Pink Sugar
Aquolina (2003)

I chuckled when I first smelled it, because it has everything to turn me off - it's pink, it's girly, it's obnoxiously sweet, it's candy like, it's Barbies, unicorns, vanilla clouds and candyfloss in a bottle. And, with all that said, I wanted to sniff my inner elbow again and again - because it's childhood memories, rainbows, ponies and happiness in a bottle, and you sometimes want such things bottled and ready to use. And that makes it a perfect guilty pleasure - but a pleasure nonetheless.

It's a fun - if a bit childlike - little scent, it's sweet, oh yes, but in an enveloping, soothing, calming way. It's like a hot cup of cocoa and warm blanket all at once. I feel strawberry underneath, and the vanilla/candyfloss is indeed a bit smoky. And somehow very addictive.

Yes, I got myself a bottle. For such a low price it would be nonsense not to take this little joy home.

My bottle of this scent is almost 5 years old, and seems to have gotten better with age. When I first bought this perfume I couldn't smell anything besides burning licorice/sugar. It was super strong and I got so many compliments but I just never loved the scent on me. Now that I am at the bottom of my bottle (and the liquid has gone from clear to yellow to almost orange) the scent has started to change. Rather than notes going off, it seems to have developed more complexity. I now get the red fruits and berries, and a more creamy rather than burnt smell. Longevity and sillage do not seem to have suffered a bit. It is the strangest yet pleasantly surprising thing to happen in my collection. I didn't think I would repurchase and if I did, I wanted to buy a tiny bottle. Now I think I might purchase the largest size again and get a start on the aging process without having to worry about it going "off".

If you're curious about trying this scent and you are into very sweet smells, you owe it to yourself to buy this at least once, and it's so affordable if you do! I bought mine for half the price it goes for in retail, and I've seen it for even less. (more like a quarter!) There's a ton of body products available which I might be tempted to look into next.

I have a sweet tooth, so I love this perfume! At first, it's a bit overpowering, but as time goes on, it smells so amazing. It has some musky, woody base notes in there to balance out the sweetness, so it isn't too cloying. Sadly, it doesn't last for a very long time so it's probably best to either reapply it or use the lotion that you can buy with it. Overall, I really love this perfume! Sweet and a little mysterious.

Its smell like when you are making caramel and it is a little to overdone.I smell that and the rest of the sweet notes and a little musk.It smells girly and unoffensive to me.Kinda childish for some.Comes at a cheap price which it great.

So, remember when you were a little kid and you could never get enough sugar, and candy was the best thing of all time ever? And then remember that time some grown-up--maybe a grandparent or a great-aunt or something--offered you a piece of candy and you got all excited...only then to discover that the "candy" in question was actually a plug of some gross rooty old black licorice? Remember how utterly devastating and upsetting that was?

...Yeah. This has got to be the cruellest bait-and-switch in all perfumery.

When you first take a sniff of it in the bottle or the vial, it presents itself as a sweet little riff on ethyl maltol, the "cotton candy" (or "candyfloss" for you Brits out there) aromachemical. It smells great: like spun sugar and carmelized sugar and various vanillaish things and maybe just a bit of red berry. It's a smell that goes straight to whatever part of the limbic system it is that houses your proverbial inner child, and that seems perfectly designed to get that inner child all excited, like a little kid just entering the fairgrounds. Cotton candy! Cotton candy and CARAMEL! Candycandycandycandycandy!!! Yaaaaaay!

Then you make the mistake of spraying it or dabbing some on, and all of a sudden this enormous black licorice and melted plastic hybrid--this unspeakable BEAST--rears up out of nowhere, roaring and rampaging and trampling you underfoot until you're left rocking back and forth, wailing in horror like Nancy Kerrigan after she took one to the knee. "Why? Why??? WHY???!!??"

Seriously, what did they DO to that poor ethyl maltol to make it smell like that? And what could the poor ethyl maltol possibly have done to deserve such treatment?

On the plus side, at least now I know what that black licorice fragrance I've been smelling everywhere for the past couple of years is. It never even occurred to me that it might be Pink Sugar. I'd been assuming that it was, I dunno, Lolita Lempicka or something -- you know, something that is *known* for its licorice note -- because seriously, who would guess that a fragrance called "Pink Sugar" and marketed with all of that pink fluffy cotton candy imagery would actually turn out to smell like a plug of some thick rooty old black licorice? Not I, that's for sure. Crazy old world, innit?

Crazy old world...and a *very* cruel perfume.

An orange-centred citrus notes that is heavily laden with a sweet note of red berries is present in the opening phase, whilst the drydown bringing in faint whiffs of bland licorice.

The later phases see the addition of a light vanilla background, on which a light musk and a nonspecific woodsy impression develop.

The performance is excellent with moderate sillage, good projection and a splendid eleven hours of longevity. It is the generic, synthetic and boring nature of the ingredients that spoils this olfactoric party, but at least it is never really overwhelmingly sweet or cloying. Very middle-of-the-road. 2.25/5