Since my desk is currently covered in new perfume releases featuring rose it must be popular. I know I’m in the minority in wanting some other floral to represent spring. It is like grabbing onto a life preserver in a sea of rose essential oil if I get a sample of a new spring floral that isn’t rose. When they are good, I feel dutybound to point out these alternatives like Coach Dreams.
Coach is one of those mass-market brands which makes solid, usually unremarkable, fragrances. They have been making perfume since 2007. They tend to discontinue their older releases fairly brutally. Allowing them to remain on the shelves for a few years before moving on. Almost all of them are created via a committee of perfumers. I would love to observe this process. I try to imagine Nathalie Gracia-Cetto, Antoine Maisondieu, Shyamala Maisondieu, and Olivier Pescheux sitting in a board room discussing what goes into Coach Dreams. I wonder if they started designing this one with the premise of a different floral than rose for spring. It is what they ended up with.
Dramatic Re-Enactment of the Design Process for Coach Dreams
Coach Dreams opens with an interesting pairing of bitter orange and pear. This is a crisp slightly unripe pear matched to a tart orange. As a citrus top accord it carries a green freshness under the fruit which is nicely realized. Instead of rose the perfumers chose gardenia as the focal point floral. This is not that narcotic indolic heady gardenia. This is a version meant to appeal to a younger demographic who want their florals cleaner. This is a gardenia which is similar to the fresh debutante rose in almost every other spring floral out there. It is a nice version of gardenia where the greener aspects have the chance to find some space. It works especially well with the fruit from the top. A fresh green ingredient deepens the gardenia a touch. It is called “Joshua tree” in the ingredient list but it comes off as a dried herbal green not anything like a Joshua tree. It ends with the typical dried woodiness of Ambrox.
Dreams has 8-10 hour longevity and average sillage.
If you are looking for an alternative to rose as a spring floral Coach Dreams asks, “How about some gardenia?” It is a good choice if that is what you are looking for.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample supplied by Ulta.
–Mark Behnke
