I was at Nordstrom’s with a friend of mine when, out of the blue, the perfume SA started to spritz Atelier Cologne’s ‘Grand Neroli’ to us and said ‘Doesn’t this perfume remind you of your youth?’  It startled me. First off, what does this person know about me, much more my ‘youth,’ and secondly, let me smell that and see if it does. Well, Grand Neroli, at first blast smells just like any ‘cologne’ type perfume I have ever smelled – so I was at a loss as to what to answer. And then he said ‘De Ne Nes,’ which is a Spanish baby cologne. I remember every child’s mother would swathe it on their children and that lemony cologne smell would be a nice cold blast. Since I grew up in a tropical country, it was most welcome and made each child smell ‘fresh.’

Well, Grand Neroli certainly evokes that smell, though it is not exact Grand Neroli is more sophisticated, with its initial blast of neroli and orange blossom. At times it smells slightly green, then sweet the next minute,. And it is certainly ‘heftier’ than most colognes (it stayed with me the whole day!) and is not just wafting. The base is pretty solid, and warm but not hot, which is a great contrast to that initial blast. I am sampling this in cold weather, but I am sure this works much much better on a nice hot summer day. Summer, get here if you can.