So I've mentioned several times that my friend Star got me the a Sephora sampler set for Christmas. Along with 1-1.5 ml samples of several of their popular and best selling scents, it comes with a gift certificate for a 1oz bottle of your favorite of the sample set. After trying the sampler extensively, I finally settled on a scent to have a full bottle of. I'll be honest: I almost went with a bottle of Prada Infusion d'Iris, despite having a rather large decant already. While I may not enjoy their advertising, I do deeply enjoy the scent. I didn't only because you can basically buy gallons of the stuff on the discounter seller cheap. Instead, after much hemming and hawing, I finally settled on Stella Nude.
According to Stella McCartney's website,
To evoke the delicacy and femininity, STELLANUDE has remained with the same rose family of STELLA, reimagining the classic blossom to evoke a more carnal impression.This is scent, sadly, is most widely known for the fact that Stella McCartney got sued by Bono's wife over the name. That hubbub was going on months before the scent's release, and by the lack of reviews I could find, seemed to have gotten a lot more attention than the actual scent. FN1 To be fair to scent reviewers, it would probably help them get around to reviewing Stella McCartney's scents if she would stop releasing a new flanker every fifteen minutes.
STELLANUDE opens with the sensual scent of Moroccan rose, infused with a fresh hint of grapefruit. As the fragrance reveals itself on the skin, the floral heart notes of tender white peony bloom forth. This striking feminine aroma is invigorated by a pick of pink pepper. Secrete powers of seduction lies in STELLANUDE's base notes, a precious combination of Ugandan vanilla with the intriguing grey amber.
Notes: Moroccan Rose, Grapefruit, White Peony, Pink Pepper, Precious Vanilla, Grey Amber, Musk.
That said, unlike most of the reviews below, I liked Stella Nude. The scent reminds me most strongly of rose water tea and rose incense of the quality I normally find at places like Saturday Market. It is a gentle, non-aggressive scent, and it does not fall into the 'realistic rose,' 'powdery rose,' or 'patchouli rose,' categories that seem very popular right now. After a little while on me, it gets a bit peppery, and it has decent lasting power. I tend to catch it wafting up toward me throughout the day in tiny bursts, which reminds me of the way steam rises off the hot concrete after an early afternoon storm during hot Houston summers. Stella Nude isn't my favorite rose, not by a long shot. But it is light, it's not overpoweringly rosey, and makes for a nice scent particularly on cooler, rainy days. For the price, which for me of course was free, it's a decent buy. As always, I strongly recommend a 'try before you buy' on this one, but I will tell you that on THREE separate occasions my husband asked me what I was wearing and commented on how nice I smelled while I was wearing Stella Nude. That is the highest approval rating he's given anything I've worn in my two years of perfumey adventures. And that he likes it on me is more than enough reason for me to enjoy owning it.
You can buy Stella Nude from Sephora in a variety of sizes: 1oz for $45, 1.6oz for $65, 3.3oz for $85, as well as a linen scented mist, scented candles, and a number of other scented items. Stella Nude is also available from a number of online discounters.
Also, and this is totally off topic, but can I just say how happy tonight's Madonna-themed episode of Glee made me? I love Madonna, and have every since they first ran the "Borderline" video on MTV. I played the "True Blue" album over and over and over while playing Pitfall on my Atari 2600 (that's HOW MUCH of a child of the 80s I am) until the tape wore out. So if you missed the episode or don't even watch the show, but you love the woman in the cone bra, watch the episode. It has every iteration of Madge, down to her latex bondage outfit with tiny bondage dog, as well as great renditions of her choreography. It's a Madonna fan total bonanza, and if you love her, even if you don't love the show, this is a pretty great tribute.
"You've got style, that's what all the girls say -
Satin sheets and luxuries so fine,
All your suits are custom made in London,
but I've got something that you'll really like.
Gonna dress you up in my love,
all over, all over.
Gonna dress you up in my love
all over your body...," Madonna
- "Dress You Up," (You can listen to the song here)
Want more reviews? Try...
~ a review from Robin at Now Smell This!
~ a review from Octavian at 1000 Fragrances
~ a review from Fragrantica
~ a video review from Kara Elkins
~ a his & hers review from The Ampersand
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FN1 And I will take this moment to use my legal education to briefly weigh in on the suit and tell you that Nathan Branch is right on in his critique here in the comments section of this The Non-Blonde post. It's ridiculous to think you can use intellectual property law to selectively enforce your sole right to use a word as commonly used in fragrance and cosmetics as 'nude,' and no matter how you try to gerrymander your 'industry' to narrow it enough in order to try to say that you got there first, Hewson did not (a) get there first or (b) even if she did, enforce the use enough to merit her case even being filed.
