Sampled SJP Lovely (very long post)

On Friday I went out to ULTA Beauty to pick up some L'Air du Temps lotion to send to my sister, who is going to be in the hospital for awhile, and L'Air du Temps is her comfort scent lately. It had been soooo long since I had been out and around fragrances that I just couldn't resist doing some spritzing, despite the fact that I have a multitude of decants and samples already. Unfortunately, ULTA had no cards for spray-on so I was spraying in the air to get a general idea before spraying on my own skin. Well, lo and behold, I spotted Lovely! I was caught completely off guard as I thought Lovely was exclusive to a certain department store. Nordstrom, is it?

As best I remember, I sprayed some on my left wrist. And it was lovely. I wanted to remember every detail about it so I could give a full report. I think it's Buffalo Gal who is known as The Graffiti Lady, right? She writes on her skin the name of the fragrance she's applied in that spot. And then Serpent would go out for "quick sniffs" and come back with very in-depth reports, all from memory! And Perfume Hound and so many others are able to retain their fragrance impressions from their sampling/sniffing sprees. So how hard could it be to spray a fragrance and remember its development, right? Well...

I broke every sampling rule in the book. I was worse than a child in a toy store. Looking back, I was an embarrassment. You would think I had just discovered fragrance for the first time in my life. I got so carried away spraying this and sniffing that. I spotted the Jean Paul Gaultier Classique so, of course, I needed to sample it. It was, afterall, there, right in front of me. Very close to it was the Jennifer Lopez Still so I thought I'd give it a quick spritz. A little Coco Mademoiselle here, a little Rockin' Rio (again) there. Made some room for Clean Baby Girl. I pondered sampling Be Delicious once again but decided not to waste arm space and time on it. I checked out Crystal Noir again and I still really want that bottle, but ULTA "ain't" cheap. I did sniff Versace Woman since I'd never sampled that one. I sampled Marc Jacobs Perfume Essence Eau De Parfum and liked it. I forgot to look for Blush. And there were more, but I just don't remember how much more or what.

I went to the Lola cosmetics section as well as the Urban Decay sections, looking at their makeup, and I dabbed on some Lola. I think I'll definitely have to buy Lola. Then I spotted the three bottles -- Glo La Shimmering Dry Body Oil in Bronzed Goddess, Diva Gold and Pink Bling -- and I had to try them all. It took me awhile to realize that they were all the same scent. The difference was in their shimmer.

At Urban Decay I wanted to pick up some Oil Slick eyeshadow and I spotted Go, Sin and Pistol. So I had to sample the Go and Pistol. I already have Sin.

As for Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely, all I can say is it's lovely. Uncluttered. Uncomplex. Demure. Safe. Even the bottle which I had initially thought needed a more substantial cap seemed... yes, lovely. I don't recall any specifics, but then I didn't exactly wait for the paint to dry, so to speak, before I was off and spritzing other things. I don't recall a particular note, nothing stood out, but I recall thinking it was gossamer-like. As for the comparison to Narciso Rodriguez, all I can say is that to my nose there is no similarity whatsoever. Mostly because NR turns to camphor on my skin so I certainly won't question anyone else's findings, that's for sure. I don't want to say that Lovely is unremarkable because it's really too lovely (there's that word again), but it is definitely not extraordinary. I felt no need to buy it since I've plenty of lovely (wow, is there an echo in here?) fragrances already.

