Tropical Island anyone?
I could use a vacation in a place that smells like Ormonde Jayne Frangipani.
With its large elegant cream coloured petals, frangipani is perhaps the queen of all tropical flowers. The heart of the structure is a fabulous heady fusion of frangipani, jasmine and tuberose absolutes, elevated with plum, water lilies and green orchid oil. The scent has great foundations and architecture, the notes are soft, captivating and unforgettable.
-from the Ormonde Jayne website
Notes include linden blossom, magnolia flower, lime peel, white frangipani, jasmine, rose, tuberose absolutes, water lilies, plum, green orchid oil, amber, musk, cedar and vanilla.
Frangipani opens light and upliftingly fresh with an accord of linden blossom and magnolia dominated for the first few minutes by a citrus note (the lime) though.
Slowly it dries down and warms up to a beautiful bouquet of tropical, lush flowers that are at no point what I fear about white flowers – heady and cloying. This perfume is just lush, in full bloom, green underneath, dewy, almost watery, and feels like a soft cool breeze is constantly blowing through the flowers, preventing them to get overpowering. Even the tuberose does not bother me here, it seems tempered with rose and I believe the water lilies are what lifts this perfume out of the typical white-flower-density into cool and sheer lightness.
The flowers stay bright and fresh for along time, the late drydown is softly musky and sweet, but very faintly so. Mostly it is the flowers fading out until only the memory remains.
I would be a big fan of white florals if they all were like Ormonde Jayne Frangipani.
Ormonde Jayne is always tempting me with their matching body products and candles (which make great gifts by the way!), a bath in Frangipani bath oil is maybe the closest thing to a tropical island we all can get in the near future.
And that is a very acceptable alternative.
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I love the Frangipani flower. I brought back home some seeds from Australia and I have a tiny tree now, but I’m afraid I’ll never have flovers on it…
Sadly, it is probably too cold, or at least too changeable to get it to bloom here. It is such a beautiful flower though…At least you can wear an olfactory equivalent regardless of the climate. 🙂
Love Frangipani’s opening blast of lime, just wonderful. Looking forward to seeing how it develops today. How lovely to have a perfume that can transport you to a tropical getaway.
So pleased I took your and Dee’s advice about the OJ white florals, otherwise I wouldn’t have given them a chance. As you say, they are so fresh and transparent, yet they have depth and character. Plus (maybe best of all) they smell so natural – no screechiness here! I am a convert 🙂
I am glad you gave them a chance, Tara! Frangipani is dreamy…
Hooray! Tara, I’m so glad you stepped out of your comfort zone (as I did with these white florals); it’s very rewarding, is it not? 🙂
Thanks Dee, it is very rewarding and I’m very grateful for the encouragement, otherwise think what I’d be missing! So far Champaca is my fave of the white florals but I haven’t tried Tiare or Sampaquita yet. I’ll be interested to hear what full bottle/s you go for in the end.
Champaca is my favorite of the florals too… that incredible basmati and green tea together supporting the floral notes just send me!
Carrie Meredith – totally agree, it’s that combination that gets me too. It’s so original and refreshing. I’ve got the Ta’if travel sprays and think Champaca will be my next OJ purchase.
Seconding, or thirding, my love for the basmati/tea accords in Champaca! I love that one, but haven’t decided if I prefer it to Tiare…
Frangipani sounds so lovely! Although I’m not a fan of spring (allergies) I do love spring-like or summery scents and Frangipani appears to be a happy-maker 🙂
Do you have the sample kit from OJ and if yes are you happy with your purchase? I often find myself torn between the desire to test a larger number of fragrances vs. saving up for a couple of full size bottles.
I have the Discovery Set and I am very glad I bought it. Sometimes you end up liking only a few, but in OJ’s case I like almost all of them. I believe it is quite worth it and a great way to narrow down your choices.
Frangipani makes me happy, indeed. 🙂
Marie, my hubby gave me the Discovery Set in February, and I’ll second Birgit—it’s the way to go!
It seems like a big investment (it’s not cheap!), but there are so many beautiful scents in the set that I’m finding it hard to decide which one I want a full bottle of! I’m glad that I didn’t just go for the FB (or travel set) of Woman like I initially thought I would.
Hope that helps you 🙂
I certainly does help 🙂 I’ve been watching the short video presentations of all the fragrances on the OJ site and they all appear so genuinely well made and interesting, whether one ends of loving a particular scent or not. The discovery set seems like a worthwhile sample kit to get compared to many others, and if there’s something I love, it’s testing a fragrance I know very little about on a run of the mill workday – I know, I know, I’m easily entertained 😉
I third that! OJ’s Discovery Set is really great, as I previously wrote to somebody, if you’re lucky you’ll end up loving just 2-3 of them.
And if you do not like some of them, most likely, you’ll be able to swap them for something else that you want to try.
2-3 loves isn’t a bad outcome of a sample kit, and tend to like a wide range of fragrance types, so the odds are good, I think. Some of them might also make good additions to an unscented body lotion if they aren’t exactly full bottle candidates.
When I wrote “if you’re lucky you’ll end up loving just 2-3 of them” I meant it as an opposite to “loving them all (or most)” and not to “not liking any” 😉
I don’t know what it says about me that I didn’t even consider it a problem to love a dozen OJ fragrances! 😉 When I was a teenager my mother sometimes said “You have Mercedes taste and a Skoda budget!” That was way before Skoda teamed up with Volkswagen (or Audi??) and started making really nice cars.
