Carolina Herrera
Carolina Herrera (1988)

An orange flower & tuberose bouquet, pretty standard for the 80’s – apart from the syrup – which has a cool glycerine lightness.

When I was a little girl, in the late 80s, I had this peach-colored Easter dress covered in little pink and purple flowers, complete with shoulder pads. Carolina Herrera is that dress: a big, peachy, 80s floral. Pretty, feminine, and loud.

I have worn this scent on and off since it first came out I have tried hundreds of perfumes over the years and I continually return to this as my signature fragrance. I'm quite fond of tuberose (obviously) but love the jasmine/hyacinth/ honeysuckle/LOTV accord that accompanies it. It is linear, as others note, but since I love it, I'm ok with that. I don't wear it as much in the summer as winter, and more at night now that I'm retired. It is a big, heady tuberose but so much more, in my opinion.

In 1978 Madeleine Mono created the first of two scents, which she named after herself. Ten years later Carolina Herrara created her first scent, which she named after herself. The unusual thing is that to my nose, both are alike. Both pay homage to Piguet's masterpiece, Fracas, with its mist of heady white florals and peach with tuberose at the center.

I quote below from my Basenotes review of Madeleine de Madeleine:

"This is an excellent tuberose dominated floral bouquet, that is fresh and joyful, also a little green and dry in the base.

Madeleine D is really just about tuberose, surrounded by not necessarily white florals and a nice solid base, as mentioned above. It is not cloying or over the top. The green note keeps the tuberose subdued and grounded."

I detect honeysuckle as one of the white florals accompanying the tuberose in the Herrara. It is a heady, fresh floral scent, old-fashioned in a good sense. Certainly if you are a tuberose fan, you can't go wrong with this one.

People who lived large and loud in the 1980s will tell you that the bigness of the era was a reflection of exuberance and the sense of endless potential. It wasn't. It was mostly just un-nuanced and noisy.

Enter Carolina Herrera, the perfume, not the person. It's a child's stick-drawing of a tuberose blown up to billboard size, shaken with a shot of over-concentrated sugar-free grape kool-aid. Both monstrous and shrill, it was overconfident where it should have been self-conscious. Classically 80s in style, Carolina Herrera reminds me how tedious and draining those conversations with people on blow were.

This was my signature scent for awhile in the late 80s. I don't know if I could tolerate it now. First, it's been changed. Second, it's pretty darn intense and I don't usually like to "go there". I still keep a mini in my collection.