Avon Only Imagine... Eau de Parfum

I finally cracked and got myself an Avon perfume. The brand is very proud in claiming to be the number 1 scent retailer in the country. That's enough to pique my interest. Right around the time they launched this new scent with Angel Locsin appearing as the face of Only Imagine..., I was sniffing around the rub-and-sniff page of the brochure and thought it smelled nice, very different from their usual scents (ehem, Sweet Honesty, ehem). That's how I came to purchase a bottle. I was also gifted with a free tote bag, by the way. Purple, floral, nothing special.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Box and bottle[/caption]

As you can see, there's a frilly abomination that "adorns" the one-size 50mL bottle. I read from the US Avon reviews that some girls chose to take it out for  practicality's sake. I decided to do the same. After all, it's trickier to hold on to a bottle with a big, frilly thing at the neck.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="420"] After I took out the decor, it looked classier.[/caption]

The wide, curvy bottle shape and the gradient color design made me think of Estee Lauder's Beyond Paradise in a far-off, this-must-smell-like-a-bouquet sense:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="341"] Colorful[/caption]

Scent-wise, it's the love child of Estee Lauder's Pleasures (Only Imagine and Pleasures both evoke in me an image of a field of crisp flowers) and DKNY's Be Delicious (apple). Floral, fruity, refreshing. The top note is an immediate burst of crisp apple that bends into a sweet-ish floral (violets, as the Avon brochures indicate), ending into a slightly powdery drydown. On a general note: It seems to me that most, if not all, Avon scents have a powdery scent base. It appears to be their signature.

I've been using this for over 3 weeks now and my biggest comment simply has to be about the lack of longevity on my skin. Frankly, I don't blame Avon. I know that each person has a different body chemistry with a scent, so it's hard to definitively say that it doesn't last in general. On my clothes, it does. On me, nope, it's gone within the hour. I have to tote the bottle around to re-spritz as needed.

Needless to say, I doubt I'll be replenishing my supply once this runs out. I've come across scents out there that are cheaper and last longer. I'd give this a 4.5/5 because the scent is refined and may last longer on someone else. Just not on me.