Aura by Swarovski: a review

I'm hopeless at describing smells. I have my own categories, which do not involve any of the sophisticated terms used to describe notes of the smell. My categories are flowery (eg. Clinique Happy or Anais Anais by Cacharel), musky, incense-like (eg. Shalimar by Guerlain, Opium by YSL), sporty (eg. Coolwater by Davidoff) or sweet, candy-like (YSL Baby Doll). I love flowery perfume for spring and summer and musky for winter. Other categories don't count.

This winter I thought I needed something new, so I started tp look for the smell that would enchant me and surprise me with something new. To my deep disappointment I've noticed that the perfume industry has entered a vicious circle re-promoting old, really very old smells as new. The examples are too numerous to mention them all, let me just mention J'adore by Dior, Shalimar by Guerlain, Ange ou Demon by Givenchy.

Seeing my disappointment, the ladies at Sephora tried to introduce me to a couple of new brands, but when smelling their products I had an ominous deja vu sensation, I felt like some very distant, and not always pleasant recollections were being dug out of my past.

Finally, they offered Aura to me, recommending it as a good buy, cause this was being promoted with 50% discount. My first impression was very bad, the first notes smelled like a kind of unisex perfume or men's perfume for these feminine metrosexual guys. But then the smell started evolving into something much nicer. What I like about the smell is that it's strong  and lingers on your clothes for ever (not for the faint-hearted, and I'm not one of them), it's perfect for the winter-time with its deep, musky notes, and it turns out to be very sweetly feminine in fact. 

The bottle looks both modern and classic to me, but unfotunately it doesn't appeal to my taste much. I like something prettier than that and glass is my favourite material. The metal with a weird crystal-embedded satelite top tube puts me off.. 

All in all this is a perfume that you need to learn to love. But once you do you'll stay fascinated for a long, long time. This was a good buy for a nice price.     

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.