Scentzilla!

Lancome’s Hypnose was introduced last year, to a general round of yawning. Which meant I smelled it, and then pretty much ignored its existence until now.

“Oh,” says I, “It’s cool out, why not try it again, maybe I’ll like it better for fall.” I need one of those shirts that says “I’m with stupid,” only I need one that’s three-dimensional where the arrow sticks out pointing back at myself.

In writing this review I, too, am caught mid-yawn. Hypnose sadly bores me, whatever the season may be.

As Columbina at Perfume Smellin’ Things says, it’s”a very pleasant scent, inoffensive, soft, and pretty.” In other words, it’s a “nice” perfume, quite agreeable and easily forgotten. I have this hunch that Hypnose will slowly fade away from the Lancome counters in a few years time. There’s nothing about it to recommend a passionate response or repeat purchases.

Hypnose wears as all vanilla all the time.

There are, of course, clean floral flourishes, with a distinct fruit chunk in the heart notes, reminiscent of cafeteria-served canned peaches or a mango that’s grown stale from being refrigerated. Which means… yet another dreaded fruity-floral. This tyranny of fruity-florals has to end! Jeebus save us all. I can’t believe that there hasn’t already been serious customer burn out on this style of perfumery. So many of them wanly resemble each other anyhow; All that differentiates them is the marketing images.

Jasmine pops up and makes a brief appearance in the middle of wear, but not long enough to lend any indolic depth to the fragrance. Supposedly Hypnose is supposed to have been inspired by the base notes of vanilla and vetiver in their Magie, but I don’t find as much here in the way of vetiver as I do all that vanilla. What I’m guessing is the vetiver note wears as earthy rather than dirty green, and floats gently on the skin. I do admire that quality, but the vetiver note doesn’t redeem the fragrance as a whole for me. I also picked up on an element that reminded me vaguely of the way my Perfumia Gal violet lip balm smells. Perhaps that’s one portion of the passion flower note Lancome cites in Hypnose’s compostion? The fragrance dries down to a strangely creamy blend of musk and woods, but it’s creamilly vanillic, weirdly calling to mind Calvin Klein’s Euphoria. Dry green twinges of something or another pops up briefly on the drydown, but eh… not enough to care.

Hypnose is not a bad fragrance. I can see why it would work well for some folks. However, it’s not really a great fragrance either…. I’m having a hard time putting my finger on what exactly my problem is with it… Maybe it’s this: Hypnose seems like a watered down version of interesting. I can’t help but wonder what it might have smelled like had the perfumers been left to their own devices to work on it.

Another review, which presents a more positive take on Hypnose is located over at Bois de Jasmin.

Sound clip from at Last Exit to Springfield, a really great Simpsons fan site that I need to stay away from because it’s easy to lose whole chunks of time exploring and looking around at all the goodies. What a great site for us Simpsons nuts. Image of bottle cropped from original at the Lancome USA site.