Juliette Has a Gun

I noticed that our local Fenwick department store, which already has some decent niche-ish fragrance lines such as Serge Lutens, Van Cleef & Arpels, Creed and Penhaligons is now stocking the Juliette Has a Gun line too. A while back, when I was going through a bit of an oud phase, I had thought of ordering a sample of Midnight Oud, but for some reason never got round to it. Midnight Oud is not included here, but I think I have read that it was only a limited edition anyway, so perhaps that is why. I understand that Juliette is a line of rose-centered perfumes and I must say that this does appear to be the case. I tried the whole range on paper, but only tried Calamity J on skin. My wife, who is not a huge perfume fan, but does like rose, enjoyed all of them, which is a rare occurrence for her! I must say that none of them blew me out the water - they are all solid, decent perfumes, but I think if you are someone who has had some niche exposure, particularly to some of the edgier rose fragrances around, you might be left feeling slightly let down. Having said that, I thought they were all quite nice. 

The reason I wore Calamity J is that I had read that it is the most masculine in the line. I can't believe I just wrote that - I thought I was a male who is not averse to pushing the so-called gender boundary in perfume, but hey ho, that's how I felt today. Calamity J is nice, no two ways about it. It is quite a gentle fragrance though, slightly spicy, slightly ambery, with a rose accord that is neither too dewy and girly, nor grandma powdery. I really liked it and it wore well on my skin. I felt that it was perfectly unisex and I would wear it again without hesitation. Having said that, I possess samples of what I believe are better and more daring rose perfumes, such as Frederic Malle Un Rose, Le Labo Rose 31, Rose Poivre by The Different Company, Voleur de Roses by L'Artisan and I could go on. In fact, one of my more interesting rose perfumes (funnily enough the only one that I own a full bottle of) is Alexander Mcqueen's Kingdom, which I bought for £15 on a sale about two years ago, but that will be the subject of a separate review another day.

But I like the Juliette Has a Gun line. The bottles in particular are quite striking and have a nice heft and feel in the hand. They are solidly built and look lovely. The juice is decent too, if not groundbreaking, but if you are someone who is looking to move on from department store rose staples such as Stella and Paul Smith, you could do worse than giving this line a go.