Vera Wang Anniversary Review and Giveaway Contest

For 20 years, Vera Wang has created a unique aspirational world filled with modern elegance and luxurious sophistication. Her designs reflect a profound understanding of tradition and beauty mixed with contemporary edge. Her technique is disciplined. Every piece reflects her unique eye for couture. Vera Wang, a native New Yorker, understands women who embrace fashion, and her wedding gowns are the epitome of an elegance that pays homage to the past, while still being contemporary.

Let's reflect for a moment on her history, which explains her practiced eye and exquisite taste. As a child, she accompanied her mother as she shopped Parisian and American couture. Wang studied at Chapin, Sarah Lawrence, and The Sorbonne. By age 23, she was the youngest ever Vogue fashion editor and stylist. She worked at Vogue for 16 years before moving to Ralph Lauren as a design director.

In 1990, Vera Wang opened her flagship store on Manhattan’s Madison Avenue, introducing fashion to the bridal industry, with revolutionary designs and refined detailing. Since then, she has expanded her collections to include ready-to-wear, contemporary sportswear, evening wear, intimate apparel, footwear, fragrance, flowers, mattresses, china, crystal and silver, fine paper, and fine jewelry. She's a "name." She also published her first book, Vera Wang on Weddings.

From the cover of Vogue to the Oscars and Olympics, the style of Vera Wang is embraced by many of the world’s most influential and fashionable women. These women continue to look to her for their most important events and public appearances. The celebrity quotient is an important mark of her business, repeatedly drawing the well-deserved attention and praise of the press. For Vera Wang, the red carpet is one of her most important “runways.”

There wasn't much "fashion" in bridal until Vera Wang. Now, Vera Wang and fashion are synonymous, and the most famous brides wear Vera Wang.

Just look at the radiant Chelsea Clinton in her Vera Wang dress. Has she ever looked better? Chelsea was a beautiful bride in her modern, but classic, and elegant ivory strapless gown, featuring a silk tulle diagonally draped bodice with a raw edged laser-cut swirling silk organza ball skirt and train. It was magnificent.

To commemorate her 20-year anniversary, Vera Wang introduced Vera Wang Anniversary, "a celebration of love, happiness and modern femininity." Vera Wang Anniversary is a luscious floral bouquet, described as a sensuous woody floral - bright and lush. It opens with radiant Sicilian bergamot, red apple leaves, mandarin oil, and a sprinkle of cool dew drops. The heart is a rich bouquet of white gardenia, rose absolute, and orange flowers. The dry-down is said to envelope the skin with touches with silky musks, creamy orris, golden amber crystals, and warm cedarwood.

Even the bottle was designed to pays homage to the classic Vera Wang look, redefining it with a touch of lavender color and texture. It's pretty, polished, and fresh - beautifully faceted and decorated with lavender petals revealing the lavender fragrance within. It is topped with a clear glass cap and shiny platinum collar, two signature elements of the Vera Wang fragrances.

I was sent a bottle to try by Attention USA. I eagerly sprayed it on the moment it arrived. Actually, they sent me two bottles; FedEx lost the first one. There is probably a very happy thief out there enjoying my fragrance as I write! My first impression of the scent was: floral, fruity, soft, gardenia, orange blossom, and floral through its six hours (or so) of wear. I found the dry-down to be more floral than I expected, and that pleased me. I did make the mistake of asking my mother how she liked it. Mom is a huge gardenia fan (her wedding bouquet was made with gardenias), and she loved it. That means my bottle will have to be decanted to share with Mom. How could anyone deny her wonderful mother something she loves? I'll keep some for myself - not to worry.

I've read that some fragrance snobs consider Vera Wang Anniversary matronly. Isn't that the case with fragrances that appeal to those of us who love gardenias, roses, jasmine, and white flower scents? Perhaps their century-old appeal makes them timeless, but they are not matronly! I will warn, however, that anyone who wishes to smell like a raccoon in heat or a hippie den from the '60s will not like this fragrance - just like those who would wear the latest cutting-edge fashion to their wedding. This fragrance is meant for those who appreciate "pretty"! If you like looking pretty, and you want to smell pretty, you're going to love it.

Attention USA is giving one of you lucky gals an opportunity to win this fragrance. To enter to win this week's giveaway contest, just leave a comment here once. I'd love it if you would share your go-to fragrance - if you have one - in your comment, but you don't have to do that. Just make sure to comment.

After you comment, feel free to e-mail bestthingsinbeautycontests@gmail.com and identify your comment. You can never be too careful about sharing your e-mail address on a blog, so I would follow this second step if I were you (an alternative is to code your e-mail, e.g., myname at gmail dot com, in your comment). That's what most of you do.

You can "earn" a second entry by tweeting this contest. Just make sure to include "@BTiBeauty" (without the quotes) in your tweet. I will tweet the contest soon, and you can simply retweet it to earn that second entry. You can earn a third entry by following the blog - either here or on Twitter (any entrant who is already a follower will automatically earn the follower point).

The deadline for entries will be Saturday, November 20, at midnight. The next morning, I will use a random number generator (random.org) to select the winner. I will e-mail the winner at that time. The winner will have 48 hours to reply to my message and provide a shipping address. After 48 hours, the prize will be forfeited, and another winner will be selected.

Here is more "fine print." This contest is open only to residents of the U.S. and Canada. Given the issues of shipping fragrance by air, we can't ship this overseas. It's considered a hazardous substance. Sorry! Such is the state of shipping today.

Good Luck!

Update 11/15: I love what Elvira wrote about Vera Wang Anniversary at Pink Sith! Here's an excerpt, but pop over to Pink Sith to see her whole review.

I have read other reviews for this scent, and I get a distinct "Old Lady Vibe" from the reviewers. I read comments like "Mother Of The Bride," "Grown Up," "Old Fashioned," "Woman Of a Certain Age," and "Adult." I think it is the strong gardenia scent to this fragrance that must evoke these characterizations. The gardenia scent always seems to evoke that "Old Lady" term from a lot of reviewers. I don't find gardenia to be old lady at all. Maybe that's because most of the old ladies around me when I was growing up wore scents like Halston, Estee Lauder Youth Dew, Caron Bellodgia, and the vintage German Cologne Kölnisch Wasser 4711 (YUK). Perhaps if all the geriatrics in your life wore Gardenia and Rose and Jasmine then you might smell the same geriatric scent as other reviewers. Either way I find this gardenia scent to be crisper (the addition of the bergamot and the orange flower helps this) than most and not as heady as others I have sniffed.

Photos courtesy of Vera Wang and Getty Images