INTRO

I had the pleasure of purchasing a bottle of Escada Moon Sparkle fragrance (created 2007) while in Malaysia recently. It's a really beautiful eau de toilette for women with a mid-strength evening fruit and flower bouquet.

NOTES

Opening with notes of strawberry, blackcurrant, citrus and red fruit, the fragrance moves onto middle tones of sweet pea, freesia, jasmine and rose. The last notes which remain on the skin after an evening's wearing include raspberry, musk, sandalwood and amber in the base.

I find that when you first put on the fragrance, it is strong and fruity, but within 15 mins you can smell more floral than fruit. My favourite time to make the most of the fragrance is about 1 hour after putting it on, hence I like to spray once on my evening out (if my handbag's big enough at the time!)

It takes about seven hours to have the fragrance turn extremely subtle and wear off, so it's reasonable lasting fragrance.

PACKAGING

Escada Moon Sparkle comes in a nice looking pink/purple gradated glass bottle. It's quite large for 100ml and the glass walls are not especially thick, which means you feel like you get more for your money. However, it's not easily transportable due to size and is more of an ornamental dresser fragrance. The silver capped lid is of a high quality - the perfume does not degrade the lid over time and a plastic fitting holds the nozzle in place so tipping the bottle upside down results in no leakage.

The box it comes in isn't very memorable, hence I won't worry about emphasising the delights of the box here.

PRICE

Escada Moon Sparkle is quite well priced at £18.69 new on Ebay. I paid £24.00 for two Escada fragrances (£12.00 each for 100ml) from a street vendor in Kuala Lumpur, after talking him down from £123.00 for two. Escada is a good brand with sensual and feminine fragrances that avoid smelling "cheap" so it's worth paying a little more to get a desirable fragrance like this one.

CONCLUSION

Moon Sparkle captures perfectly the essence of a gracious summer's evening. It is the kind of fragrance you would wear to an evening at the theatre, to dinner with a loved one or even for a night on the town. Men don't object to it. Women really seem to like it. It even works in bra and knickers, making you feel sensual, desirable and very rich. Highly recommend.