American fashion designer Cynthia Rowley has created two new floral fragrances for Avon, Flower ($30) and Petal ($15). Their cute, vintage bottles, and the rave reviews by women on the Avon website, prompted me to give them a try. Plus, I had another reason: Cynthia rocks. She also designed these fierce eyeglasses that I’ve been wanting for a while.
Avon bills the two new fragrances as a “mother-daughter” combo (awww). To create Flower, Rowley combined musk and vanilla with lily and freesia notes, producing a spicy, mature scent. Petal, on the other hand, is the more playful, youthful fragrance of the two, fresh and light, made with Lily of the Valley.
Yesterday morning, I sprayed Flower on my right wrist and Petal on my left. I was more drawn to Petal’s fresh, green scent, but as the morning wore on I grew tired of its sweetness. By the end of the morning, I felt like I’d dipped my wrist in a vat of candy necklaces. It’s a pretty scent but a bit too sweet for me (or maybe I’m just too old and bitter, ha!). I think it’ll be more appealing to my teenage cousin.
Flower, however, appealed to me even more as the day progressed. It started with a strong burst of freesia but within a few hours took on more of a musky, warm vanilla scent, rich and light but not overpowering. I’m going to start wearing it to work. Good job, Cynthia!
Both scents are eau de toilettes and faded by mid-day. That’s cool with me, though, because I’m not always in the mood for heavy perfumes.
Petal by Cynthia Rowley
Price: $15 for a 1.0 fl oz bottle
Use: A daytime or evening fragrance for the youngins’
Makeup and Beauty Blog Rating: B-
Flower by Cynthia Rowley
Price: $30 for a 1.7 fl oz bottle
Use: A light but complex daytime fragrance
Makeup and Beauty Blog Rating: A-
Pick up Flower for yourself (or your mom!) and Petal for your daughter or lil’ sis. Both fragrances are available for purchase on the Avon website.
Happy Mother’s Day, everyone! I hope you have a great day.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Dao says
May 11th, 2008 at 11:27 amYou got the fragrance notes nailed down! I got the same reaction as you, Flower is more mature while Petal is more playful. Have to give it to Avon for having such awesome perfumes!
Karen says
May 11th, 2008 at 11:45 amHi Dao,
These were a nice surprise, huh? I have to agree with you that Avon is really rocking my world right now!
Karen B says
May 11th, 2008 at 12:06 pmCool. Pity we can’t get it here in Belgium.
Mother’s day was fun. My mum was completely taken by surprise by the breakfast basket I ordered for her… lol According to my boss (I work at the baker’s who delivered the breakfast) she was quite sleepy but very pleased 🙂
Karen Bs last blog post..Icon meme
Bridget says
May 11th, 2008 at 4:06 pmThose are cute! I’d like to smell them, I’m not sure which I’d like better. Even though I buy other perfumes I always fall back to my philosophy Pure Grace. Mmmmm it’s the best!
And yes I finished my unit plan! 🙂 After I submitted it I felt like I had just handed my baby to the devil. Glad for it to be done though!
EtherealPrey says
May 11th, 2008 at 7:23 pmI personally don’t like them, cause i interned there (for that designer) and they pretty much treated me like crap…its a cute packaging though
carla says
May 11th, 2008 at 11:41 pmHi Karen,
I didn’t like AVON until they started to introduce some nice stuff like that fragrances. They look super cute. Guess I’m gonna change my mind about AVON (:
YOU ROCK KAREN yahoooooooo
Kay-TEE says
May 12th, 2008 at 1:45 amThese perfumes look ah-dorable!d packaging is TOO cute.n plus i luh-v AVON,im addicted 2 their products(swear!).but i don’t know Cynthia Rowley n i rarely use perfumes(cuz’ sometimes d scent is 2 thick or maybe it makes me all woozy or both in one bottle!besides i don’t need it).but i want myself 2 hav a sweet(personal style) girl-next-door-meets-fashonista n beauty junkie-who-likes-2-hav-fun.i jus’ need a light,breezy scent dat’ll go wherever i go n i think i found it(ok,fine.HINT:i’ll get one in PETAL).i think PETAL appeals 2 me more,sweet n bright is my kind of thing.however i will try FLOWER 2(if i feel a diff. kind of mood)!i do wish it could be a wee smaller,tough(to it could fit in my bag n i can put more if d scent is gone.u did say it’s mid-day,riigghht?).
