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- Bottom Line Up Front
- About Olympea Perfume
- What Does Olympea Perfume Smell Like?
- Who Is Olympea For?
- When and Where Should You Wear It?
- Pros and Cons of Olympea Perfume
- Where to Buy Olympea
- Other Fragrances to Consider
- A Discontinued Fragrance It Reminded Me Of
- FAQs
- Olympea Perfume Review: Conclusion
I’m shocked I haven’t done an Olympea perfume review yet. I’d never even heard of it until recently, but the floral, amber, vanilla, and wood notes are right up my alley. Obviously, I had to order a bottle to try. Sounds like it was made for me. Thanks, Paco Rabanne.
I’m not sure how I missed Olympea when it launched a few years ago. I’ve been trying out, buying, recommending, and reviewing perfumes for years, and somehow this one flew right under my radar. Maybe I took a detour into other types of fragrances around the time it came out.
I always love this type of fragrance, but sometimes I’ll veer off-course to check out some fruity florals, classic florals, or even dabble in aquatic and fresh scents.
Either way, I’m happy this one finally crossed my path.
Bottom Line Up Front
I have mixed feelings about this perfume. To me, it smells like an early 2000s fragrance that hasn’t stood the test of time as well as some others, even though it was released in 2015. However, I do really like the notes because I’m always interested in a vanilla-amber floral. I’m conflicted about whether I would wear this particular one regularly.
About Olympea Perfume
Paco Rabanne released Olympea perfume in 2015. Since then, it’s become a bestseller and inspired a whirlwind of flankers. The Paco Rabanne website shows that this perfume is as intense as they come, but I disagree. If you’re using other Paco Rabanne Olympea fragrances as a guidepost, maybe it’s intense. Still, I’ve experienced perfumes much more likely to make themselves known with a single spritz.
It’s a vanilla floral scent with additional notes intended to make it summery, but not in the predictable coconut, sunscreen, cucumber, or melon kind of way.
What Does Olympea Perfume Smell Like?
It’s a warm amber floral scent that isn’t too sweet. To my nose, it smells like a lightened up, less sweet Flowerbomb. Notes are water jasmine, green mandarin, ginger flower, vanilla, salt, ambergris, cashmere wood, and sandalwood.
I think it’s supposed to smell beachy, and to a lot of people, that’s exactly what it is. However, I don’t get that at all. I wouldn’t associate it with summer (or spring) but instead think of it as a fall fragrance. Over time, the salt note kicked up a bit, making it more summery. However, it wasn’t enough to change my mind regarding how it shows up on my skin, to my nose.
The vanilla stands out to me more than anything else. Then there are the amber and woods. And some water jasmine, which doesn’t smell aquatic at all (to me), despite the name, and just gives Olympea warmth and sensuality.
If I try, I can smell the salt, but it’s not that noticeable. I wish I could smell the ginger flower, but I don’t. I think if I could smell either or both of those, it’d take the Olympea perfume from a warm-weather scent to a year-round one for me.
Who Is Olympea For?
Olympea is a women’s perfume for those who like warm, sensual florals, amber, vanilla, and woods. If you want a fresh, aquatic fragrance, I wouldn’t say this is safe to blind buy. Your nose might pick up different notes than mine, however, so it’s worth a sniff if you happen to run across it.
I wouldn’t purchase this as a work perfume. Still, if you’re looking for something in this fragrance family that’s versatile enough to go anywhere and could be your signature scent, it’s light enough to work that way.
When and Where Should You Wear It?
Olympea perfume is light enough to wear anywhere as long as you only spray it once or twice (a healthy amount of perfume comes out with each spray, but not so much that one pump is more than enough). Still, it’s sensual and would make a good date night or evening out perfume. I’d wear it during the day (or night). I love this type of scent and don’t hold back on when and where I wear it.
If you like to switch your perfumes up by season, I’d say this is a good one to use in the fall and winter months. It’s performing well and smells good on me in the summer as I’m trying it out, but I think it’d be better in the cold.
Pros and Cons of Olympea Perfume
I don’t love or dislike Olympea perfume, so the list of pros and cons is about even in my mind.
Pros
- It wasn’t especially expensive when I ordered it from FragranceX. Definitely check the prices across the board, though, because I’ve seen it listed at around $50.00 to about $80.00.
- It’s warm and sensual. In some ways, it feels like a hug.
- It seems popular, so you probably won’t offend many people (if any) if you wear it.
- It has decent projection–it’s not overpowering, but it’s not hiding, either.
- The bottle is well-made, weighty enough to feel like quality, and the nozzle sprays well. The perfume was concentrated in the spot I sprayed it, and enough comes out with each spritz for me to be comfortable with one or two sprays. No complaints.
Cons
- It smells a little dated to me, even more than some fragrances that have been around longer.
- It’s not as smooth as I’d like. The best way I can think to describe it is “fuzzy.”
- It’s not all that expensive, but I feel that it’s a little overpriced in some cases. There are better, less expensive fragrances on the market.
- It’s linear. I don’t think it changed much from when I sprayed it on through the end of the day. The middle notes linger a while, but that makes sense to me since vanilla is listed there. Usually, it’s in the base notes and sticks around when other notes have gone.
Where to Buy Olympea
You can find Olympea perfume at:
- FragranceNet
- FragranceX
- Perfume.com
- Walmart
- Amazon
- MicroPerfumes (they sell samples, too!)
- The Paco Rabanne website
I bought my bottle from FragranceX, along with Anais Anais perfume. They were packaged well and shipped quickly. I had them within about five or six days.
