Wild Country Freedom
Avon (2020)

I’m a huge fan of the original Wild Country and was excited to try this. Even though I like the pillbox-shaped older bottles, the new line of hefty liquor-bottle inspired bottles that Avon has rolled out for Freedom and the original Wild Country are both gorgeous—especially for drugstore-variety fragrances. I also love lavender and was interested in the “petrichor” rain accord as a basenote, and my bar was not set particularly high. However, the problem with Freedom for me is that it has nearly zero sillage and no longevity to speak of. You could clear a room with an over-application of the original Wild Country. And I tried multiple applications of Freedom—with 10 or more sprays—and zilch for me. It smells good to me and interesting enough to wear (and different enough as a flanker than the original), but I felt often that I was just applying blue-colored water and then chasing a few moments of scent. Too bad really. I’ll stick with the original.