Annick Goutal, Petite Cherie

Petite Cherie - the name alone is pretty awful. I knew it wasn't going to be my cup of tea. But it came in the mini trio with Songes and Grand Amour (about which more later), and so I thought I'd give it a try. Pear and peach and fresh-cut grass doesn't sound bad, though the description on the AG website of the "naive and determined woman-child" for whom the scent was intended put me off a little. But hell, I like Magical Moon! If that's not naive and determined, I don't know what is.

For the first half-hour, Petite Cherie smells like a thirteen-year-old wearing Love's Baby Soft and smoking a cigarette behind the drug store. It actually conjured up memories of my "bad" friend in junior high, and if that doesn't sound so terrible to you, keep in mind that a) the drugstore was in Naperville, Illinois, in the mid-80s, and b) even she has probably moved on to something a mite classier by now. (Oh, I really miss her sometimes. We used to play with ouiji boards and put on slutty makeup together. Wonder where she is now.)

The bitter, smoky note I smell - musk rose? cut grass? - is the only interesting thing about this otherwise pallid fragrance, but as I say, there was such a gulf between the watery peach and pear topnotes and whatever I was smelling underneath that it had the effect of stale cigarette smoke lingering on the clothes of a freshly shampooed teenager. That smoky note calms in the drydown, leaving a smell that reminds me of . . . a diaper-changing table. All those sweet-smelling powders and air fresheners tinged with a note of acrid plastic and a distant aura of baby poop.

Maybe Petite Cherie will layer up with some other AG fragrances. I will try. Apparently AG really did create it to evoke childhood, and it certainly lives up to that promise. On some less aggro woman than me that may be a good thing.