Badgley Mischka
Badgley Mischka (2006)

If, like me, you like rich, fruity, boozy scents of the Mauboussin variety, then this little number will certainly ring your bell.

Swirling layers of peach,amber,creme de cassis and caramel radiate off my skin and into the realm of compliments. This little diva is all about joyous abandonment and devil-may-care attitude.

Don't be shy with the application or others will fail to notice all of its full-on charms!

Why do they always discontinue little gems like this. Are people blind to their merits or is my taste so far removed from normality that I am on a different plane to the vast majority of the perfume buying public?

Tania Sanchez gives this five stars and goes on for two pages about it. Hmmm….

The original Badgley Mischka is a cheap smelling, synthetic, fruity mix of berries and a cloying jasmine, supported by a reedy, artemesia-like wood (used in millions of oceanics). It smells like thousands of other fruity scents out there.

The first whiff does remind me of an Angel flanker (Xmas shop and potpourris), but it degenerates quickly into a remarkably undistinguished fragrance. This is worlds away from the truly remarkable fruity florals, such as Byblos and Rabanne's La Nuit, not to mention the classic Fracas.

If you love the bottle, but it empty on Ebay, but do your nose a favor and avoid this one.

The vintage parfum:
The top notes are dominated by a delightful and not overly sweet peach notes, that has a fruity berry mixed with a very soft patchouli added to it. In the drydown a pleasant osmanthus-jasmine duo arises, with a peonie impression growing increasingly stronger; clearly the heart notes are a change to the floral side. Nevertheless, there is also a very soft amber component present, which in the base is given more depth by woodsy undertones.

Interestingly, on my skin the peach is always present and actually grows stronger towards the end; and as this is a very nice peach note it makes the end deliciously fruity with a hint rod powderiness. This a reversal of the traditional march from the fruity to the woody/musk; here this sequence is turned on its head - a nice twist.

The performance is exceptionalneither moderate sillage, good projectionnand a phenomenal longevity of nearly fourteen hours - superb and very good even for a parfum extraît. It is beautifully blended if products of the highest quality. A great composition that is masterfully executed but maybe not of a complexity and structure to make it a truly great masterpiece, but a beautiful fragrance nonetheless.

Notes for this are listed as peach, cassis, sueded musks, peony, jasmine, amber, red berries, sandalwood, caramel, osmanthus and patchouli. I think body chemistry has everything to do with how this scent acts. I get a touch of peach, and the rest is amber. Amber can really do a job on me depending on what it is paired with. I don't hate this, but don't love it either. It actually smells better in the bottle than on my skin. I'd wear it during the winter.

Genre: Fruity Floral/Chypre

Badgley Mischka serves up the brightest, sweetest fruit custard accord you could imagine on a platter of smooth woods, clean musk, and amber. It's not complex, it's not sophisticated, and its not subtle. It doesn't develop all that much, and it reveals no hidden depths. It's simply happy, and if you're looking for a cheerful, fruity scent for summers on the beach, you could do a lot worse.

Aggressive, histrionic, baroque fruit-chouli. Not my style. I avoided trying Badgley Mischka because of its diva rep. It isn't a genre I enjoy dabbling in - too many 'fast-food' fragrances, celebs, and pleasant, insipid forgettables. Every once in a while there's a real beauty and this was called a masterpiece among fruity chypres. I love a good chypre, so I felt I needed to check it out. Good thing I wasn't holding my breath. Or maybe I should have.
Patchouli is carrying the load a lot for chypre designations anymore. This is barely a chypre, if at all. Badgley Mischka was mostly a big fruity floral, made dusky by the patchouli - a fruity-floral dressed up to go to the opera. I hope the diva of the opera Badgley Mischka visits can hold her own against this Wagnerian foghorn.
I was bored almost the minute I put it on and I'm not sure why. It has a familiarity that made me struggle to not dismiss it. So I gave it some time and several wearings. It has a big voluptuous fruity opening, full and rounded, diva that it is. It turns out the histrionics of the opening really was Badgley's best part. As the opening settled down, it became more mannered, but also more banal. It seemed more fruit than flower, more non-objectionable than interesting, more loud than powerful. I couldn't make a connection with this fragrance and became uninterested.
It comes down to personal taste. I didn't care for the main chord of Badgley Mischka. I don't need a fragrance to break new ground for me to appreciate it and am not put off by similarities between fragrances, but I guess I really did need it to show me something new in this genre, as its niche is not one I care for. But it didn't. To me fruit doesn't replace sensuality and bombast doesn't equal power. Fragrance has to at some level be about the skin, the connection to the body and if it's great, speak of the soul. I don't want that statement to be shouted at parties, inundating people in elevators and speaking for me on dates. I have to ask myself, What the hell would this fragrance be saying about me?
Saying this one has a chypre base is fudging it. Whatever duskiness was there was no match for what turned out to be, boringly, a fruity floral drydown I debated whether to give it a thumbs down or neutral and decided on neutral, because it is an okay representation for this class, I suppose, better than many. My main reaction was disinterest rather than dislike. But further than that I won't go, as I won't be wearing this again.