Georgia says
May 12th, 2008 at 7:17 amOh man, these bottles are adorable. I love them.
Georgias last blog post..Shopping for Eye Cream
Tania says
May 12th, 2008 at 1:31 pmKaren I’m so glad you reviewed these. I saw them in an Avon Catalog (my mom’s bff is an avon lady) and sniffed ’em. I liked flower at first and then I sniffed petal and felt bad that I like it since it’s marketed to a little kid! Love the bottles esp the pink one!
Lilan says
May 12th, 2008 at 5:05 pmHi Karen,
These fragrances look so adorable! From the sound of it, I think I’d prefer Flower as well – freesias are one of my favorites! And the first Bath and Body Works scented lotions I ever used so I’m a little biased to those cute little lavender flowers 🙂
Happy Monday – hope all is well with you!
Lilans last blog post..Mother’s Day Dinner Delights!
Karen says
May 12th, 2008 at 10:04 pmHi Karen B.,
How cute! What a nice mother’s day gift. I didn’t know you were at a bakery. What do you do there?
Hope your week is off to a good start. 🙂
Karen says
May 12th, 2008 at 10:05 pmHi EtherealPrey,
Do you work in fashion?
Karen says
May 12th, 2008 at 10:06 pmHi Bridget,
I have Pure Grace too and it’s wonderful. So light and clean smelling, and very feminine.
GOOD JOB! Are ya done now? Is it summer for you?
Karen says
May 12th, 2008 at 10:09 pmHi Carla,
Thanks, girl. The line does have some interesting products that are really cool… check it out!
Karen says
May 12th, 2008 at 10:21 pmHi Kay-TEE,
Yup, the packaging drew me too! Petal is actually very pretty and youthful; if you look sweet and green/grass scents then you might like it.
Finding your personal scent takes time and lots of trial and error. The journey is fun, though.
I took out one today that I haven’t used in awhile – Dream by Gap. It’s a few years old but it smells very youthful, fresh and young. Dunno if you’ll like it, but if it’s still around you might want to give it a smell. 🙂
Karen says
May 12th, 2008 at 10:22 pmHi Georgia,
I like ’em too. They look old fashioned and so cute.
Karen says
May 12th, 2008 at 10:24 pmHey Tania!
Aww, if you like Petal then work it, girl! Just tell anybody who gives you crap about the bottle that you are young at heart. 😉 That’s awesome that your mom’s got the Avon hook up with her BFF!
Karen says
May 12th, 2008 at 10:26 pmHi Lilan,
Ahhh, the old school BBW Freesia will always have a soft spot in my heart. That’s one of my favorites, for sure.
Have you smelled Crabtree & Evelyn’s Freesia perfume? It’s fantastic.
Whatcha been up to? Anything exciting on your end?
BTW, one of these days you’ll have to gimme that recipe to your ROCKING PECAN PIE! Holy crap that looked good.
Lilan says
May 13th, 2008 at 1:11 pmHi Karen!
I haven’t smelled the Crabtree & Evelyn – come to think of it, I don’t know if I know where there’s a store near me.. Gotta look that one up.
Other than that, I’m doing pretty well! Keeping busy for sure and taking some extracurricular writing classes to so that I don’t waste too much of my day watching trashy MTV (the new Real World is my new guilty pleasure, shoot me!).
Girl, any time I need a recipe, I hop on over to FoodNetwork.com! I’ve found the best stuff there. I added some hazelnuts with the pecans to my pie for a slightly different flavor and crunch 🙂
How’s your Tuesday coming along? Enjoying the beautiful weather I hope!
Lilans last blog post..Introducing Jeannie!
Karen says
May 13th, 2008 at 3:09 pmHi Lilan,
It’s good. It’s kinda old school for me (wore it in college) but it’s a goody.
Ha! Watching trashy MTV is an education in itself. I too have been suckered into the Real World mess. I dunno… is it just me or does MTV seem to pick really unstable people for that show? Anyway, what writing class are you taking? Sounds like fun.
I like looking at the Food Network site and printing out recipes. What messes me up is the actual cooking part. I haven’t cooked a meal in months, unless you count soup and salad.
It’s really hot up here and just very beautiful today. I only wish that I wasn’t so allergic to, well, nature. My allergies are going NUTS!