Two well known male fashion designers, Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors both have very feminine name sake fragrances for women. Both perfumes, Marc Jacobs by Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors by Michael Kors, share similarities but yet are very different scents for two very different types of women.
Both Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors are classified as floral perfumes. They may both be floral perfumes, but they are very different types of scents. Marc Jacobs is an aquatic floral fragrance while Michael is a spicy floral fragrance.
Marc Jacobs uses the gardenia flower as it’s floral heart while Michael Kors uses the tuberose as it’s floral base. Marc Jacobs is fresh, soft and feminine while Michael Kors is slightly exotic, bold, spicy and sensuous. It is possible to love both fragrances, but many people will prefer one scent over the other. Personally, I prefer Marc Jacobs to Michael.
Marc Jacobs created his name sake fragrance, Marc Jacobs perfume for women in 2001. In 2002 he also created Marc Jacobs for women. In the following few years he also created several other fragrances such as Marc Jacobs Blush.
But here we are focusing on Marc Jacobs’s Marc Jacobs for women, in it’s original form. Marc Jacobs is classified as a white floral scent. The fragrance notes are:
Marc Jacobs by Marc Jacobs
Top Notes:
Middle Notes: gardenia, white pepper, jasmine, honeysuckle
Base Notes: blonde woods, musk
For those of us who, like myself, dislike spicy perfumes-don’t let the white pepper note scare you off from trying Marc Jacobs. I loathe spicy or peppery scents of any kind. I don’t even eat black or white pepper, I dislike it that much.
I do not get any peppery notes at all from Marc Jacobs. I do know that sometimes fresh gardenias have a very slight soft peppery note. So I’m sure this note is included to mimic this natural occurring note in real gardenias. But again, I don’t notice this note at all and my skin does tend to amplify spicy notes, so I think it is very faint.
Marc Jacobs perfume for women is very soft and smooth, there are no sharp notes. It has a fresh aquaticness, but not in the sense that citrusy scents like CK One have. There are no perceptible citrus notes in Marc Jacobs.
Marc Jacobs fragrance for women is fresh and aquatic in the sense that it reminds you of a tropical flower, wet with dew or rain. I once heard someone describe Marc Jacobs as reminding them of a tropical lagoon lush with flowers. This is a very accurate description. Combine the lush tropical floral scent with a bit of candy sweetness-and you have Marc Jacobs.bergamot, tagette, gardenia
Women who shy away from white floral scents (or even floral scents in general), finding them too overpowering, could find Marc Jacobs a highly wearable fragrance due to it’s fresh aquatic notes. Women who avoid floral perfumes, preferring sweeter, gourmand scents could also wear Marc Jacobs due to it’s sweetness. Although Marc Jacobs is sweet it is not overly sweet, but the sweetness nicely tempers the floral notes making them more wearable.
Marc Jacobs fragrance for women is a perfume suitable for women and teenage girls of all ages. It is a romantic perfume, but would also be appropriate for daily wear, even to work. It is probably a safer gift choice than Michael Kors, which is a spicy scent. Marc Jacobs perfume would make a good gift for a wife, girlfriend, mother, sister, daughter or grandmother. It is a romantic but sophisticated and soft scent for a very feminine woman.
For me Marc Jacobs is a scent I’ll always keep on hand. It’s one of the few floral scents I don’t find cloying like scents such as Child. I would highly recommend Marc Jacobs perfume to all women. Marc Jacob’s fragrance is often contrasted and compared with Michael Kors’s fragrance. Personally, I find them very different. I love Marc Jacobs, but find Michael Kors difficult to wear due to it’s spiciness.
If you’re like me, you probably have smelled Michael Kors’s Michael fragrance for women from a magazine scent strip. I thought I was madly in love with Michael Kors perfume after smelling it on a magazine scent strip. It was perfect, lush, creamy and soft and sophisticated scent. I thought I had found my holy grail fragrance. Unfortunately, the scent strip embodies all that is good about Michael Kors and is not a very realistic rendering of the fragrance. If the perfume only smelled like this out of the bottle or on the skin, it would be an amazing scent. Unfortunately, the scent strip for Michael Kors smells much better than the actual fragrance itself.
On the skin or out of the bottle, Michael Kors’s fragrance smells very little like the creamy floral scent strip. Michael Kors, while lovely, is very spicy on the skin. It almost borders on a masculine, “Old Spice.” type scent on me. Even though it is classified as a white floral, the spicy notes ruin the floral notes for me.
Michael Kors was created for Michael Kors in 2000. Michael by Michael Kors’s fragrance notes are:
Michael Kors by Michael Kors
Top Notes: Dewy Freesia, Tamarind Incense, Chinese Osmanthus
Middle Notes: Tuberose, Blue Orris, White Wings Peony, Arum Lily
Base Notes: Cashmere Woods, Musk, Vetiver
It should also be noted that unlike Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors is an extremely strong and bold perfume. It hearkens back to the big, bold fragrances of the 1980’s. The floral notes, although very strong, would be very lovely without the spice notes.
A good comparison to Michael Kors is the drugstore scent, Sand and Sable. Sand and Sable is like a non-spicy version of Michael Kors. Frankly, I much prefer Sand and Sable to Michael Kors and would recommend it over Michael Kors. So those who don’t like their scents, spicy, big and bold-skip Michael Kors and try Marc Jacobs instead.
For those women who do like spicy, big, bold florals, Michael Kors could be an interesting choice. Even for those of us who don’t like spicy scents, Michael Kors’s sexiness and sophistication can’t be denied. Michael Kors is probably not a generally safe choice for gifts unless you are absolutely sure the recipient would like this type of scent. I would generally recommend Marc Jacobs as a gift choice over Michael Kors.
It should also be noted that Michael Kors also has a perfume for Men named Michael Kors for men. Michael Kors also makes Kors, Island Michael Kors, Island Michael Kors Hawaii, Island Michael Kors Fiji. So be careful not to confuse the original Michael Kors, Michael for the other Micheal Kors scents, since they are very different fragrances.
Both Michael by Michael Kors and Marc Jacobs are available at many fine department stores nationwide and at sephora.com
Marc Jacobs:
http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P12409&shouldPaginate;=true&categoryId;=3680
Michael Kors:
http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P9008&shouldPaginate;=true&categoryId;=5357
In Michael Kors by Michael Kors, the spice notes from the incense are very strong. If you don’t like strongly spicy scents, you won’t like Michael Kors at all. For those who would like a similar tropical white floral with a very mild spice note that is soft and not overwhelming, I’d recommend Monyette Paris instead.
