Fancy a Spray (Elizabeth Arden: Splendour, Eau de Parfum)

Member Name: HS28

Product:	Elizabeth Arden: Splendour, Eau de Parfum
Date:	10/05/09 (175 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Inexpensive woody and musky scent

Disadvantages: An acquired scent and old fashioned

Elizabeth Arden: Splendour, Eau de Parfum

I have never really bought any make up, skin care or perfume products from Elizabeth Arden before but do recall having a bottle of sunflower when I was a teenager as it was quite cheap on teenager's pocket money and sweet enough for daywear! I was given a bottle of Elizabeth Arden Splendour perfume as guess what a Christmas present from my sister the other year. I think she either has early Alzheimer's and forgets she keeps buying me PJs and Perfume for birthdays and Christmases or she thinks I smell!!!!


**Elizabeth Arden**

My impressions of Elizabeth Arden as a Fragrance and Cosmetic company have always been that it is a traditional brand. I always felt it was aimed at the older lady in fragrances and make up. Elizabeth Arden is a partnership that was forged between two ladies, Arden and Elizabeth Hubbard back in 1909. Arden learned the techniques and skills of beauty in France and first ventured into the beauty makeup in creating creams and powders in the early twentieth century. Elizabeth Arden is therefore a long established and well respected brand. Arden died in 1966 and in 1971 Eli Lilly and company bought Elizabeth Arden. It has been resold to Faberge in 1987 and is still a big company today. It uses high profile models and celebrities for campaigns and most recently used Catherine Zeta Jones.


**Splendour or Splendid**

Splendour is a good name for a perfume and sounds quite splendid, elegant and classic to me and therefore gives me high hopes. It is described by Elizabeth Arden as a joyous fragrance that has femininity and romance and should captures the spirit and sparkle of falling in love. That is a very romantic notion and good advertising for a bottle of perfume to get someone to purchase it as a present. It was created by Elizabeth Arden in 1998 and others in the range include: Sunflowers, Red Door, Green Tea, True Love, 5th Avenue and countless more (quite the perfume maker is our Elizabeth!!)

**Bottled up**

The bottle is glass but feels a little bit like thickened plastic. It is not a pretty or imaginative bottle but reminds me of a miniature wine bottle. It has a series of indented lines up a third of the bottle and goes into a bottle neck. It does have a nice silver plated topping on the neck rim with some writing initials of Elizabeth Arden as a logo. The top is a glass ball and reminds me of a decanter top. The top included this silver rim bit and all pops off. There is then a silver nozzle to use for the perfume. You can clearly see into the bottle and it is a yellowish colour and you can see the plastic straw like tube that is used to allow the perfume to spray up through the nozzle.

**Does it smell splendid?**

This perfume is meant to be a refined oriental and floral fragrance. Top notes in the fragrance are sweet pea, water lilly and freesia and middle notes in the perfume are magnolia, champagne and musk. The base notes are amber, rosewood and sandlewood. The scent is meant to be romantic and light and suitable for an evening out. I find it interesting that a lot of my scents contain sandlewood and are all described as oriental and floral yet they do not always come across as floral to me.

I find this perfume quite heavy for me and when you sniff it I get reminded of scented soap or hand cream. I think the musk and amber come through quite strongly in this and it is very woody and musky in smell. Although once you spray it on it starts to smell a little lighter and the floral scents come out. You can then smell the magnolia and sweeter parts of the fragrance.

Personally I do not like the smell of this perfume but I do not detest it as much as Versace Red Jeans. With this perfume as I always thought of Elizabeth Arden as an older and traditional brand. I therefore expected that I might not like the perfume. I think it does smell better the longer it is on but is too much like a heavily scented skin care cream. I would not repurchase this product and have barely used it but my mum likes it so she now has it.


**Prices**

I have the 125ml bottle which is meant to rrp at £44.50 yet you can purchase this for as little as £10 from the discount online perfume shops. I personally am not keen but think this may appeal to others as a light inexpensive day wear perfume that is a little woody and musky in scent.

Summary: An Old fashioned Romantic Perfume from Elizabeth Arden