Life Circle

There seems to be a trend among companies for single scents focusing on a specific idea that could be combined with one another or worn individually: Marc Jacobs has done it with his three scents in the big bottles, Donna Karan has done it with her Essences available at Neiman Marcus; often with erratic results. It’s only natural that preferences would go to one or two over the others.
Even Oriflame, a Swedish cosmetics company has gone aboard with its Life Circle scents. Why am I not talking about the more well-known ones and instead focus on the latter? Because -like stated before-, here at Perfume Shrine we like to go for the unexpected and keep an open mind. And discover pleasant surprises along the way.

Oriflame scents are manufactured by Givaudan Roure (at least from what I have read in the past) and often follow the patterns of well-established best-sellers (not meaning that they are dupes, of course, because they are not; just that they do not veer off the beaten track too often). Some of their offerings are quite interesting though and worth exploring.

Life Circle is inspired by the course of a plant’s life: from stem, to leaf, to flower, to fruit. Hence the respective names of the individual fragrances: Sap, Leaf, Blossom, and Fruit. (sounds like a Botany class)
These are aqueous fragrances with a light touch, without meaning they are calone-heavy or ozonic in the traditional sense of –say- Eau d’Issey.
The advertising for Life Circle focuses on the nature aspect (although obviously the fragrances, like most anyway, rely on synthetic notes) and features girls reclining on the grass, looking overjoyed by the surrounding atmosphere. The bottles are cute little affairs of a droplet shape topped with a stopper resembling a stem cut with a reaphook at an angle.
Each individual fragrance has its own colour juice: Sap is light yellow, Leaf is (surprise!) green, Blossom is pink and Fruit is apricot-hued. (again, fitting preconceptions). There is also a little sketch of the appropriate part of the plant on each bottle.

Sap and Leaf were to my liking. Although I don’t deem them a masterpiece of perfumery obviously, I think they are perfectly valid everyday scents for the warmer months, as a light mist to combat humidity and stickiness.
The notes for Sap are:  grapefruit, violet, jasmine, sage, chamomile, musk, vanilla.
Now, all that makes it seem like it’s tart and sweet. It’s not exactly either, although it does have elements of sweetness.
Rather than smelling like grapefruit (to which I am oblivious in this one) I find it opens with a slightly herby, earthy note of violet leaf and then goes on to something akin to heliotropin with its bittersweet smell. The effect is vaguely reminiscent of Frederic Malle’s Eau d’Hiver by well- known minimalist nose Jean Claude Ellena. It doesn’t feature lots of vanilla and thus remains light throughout, with a touch of sweetness, like a cut stem of a vine bearing sweet flowers.
Leaf is more traditionally green floral combining a minty, peppery aspect (which may be due to a ginger note listed, but to me it has the effect of cool-hot mint), garlanded with some light crystalline jasmine.with slight underscoring of white clean musks and  a smidgeon of amber, a tad sweeter than Aqua Allegoria Herba Fresca. It could be very refreshing on a hot day. They both fit an innocent, light-hearted, carefree image a lot.

To round up the presentation, the other two are more typical compositions and the notes listed are as follows:
Blossom has citrus, orange, lemon top notes, bigarrade and jasmine in the heart and musk as a base.
Fruit is based on pineapple, jasmine and osmanthus in the heart, resting on warm musk and vanilla.

They all come in 50ml bottles retailing at 20.5 euros each.

Pic from Oriflame advertising campaign

I like the sound of Sap and Blossom! They sound really lovely! Too bad these aren't available over here where I am.
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