Elizabeth Arden Mediterranean Eau De Parfum Spray

...my birthday I got an Elizabeth Arden gift set and in amongst the items was a very small bottle of the Mediterranean fragrance.

I was surprised to read that this fragrance was only launched in 2007. The reason I say that is simply that I think the bottle looks quite 1990's. It's a beautiful blue glass with a silver hammer-beaten lid. I think personally, that there's something reminiscent of that 'sun, moon stars' era of the 90's about ...
...I like the colour, but for me, the bottle is almost as important as the fragrance it contains, and I must say this one didn't really do it for me.

The top notes of the perfume (the scent you can smell when just sprayed) are mandarin, plum and peach. Personally I think this is one of those perfumes where the initial alcohol scent takes a while to disappear. Once it does though, there is definitely a fruity sort of a scent, which I ... more

For my birthday I got an Elizabeth Arden gift set and in amongst the items was a very small bottle of the Mediterranean fragrance.

I was surprised to read that this fragrance was only launched in 2007. The reason I say that is simply that I think the bottle looks quite 1990's. It's a beautiful blue glass with a silver hammer-beaten lid. I think personally, that there's something reminiscent of that 'sun, moon stars' era of the 90's about it.

The bottle is simple, and I like the colour, but for me, the bottle is almost as important as the fragrance it contains, and I must say this one didn't really do it for me.

The top notes of the perfume (the scent you can smell when just sprayed) are mandarin, plum and peach. Personally I think this is one of those perfumes where the initial alcohol scent takes a while to disappear. Once it does though, there is definitely a fruity sort of a scent, which I would say is more peach to me than plum or mandarin. It's a very sweet scent and almost a little sickly. It does, however have a light sort of feeling to it, which reminds me of summer and hot weather, so in this respect it lives up to its Mediterranean name.

Once the fragrance settles on the skin the middle notes begin to appear. These are magnolia, orchid and wisteria. In total honesty I'm not sure what wisteria smells like, but I would say this takes on much more of a magnolia than an orchid scent. If I'm honest it's quite an old-fashioned sort of soft floral. In fact I'd say it reminds me of something my grandmother would have worn circa 1987!

OK, so maybe that was a little harsh, because in all honesty, the floral middle notes are not all that bad, but as a 25 year old I would prefer a much more modern fragrance.

Once this perfume has been on the skin for some time, the base notes start to emerge. The base notes are sandalwood and musk.

Personally I found that this fragrance seemed to get worse the longer it had been on the skin. The woody, musky base notes do not harmonise very well with the overall scent, and I found that I got a woody scent with a bit of the magnolia fragrance still lingering around. All in all this made for quite a sickly and not particularly pleasant scent.

The perfume only seemed to linger on my skin for 2-3 hours after application which I must say I found very disappointing for an eau de parfum.

The fragrance is available in three sizes:

30ml - £26.00
50ml - £35.00
100ml - £47

These prices are taken from the Boots website and I'm sure if you shop around you will be able to find it cheaper.

As I'm sure you can tell I was not particularly impressed with this product. From the name 'Mediterranean' I was expecting a warm, summery scent, but I was left with a sickly floral. Saying that I did think that the scent was quite nice when first sprayed, but I did not like the fragrance that seemed to emerge as the heart and base notes revealed themselves. Perfume is a very personal thing of course, but this particular fragrance is definitely not for me.

Also posted on Dooyoo 

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