#Sephora hanae mori butterfly skin#

Middle Notes: Bulgarian rose, ylang-ylang, jasmine, French peonyīase Notes: Rosewood, almondwood, sandalwood and cedar Top Notes: Wild strawberries, sweet blackberries, blackcurrants, bilberries** Not only because it was one of the first of the gourmand fruity-florals genre but also because of its packaging, and because a rectangural bottle with a chunky, asymmetric top and what looks like a butterfly sticker slapped on it by a little child is I suppose irresistibly cute. Add to this the fact that most similar scents can be found for ridiculous sums, while this remains a bit of a high-end fragrance, I imagine is a bit disillusioning for Hanae Mori fans.īut of course, there is more than something to be said about the marketing and cultural aspects of a fragrance, and Hanae Mori has and will remain a cult fragrance. But after coming across so many celebrity scents with the same formula (nondescript flower + random choice of fruit + vague musk + arbitrary piece of wood) and the same premise - it did lose a fair amount of its lustre. In hindsight, this perfume is quite fun and original for its time. It's a little too sticky-sweet to my taste, and without enough darkness to sustain my interest (I like sweet, but I also like a bit more of an edge to a scent - which is why I so enjoy L by Lolita Lempicka - the warmth of the cinnamon and the hint of immortelle really balance all the vanilla and musk overload). More vanilla and sweetness will come along further as it develops on the skin. So perhaps this is not entirely sugar and fluff. Another interesting element that comes out is sandalwood.

#Sephora hanae mori butterfly skin#

It reminds me of the insane Japanese bubble gum I had long time ago, the one that turns your skin into a rose-smelling bed of red hives. Rose that is slightly green, yet also sweet and juicy-citrusy. After a few good minutes, the rose peeks out of its hiding place. It took the gourmand sweetness of classics such as Eau de Charlotte (based on chocolate and cassis) to a new level of exaggerated sweetness. It envelopes with a smooth, sweet (and not sickening, yet) aura of fun-loving innocence. Creamy heliotropin creates an almondy nuance, and alongside strawberry-flavoured saltwater taffy, it is hard to imagine a little girl who won't like it. But cotton candy is the true star of the show for the next few minutes. The beginning is somewhat fresh, with hints of crisp apples, and light citrusy rose and strawberry. While Angel and Lolita Lempicka had sweet notes that sugar-coated a very bold base dominated by patchouli and vetiver respectively - Hanae Mori's goes straight to the candy. It is probably the fragrance that have set the trend for the myriads of sugary fruity-florals that dominate the celebrity scent world. The high-brow customer that they seem to be aiming for would probably never wear such a juvenile perfume.Created in 1996, Hanae Mori's eponymus scent* is as young as my daughter (which is a perenial if not a 'classic' in current perfume lifespan terms) and is about as girly as could be. Who the hell is Selena Gomez?)īutterfly smells better than Pink Sugar, and could easily take its place as Sephora’s best-seller if Hanae Mori would realize who their actual target audience should be. (Is that still a current reference, by the way? For the life of me I can’t keep all these new 15 year-old celebrities straight. Take a good $30 off the price, slap a couple more butterflies on the bottle, and watch the Hannah Montanas come running. If you ask me, Hanae Mori is marketing this all wrong. This would be an excellent competitor for the hearts and minds of Pink Sugar lovers, but Butterfly is outrageously priced and is therefore far out of reach for the average tweenage budget. Butterfly certainly smells good, but it does not smell like a perfume. Should I just come out and say it? Overly sweet. Kosher marshmallows are more obviously sugary, and I swear that Butterfly’s hyper-rich sweetness is a spot-on representation.īutterfly is sweet. Hanae Mori is closer to kosher marshmallows, which do not contain any gelatin and come in exciting colors to disguise the fact that they do not taste all that much like their gelatin-containing counterparts. “But Ari,” I hear you saying, “marshmallows are delicious! What sort of heartless harpy could hate on marshmallows, unless they’re 60 feet tall and possessed by the spirit of the destructive deity Gozer?”Ĭutest marshmallow-possessed-by-demon EVER!īut the marshmallows I am thinking of are not your standard puffy white blobs of deliciousness. Well… at least it’s not another fruity floral.