Chinatown
Bond No. 9 (2005)

It has taken me years to appreciate Chinatown as the peach note used to put me off when I first tried it many years ago.

I now really enjoy wearing Chinatown. It is a fruity fragrance with a very long lasting accord that I wear in the colder months.

Thumbs up!

A really interesting take on a fruity floral, Chinatown kicks off with a red fruit smell that I can't quite place - sort of plummy but with a timbre that calls to mind cherry. There's also a bit of minty sharpness. Given time, an effusive floral quality opens up underneath the fruit. It's the loudness of tuberose without smelling directly like tuberose, and the brightness of violets without really smelling like violets either. This heart of hard-to-describe fruits, flowers, and green makes up most of Chinatown, until a dry coumarin that smells sort of like tobacco leaves, but with a vanilla sweetness, comes in.

I'm impressed how Chinatown smells like it's made of familiar elements, but somehow never smells directly like its parts. Instead, it's more like an abstract impression of a fruity tobacco floral, all colors and swirls that exist more as a metaphor than a specific. While the end result is sweeter and fruitier than I generally like, I still think this earns a thumbs up for cleverness and artistry.

Chinatown is a creamy woody vanilla floral. Smells like candy and I love it. I smell peach blossom, gardenia and vanilla rounded off by patchouli. I can't stop smelling myself. Last a long time on me. Delicious!

The peach blossom and bergamot are delightful, at the top. I only wish they lasted longer. Chinatown is dominated by gardenia and tuberose. These flowers persist all the way over and through the base. The base is smooth with notes of patchouli, cedar, vanilla, and sandalwood. Overall this is an exotic, enjoyable floral perfume.

I'm not sure what can be said that hasn't already. This thing is sweet, sweet, sweet, and lasts forever. It goes quite floral on clothes the second day. It can be "screechy" and a bit too much--heaven help you if you wear this in hot weather, it would be too overpowering. But in winter/spring/fall it can be fun. I happily finished my sample, and would use another sample if it came my way, but would not buy a full bottle.

A sweet floral fragrance, this is mostly gardinia and peony mixed with the sweetness of cardamom and vanilla. Peach blossoms and orange blossoms have very subtle odor in nature, and I'm not sure I smell them in this perfume. I smell a trace of fake artificial peach fragrance which smells absolutely foul, but thankfully not enough to ruin this fragrance.