So I left ULTA and had several more stores to shop in before heading home in the horrible heat and Friday traffic, and I had by that time completely forgotten not only what all I had sampled, but what all I had purchased at the various stores, how much money I had spent, and my own name as well. I was sitting in a long line of cars at a stop light, examining my hands -- the top of my right hand was streaked with the results of my eyeshadow sampling and the top of my left hand with the results of my lipstick sampling -- and as I was pondering finding a tissue to wipe them clean, I remembered the perfumes I sampled and I started sniffing my arms and wrists when... OMG! Something on my right wrist area was absolutely stunning! I mean it was fabulous and I wanted it immediately. Problem was, I had no idea what I had applied there. I knew it wasn't the Lovely. It might have been the Urban Decay Pistol, but it might have been the Lola. Or the Glo La. Or the Marc Jacobs Perfume Essence EdP. Or a combination of any or all of them! I wonder if it was the Crystal Noir? Probably the Pistol. I have no idea. Oh, well. I guess I'll have to go back to ULTA and start all over. [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]




Remember, Scented Ones -- it's a fabulously-fragranced jungle out there -- sample responsibly! [smiley=wink.gif]

ULTA has really cut back their fragrances, Plumeria, but it was, nevertheless, "dizzying." ULTA used to be one of my favorite places. It's where I found Boudoir and Yohji when the local department stores had none. It's also where I found Une Fleur de Chanel when it was supposedly exclusive to Chanel boutiques and Saks.

I think it was the JPG Classique eau de parfum that I sampled -- very pricey. I was surprised. I think they had the parfum for... I want to say $110 but I could be wrong.

[smiley=grin.gif] [smiley=grin.gif] [smiley=grin.gif]


I have to say that I'm a bit relieved; I wouldn't have expected anything groundbreaking, but it's also good
that it's not awful (SJP's a hometown girl: I can't help it).


That sounds so familiar! As much as other people complain about pushy SAs, my real problem with in-store fragrance shopping is that I have a hard enough time keeping track of what I've sampled, much less how the scent develops on my skin. Most SAs just confuse me even more (and that's not difficult). After a couple of years on the fragrance boards, where I've become accustomed to sampling scents in the privacy of my home, I'm even more amazed at people who can visit stores and boutiques and come back with firm opinions about the scents they've tried.

Thank you, Loney! Sephora just opened it's first store in Cincinnati, and I'm already planning my upcoming visit.

I would lose my mind in a Sephora! There are a number of them in and around Houston but, so far, nowhere near me. I'd have to practically plan a vacation to visit one.

Thanks to everyone for reading my very long post. I had a great time! [smiley=laugh.gif] Hopefully, next time I'll have some actual useful information to post. [smiley=beer.gif]

Today I got a sales flyer/brochure in the mail from ULTA and there's a scented sample of Lovely inside -- with a scented strip. What is the industry term for those things? This scented strip is awful and smells nothing, NOTHING, like what I sprayed in ULTA. This is more of a head-on collision between Prada and Narciso Rodriguez, a very strong and abrasive patchouli/musk. Extremely artificial, nauseating, headache-inducing. I can't believe this is the same fragrance I sprayed in ULTA. [smiley=shocked.gif]

I'm sure it was Lovely, Fufu, but what came out of the bottle and hit my skin was a soft, pretty (though unremarkable) floral -- as best I remember, that is. Believe me, I would have remembered THIS odor -- it's so strong and obnoxious that I even contemplated throwing the scent strip away. I decided to seal it in a Ziploc baggie for now because I want to try to get back out to ULTA and resniff Lovely. This is unreal, I tell ya! [smiley=shocked.gif]

No. One of those inserts we often find in magazines or sales brochures from places like Saks, Sephora, etc. I call them scent strips but the industry probably calls them something else -- blow-ins? Anyway, they have a section you can peel back and smell the fragrance. That's what I got in the mail.


Yes, at ULTA. I spotted Lovely at ULTA and sprayed it on my left hand/wrist area. Actually, I sprayed it into the air first and sort of fanned it my direction, to make sure it wasn't something real stanky that I'd have to live with the rest of the day.


Maybe so. But this scented strip and what I recall spraying are two entirely different fragrances. At the end of the day, after all of my sampling, trust me -- I had NOTHING on my skin anywhere that even vaguely resembled what's on this scented strip. I couldn't have made it through the store let alone all the way home with something on my skin that smelled like this -- it's not something that I can stomach.

