What Perfume Smells Like Garden Botanika Heart

Are you old enough to remember when
Garden Botanika
stores were still in shopping malls beyond the United States? The 1990s were a wonderful time for affordable women’s fragrances, when information technology was not uncommon to discover
The Body Store,
Bath and Body Works,
Victoria’s Secret
and
Garden Botanika
all under the same roof. (The Gap
was pretty strong in their fragrance game then, as well.) The brand distinguished itself by offering custom-scenting options on a variety of botanically-based bath and body products, as well as having in own line of ready-made fragranced products for purchase.
Garden Botanika‘s success every bit a brick-and-mortar didn’t concluding long, with the last shops closing in the early on 2000s, but this scrappy make found means to remain relevant and evolve with the times, as a itemize/online retailer and by maintaining a pocket-sized footprint in department stores. Here we are virtually 20 years later and the brand is still bachelor today, with products (even the custom blends!) now for sale exclusively through Amazon.

I had the pleasure of visiting a store only once in the 1990s, and I didn’t buy anything but did a lot of sniffing. I believe the subject area of today’s post,
Center, was even available then, though I don’t remember if I tried it that day.
Heart
remains the make’s top-selling fragrance, bachelor as body mist, eau de parfum, perfume oil, soap and balm, also as a solid perfume stick. This was a blind buy for me, and while looking for reviews of
Heart
online before purchase, I came across some old Makeup Alley reviews from equally long every bit 19 years agone, and as recently as three years agone. It seems like the folks who love this i Actually dear it, with multiple reviewers saying they’ve worn it for ten or more years. 1 commenter on Amazon notes she’s been wearing information technology since 1997.

Encountering information technology for the start time in 2020, information technology does take a fleck of a 1990s vibe to me, simply information technology’southward definitely a pleasant, like shooting fish in a barrel-to-wear fragrance that fans of light feminine fragrances will appreciate. All that existence said, I’chiliad not sure the solid is the best format for this perfume. Let’south take a closer look.

Garden Botanika Heart Solid Perfume Stick Review

Size: a hefty 0.v oz./fourteen g (like the very big tubes of lip balm–see comparison to a standard lip balm tube size in the photo)

Packaging:
plastic twist-up tube with a plastic cap and a printed characterization. The tube arrived in a plastic zero-lock bag bearing additional labeling info. The brand emphasizes minimal packaging. Bag, tube and cap are recyclable.

Base: sunflower oil, beeswax, caprylic/capric triglyceride, tocopherol. The brand too notes its product is gratuitous of parabens, glycols, PEGS, phthalates, articfiial dyes and gluten.

Vegan-friendly: No, due to the beeswax, simply the eau de parfum and perfume oil are vegan options.

Color and Texture: This is a white, extra creamy formula that’s almost as well soft to be in stick format. Go along this one out of your pocket and whatever you do, don’t leave it in a hot automobile! Information technology is a texture that will melt speedily. That does mean, though, that information technology spreads easily and moisturizes the peel well.

Natural perfume or mixed media:
unknown only presumably mixed media or possibly entirely constructed.

Fragrance description and notes: from the Garden Botanika site on Amazon (Center
EDP page): “Powder-soft alloy of gardenias, jasmine and roses blended with orange, cedar and cardamom and deepened with a hint of warm musk.”

Longevity: It’south pretty cursory in the solid format–just a couple of hours, maybe three nether wearable. However, I accept worn this fragrance only in warm belatedly summertime/early Autumn. I’ll keep trying it as the days get colder and update this postal service if the operation improves in cooler conditions.

Sillage: Noticeable several inches above skin for the first hour; a skin scent thereafter.

The experience: Let’s talk about the aroma first. This is one of those fragrances I feel similar my “sophisticated” nose should have moved beyond, and then I can’t end sniffing my wrist…

Information technology’southward a soft, pretty floral-woody musk, with noticeable lemon (to my nose, anyway–the citrus note listed past the make is orange, but there’s no sweet). The floral notes are nowadays as a bouquet and no individual floral note dominates.
Heart
has that “clean” musky smell that was popular in 1990s fragrances similar
CK Be
and
Cacharel Noa
and which carried over into the 2000s with fragrances like
Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely
and
Narciso Rodriguez. If you savor powdery floral musks, yous’ll probably admire this one. Fragrances like this are always good for daytime/office wearable and the
Heart
solid will be a safety choice even for those who share very close spaces (more on that in a moment).

Unfortunately, I feel like I’m only getting to know the fragrance when poof! It’due south gone! Its persistence is and then brief as a solid that I can only conclude this is not the optimal format for
Heart. (This is sometimes the case with “placidity” scents that feature tender top notes. The softness and subtlety of the solid format whittles them downwardly to next-to-nothing.) I haven’t tried the perfume oil or EDP of
Centre, but those are probable a ameliorate medium for a fragrance of this type. Another option would be to layer the
Heart
solid with its matching body care products.

All that being said, there are a few people for whom the
Heart
solid might exist suitable: children or tweens who already want a perfume of their ain; people who are in close personal contact with others (doctors, nurses, caregivers, elementary school teachers); people who enjoy fragrances but can’t tolerate stiff scents. For everyone else, the solid’s fleeting beauty volition merely frustrate you, as it has me. I really like this one but it e’er leaves me wanting MORE…

Where to buy: available exclusively on Amazon (the Garden Botanika webpage clicks through to Amazon for buy).

Boosted notes: The goose egg-lock bag my perfume arrived in bears a sticker that says “Expiration Date 07-2021.” I got this in September, so I don’t fifty-fifty have a full year to use it upwards. If you constantly rotate through a large collection of fragrances, that’due south something to consider.

All photos and original artwork by me.