Teenage Beauty: Paco Rabanne Olympea

Pretty much every time Paco Rabanne releases a new fragrance, it becomes an instant hit. They seem to have a knack for making fragrances that appeal to a majority of people and I'm one of them. Their Black XS was my first signature fragrance and I wore it throughout my late teens, I liked Lady Million as well and One Million is by far the best men fragrance ever - I hooked up two of my male friends on the latter. Olympea intrigued me from the moment I saw the press releases. I have this fascination with the ancient Greco-Roman world and culture since childhood, so the ads and the bottle are just gorgeous to me. The moment Olympea hit the shelves I was sold and it was love at first spray, but I shuddered at the original price of it in our drugstores. I never buy fragrance there, unless there is at least -30 % discount, so I promised myself to postpone getting it until I find a good deal online. I buy about 90% of my fragrances that way, usually a couple of years after the original release when the prices really drop.

Olympea is a very untraditional Paco Rabanne scent as far as I'm concerned. They tend to make more spicy scents, peppery mostly and they always include patchouli, but you won't find either in Olympea. Firstly I'll say that this fragrance develops a lot different on my skin than on the testing paper. It starts with this gorgeous sweet burst of a gourmand scent that is eerily similar to the Monte dessert. It's a hazelnut-chocolate-vanilla mix and I swear that initial burst is pure heaven on my skin. There is only vanilla in this fragrance from those notes, but somehow it creates such a scent together with my skin. It smelled a lot more floral on paper, so that was a great surprise to me. Close to skin I can also smell a more citrusy note from the start, the green mandarin I assume and I can also detect some more neutral woodsy elements. It then sometimes transforms into a predominately jasmine fragrance, but a more toned down version than Lush's Lust and Thierry Mugler's Alien. However, sometimes, I can barely smell any jasmine and it's just a simple, warm vanilla-woodsy-cashmere scent. I prefer the latter, since jasmine is not my favourite note in fragrances. The lasting power is excellent, which is not that surprising given the notes and the fact it's an eau de parfum. I can smell it faintly at the end of the day and it lasts so well on clothes. The scent itself is relatively strong, but not overpowering.

Notes

Top: green mandarin, water jasmine, ginger flower

Heart: vanilla, salt

Base: sandalwood, cashmere and ambergris.

More about the notes and additional reviews on Fragrantica.

The bottle is stunningly beautifully, but there is a difference between the 30 ml and the 50 ml/80 ml. The latter two have these beautiful rose gold laurel crown design and the 30 ml has just shaped laurel leaves out of glass. I think that if you've already put so much effort into a design, do all the bottles the same. I would prefer to have those bottles if you're deciding to buy this fragrance, it's just more eye-catching. I love the entire peachy colour scheme and the wings on the box, I'll surely keep it as decoration.