got a little red-headed Cabbage Patch doll who became my new BBF and Rainbow Bright was banished forever to lay, discarded, on my bed next to the pile of other dolls of the past. My fickle heart had loved her and then tossed her aside at the first opportunity. To this day I feel a strange sort of pity for that underloved doll. (I blame my mom for reading me a lot of really depressing Hans Christian Andersen stories about little match stick girls and sad little fir trees.) In the world of perfume, that bottle of CK Euphoria is my Rainbow Bright doll.

So in an attempt to be a better person than I was (because I am the sort of person who still obsesses over childhood stuff as being someone reflective of inherent character flaws), I pulled out my CK Euphoria this weekend and gave myself a giant spray down in an effort to find the good in there. And, to my surprise, I found that it wasn't nearly as unimpressive as I'd previously thought.

According to Calvin Klein's website, Euphoria is

Mysterious. Provocative. Exciting. The fantasy and surprise of the black orchid creates a captivating oriental fragrance that contrasts exotic fruits, seductive florals and a rich, creamy signature.

Notes: pomegranate, persimmon, lush green; lotus blossom, champaca flower, black orchid; liquid amber, black violet, cream, mahogany

On me, Euphoria is, well, not euphoria-inducing, exactly, but it wasn't unpleasant. The first burst was supposed to be pomegranate but came across more like grenadine and coca-cola, a sort of super sweet fizzy sugary slap to the face I would have liked drinking back when I owned that Rainbow Bright doll. Almost immediately after I get a lot of powdery notes that I think are coming from the amber, which turns it more toward a talcum powder and sour cherry pie filling mixture. After about a half hour the fruity bits back off and something a little more floral going on, and the powdery bits get a little dark, which kind of reminded me of the smell and feel of suede. It's still very sweet, but less foodie and more flowers and pressed face powder from the 1980s. It kind of reminded me of kissing my grandmother's just made up face.

In short, Euphoria, on the whole, no longer feels like the wasted opportunity it used to. Is it great? No. Would I buy it again? Knowing what there is out there to have instead, no. But do I regret the money I spent that could have gone toward something else? No. This is a scent that has, after the drydown, a soft, subtle, moderately indistinguishable pinkish smell to it. Not a loud pink, not a bubble gum pink, but more like a soft, light mauve color. Is that something I tend to think of myself wearing? No, but sometimes it's nice to have that kind of scent. Also, thanks to a decanting disaster I accidentally layered it over Téo Cabanel Oha at one point, which was pretty and interesting. I doubt I'll ever actually finish the bottle of Euphoria, but it probably won't always be discarded in the back of the perfume pantry anymore. And that is a nice surprise, and a good reminder to always be opening about trying and retrying things, even if you think you already know what you're gonna be getting.

You can buy CK Euphoria just everywhere. Amazon, Overstock.com, and every other discounter under the sun. Try this first, but if you want it then it's out there for cheap.

"Where's the fire? What's the hurry about?
You'd better cool it off before you burn it out.
You've got so much to do and only so many hours in a day.
But you know that when the truth is told,
that you can get what you want or you get old.
You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through.
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?"
- "Vienna," Billy Joel (You can listen to the song here)

Want more reviews? Try...
~ A review from Robin from Now Smell This!
~ A review from Perfume-Smellin' Things
~ A review from Bois de Jasmin