All perfume samples are authentic fragrances that Surrender to Chance, Topeka, KS, has rebottled into smaller sample and decant sizes, repackaged and distributed. Surrender to Chance has no affiliation, connection or association with the manufacturers or brand owners of the perfumes.
Annick Goutal Eau de Charlotte. Released in 1982. Created by Annick Goutal. This is an eau de toilette.
Notes include blackcurrant bud, mimosa, lily, lily-of-the-valley, vanilla and cacao.
From the brand - "It was while thinking of her and of the chocolate bars, bread and blackcurrant jam that she used to love to snack on that Annick Goutal created Eau de Charlotte, one of the first gourmand fragrances in the history of perfumery."
Parfumo - "...Overall, Eau de Charlotte is unusual, classy, relatively long-lasting, wearable and very enjoyable...."
Parfumo - "...Blackcurrant jam on toast beside a jar of daffodils. Occasional visits from other flowers and some suntan lotion. Lovely and simple...."
Parfumo - "...To my nose it's not a sweet gourmand, I feel like the cocoa is kind of bitter and the vanilla is just a barely detectable shadow in the base...."
Bois de Jasmin - "In Eau de Charlotte, the lily of the valley is given a complex application. Rather than being a study of a child’s gustatory pleasures, it’s an impish scent that hides its floral heart beneath its opening notes and which does not display those famous nursery notes as gourmand. It opens green and sharp with blackcurrant bud. Blackcurrant jam is not present and the bud is, unripe and a bit sappy. It lends fruitiness but not an overt sweetness. The sweetness that emerges under the blackcurrant is a vanilla of the type used in a baby product, meaning that the vanilla is not gourmand but is functional—it is the vanilla of a lotion and not that of a cookie.
At first, so remote is the lily of the valley in Eau de Charlotte that one must look for it as if hunting through winter for that first sign of spring. Once it settles in, however, it has a lovely feminine quality, backed by a supple white musk. Wait an hour and the idea that Eau de Charlotte has gourmand notes will disappear. Drydown is a soft white vanilla musk and traces of the mimosa bud. The floral treatment is subtle and engaging, perhaps too subtle given the character of the opening. Still, though, the floral hints at an emergent womanliness, a reminder of that fleeting age where womanhood is on the cusp and childhood is left behind."
