Divine by Divine : Perfume Review

One of the houses I feel a certain affinity towards is Divine, and to their credit, these feelings have been built not on artificial branding strategies or clever advertising, but purely on their scents. Their masculine scents, although perhaps a little safe, are elegant, luxurious and refined. Their female scents have had this rare effect on me, making me wish I owned them from the moment I first smelled them; a wish that did not prove to be a passing fancy. I own and love L’Inspiratrice and look forward to buying both L’Infante and L’Ame Soer sometime in the near future. Surprisingly enough, the only Divine scent that did not actually manage to move me the way the rest did, is the small niche company’s first, homonymous offering, Divine.

My reaction the first time I smelled Divine was both powerful and inexplicable: I was instantly gripped by the strangest feeling of déjà vu, surrounded by a fragrance so very familiar and yet so disturbingly out of reach, I just couldn’t put my finger on it no matter how hard I tried. Even more disquieting than the strange familiarity of the scent, was the way it was stirring my emotions, making me feel as though I was constantly on the verge of reliving some, until then suppressed, rather unpleasant memory. Only there was no such memory... Just the bizarrely unsettling feeling of coming across someone who had, in the past, been important enough to recognize, yet being utterly unable to do so. And this, coupled with a feeling of oppression from the scent itself: It is a perfume that feels like the grandest bouquet of heady, narcotic blooms in a tiny, moonlit room with door and window hermetically closed. A sadness accompanies the fragrance that fills the space...one last time of tearful lovemaking after saying goodbye.

“Open the window darling... Let the night in...”

Divine is beautiful, too beautiful perhaps. She’s got theater make-up on. She looks good from afar, but once you come close enough to congratulate her on her wonderful performance, you’re thrown, overwhelmed by the intensity of her over-defined features. Close up, she can be frightening and quite awe-inspiring. There’s something brutal about her, like a Grand Damme of the ‘80s. She’s a prettier, mellower Poison, but loses the battle, for even though far superior, she is not a recognizable classic and is thus left walking behind. She’s like a sister to Lauder’s Beautiful, only not as sparkly, loving and fun. Looking at her one last time and finally deciding that I do not indeed know her, I decide she is dated.

Image: Flickr, originally uploaded by Vanessa