With Valentine’s Day approaching, the fragrance counters are filling up with gift sets and other lures, mostly intended for men to buy for the women in their lives. I adore Valentine’s Day. I love the superfluous pink merchandise (pink M&Ms!), the window displays where everything is pink and festooned by hearts, the variety the holiday brings to the greeting card aisle. Oh yes. Let’s not forget the card aisle.
Normally I buy my husband cards that are unrelated to the event (last year, his birthday card was a christening card — en espanol). But this Valentine’s Day, I found a splendid card “For my husband” which informs him that my favorite part about our lives together is “raising a beautiful family together.”* That kind of awful is just not available year ’round, my friends.
It’s these little things that make Valentine’s Day for me. So while the fragrance marketing is currently all about “seductive” scents, those don’t really match up with how I want to celebrate. And I don’t think they match up with what most people want, really. If the day was all about having fun and celebrating love, wouldn’t everyone be behind it?
So this year for Valentine’s Day, I’m wearing a scent I love. One that feels playful, warm, inviting, and — yes — a bit seductive. Tramp is part of the Opus Oils Burlesque Collection. It’s notes are sweet lemon blossom, warm vanilla sugar, sandalwood, blond tobacco, and patchouli. It’s a lightly sweet fragrance that opens with sweet lemon custard and sweet vanilla. Pretty quickly, I can smell the tobacco and just a slight bit of sandalwood. The lemon doesn’t exactly fade, but rather becomes so much a part of the composition that I sometimes forget it’s there. To me, Tramp feels very well blended. No one element exerts to much sway; each is in accord with the others.
What really hooked me on Tramp, though, is the way that the notes together have this wonderful density to them — but are full of sunshine. Although the vanilla is on the sweet and heavy side, the tobacco is lightly sweet, like a fresh tobacco leaf, a great compliment to the lemon.
Sometimes I don’t think scents like Tramp get their due. Often they’re dismissed as simple or confectionary. Which is one reason it was nice to see Prada Candy succeeding last year, even though I didn’t like it much. One thing I did like about Candy is the way it sits on the skin. It has weight. If it deepened or intensified in some way on my skin, I’d like it. But it doesn’t. And Tramp does. The feeling of weight and “aliveness” it has is really great.
***
Rating for Tramp is “3: I like it!” Why? Because it’s playful, warm, inviting, and a bit seductive.
*The closest thing we have to a family is any dust bunny that might have escaped my obsessive cleaning.
Image is a still from the movie It Happened One Night. If you haven’t seen it, you should really watch the whole movie, or at least this scene. “It’s a system all my own.”
what an Epic scene…!!!!!!!!! I still remember the very first time I saw it -when a little child, by 6 or 7- and that it was really exciting! It left me astonished, and I started clapping and laughing for a while seconds after the screaming of the quickly applied brakes!!!
That scene is the pure essence of the 1920 vintage love affairs…The way she grins victoriously up at Gable, who stares ahead of him, glumly. haha!
I don’t know Opus Oils’… but sure I’d love anything named TRAMP. I have my own love affairs with some words, and that’s one of them.
When I’m listening Born to Run, what I love the most is the ending lyrics “and we walk in the sun… because tramps like us, baby we are born to run”… Meanwhile, every time it comes one single image to my mind, always the same (I just can’t help it!) = of the final scene from “Modern Times”, which also happened to be the Chaplin’s famous tramp character last appearance: with the couple walking away from their problems -hopefully to a better life-, their backs to the camera and their ‘smiling’ faces to the sun rising horizon. I also love the original soundtrack ‘Smile’ of the movie, of course… but I’m happy delighted with my own private iconographic ‘editing and mixing’ thoughts.
It is such a wonderful movie, isn’t it? I love it! Thanks for reminding me of the Chaplin scene, too!
For a momenht I thought you were reviewing Tramp by Lentheric which was advertised on UK telly in the 70s/80s! I just googled it out of curiosity and found you can still buy it for the princely sum of £3.39 for 100ml!
Your Opus Oils Tramp sounds about 1 million times more sophisticated. I like the idea of a blend of vanilla, tobacco and lemon. I too had a problem with Candy. Apart from the fact that it was so quiet on me, it was rather flat. I agree though that it was good for perfume that it was such a success.
I love that funny card tradition you have with your husband. It’s nice that you make Valentine’s Day fun rather than schmaltzy.
Oh, I haven’t heard about Tramp by Lentheric. How funny.
I often think about how my “tradition” of only using the perfume name for post titles will end up sounding, but I kind of like the sometimes odd results.
I actually thought of you when I was writing this, because I remembered that you weren’t a big fan of Candy either. You might like Tramp!
Oooh, I like the unexpected coupling of the name “Tramp” to a fragrance that has a sense of sunshine-y playfulness to it! Reminds me of a Chaplinesque intepretation of the word.
And I can really appreciate that you’re choosing this as your Valentine’s Day scent, as to me, playfulness is the key to a sweet relationship. Great review, Natalie!
Thanks so much, Suzanne!
The dichotomy (at least to me) between the more negative connotation of the word in some contexts, and the sweet quality of this perfume is something I really like.
Tramp sounds gorgeous… It’s about time I delved into the Opus Oils range, I think, and Tramp is a likely place to start…
I too love giving off-holiday cards! One of my favorites: to give people who are moving away sympathy cards, because they are going to miss me so much.
Heehee. That is a great idea with the sympathy cards. I may have to lift that one!
I think it’s high time you got yourself some Opus Oils!
I like your review even though this perfume isn’t “me”.
I love, Love, LOVE St. Valentine’s Day! I haven’t decided yet what to wear but I’ll think of something. I like the idea with the card… Hm… Maybe I should try to find something appropriate.
Hurrah for another Valentine’s Day fan! (esp since it’s so close to another day) Thanks for reading.
Sounds good, but who’s making those oils again?
Tramp is created by Opus Oils (http://opusoils.com/).
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