Whenever I make my periodic field trip to the local mall, I sometimes see how out of step I am with the typical perfume consumer. I had already gone in and collected a bunch of strips of the new releases. I then play a little game. I can sit in a comfortable sofa just outside the entry to the fragrance department to a big department store. From there I watch the stream of people taking strips from the sales reps handing them out. The other thing which is next to me is a garbage can which is the first opportunity for anyone walking to discard the strip if they don’t like it. This becomes my very unscientific research on what new fragrances are making an impression. When I sit down having smelled the offerings for the day, I make my choice on which I think will not end up in the garbage can. Over the past year or so I have seen a distinctive trend towards lighter airier constructs being the strips which keep getting sniffed. On this recent trip it was one of the lightest of the day which I was surprised was the winner; Burberry Her.
Francis Kurkdjian
Burberry Her is another of the recent new releases to go after a more transparent fruity gourmand. Perfumer Francis Kurkdjian was asked to compose this perfume. M. Kurkdjian is one of the perfumers who understands the use of all the musks at a perfumer’s disposal to create the effect he wants. For Burberry Her he uses a successive layering of musks to provide an expansive meringue-like lightness to which he adds a bounty of berries. The official note list mentions florals here but I have to say that if there is jasmine here it is one of the synthetic expansive versions which becomes part of this airy transparent bubble at the center of Burberry Her.
The opening of Burberry Her is those berries. If you are a fan of berries in perfume almost all of them are here. If M. Kurkdjian was not going to lighten them up this would rapidly become too much. What keeps that from happening is this expanding transparency courtesy of the musks. Just as the berries begin to concentrate into something strident the musks spread them out increasing their opacity. There is a point where I would have liked to have the opportunity to stop this effect from going as far as it does. That is when the fruit still has a presence with the musks inflating them. It is only for a short time as the eventual end point is a shimmering globe of light berries which is where this stays for the duration.
Burberry Her has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.
On my afternoon at the mall Burberry Her was the runaway winner as I observed people handing the strip to others they were walking with. My guess is there is a market for this style of perfume among more casual perfume wearers. Within those boundaries Burberry Her is one of the better ones.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample provided by Burberry.
–Mark Behnke
Every year I treat myself to a Holiday box set of fragrance from the PX at work. Last year, I got Gucci Bloom. This year I got Burberry Her. It's not everyday I can go buy a Francis Kurkdjian at a deep discounted PX price with no tax. They only got 10 sets in, and later that day it was already sold out. And, it of course, per your eloquent description, Mark, is definitely "Southwest Florida-friendly". So it's a win for me. It's even better that my husband loves berries. He'll have no complaints about this one when I wear it. Sometimes, you don't have to be wearing the latest uber-chic niche juice, to enjoy a good perfuime! Thanks for the great review, Mark! 🙂