Happy New Year!

Let’s ring it in with something gold, shall we?

I think of this perfume as “Halston Gold” since the bottle is a hard-to-miss study in reflective gold. I became curious about it after an article and subsequent comments on Fragrantica about budget ambers. The review page for Halston Woman Amber left me intrigued, so I plopped down fifteen bucks on Amazon and was pleasantly surprised.

This isn’t an end-all, be-all perfume for me personally, but it’s quite nice, even without the caveat of “for fifteen bucks.” Quite simply, it’s quite nice. The complexity of the perfume is as brief as its price is small, so I will try to be succinct.

I’ve worn it a few times knowing that I wanted to write about it (I mean, the bottle is so photographable, after all!), so sniffing under the cap gives me an impression of sweetness and powder. I would argue that Halston threw their hat in the ring with all of the other fruity florals with a patchouli base that have been a genre over the last 10+ years, and this is their effort. I like it.

Red currant is listed as being a top note, and call it the power of suggestion, but I concur. I definitely have to focus to name the note, but once I do, “red currant” seems applicable. If nothing else, there’s a sweet fruit element in the top.

To be honest, I keep getting distracted in the middle of the song, and perhaps that’s a sign that the heart notes are not a very compelling part of the composition. Either that or I have a busy life. When I bring my arm up to sniff my wrist at the end of the story though, it’s a nice, soothing bedtime lullaby. To invoke one of the best perfume clichés, this perfume smells like being wrapped in a big, warm, soothing hug. It’s something that an elementary school teacher, an aunt, or a mother could definitely have worn in my early years, except that the timeline doesn’t work.

You never know what will rock a stranger’s world. Maybe this would rock yours. It doesn’t rock mine, but it is a solid “nice,” and you know what, that’s not such a bad thing. It doesn’t shock, it doesn’t provoke, it’s not the most scintillating of high art. But you could put it on before bed (or rather, I could) and be quite happy. And for fifteen bucks, I just cannot complain. Longevity is decent (for the price) projection isn’t huge, but it’ll waft around your nose if you put it anywhere higher than your nipples.

I could easily see this as being someone’s signature. Someone who is warm and happy, just wants to smell good, doesn’t need a lot of fuss, and who likes having a solid way to smell. The bottle is marked as being for women, but come on, smell is unisex, and amber definitely is. (It’s just vanilla + labdanum, yo.) I would be perfectly happy to smell it on a man, though it does have that “powdery,” sweet scent that might be too feminine for some men’s tastes. Anyhow, safe blind buy if you’re feeling a little adventurous.

Here’s to more gold in 2019.

Cheers!