Frangipani isn’t my favorite of the white florals in the OJ line, but I sure do like it.
As you say, it
“feels like a soft cool breeze is constantly blowing through the flowers.”
I couldn’t have said it better! 🙂
It is such a wonderful summer scent—I’m looking forward to spending more time with it in warmer weather when it will really bloom.
In the heat of summer Frangipani will be even better. I do like this a lot, I have narrowed down my OJ top faves to two – this and Ta’if. Progress…;)
“I would be a big fan of white florals if they all were like Ormonde Jayne Frangipani.”
Amen to that! Ormonde Jayne has changed the way I see and experience florals. I’m so happy I found them before I gave up on most florals altogether. I’m also horribly tempted by the bath and body products, and especially the candles. I dream of owning the $300 triple-wicked candle in Woman. It will never happen, but I like thinking about it. 🙂
What did you order from OJ (sorry, I am so nosy!)? I read that you were impressed with their customer service.
That candle does sound very seductive indeed, although for me it would not be the Woman scented one. 😉
You’re not being nosy at all! I had to pick just one bottle, so of course it was the Woman EDP. Ideally, down the line, they will have smaller sizes available (or mixed travel sets), and we won’t have to make such choices. 🙂
Oh, and YES, Natalie is the store manager on Old Bond St. (I believe), she was so delightful. She treated me as if I were someone VERY important, but I can tell that’s how she probably treats every one of her clients.
That is great, I love it when companies realize how important and effective good customer service and simple good manners are. See, how the word spreads! I wish more brands realized this and utilized it, instead of letting us deal with uninformed and bored SA’s. Rant over. 😉
Mixed travel sets would be the best solution, I will petition for those on Monday! 😉
I am glad you got Woman, it seems to be your dream scent! It is so lovely when one finds one of those! 🙂
Yes! Mixed travel sets! I would order one this very week if it were a “you-pick” option!
Beg on behalf of us all…
😉
I should just print out this comment thread, it is like a petition already! 😉
Yes please! I’m joining the chorus for mixed travel sets too. I was thinking just today how great that would be.
Must try this, I need this kind of vacation, right now, and this seems to provide the experience in soul if I can’t take the body just yet. I like the swirl of gold through the glass of the flacon too, in the photo, it seems right for such a fragrance.
Lucy, I hear you! 🙂
The bottles are so beautiful, I like the whole OJ aesthetic very much.
I don’t know… Since you’re going through the complete Discovery Set and I like most of those perfumes, I should probably just save somewhere on the computer couple of phrases and “stemp” them in each of your reviews – since for myself I already sound like a broken record 😉
I had a plan to take my new friend Tiare on a tropical vacation, but there definitely will be space for at least a couple more. And Frangipani is a perfect candidate.
Thank you for the review. Love reading positive reviews for things I like.
I meant “stAmp”.
LOL, Undina, I was like, “what’s stemp?” Thinking it was some new ‘fumie term, and I was out of the loop 😉
Undina, don’t worry as long as the broken record says something to the effect of “I like what you are writing” I am totally fine with it. 😉
Oh! I wish it would hurry up and get warm here Seattle : ( My decant of OJ Frangipani has been waiting all winter to get worn. I take it out of the cabinet occasionally for a sniff, but it just doesn’t really ‘bloom’ on my skin unless it’s summer-time temps!
Only a few weeks to go, hopefully! Although isn’t Seattle the place where it rains 300 days a year? No matter, Frangipani takes care of any tropical longings! 😉
I haven’t been to Seattle yet (though it is in my plans) but I heard/read on multiple occations that those rains were more like a myth and that in reality the level of precipitation there isn’t higher than in many other places of the U.S.
I have been to Seattle for a week, it was raining six out of seven days. Could be a coincidence, but I am inclined to believe in that myth. 😉
Maybe one day we will meet there and confirm or bust that myth 😉
Good idea! 😉
Frangipani is just as you describe and a fine surrogate for that tropical holiday I have yet to take one day…I know someone who wore it on her wedding day – bet it was perfect for the occasion!
I am sure this is a great wedding perfume! I am still up for a tropical vacation, even when this is a worthy substitute. 😉
>>>I would be a big fan of white florals if they all were like Ormonde Jayne Frangipani.
What you said.
On the other hand, at first try I used a new (for me) word I picked up at NST blog “solifruit” and said that Frangipani is a plum solifruit for me. Well, at a second wearing I said “not so”. And then I started to have olfactory flashbacks of it. It really is lovely. It is a perfect one for rainy Spring, and you know what? I live in Oregon, so I probably need a vat.
I hope your spring is not all too rainy, but at least Frangipani is helping! 🙂
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Late reply to this thread but, in response to the second line in this review, I was in Bali very recently and… Frangipani trees are everywhere, so the air in our hotel grounds was filled with the flowers’ scent – bliss! I think that might be your destination if you haven’t been yet 🙂
To my nose OJ’s perfume’s frangipani note is very true to life – I couldn’t resist getting a bottle for my sister for Christmas.
Hi Edd,
I’m glad you found the natural frangipani well represented in the OJ perfume. How wonderful your vacation must have been! I hope to go there one day…