Scentzilla!

Truth, to my nose, is one of the better Calvin Klein eau de parfums introduced since the noughties (2000) began. According to basenotes.net (link at right), it was created by Alberto Morillas, Jacques Cavallier, and Thierry Wasser. It is a green scent, but more at green woods than green leaves. The scent glides along like a casual walk through a forest in the Columbia River Gorge. As it makes its progression, you can smell the cool humidity of cascading waterfall spray, and the ferns that rise up along the fall’s pool basin. Truth may begin sharply on some folks. It smells cedar-like on my skin most noticably at the start, and this note seems to imply bark as a spice. Interlaced into the greens and woods is a dewy floral accord. I’ve read some sites credit a “white peony” in the composition, and that sounds right, but before I looked the notes up on the internet, I certainly couldn’t have named anything in particular. Frankly, the flowers here occur to me as a bouquet, rather than in specific notes. As Truth settles on my skin, a neat little bamboo note makes itself known. I most like this aspect of it. The florals and greens surprisingly become more pitched towards the middle of wear, rather than at the top. Next, a piquant sandalwood grows into this blend. The drydown itself remains quite floral - even after most of the other notes have evaporated. Patchouli in this fragrance wears on me as unusually flowery. I detect a wee smidge of something vanillic way towards the end of wear. It’s so light I’m unsure that some people will even find it on their skin.

The Truth shower gel is a nice balance of all the above components, but was a little too perfumed for me to use in the morning. I ended up just passing my barely touched bottle on to someone else. Still, if you like using strong but cool smelling bath products, it’s not a bad choice.

Calvin Klein at one time also briefly offered a “Sensual Bedtime Fragrance/ Eau Sensuelle de Nuit” version of Truth. I dimly recall that they also released it with complimentary bath cubes and incense. I could be mistaken on this point, however, so feel free to correct me if your memory is better. This Bedtime version is a lighter, more pine needled floral formulation in my opinion, and seems more linear in wear. I think it was a poor marketing decision to label this as “bedtime,” since to me it makes a rather decent day scent. I find it a little bit easier to wear than regular Truth. To the best of my knowledge, this version is quite tricky to get ahold of here in the U.S. It may be worth stalking Ebay for it if you’d like to like Truth, but wish the original was not quite so strong. (For the record, I don’t personally consider it strong, but some do.) One hazard of the Bedtime version: it attracts insects. Specifically? Bees. You’ve been warned. I wish I’d been.

I suspect Truth has never gained a ton of popularity partly due to the fact that it’s too woody for green-lovers, too green for those who like woody scents, and a bit too “masculine” for floral lovers. I am also confused by all the pronouncements of this as a warm scent. To me it is an earthy, cooling scent.

Photo above was taken at Wahkeena Falls in Oregon, located in the Columbia River Gorge.

Calvin Klein Eternity Purple Orchid is one of five(!) women’s “sequel” scents to 1988’s Eternity. I was told by a sales associate that Purple Orchid was initially introduced as a limited edition item, but sales popularity led the company to start up distribution again. I have a sneaking suspicion it also had more than a little to do with the fact that CK had nothing original to offer for the spring/summer season. Well, nothing that wasn’t a serialized Eternity or CK One.

Apparently, summer movies and summer perfumes have a lot in common: there’s a few blockbusters, a few interesting niche creations, and a whole lot of sequels.

And of course, I shouldn’t forget the summer comedies. Calvin Klein erected a big two-story “bottle” in Times Square to celebrate CK One’s tenth anniversary. The bottle was then filled with models trying their best to artfully appear as though they were “having fun,” but were really just performing for our “amusement.” Dance, monkey, dance! To bland techpop music, at that. Actually, the entire thing rather did remind me of the monkey house at the zoo. Some were just lolling about disinterestedly, some in groups and socializing, some bouncing around excitedly for no discernable reason. And all kept behind glass for the public’s safety, I’m sure. I halfway expected them to place a “Do NOT Feed The Models!” sign up on the windows. To glibly wreck a perfectly good Nirvana song, “Here we are now, please stop entertaining us.” I’m forced to conclude that somehow, someone arranging this spectacle saw the arch hilarity of it. The mind reels at the thought we were supposed to be favorably impressed.

Have I lost you yet? I do seem to have wandered off on a silly tangent. Sorry about that.

So, uh, anyway… yeah, Eternity Purple Orchid. I think this can be quite pretty. Not that it’s a stunner, as it registers nothing more than a “huh, how nice” from me. It wears as a white freesia dominated scent on some folks, whispering out the rest of the notes. On others, it carries itself as a peppery and herbally green undertoned perfume, with trills of floral notes crowding at the edges. Which reads, I’m guessing, as rather interesting. But other perfumes pull this off also, and more engagingly. (For example, Estee Lauder’s Pleasures.) All is sweetened by a vanilla base. The vanilla is played nicely but lightly. There’s also some note in the middle that on my skin smells like the way an uncut melon does. It’s not unpleasant, and truth be told, I rather like it. Not enough for me to care, though. If you wish to know what all the advertised notes of Purple Orchid are, please click here to see Sephora’s list.

The staying power and sillage is poor for an eau de parfum. I suppose this could provide a convenient choice of fragrace for those who need a non-offensive office scent. In that sort of setting, it’d conceivably work well. Certainly there’s nothing wrong with that.

But alas, I know I’ll easily forget about the small decant a friend let me make from her bottle, and never revisit this scent. Hello, Eternity Purple Orchid, and goodbye.

The piece above is a paper sculpture entitled “Purple Orchid” by Ron Chespak. It is appearing in the current National Museum Tour until 2007. Please click on the image itself for more information.