Yazhini ManimudiEmporio Armani is opening 2026 with two fruity perfumes for the YOU and Stronger With You collections. With fruity notes dominating the industry this year, Emporio Armani has chosen passionfruit for their women’s perfume and cherry for the men’s perfume.
Power of You
Feminine
Perfumers
Nisrine Bouazzaoui Grillié, Nadège Le Garlantezec
Fragrance Family
Fruity Floral Gourmand
Notes
Top: Passionfruit
Middle: Frangipani
Base: Madagascar Vanilla, Benzoin
The ripe, tropical fruitiness of passionfruit creates a delightful opening for Power of You. The Givaudan perfumers, Nisrine Bouazzaoui Grillié and Nadège Le Garlantezec, use Ebelia™, Givaudan’s captive molecule to enhance the passionfruit note. This proprietary molecule is fizzy, fresh, and has the tropical fruit juiciness that makes the passionfruit note more interesting. There’s some sourness at first but it’s still pleasant and complements the sweetness well.
Soon after you spritz it, the bright fruity fragrance evolves beautifully thanks to the vanilla base. It evokes childhood memories of vacationing under the sun, having vanilla ice cream lollies that have a fruity outside. A blend of bright and juicy tropical fruit and smooth vanilla.
Frangipani matches the tropical openings with its sunny personality. The flower brings a citrusy brightness as well as a fruity sweetness. The perfume is more floral than the notes suggest, with hints of rose and lavender-like freshness.
The bright fruity florals are placed on a contrasting deep and sensual base. There is a lot of vanilla in the drydown, but you never feel overwhelmed by it. There is a resinous quality that’s kept from becoming too powerful through soft and fresh woody facets. Pine, perhaps some cedar. It isn’t too noticeable, present only to keep the base from feeling too deep for a spring-summer perfume.
As we head into summer, you might be looking for a lighter perfume that doesn’t get cloying in the heat. Not everyone wants to switch to a freshie that disappears in 3 hours and requires reapplication. Power of You is just right if you like your summer perfumes to still have some depth and sweetness without turning bad or being too much for the people around you.
It becomes a soft vanilla scent after about 5 hours on the skin. It performs better on clothes, the passionfruit lingers and you can get about 8 hours of longevity.
The sweetness can be a little syrupy and that isn’t for everyone. But overall, I’m pleasantly surprised by this fragrance. It can be worn almost anywhere, but for an office situation, I recommend toning down the number of sprays just in case.
Stronger With You Powerfully
Masculine
Fragrance Family
Fruity Gourmand
Notes
Top: Cherry, Mandarin Orange
Middle: Spices, Lavender
Base: Chestnut, Vanilla, Amberwood
The cherry at the top is barely there, disappointing since cherry is featured centrally in the promotional material and the bottle is a cherry red. It could just be that they were careful with the cherry so as to not bring a cough syrup feeling to it. Their abundance of caution with cherry has left us with a dearth of cherry.
Without much cherry to distinguish it, it feels rather similar to the original Stronger With You if it had a whisper of spices. Woody, vanillic, with a delicious roasted chestnut note, like the 2017 OG. And spices.
For perfume enthusiasts and collectors, it comes off pointless and uninteresting. If you don’t have any of the other Stronger With You perfumes, you could buy the Powerfully and be perfectly happy. It’s sophisticated with the aura of a self-assured man who has his things together. However, this is all to the credit of the original and says nothing about Stronger With You Powerfully.
Read about other new designer perfumes on Perfume Mag.
Yazhini Manimudi
