dessert at 7 - Pink Room UK's Pour Toi

Okay, so I lied. Instead of the promised phase 3, I'm going to talk about an actual perfume.

While this perfume is specifically meant to elicit an association with Colette and her most well-known book, Gigi, I don't think it quite suits the scent. Pour Toi, wrapped in dark purple, comes with a little vignette about Gigi and what it might have been like to be her – but to be honest, even throughout the drydown this scent stays a bit too adorable to truly evoke the latter-end decadence and naughtiness of Gigi. This is Gigi with a Minnie Mouse voice. If I may be so bold, it's a bit like the Pink Room owner herself: a woman who looks like the modern epitome of elegance and British reserve until she opens her mouth – then all her lovely, infectious, bubbly delight spills out.

It's a soft, innocent gourmand fragrance from start to finish, and I get no smokiness from it whether I sniff it (paper or skin) from one hour in to four hours in to ten. The smell of currant and custard, combined with the muguet lotion smell of lily of the valley, dominate through the entire life of the fragrance for me. In the beginning I get the lemon and grapefruit; in the end I get the vanilla and rose. I wish I knew what fleur de melati smelled like, because there's this piquant powder smell which I find terribly enticing, but it's a delightful enticing rather than a romantic or seductive enticing. The musk and sandalwood never show up for me, but to be quite honest I don't care. It would be a wee bit perturbing to sniff my arm expecting currant custard and instead get something akin to a Mona Di Orio scent. I like the idea that I can carry a wonderful dessert with me, and enjoy the spirit of it for hours afterwards.

Notes as listed are: Lemon, Blackcurrant, Grapefruit, Rose, Fleur de Melati, Lily of the Valley, Sandalwood, Vanilla, White musk.