Zadig & Voltaire This Is Her! EDP Natural Spray: Art 4 All

A few weeks ago, my friend, G, mentioned that she was getting Zadig & Voltaire’s This Is Her! eau de parfum as one of her Scentbird fragrances. Since she and I like several of the same fragrance notes, I became curious about it. In fact, I was about to add it to my Scentbird queue when I saw that testers were on sale at a vastly reduced price on FragranceNet.

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I ended up buying it as a blind buy because the price for a full 50 ml/1.6 fl. oz., unopened bottle in the original box was $32 and change. I couldn’t pass it up.

I made the purchase without checking it out on Fragrantica, without knowing the notes in the perfume. I just went for it.

When it arrived a few days later, I was delighted to see that it was indeed a full size bottle, unopened, in the original packaging.

The top and the bottom of the box say “Tester. Not for Sale”, but other than that, it doesn’t look any different from a brand new bottle/packaging that you’d buy anywhere. What a deal!

The box and bottle both say “Art 4 All”. As I mentioned, I knew little about this scent. This Is Her!  Art 4 All launched in 2021 from the designers Zadig & Voltaire, so it’s still a new fragrance. One fragrance enthusiast website says that Art 4 All is a limited edition. Little did I know, I bought the wrong This Is Her!, lol.

I was expecting an amber scent since both G. and I like amber fragrances, but I was in for a surprise with this blind buy. It has no amber in it at all. In fact, it has none of my very favorite notes except maybe vanilla in the base notes. It turns out the original Zadig & Voltaire This Is Her! that launched in 2016 is an amber vanilla fragrance. Not surprisingly, that is the one that my friend G must be getting from Scentbird. And that’s the one I wanted to try! 

It turns out that Zadig & Voltaire has come out with a zillion (well, maybe not a zillion) line extensions of This Is Her!. In addition to the original, there’s the Capsule Collection, the Capsule Collection 2019, Vibes of Freedom, and Art 4 All. In addition, there are This Is Love!, This Is Me!, This Is Us!, and Just Rock! for Her. Very confusing if you’re new to the brand like I am.

Here’s the background on Art 4 All that I found on the Z&V website:

“Following on from a series of artistic collaborations, this time Cecilia Bönström, Zadig&Voltaire’s artistic director, came up with the idea of a competition, Zadig Wants You, offering the chance to become the designer of Art 4 All. Charlotte Daotrong chose to depict a vibrant, modern and Voltairean Paris by night on the iconic bottle. This limited edition of the THIS IS HER! Eau De Toilette reflects its colourful and fruity touch. The exoticism of a juicy mango enhances the silky smooth accord of chestnut and jasmine. Zadig&Voltaire’s signature vanilla sandalwood is a reminder of voluptuous cashmere, worn next to the skin.”

Unlike my usual spicy gender neutral oriental fragrances, Zadig & Voltaire This Is Her! is a decidedly female scent. And IMHO, it’s a young scent. It’s a fruity floral. I don’t think I have ever bought a fruity floral in my entire life.

Except when I went to Paris for the first time when I was 21. I went into a department store to buy myself a bottle of French perfume, and I knew what I wanted: Je Reviens by Worth. Although a floral, the base notes are the ones that still captivate me: amber, incense, musk, and tonka bean. I told the sales woman in French that I wanted Je Reviens Worth, and she answered, “Non, c’est pour les grandmères!” I should have said that it was for my grandmother, but I was humiliated. She insisted that I buy Caron Fleurs de Rocaille, and she brought out a small square glass bottle of parfum. I bought it. To me, it smelled like spring, but also like bananas. It’s so weird that the sales woman insisted that I buy Fleurs de Rocaille and not Je Reviens because after doing some research, I learned that they both have almost exactly the same notes and they were launched a year apart, in 1933 and 1934. Why was one “pour les grandmères” and the other for a 21 year old? I’ll never know. 

Pardon my diversion, but that’s my story about buying a fruity floral. Back to This Is Her! Art 4 All.

The main accords in This Is Her! Art 4 All are:

• tropical
• fruity
• sweet
• vanilla
• woody
• powdery
• balsamic
• warm spicy
• nutty
• terpenic.

I had to look up “terpenic”. I have heard of terpenes, but I didn’t know what they are. Terpenes are the compounds that give fragrances their smell. Originally derived from plants, terpenes can now be synthetically manufactured to make all kinds of different scents. So that doesn’t really tell me what “terpenic” means in terms of what it smells like. Oh well.

When I spray on This Is Her! Art 4 All what I smell is the top note, mango. After a short while, some of the middle notes come into play: jasmine and frangipani (almond flower). I don’t really ever get down to the “cashmere”-like base notes, vanilla and sandalwood, the notes I would prefer. By then, it has disappeared on me.

To be honest, I wouldn’t say that this fragrance suits me. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it. I think it would be a perfect fragrance for spring and summer. It is decidedly tropical. I think it’s a fragrance that you could wear successfully day or night. It doesn’t have a lot of sillage, but instead stays close to the skin (though it’s mango that’s close to the skin, not cashmere). Nevertheless, it seems to last several hours on me which makes me laugh. The scents I love (big, spicy oriental scents all) seem to disappear fairly quickly, while this one lingers. Oh well.

I don’t believe I can return this fragrance, so I will keep it unless I find a local friend who would like it or I will give it away on Buy Nothing. I am glad I only paid $33 dollars or so for it rather than the regular price. Strange that when I tried to find the “regular price”, the only place I can find it for sale is on the Zadig & Voltaire website where the price is 78 euros which today in U.S. dollars is $89.14. I guess this limited edition is indeed limited.

So now, I will explore where I can buy a small sample of the original amber & vanilla This Is Her!. At Scentbird, the 0.27 ml spray would cost $25.95, and I don’t want to spend that much on it in case it doesn’t suit me. I’ll find a mini on MicroPerfumes, I’m sure.

Today's Author

Allison Cohen

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