Pure XS by Paco Rabanne

Photosource: Scent Studio (own copyright)


At some point, I had a sales manager gig where I would drive around the entire country visiting customers. Some of those visits were planned, some were not, and those that were not, usually ended with a whole lot of waiting. One day, whilst waiting, I saw the tacky bottle with a gold snake slithering on it and with an obnoxious name "PURE XS", which could only lead my thoughts to "pure sex".

I took a sniff, because why not, and I was surprised. I had to walk a few steps away to not be in the way for the store's customers, but went straight back to get another hit. Yet another spray. One more. I liked it. I really did.

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I drove home without purchasing the fragrance, because the price tag didn't fit my piss poor paycheck, but I got a sample.
For days I would sniff it, wear it, completely run out of the sample and scour the internet for a good deal.

I found it, but I have forever been suspicious whether it is an original.
Though liking it, I always felt like it didn't smell like the one in the store.

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PURE XS is explosively sweet, feminine, a ridiculously generic designer fragrance, oozing with sappy notes. To my surprise, I don't get popcorn at all and I wish I did, because it sounds like an experience!
Though vanilla is at the top too, I don't get a classic vanilla note, but just something sweet accompanied by the tiniest amount of peach and musk.

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Like with many designer fragrances, I cannot identify the singular notes or accords, rather I'm just able to describe the fragrance as a whole. Sweet, cloying, feminine, ambery.

Reviewing it now, I do not understand how I could almost finish a 80 ml bottle! I think I have about 10 ml left. The fragrance is obnoxiously sweet and nothing I would wear now. After dry down and an hour in, the fragrance is very characteristic yet still impossible to describe in singular notes.
Wearing it now, it is almost headache inducing, but I remember bathing in it back when I used to wear it.

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PURE XS has been on my list of fragrances to review for a long while and I am happy to finally send this fragrance off.