Lovely (2005)
by Sarah Jessica Parker

The top notes include a detestable air freshener synthetic hyacinth, but once that settles down the rest of the scent reveals itself as a very pleasant, upbeat, sweet floral and wood composition: a kind of Ivoire-meets-Flower by Kenzo. A mere trace of the opening hyacinth lingers in the background, but in the company of the primary accord its sharp, green flavor provides a measure of welcome balance and contrast to the prevailing sweetness. The whole thing is clean and snappy, but also playful in a way that traditional green floral chypres never are.

In its bright, translucent texture Lovely reminds me of such crisp green florals as Drôle de Rose, Une Zeste de Rose, and Eau du Ciel, and I’m encouraged to find this happy aesthetic trickling down from niche perfumery into a mass market celebrity fragrance. Lovely is reasonably potent and projects well off of the skin, leaving plenty of sillage in the air. Once the notes arrange themselves into their central pattern the development is linear for a few hours, after which the floral notes peel away to reveal a drydown of clean musk and brisk woods, primarily cedar. This is altogether a much nicer scent than I’d expected, and I wouldn’t be embarrassed to find my daughter running around in it.

I like it. Is it masculine? Umm.... maybe a teensy bit. But does it still smell good? Yes, to my nose. A bit strong sometimes, but still... Lovely! It's true. Jessica Simpson named hers "Fancy," which it's not, but this one's appropriately named. It's warm, but not a sugar-sweet warm. It's a strong-type of warmth. The perfume itself is strong; it lasts, but I don't know, it smells lovely, and has an independent strength. I guess it's the musk, evoking some kind of masculine quality that doesn't overshadow and overwhelm.

I find so many women's fragrances too floral and cloying. There are very few that I buy as gifts, because I find them overdone. I was shopping for an Xmas gift once and I smelled this one. I didn't buy it as a gift, but I remember being impressed by the glorious bouquet. It smelled very classy and sophisticated, yet piquant and pure, and like Cashmere Mist, ultra-feminine. I need to go back and take a whiff of this one again. It has lingered in my memory.

I have so often read that Lovely resembles Narciso Rodriguez for Her, that I finally compared them, one on each arm.

On first spritz, Lovely has a synthetic , plasticy note that puts me off, while the initial NR waft has a sweeter, denser, fruitier smell.

On the dry down, NR is lovlier than Lovely. The problem is that synthetic, hardware-store note (which I also detect in Covet by SJP). It lingers in Lovely, and even gets stronger. I was unable to identify this smell until I read the review from indigo.smile on another site: yes, that's it--New Barbie Doll!

It is odd, because I love all of the the notes in Lovely, but have to scrub it off. It certainly lasts a long time, longer than Narciso Rodriguez, unfortunately.

I don’t get the amount of musk in either one that I would have expected.

I do see why the two scents are often compared, but Narciso Rodriguez is much smoother and less synthetic.

Bug spray at first, but wait! It goes away. After a few minutes it is VERY nice, the top and middle notes are so great, but the dry down was really strong on me. As the description tells you, the dry down includes patchuli, cedar, woods. For me, it was just a little too harsh, and it doesn't smell anything like the top and middle, it's almost like two different perfumes. I like to wear it, but I have to scrub toward then end. I agree that it lasts a good while, even until the next day.

I had read that Lovely was a possible unisex fragrance. Tried it. They were right. My initial reaction was that it smells like one of my old 80's men's colognes, but I can't quite recall which. I could give this another chance, but there are so many others out there to try.