Other Fragrances to Consider
Dolce & Gabbana The One
This one’s strong on vanilla and has the florals and fruits to round it out to a more year-round type of scent that can go anywhere. I like how smooth it is compared to Olympea. It also lasts, but it’s more of an adventure from the peachy top notes to the comforting vanilla; it’s not a linear, boring fragrance at all.
This is one of my favorite vanilla fragrances with amber. Notes include peach, orange, jasmine, and vanilla.
Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb
This one has that same hazy, fuzzy vibe I noticed in Olympea. It’s sweet and has a vanilla base to support jasmine, rose, cattleya orchid, orange blossom, and patchouli notes. The projection and sillage on this are much more potent than what I found with Olympea, which could be a pro or con, depending on how you want to wear it.
I wouldn’t wear this one to an office or anywhere I’d be likely to get on an elevator, personally. Still, I love wearing it when I work from home or just want to relax in a cozy fragrance.
Estee Lauder Sensuous
Sensuous has a gorgeous warmth to it. It’s deeper and richer than Olympea, but as far as I know, it was never intended to be a beachy, summertime scent. It has honey, sandalwood, black pepper, and ylang-ylang.
The projection is incredible. It’s heavy and almost syrupy but not cloying. It’s one of my favorites, and I’d probably wear it all the time if I hadn’t given a bottle to my mom (she also loved it and used the whole bottle up). Now I associate it with her, and it feels weird when I wear it.
The only downside to this one is that it’s harder to find and often overpriced when you do find it.
Dior Hypnotic Poison
If you love the vanilla in Olympea but want something smoother, consider Hypnotic Poison by Dior. The almond note keeps it a little cooler than Olympea’s amber and woods, which is such a warm scent. The vanilla (natural, not overly sweet) and jasmine are there to keep it sensual. Hypnotic Poison is good year-round.
Chanel Allure
Allure features fresh, floral, and amber notes mixed together to create a fragrance you can enjoy all year. I particularly love this one in the spring, but I’ve worn it every season. Its main notes are mandarin, May rose, and vanilla, but there’s more going on than that–sandalwood, amber, peach, lemon, honeysuckle, freesia… It comes across as a well-blended, complex perfume to me.
It’s sparkling and uplifting, as well as warm and sensual. It’s just not as warm as Olympea to my nose (at least the EDT).
A Discontinued Fragrance It Reminded Me Of
One summer, I almost burned through a whole bottle of perfume. That had never happened to me before, but I loved it, and that fragrance was very similar to this one. Light and warm, it felt as “summertime bronzed” as the amber-colored bottle with gold animal print lid suggested it was.
That perfume was Victoria’s Secret’s Very Sexy Now. You can still find it on eBay and a few other places, but I’m not sure I’d buy it at this point. My bottle was stored in a drawer, away from heat and light, and I had to throw some away after several years because it went bad.
If you’re familiar with that fragrance because you loved it and hated that it was a limited edition perfume, too, you might like Olympea.
There was more fruit in Very Sexy Now (litchi, pear, mandarin orange), and the florals were different, so it came across as more of a summertime scent to me. Still, Olympea is bringing that one to mind for me.
FAQs
Question: Is Olympea a good perfume?
Answer: It’s good if you’re looking for a fall or winter perfume that won’t be overpowering. Many people love this as a summer fragrance, which is worth mentioning. You can get a lot of wear out of it because it’s suitable for day, night, work, dates, or just hanging out alone with a book. It’s cozy, warm, and comfortable but also sensual. It won’t fill a room, but I can smell it on my arm without trying.
Question: How many different Olympea perfumes are there?
Answer: Six. There’s the original, plus Intense, Blossom, Solar, Aqua, and Legend.
Question: Is Olympea long-lasting?
Answer: Olympea is long-lasting on me. It lasts at least five or six hours. It doesn’t really change much over the course of the day. It mellows out a little bit and gets smoother in the dry-down, but it’s still strong enough to notice.
Question: What is the difference between Olympea and Olympea Aqua?
Answer: Olympea Aqua has a fresher smell but shares enough notes with the original to be highly similar. It’s enough for you to recognize Aqua as a flanker (it still has that vanilla-salt thing going on). It starts with lemon blossom, calamondin (oranges), and water jasmine. There’s also salt, vanilla, amber, and cashmere wood.
This might be the solution for people who think Olympea isn’t summery enough, like me, because it’s heavier on the citrus than the vanilla.
Question: What is the difference between Olympea and Olympea Intense?
Answer: Olympea Intense takes the warm, woody notes and vanilla in the original and amps them up to a heavy, syrupy, sweet juice that is best in the fall and winter months (the salty note is still there, too, though). This one leaves the versatility of Olympea far behind–it lives up to its name and is genuinely intense.
Question: Which is the original Olympea perfume?
Answer: The Olympea reviewed here is the original. All the Olympea perfumes with an extra word at the end are flankers.
Olympea Perfume Review: Conclusion
If you can find it at a reasonable price (or you can snag a sample), yes, Olympea perfume is worth a try. The vanilla, florals, and amber notes are beautiful. The fragrance performs well without overpowering, which means it’ll be versatile for most people who love scents like this enough to wear them daily. I wish I could smell the salty beach vibes other people notice more than I do.
It’s an interesting, popular scent that most people will probably like, if not love. If it sounds like your kind of fragrance and you won’t be spending an arm and a leg on getting your hands on a bottle, you’ll probably enjoy it.