Prada Candy EDP by Prada - fragrance review

Photo credit: richienickel.com

Prada Candy is the newest lick-my-skin launch by the Italian brand. Also, the latest Givaudan's lab experience with nivanolide® and Orpur® Benzoin from Laos*. 

Nirvanolide is a musky chemical compound that offers a clean, powdery, rather sweet and animalic musk note. Similar to ketones, it contains a persistent muscenone effect, but much more powerful, that makes us think of Prada Candy as a furry caramelized perfume.

This double bonded compound has a very erogenous kick, and it is the quintessence of high performance modern musks.

According to the brand, Prada Candy is an excessive and balanced combination of white musks, benzoin and caramel. The silky powdery texture of the musks is what it brings the elegance to the perfume. The caramel is a joyful feminine nostalgic and addictive unexpected twist. Benzoin from Laos adds a warm, sensual, wet, balsamic notes evoking delicately vanilla scented honey.

What is really interesting about this fragrance is the combination of a natural raw material - the Benzoin, and here found for the first time at a concentration of 12%, and 02 synthetic chemical compound - a extremely synthetic caramel & a special synthetic molecule from Givaudan's palette -  the nirvanolide.

OK, chemistry class put aside, what can I say about this oriental gourmandise?
After all the ambers, all the infusions... Prada comes with an excessively pink sticky delight. Is this the Italian version of the French preppy pink Chance Eau Tendre - as both seems to be "a middle aged woman in a crisis" kind of fragrance and a desperate strategy to launch a commercial scent? Did gossip girls travel first class to Italy one summer and Daniela Andrier decided to spoil them? 

In an interview provided by Prada, perfumer Daniela Andrier explains how the fragrance reflects the brand. “Prada fashion can have very strong colors, incredible shoes, everything exaggerated and, still, by an amazing miracle, not be too much,” she says. “When you smell Prada Candy, it’s not overpowering. It’s a way of making things look just right, but not in a compromised way. Our world is dictated by compromise, but Prada Candy is about exaggeration. It has a revolutionary spirit.”  (excerpt from The candy buffet company).

In a nutshell:

Prada Candy EDP gives less cavities than Angel - that is a plus; but still it is a love it or hate it kind of fragrance, just like Angel is.

Maybe I am in a crisis myself, because I think I like it :-)

*Benzoin from Laos is the third out of 50 natural ingredients of Givaudan collection ORPUR®

Benzoin grows wild and is extracted as a gum, or 'tears' from Styrax tonkinensis trees by villagers in the Phongsaly and Houaphanh provinces of Laos. Approximately 40,000 people live in about 150 villages in this region. The villagers are mostly farmers. Benzoin collection provides additional income to their staple crops of rice and vegetables.

Education is highly valued by the people of Northern Laos. Though primary education facilities in this area are generally adequate, the number of secondary schools is insufficient. Many parents are forced to move their families or to send their children away. The rural exodus threatens the fabric of social cohesion here and the future of a workforce for benzoin collection.

Addressing this, Givaudan entered into a unique partnership with Agroforex, a Laos-based company which arranges the gum collection from local communities, and Biolandes, which imports and processes the gum into a resinoid that is used by Givaudan.

The Laos project aims to help develop the communities at the centre of benzoin gum extraction and thus ensure a sustainable supply of the raw material. As part of the programme, Givaudan financed the building of a secondary school and the training of teachers for the school over three years. (from Givaudan's website)