Lolita Lempicka Au Masculin (2000)
by Lolita Lempicka

I got this as a sample for my husband when purchasing my botttle of Loita Lempicka. Au Masculin smells so much like the female version, I kept it for myself! Nice scent only slightly muskier. Lolita Lempicka is one of my favourite scents, I'm just not sure if this version would be too sweet for men. It hits me as a sexy woman scent. Two thumbs up for a female fragrance. Neutral for men's fragrance.

It's sweet but not in a masculine way. I do not enjoy it it. I'll give it to my mother perhaps she'll wear it.

This is basically a very sweet gourmand woody oriental scent with a generous dollop of anise or licorice on top and a good deal of sweet powder underneath. Wearing Lolita Lempicka, I’m immediately reminded of Yohji Homme, perhaps because of the licorice note, or perhaps because the two scents are built on similar sweet, powdery, woody base notes. Unfortunately, they are base notes that are both overused and extremely cloying to my nose.

At first it seems as if the cool, bittersweet licorice accord might actually manage to balance to crude foundation, but instead it loses ground steadily until, after an hour, it’s completely overcome. The base notes are as loud as they are banal, and project for yards around me when I wear this scent. I can report that Lolita Lempicka au Masculin is also murder to scrub off, and I still smell it after raking my skin raw with a stiff brush and hot water. Too bad – without that nasty foundation it could a’ been a contender…

A marvelous scent that reminds me of being enveloped by the breath of someone who has been chewing Black Jack licorice gum... or passionate kissing after a Pastis bender.

Familiarity breeds contempt sometimes. I liked this at first, but luckily, I purchased only a mini of it. After three years, the mini is three-quarters full. I never realized how quickly that synthetic anise note would wear me out – faster even than the synthetic ginger note in Bulgari Blu for Men. Lolita Lempicka Au Masculin opens with a genuine gourmand accord — I can smell the violet, the praline, the anise and licorice. Sweet, sweet, sweet: It’s very sweet, and the sweetness is simplistic… except for the anise tang, it has no depth to it. The middle notes, too, are gourmand-like notes of anise and praline with an echo of the opening violet and a rum note that doesn’t really fit in except that it does encourage a masculine interpretation. The vanilla moves in with the base, and an acceptable vanilla it is; it melds with the green notes in the base to form a long-lasting green (vetiver?) / anise accord. The base is supposed to have cedar, and barley water in it, but all I get is the anise-contaminated green non-conifer accord. The synthetics of the fragrance are not at all annoying to me, and the sweet doesn’t bother me too much – I could live with it. It’s that anise note that has made me yell, “Surrender!” I can no longer handle it, but I remember enjoying it very much. It’s a very nice fragrance for someone who can enjoy several hours of anise. (Edit of May 3, 2006 review. Changed from thumbs up)

LOLITA LEMPICKA AU MASCULIN: Wearing this, I feel like Fern on the ferris wheel in the middle of the summer carnival. That would be Fern from “Charlotte’s Web.” There’s something in this juice that evokes cotton candy and carefree summer nights and getting stuck atop the ferris wheel with the boy you love. It’s sweet and youthful and innocent, a reminder of the girl in seventh grade who always smelled so delicious you wanted to lick her—but she was going with the football player and so you just smiled and she back at you, leaving a trail of something yummy in her wake. This is the kind of fragrance that’s slightly elegiac, made for the gloaming hour and reveries of lovely girls and boys from your past.