Oh, well. As soon as time allows I wanted to go back to ULTA anyway and see if I can find out what smelled so wonderful on my right wrist. I'll definitely re-spray Lovely while I'm there.

Okay. Here we go... I've been putting this off but I guess it's time to post this. I got to do a very thorough sampling -- double-arm, double-method -- last week, unlike my sampling frenzy at ULTA a few weeks ago. It went a little something like this:

I was at Dillards last week buying some makeup and thought I would sample Tommy Bahama for women, when I spotted Lovely. Apparently "exclusive to Nordstroms" shouldn't be taken literally. It wasn't on counter but behind counter so I had to ask the SA for assistance. She sprayed a good amount on a little piece of gray grosgrain ribbon and... I recoiled. It was exactly the same as the scent strip I had received in the ULTA brochure! I told her my story of spritzing some on my arm in ULTA -- how gossamer-like and lovely it was -- but that I sampled many, many fragrances that day so I wanted to re-sample it.

I decided I had to apply it to my skin because surely there would be the truth and it would be the same lovely fragrance I spritzed at ULTA. So I told the SA that I'd like to sample it on my skin. She said, "Are you sure?" Yes, I told her, I was sure. Why do you ask? The SA said that Lovely is very much a love-it or hate-it fragrance with many people leaning to the hate-it side. Wow. But I had to find out. On one arm a light mist above the arm, falling softly on the skin... not too bad. On the other arm a full-on, concentrated blast.

And I liked it, it was, indeed, so lovely, just as I remembered from ULTA... for about 15 seconds, 30 seconds, tops. The opening is very soft and pretty. After that... it's not something I can wear or enjoy. It's just as the scent strip in the brochure -- a very shrill, piercing patchouli/musk mess -- at least on my skin. Maybe it's the white amber. Does anyone know what white amber is or what it smells like? I don't. The top notes seem fine, but those heart and base notes are something else.

I wanted to wash it off but left it on my arm to get some opinions. The SA in Williams-Sonoma thought it was vile and was shocked it was the new Lovely. She said she'd been looking forward to sampling it. I could tell I really blew it for her, just as if I had revealed the end of a movie she'd been wanting to see. I met up with my son back at Dillards in the men's department. He gets very upset with me when I stick stinky fragrances up to his nose and I had promised him that I wouldn't do it anymore, but I did it anyway. "Oh, Jesus Christ, Mom! That smells AWFUL. Why do you do that to me? Now it's stuck in my nose." Poor kid. It was stuck in mine, too.

I'm afraid it *ain't* so lovely... or demure or safe or gossamer-like. At least not if you spray heavily. It does, however, remind me of something else but I want to resample that fragrance before saying what it is.

And they all lived happily thereafter...


THE END [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]

I may have had olfactory overload, Key, or... perhaps I had the crazies from not getting out and sampling perfumes for such a long time (as Lille My said). I think it was the lighting -- the lighting in ULTA was causing a false fragrance reading! Yes, I'm sure that's it.

I, too, had great expectations for this one. Well, maybe I didn't have great expectations as much as great hope. Oh, well. I await with joy the next celebrity launch! [smiley=rolleyes.gif]

Oh, Cedric! Â*That's so kind of you. Â*Thank you. Â*I look forward to your opinion of Lovely. Â*I had seriously thought about buying a bottle solely to decant and share, but I decided that $45 was a little too steep.

Thanks to everyone for your contributions and for sticking with me through this meandering thread. Â*You'll all be happy to know that I'm looking into a continuing education course called "How to be Succinct", which I hope to take as soon as I complete three weeks of "Your Time Is Up: Sit Down and Shut Up."

[smiley=beer.gif]

Rosberg, have you sampled Costume National? I need to remember to re-sample Costume National because I keep thinking Lovely may be similar. Not sure yet. However, I did discover a similarity between Lovely and... of all things.... Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune! Yep. It's true. I haven't checked notes on Pamplelune to compare them to Lovely but they smell very similar to me, although I actually like and enjoy the AA Pamplelune.