Extravagance d’Amarige by Givenchy

What a dream perfume, like a fresh breeze caressing the skin; the name doesn’t quite fit—for me, it should have been called subtlety. Extravagance has clean lines, it’s enchanting, measured, and gentle. When you spray it, you’re transported to a spring morning strolling through a lush garden where flowers greet you, with wet green grass and damp earth from the mist. It captures all that in its crystal bottle. It opens with crisp, vivid green notes, blended with varied florals featuring clean, refreshing nuances, and effervescent fruity bursts. It’s full of texture, life, and light; it’s a ‘happy’ perfume. It’s a shame that such artistic fragrances get discontinued. Lasts 8 to 10 hours with moderate to soft sillage.

This doesn’t smell anything like the original Amarige. Extravagance is floral, but it smells like a walk in the park on a sunny day: luminous, cheerful, and carefree. I don’t detect distinct notes; it’s all wild flowers and greenery with a little kick and astringency. As a good 90s perfume, it has good longevity and its sillage is present all the time. Even though it’s not my style, it’s gorgeous and unique: a perfect feminine floral for informal daytime spring occasions, but usable year-round. What a pity it’s been discontinued! Pleasant: 8/10, Interesting: 8/10, Versatile: 7/10, Original: 8/10.

The new bottle isn’t Extravagance; when it appeared with the surname Amarige and yellow liquid in a red box, it was no longer the ‘real’ one. For me, it’s the best Givenchy perfume by far. I used it in the 90s when I was very young, moving from Escape to this, and then to Amarige because I couldn’t find the original anymore. The original bottle had texture, was more stylized, and its scent… God! It was glory. Green without being masculine, fresh, without obvious flowers, luminous, sexy, and of breathtaking elegance. Nothing I’ve felt so far resembles it. Remembering a scent almost 22 years later is a product of magic. I’ve lived in different countries, searched for Extravagance, and your flankers don’t even touch your light.

What a beautiful fragrance! I’ve always loved Amarige but never tried this flanker. I was surprised by its personality: nothing like the floral and yellow Amarige; here it’s a green and floral blend, crisp, not sunny. It opens astringent with flowers over a rough, herbal base. Then I detect dry, aromatic grass, like the Pravia Hay cologne, with fine flowers and a spicy touch. I identify the clove note from the pink pepper and clove mix, until the rest of the genus appears and ends in a countryside scent. Twenty years later, it feels incredibly modern and luminous. Extravagance is a treasure that flies free; the original’s campaign holds it back. It’s not a city or gala perfume; it’s outdoors, countryside, Mediterranean, and cheerful yet seductive. It blends seventies lines with nineties classics, a hybrid that puts me in a good mood. Sometimes fabulous perfumes disappear due to bad design campaigns. Extravagance is one of those cases.

I used it without restraint; this delight adorned and enveloped me, making me feel illuminated by a warm, feminine olfactory aura. More youthful and deconstructed than Amarige, Extravagance was truly one-of-a-kind. When I tried to restock it, it was already discontinued. A fragrance I would love to smell again.

It was my mother’s favorite perfume in the late nineties. I feel immense affection because it sparked my passion alongside Pivoine, Clea by Yves Rocher, and Amarige. They transport me to childhood, to my mother’s hugs and that feeling of protection and love. I remember climbing into her closet to smell the bottles. It shaped my tastes: floral, vibrant, fresh, and elegant. One word for Extravagance: unforgettable.

It’s a reunion. I found it after many years, I’ve ordered it, and I can’t wait to have it again. This wonderful perfume is a poem of love, joy, spring, and happiness made into perfume. It’s sparkling, majestic, extraordinary, eccentric, only for well-defined and authentic women; its notes of jasmine, amber, pepper, and green mandarin are a brilliant explosion that leaves a wonderful trail of exquisite sharpness, with endless projection and longevity.

I had the opportunity to acquire this fragrance about 15 years ago; it impacted me with its intensity and originality, it didn’t resemble anything I had smelled before. It had truly monstrous sillage and longevity, and I think it’s very close to niche perfumes. Unfortunately, at that time I was too young to appreciate it or it didn’t agree with my skin since it was too intense for me, so I gifted it to my mother. She thought it was gorgeous and adored it; people stopped her on the street to ask what perfume she was wearing. When it ran out, she wanted to find it but couldn’t; they told her it was discontinued. She still wants it back today; I happened to find a bottle of the new reformulated version yesterday and bought it immediately without smelling it to gift it for Mother’s Day, but today I decided to try it to see if it was the same, and oh, disappointment! It’s just a shadow of the original; I don’t know if my mom will like it. They’ve simplified the formula too much to make it more bearable and to the taste of more people. It’s true that the aroma resembles it, but it lost its old intensity; now even I can use it, but I think that by ‘domesticating’ it, they also ripped its heart out. I’m going to take the open bottle to my mom so she can try it and decide if she keeps it or prefers to keep only her memory. I’m also going to review the reformulation to mention the changes it presents. I pay homage to another fragrance fallen in the battle of reformulation.

This perfume was extraordinary, its longevity was unmatched, and all my friends wanted to smell it. I bought it several times until they discontinued it; every perfumerie tells me the same thing, what a shame…

I tried it as a teenager and was blown away, but since I haven’t seen it since, I don’t know what I’d feel today. I’ve learned that with time, our noses become more demanding; what once seemed exquisite to me isn’t quite the same anymore, plus I get tired of certain scents.