Donna Karan has done some of the most unique niche fragrances under her signature label. When she has released fragrances under her DKNY label they have been less artistically interesting to me while being very commercial. This is why I own bottles of Fuel and Black Cashmere and none of the bottles which carry the DKNY brand. There is a danger to making assumptions because it only takes a year to turn them on their head. 2010 is one of those years. Earlier this year Donna Karan released Iris and I expected this would be similar to the line of Donna Karan Essences. In many ways Iris turned out to be one of the bigger disappointments of the early part of the year for me as it was perhaps the least interesting Donna Karan fragrance release ever. With that as backdrop I wasn’t expecting the new DKNY fragrance, pureDKNY, to be the one I would like more. In fact I had to keep wearing the preview bottle I was sent over and over to convince myself how much I liked pureDKNY.
pureDKNY according to the press materials was inspired by one drop of vanilla in water and there is an undeniable water component to pureDKNY. The idea of a single drop of an oil in water also conveys the idea of lightness and throughout its development pureDKNY is always light and feels like a skin scent from beginning to end. The bottle even looks like a light bulb of a sort which is a visual way of depicting lightness, as well.
The first note to arrive is a water lotus with a very watery nature and a slight floral character. It is joined by another watery floral accord in what Donna Karan is calling a “dew-drop petal accord”. I’d call it a watery floral aromachemical of indeterminate origin. I find it to be fresh and uplifting. There are many other reviewers who have found pureDKNY to have a sharp nature early on and I think it must be this “dew-drop petal accord”. On my skin it is very lightly beautiful but there are enough other accounts out there that one should tread with caution. The heart goes completely floral as a clean jasmine, rose and freesia make for a lovely trio of flowers. The base stays on the light side with white amber, sandalwood, and the promised “one drop of vanilla” although it has to be more than that because it is completely identifiable as present in the drydown. Really the concept of “one drop of vanilla” is meant to make one think it to be light and that ideal is realized throughout the whole pureDKNY experience. If pureDKNY had chosen to let any of these notes get too heavy it would’ve turned pureDKNY into a mawkish overdone fragrance. By keeping it light they instead created an unusually restrained mass market fragrance.
pureDKNY has average longevity and below average sillage.
pureDKNY turned out to be the star of the Donna Karan fragrance stable for 2010 by being something I hadn’t encountered from previous DKNY fragrances. A light well-balanced complexity that is deserving to be included among the best Donna Karan has offered.
Disclosure: This review was based on a bottle supplied by Donna Karan.
-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor