Narciso Rodriguez All of Me Floral Review: Cool as Crystal

Narciso Rodriguez All of Me Floral won me over at a point where the other two All of Me fragrances I’ve tried were still making their case. I liked it from the first spray. There was a little fruit, a clean, almost soapy freshness and, to my considerable relief, a floral effect that didn’t immediately announce itself as rose.

Admittedly, anything called Floral has a head start with me. But the name also made me wonder if this would be the version that leaned even harder into the flower I’d found so prominent in the original and Intense. Instead, I spent a day at the office wearing something that made me think of light passing through a piece of crystal. I’m as surprised as anyone that this is currently my favourite of the three.

I wore it once for this review, using a 3 ml sample prepared for me at my usual perfumery. The other two samples were in another room. I could have fetched them for a side-by-side comparison, but that would have involved getting up, and apparently my commitment to science has limits. The comparison here is from memory.

The good soap

What I noticed first was the quality of the freshness. It reminded me of a really good bar of soap, with a faint fruitiness that gives the opening a bit of lift. The effect is closer to smelling the bar itself than to the fragrant steam you get from shower gel. It has a clarity I enjoy, and the fruit stays light enough that I can pay attention to the flowers.

Narciso Rodriguez describes an opening of lychee and pink pepper, followed by geranium leaf, jasmine sambac and plum blossom. The base brings together guaiac wood, benzoin and musks. On my arm, I registered the fruit as a small part of the overall effect, while the floral impression was more apparent than any individual flower. The one I’d been expecting to recognize stayed imperceptible. Rose flower oil or extract and rose ketones both appear in the ingredient list, even though rose has no featured role in the brand’s official description of All of Me Floral.

How Floral compares with All of Me and Intense

What I remember liking about the original All of Me was the soft, almost cashmere-like quality it took on once the opening settled. In All of Me Intense, the rose felt sharper and lingered longer before I got to the warmer, musky part I enjoyed. With both, I was essentially waiting for my favourite bit.

Floral gets there earlier for me, and the softness it develops feels different. Where I remember a creamier texture in the other two, here the scent becomes more diffuse. It still feels cool, just with less of the crisp edge I noticed at the start. This is where the image of glass makes the most sense to me. I can picture light coming through it, and I can still imagine how cool it would feel to the touch.

Later, it made me think of candy floss, which sounds ridiculous until you pull a little piece apart and notice how much of it is air. That’s the part I mean. The perfume stays well away from dessert territory, which is occasionally a relief even for someone whose taste in gourmands ought to concern his dentist. The brand calls the musks creamy. I’m curious how much they contribute to the airiness I experienced, because the drydown on my skin feels more like freshly laundered sheets than the enveloping finish I remember from the others.

How Narciso Rodriguez All of Me Floral wears at the office

The development was gradual. As the initial freshness receded, the scent became softer while keeping much the same character. On a day at the office, I liked knowing I could catch it around me without having to think about how far it was travelling. Projection felt moderate at most and increasingly intimate as the day went on. The perfume struck me as easy to wear in a shared space.

I could smell it distinctly on my skin for around four hours. After that, it was still detectable, just fainter. That’s my result from one daytime wear with a sample atomiser, whose spray can differ from a full-size bottle’s. For the sort of fragrance this is, I found that level of presence comfortable. If I wanted something I could smell clearly all the way into the evening, I’d expect to reapply.

On the wishlist, probably for spring

All of Me Floral is familiar enough that I can imagine putting it on without giving the decision much thought. That sounds like faint praise, but when I’m getting dressed for work, I like having something I can reach for because I enjoy the way it feels from the first spray. That’s a better reason to put it on my wishlist than any claim to originality.

Right now, I’m more inclined to wear richer, more opulent perfumes, so I can see myself coming back to Floral when the weather warms up. It’s the first of the three I’ve tried that I can actually picture buying. And the pink bottle is starting to grow on me. After two reviews of calling it a bowling pin, I may finally have found one I’d like to take home.

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