Nina Nectarina

I was planning on writing this before 2022 was over. It's 2023 and I don't want to ignore the fact that this fragrance has been around for over 10 years. Meet La Vie Est Belle by Lâncome. I'm kidding. At this point, everyone who has the mildest interest in perfume already smelled it. It is one of the most popular and best-selling perfumes worldwide while at the same time one of the world's most hated perfumes. If you haven't smelled it before, I assure you that once you do, you will immediately think "I've smelled this before". You might have smelled this on other people, you might have smelled perfumes with a similar scent profile before. Whatever it is, you will find this familiar. At this moment in time, La Vie Est Belle is the answer to the question "What does perfume smell like?". And although you might be tired of it right now, at the time it was launched, this type of gourmand composition was new. And a crowd-pleaser. This made me wond...

When I opened the box of Ariana Grande's Sweet Like Candy, the brand new bottle showed me what society still expects me, as a woman, to be: soft, pretty, flawless and pink.  However, very soon, the bottle starts morphing into what women actually are: real, their nail polish sometimes is chipped, silver linings may show and some days we need to be assertive so we ditch the soft pompom. And I like it. This is a comforting scent that will put you in a better mood when you need a pick-me-up. When you feel the way my bottle, pictured above, looks right now. It's a crowd-pleasing perfume, yet so soft that it won't reach any of the crowd's noses unless you overspray.  Some say "never wear perfume during negative events in your life". I politely disagree. I understand that in some cases it may ruin the fragrance for you forever, that smell will remain tied to that negative memory and you won't be able to use it again. But I also feel that the cozy fragrances that ...