Last week I had the biggest pleasure of attending some wonderful events held in honor of Carolina Herrera and her wonderful charity initiative, CH Pink. It is Breast Cancer Foundation, which provides palliative support to breast cancer fighters, and their slogan is “Don’t Give Up, You Are Not Alone”. I myself can say that I learnt so much about Breast Cancer Awareness, early detection, and some myths about this disease last week, and spending those days with the wonderful team from the Helen Joseph Hospital and Carolina Herrera and her daughter Carolina Herrera de Baez have been a real eye-opener for me.

It also made me develop a whole new appreciation for the Carolina Herrera brand, and one of the highlights of my week(besides learning a lot of more information about Breast Cancer Awareness), was getting a signed copy of her fashion book. I’ve been fascinated with her life, her brand and now her daughter has taken over the fragrance part of the business. One of the perfumes I received was this Carolina Herrera, CH, and I have really been enjoying it!

One of the things we got to do last week, was to have a chat and a walk-through with Carolina Herrera de Baez, and she is the one who helps develop most of the perfumes under this brand. We were treated to a divine afternoon of beauty talk at the picturesque Shepstone Gardens, where different flowers walls were set up to represent different parts of a fragrance. I always talk about Top Notes, Middle Notes and Bottom Notes, but up until last week I didn’t actually have a good understanding of exactly what it all meant, but now I do!

Top Notes of a fragrance represent the first 5-15 minutes of evaporation of the perfume, and it gives a perfume its freshness and sparkle. Top Notes are usually your freshest and the most volatile. As soon as the bottle is opened they fly away. In this CH perfume, your top notes are Lemon, Orange Leaves(something that I don’t like on its own, but love mixed with other notes), Bergamot and Tropical Fruit.

Middle Notes represent the next 2-3 hours of evaporation of a perfume. It gives a perfume its trail and personality, and usually these notes are the strongest with heavier molecules than the top notes. These notes are usually my favorite, because they are fruity, floral and delicious. In the CH fragrance, the middle notes are Praline(yum!), Jasmine, Rose and Cinnamon.

Finally, we get our Base Notes. They last 5-6 hours, sometimes even longer, depending on the longevity of the perfume. They give the perfume its depth, and these are the notes that are the most persistent. They are warm and subdued, such as the Sandalwood, Amber and Cashmere Wood notes of this fragrance.

I really loved getting to know the construction of a perfume, and how many years it actually goes into making a scent happen! This CH scent has had a few updates to it, but this original one is still my favorite. Its fresh, with just the right amount of sweetness in its middle notes, and it’s very warm towards the end. It is more of a winter fragrance, but I will be rocking it this spring anyway!

Please check out more on the CH Pink Initiative over here.

You can purchase the perfume over here.