Sheer Stella 2008 by Stella McCartney

cinsot

Sheer Stella inspires me to resort to blatant plagiarism (not unlike the fragrance herself "Rife Redolence" I affectionately call her).

". . .of carefree days, the gentle, precious time in a fresh and beautiful garden."

She's all that and perhaps a little more, Her and all the others just like her.

SS smells like a diluted version of Philosophy's Amazing Grace during the dry down.

Agreeably pretty and pleasant and polite and safe and familiar.

Aalia

Simple and complex, youthful and elegant, all at the same time, this scent got my attention (as well as the fact that it reminds me of wedding flowers!). The peony, freesia, and rose trio is stunning and powerful. The three flowers are constantly interacting, mingling, and giving a consistent, uniform scent, as well as variety, and movement within the scent, just between themselves. I only find the pink pepper as a silent player, it's there, not as an individual note, but, always acting in the scent, livening and lightening the scent. The rasperry is very quiet, too. It's just a thin, thin juice, not sugary or syrupy. I imagine the musk to be a "white musk", it's soft, clean, and fresh. The musk I could sense at the very beginning, and at the very end. Oh, and the end..the drydown is a delicate feminine whisper of musk and flowers. The sillage is intense to begin with, it's very airy and but loud, but settles down quickly, and it is just right for hot weather!

lilinah

A rose bush near my previous home had lavender-pink flowers and the most amazing fragrance. It smelled like a blend of Rose, Apricot and Raspberry. I'm not usually a fan of solifleur Rose or of strong Fruit. But i'd love to find a perfume that smells like this rose bush, not gourmand, yet rosy and fruity. The scent of those roses uplifted my often gloomy spirits.

Someone suggested Sheer Stella 2008. Since it is a limited edition, it is out of production and hard to find. An eBay vendor was selling multiple bottles of Sheer Stella - year not specified - using a photo of the 2008 edition. I wrote asking if it looked as advertised. They said, no, that was a stock photo. Stock photo? Impossible! The box and the bottle are redesigned for each limited edition!

I purchased from another vendor who specified 2008, but i was still a bit worried. My order of Sheer Stella arrived a few days ago, and it really was the 2008 edition. That was a relief!

I sprayed some on my arms... and i was disappointed. It smelled of ordinary tea rose and citrus with a little "green", a bit cheap and overbearing. Plus i kept tasting "lemon" - was it the cintronellol, the citral, the limonene, or the linalool listed on the box? I have the same problem with natural lemon verbena fragrance - the taste stays in my mouth for hours and hours and hours. I was unhappy. I was sad. :-(

Today I put on the same shirt and the scent of rose that lingered was so very appealing! So i decided to give Sheer Stella 2008 another try. This time it smelled richly rosy and fruity, although i didn't smell the berries specifically, and no "lemon" taste in my mouth. It was pleasantly complex, not just 2 or 3 boring notes. While the rose dominated, it was supported by non-specific fruity and green notes. As the day wore on, the berry scent grew stronger, while the green subsided.

I don't know if the difference is the weather - it's much cooler today - or my body chemistry. But i'm quite fond of it and i keep sniffing my arms. It isn't the rose i am looking for, so i'll keep up the hunt for my apricot raspberry rose. But it's a good addition to my "fragrance library" and a very nice change from my usual fragrances.

There are several other roses with apricot i intend to try. I suspect i may end up layering one of the apricoty fragrances and Sheer Stella 2008 to get closer to "my" rose.

ktv0926

Lovely fragrance! I smelt a lot of peony at first, very feminine opening, afterwards it became kinda bitter, there were green grass notes added to the flowers.

Overall the fragrance is very remarkable and unusual in my opinion. It definately appeals to me, the only thing I'm not sure about - those grass notes, that might bother me after a while.

I think I will retry it one more time, before I buy it.

P.S. it is very long lasting and dry-down is a wonderful gentle rose.

Taliera

I liked it - a delicate floral, with light, rain dripping flower scents... The only reason I didn't buy it was cos it turned too green on me.

Mitsouko

It smells as summer morning in the garden. In these perfume I feel raspberrys, roses, grass. This smell is very natural, adorably subtle, femine. Pretty. Though I prefer smells enough sophisticated, even hard, Stella 2008 pleases me from day on day more and more.