Two more Avon scents are up today: Rare Gold and Rare Pearls.
Apparently some internet wholesalers managed to grab the ad copy for these two. Rare Gold is, according to Avon marketers, “As rare as the woman who wear this scent, this floriental fragrance for women opens with notes of ylang-ylang, freshly sweet bergamot, and mandarin. Heart notes are sweet jasmine, orange blossom, lily of the valley, tuberose, gardenia and aldehydes. The base brings woodsy notes of sandal wood, amber and powdery vanilla.” Just reading ‘floriental’ made me chuckle derisively, but hey? Who knows what beauty lurks in the hearts and minds of Avon chemists? So I tried it. On application Rare Gold is white flowers, spice, and wood. I get a lot of gardenia, jasmine, and aldehydes from this one, and only a little bit of spice, so it’s much more “flor” than “iental.” The opening is a lot less synthetic than I expected given the budget packaging and somewhat hilarious name. (“Rare gold”? As opposed to that other kind of gold, which is super common?) Still, a good lesson in not judging the book by its cover, because it was better than I expected. Rare Gold isn’t what I’d term as “art,” exactly, but as white flowers go, it’s passable, and after about thirty minutes it gets kind of jammy on me, which improves it. I think there are better “florientals” out there, but if you want something less aggressive, maybe this one is for you. Personally, I think it would make a nice candle or potpourri.
Rare Pearls, which quite frankly has some truly hideous packaging if the photos are any indication, gets the following description from Avon: “It opens with rosewood, plum, honey and pepper. The heart is dominated by magnolia, while the warm base nicely caresses the skin with musk, sandalwood and patchouli.” The opening on this one is really quite nice, like the dry musky smell of pressed drying flowers. I don’t get really any of the listed notes, though the petals drying in my mind might be blossoms from a plum tree, but the mixture is really pleasant at the first. As it dries down the sandalwood kicks in (I spotted neither hide nor hair of the patchouli), which moves it from this delicate musky experience into more of a flowers and spice gig one expects from perfumes marketed to “mature women.” Which is too bad, really, because if it had hovered in that initial place, I would have loved it. Where as Rare Gold gets more fun over time, Rare Pearls becomes less so. Still, not a bad fragrance, and also one that might have made a very nice room spray.
On both of these, really it’s the name that kills me. Shakespeare wrote, “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” and to a certain extent, that’s true. But to call something rare, right there in a title, to compare it to jewels and other finery, is to either raise expectations or suspicions, depending on the experience level of the nose in question. These scents are nice for what they are, but I wouldn’t recommend buying them over something better made. Then again, gold and pearls aren't everyone's bag of tea. I'm sure some people out there love these and always will. For me, however, they both fall flat.
All the gold in California
is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills
in somebody else’s name.
So if you’re dreaming about California,
it don’t matter at all where you played before.
California’s a brand new game..."
~ "All the Gold in Calfornia," Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers
Rare Gold & Rare Pearls are both available for purchase direct from Avon.
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