This is no real review, since I only tested Womanity on skin once, but I wanted to write down my thoughts anyway.
I never approached Womanity since it launched for several reasons.
I am a terrible snob, I despise the look of the bottle, I hate the name and the marketing campaign for Womanity and I read the reviews without once experiencing that familiar tug of want.
So, at the department store the other day, I am not sure what got into me, but I watched myself approaching the bottle, applying to a scent strip and bringing it right up to my nose.
Lo and behold – I loved that first whiff of Womanity on paper. I smelled lots of bread among the fresh top notes, fig was there, a sweet and salty see-saw that was strange but compelling.
I risked a spray on my hand. Enter the first disappointment: the bread note that I so absolutely adored, was way muted on skin, here the “regular” notes dominated.
Soon disappointment number two crept in – during development the scent grew more and more conventional, conventional in the sense of uninteresting bordering on annoying. The compelling and unique combination of unusual notes I had experienced on paper and on skin for the first few minutes (if muted, but still there) was completey gone and in its place was a thin fruity-floral with an odd salty cast.
I was glad to scrub it off after five hours, true to form for scents I don’t like, Womanity seemed pretty tenacious. 😦
I would think that is a fitting image for Womanity!
All in all, this was a case of trust your first instinct, Womanity is not for me (just like Angel, aaargh!).
For real reviews check out:
How about you? Did you like Womanity? Dish!
Olfactoria's Travels 
Womanity is an odd one, it has nucleur sillage for such a fresh scent. I’m glad that you got the ‘bready’ vibe, I get the same, weird ‘buscuity’ thing going on. I do like Womanity though, I LOVE the bottle (it’s so Mugler) but like you I HATE the name!
I wish the bread-biscuit note would have been stronger and longer lasting, then I would have liked it. The bottle is very Mugler just like you say, but the problem is, I don’t like any of his bottles. 😉
This was one of my very few Nasty Niffs of last year – it was like being mugged by popcorn, basically. I wonder if I may be programmed to think that every Mugler smells like that gourmandy Miroir one that actually has popcorn in it, and which haunts me still. I am not snobby about popcorn as a cinema snack, but I don’t want it in my perfume.
I hear you, Vanessa, I like my popcorn to eat as well. 🙂
Each time I read a positive review for Womanity, I keep thinking if I was mistaken when I smelled it but I know I wasn’t.
It started innocently enough and I thought it was rather ok, and then something changed and each time I would smell it (unfortunately on my arm), it would make my stomach turn.
I don’t tlike it at all even though I like all the notes and thought it might turn out great.
My experience was exactly like yours! I loved the first 30 seconds, but it went steeply downhill from there, I couldn’t wait to get it off me!
Do I detect an emerging sorority of Womanity-haters? : – )
Sign me up! 😉
I don’t like the name or the bottle. Haven’t given it a try. The bottle makes me think of the Star Trek Next Generation evil, hive-mind race The Borg…
The Borg – that fits perfectly 🙂 I bet they would have loved Womanity!
I like this one. It isn’t as “weird” as I wanted it to be. I do feel a bit like an imposter wearing it. I usually don’t go for “pink” fruity-floral scents, but it is a fun one for me every now and then. I can see how one wouldn’t like Womanity (do hate the name).
At least it is a controversial scent, which is way better in my opinion than a run-of-the-mill pink crowdpleaser that doesn’t take any risks.
Awww, poor Womanity. I rather like it. The bottle is silly but many of the Mugler bottles are. Some people really love the Angel bottles. To me they look like children’s toys. Alien does, too, but what a wonderful toy! Womanity’s web campaign was really the most annoying thing, to me. That false populism. Then again, 12,500 people like the Womanity Facebook page! Can you imagine getting twelve thousand people to commit so strongly and enthusiastically to Womanity that they would seek out the facebook page–and “like” it? I’m always surprised, when I spray it, how satisfying I find it. I think it’s truly an odd little fragrance, and yet like a lot of people I would like it to have gone just a little farther somehow. When my sister and I saw each other at Christmas she was missing a now discontinued fig scent. I had Womanity with me and offered it to her and she seemed to really like it. She likes Body Shop type scents, and the fact she liked Womanity made me realize that it has that kind of feel to it. Which might be the source of many people’s distaste for it? Maybe it should have been called Vulgarity.
Hi Brian,
that last sentence made me laugh out loud. 🙂 Maybe that would have been a good name.
I think this is an interesting and unusual scent that got cold feet halfway through and decided to become a riskfree, pink fruitjuice beloved by the masses. A shame!
But everything is a question of personal taste after all and my motto is: to each his own, and Womanity is decidedly not for me. 😉
The first time I tried Womanity, I hate it, but I kept going back to it so often that at one point I realized that I have been wearing daily for a couple of weeks straight (a rare occurrence for me!) I guess, I should have included it today as my polarizing fragrance example. I like it, and I wish it were even more daring!
It is really fitting as an example of your polarizing scents post! 🙂 I wish it were more daring too, what I hate is that the interesting part vanishes after a few minutes and is replaced by something irritating – for me at least! 😉
Oh, dear. Womanity. Quite possibly last year’s biggest, baddest fish-tank turkey. I loved the bottle (but I AM a pervert that way), and loathed the contents almost as much as I loathed its predecessor, Angel. (Alien, I do like, except not to wear!) It seems I wasn’t the only one who liked the first 30 seconds, and then hated myself the next 6 hours, which was how long it lasted on me.
But what really did me in, unfortunately not fatally, was the practical joke of it all. As I said elsewhere – fig. Caviar/Saltwater/What-have-you/Sugar OD. Eve in the garden of Eden. Woman, bottled. More like…woman in a bottle, screaming to get out…
Nope. Not happening. I hated it then, I hate it now, and anything that claims to put the entire gender of ‘WOMAN’ in a bottle has me skeptical by default.
Maybe Mr. Mugler should have stuck to the kind of clothes any Borg would be proud to wear? 😉
Ah, T we are obviously on the same page here! Glad to hear that! 🙂
Two things:
1. I love Planet Terror! One of my favorite RR movies 🙂
2. I love the Borg! STNG is the best of all the Star Trek series in my exalted opinion 😉
Womanity: I love the bottle! It’s to bizarre, and like T, it appeals to my sense of the perverse. I wanted to love the juice, but it was a naff fruity-mess on me, which was a bummer. Mr. Howe screamed and ran (practically), but that’s just fine. There’s plenty to love out there!
🙂
I love the BORG too! 🙂 I just don’t want to smell like them! 😉
All of these posts just go to show that the adage ‘each to their own’ does apply. I have Womanity and I wear it, and I love it. It all has to do with olfactory perception and with skin chemistry. On me, the scent starts out as a bright pink pepper, then turns slowly to a creamy soft fig over several hours. It just seems to work for me… and I don’t even know why.
Hi Sharon,
I absolutely agree! It is all about subjective perception.
I’m glad Womanity works for you! I hope it is clear that it is not my intention to ridicule this perfume or anyone who loves it, it’s just my personal experience with it and therefore to be taken with a big grain of salt. 🙂
Pingback: People In Perfumeland – Nathalie Fedorova From Beautycalypse | Olfactoria's Travels