Bon Vivant

[redderz]

An effervescent blend of crystalline champagne notes and sweet strawberry.

In the imp: Woooo, sweet strawberry!

Wet: Still strawberry, slightly fizzy! It does smell just like strawberry champagne actually. I really love it.

Dry: Just gorgeous. It doesn't seem to last very long though! Definitely a keeper and a favourite. Edited August 30, 2009 by redderz

[voodoocatwoman]

Wow- this is exactly as it is described... I can smell the strawberry floating in a huge glass of champagne. Definitely won't be wearing this to work.

[Venneh]

In the imp, first and foremost, I get champagne - kind of like what I smell in the Stardust '05, with my father's cologne, but lighter. On my skin, it's champagne, with a strawberry undertone that comes out rapidly; a crystalline, beautiful scent. I'm getting a bottle of this, I think; this would be good for the occasional fancy party, or especially for New Year's.

Edited October 8, 2009 by Venneh

[Sapphiremo0n]

Lab says it should smell of champagne and strawberries... i say it is Playdoh.

 

in the imp i recieved it is very sweet, can't really pick out exactly what it is sweet of, but it is definatly sugary. i thought i'd give it a try, i don't know if it is the strawberry or the champagne but one of them HATES my chemistry.

 

i applied it lightly when i left the house for the evening, 2 minutes into my drive to dinner, my roomie starts remarking on the strong scent of playdoh and asked if i had had any small children in my car. the smell got to be so strong that i had to roll down the windows to air some of it out.

 

my frimp is definatly going out into the world as soon as i figure out who to give it to. i don't know why but apparently i'm not ment to be a "bon vivant" kind of gal.

[silver_springs]

This one was mostly champagne on me, kind of bitter but not too bad. I think I was just expecting a sweeter strawberry scent. It was nice, lasts a while but nothing really spectacular.

[London]

Imp: Smells really good. I wanted to drink it, but didn't.

 

Wet: boozy sweet tarts

 

Dry: It's strong. All berry,sparkling berry. I'm not sure if I could wear this reguarly.It'd be good for like a Mardi Gras styled party.

[Schmoozy]

 

Sparkling, bubbly strawberries drowning in champagne. The champagne is tart, and dry, and the berries manage to sweeten everything up. A playful scent.

[rayvn1]

Sweet and sparkling when on wet. Dried I get a light and sweet strawberry scent with a liquid background. Perfectly true to the description.

[impolight]

:::BON VIVANT:::

 

The good life indeedy! Flabbergasted is probably the best way to describe the feeling experienced after reading the Lab's notes on this formula.

Strawberries and Champagne?

Really?

Really and truly?

Skepticism here is used only with the utmost degree of respect and admiration...The Strawberries and Champagne sampled in some parts of the world (sleepy little college towns in Southern California, say) smells absolutely NOTHING like the stuff emnating from a freshly uncapped Imp of Bon Vivant.

Had Strawberries and Champagne had the aromatic character of Bon Vivant, the taste would, in all likelihood, have induced a state of comatose bliss from which this reviewer would still not have emerged from.

Bon Vivant is an excelsior, Thunderously good fragrance.

The scent is somehow insatiably floral... There would have been a wager placed on this containing Narcissus or Jonquil...

A bright, screamingly yellow fiels of fragrance.

Bon Vivant is for Her.

Sensually Divine!

[CitizenBree]

This smells more like a strawberry mixer than champagne on me. So the strawberry comes out a lot more, but I do get a little hint of that champagne fizziness at the end of the sniff.

 

It reminds me a little like alice in that it has that doll/plasticky scent to it. Smells a little fake. But not in a bad way, necessarily. Like I loved the way my strawberry shortcake dolls smelled, but you could still smell that it was plastic. That's what I get from this.

 

Very nice but doesn't last long on me.

[girasol]

Just like it says on the tin, champagne and strawberries. A nice, light fruity scent. I can see this being a great pick-me-up scent.

[shadowdoll]

I would purchase a lab fresh 5ML of this. I am not sure how Bon Vivant ages, but personally I would like to try this particular blend at its freshest. Somehow i think that would compliment the effervescent quality of the scent better as we tend to age scents when we want to mellow them out and blend the notes and make them stronger. With this scent I think clear, distinct, contrasting, sharp, light and crisp are probably the desired qualities and since aging is unlikely to bring those particular aspects of the oil out ... Yes, I do think this would be an excellent candidate to be purchased as a 5ML straight from the lab and worn regularly throughout a fun spring or summer.

[Victory]

Oh, yum. The strawberry faded pretty quickly on me, leaving the champagne notes, but I love them. They're sweet, sparkly, and so fun. As the blend dries, it gets sweeter. I don't have anything like this in my collection, and it is so fun. I love how sparkly it is.

[SophieCedar]

mmmmm.

In imp: very champagneish with very little strawberry

Wet: Same:

Drydown: champagne mellows to a light white sparkling grape and strawberry takes over. Very nice!

[animalcule]

Another one that I like but doesn't work for me after 5 minutes. Ah well.

 

Imp: strawberry candy

 

On, wet: strawberry with champagne - and it really does smell like champagne!

 

As soon as it dries: Weird plastic-y smell from the champagne note, which can't be overcome by the strawberry.

[maproot]

No strawberry in the imps Ive tried-just sparkly champagney 7up soda kind of feel-very bubbly and sweetly clean. for me, it doesnt warrant a bottle, but Im glad for the imps Ive had as its a tad too sweet after drydown!

[Kiraze]

imp: fruity wine - or nice, crisp Riesling with some berries I am not able to recognize as strawberries

 

wet: berries get stronger but same time more artificial but mostly this still smells like cheap white wine

 

dry: very faint echo of spilled wine but berries have totally disappered

 

after 1 hour: Bon Vivant where are you? Nothing is left and as I never got fresh strawberries out of this i do not really miss that it's gone

[Nymeria]

This one hits on my skin exactly as described... fresh strawberries crushed up and pureed into bubbly champagne. A pinkish red fizz. A little too sweet for everyday, but I could see myself getting through the imp and craving a bottle.

 

Good for wearing: on days when I feel like skipping down the street beaming optimism at all the passerbys.

[Caerphilly]

Not what I was expecting at all! I love Strawberry moon (the more recent one, I haven't tried the older one), so I really wanted to try this. This is SWEET. I was hoping the champagne would ground the strawberries and make them cleaner, but from this I learned that boozy scents just mean sweet scents. I was also hoping for more of a natural strawberry scent, but this smells like strawberry flavoring. My uncle used to work for Kraft, and his job was to make artificial flavors. He gave my dad sample of their strawberry flavoring, and this is what the Strawberry smelled like. Artificial. Sigh...High hopes for this one too.

[Ryokumuji]

Oh wow, this is amazing. Smells just like champagne with a hint of strawberry. It even smells bubbly to my nose! It gets a bit more "sugary" on the dry down. Very true to the labs description. And a very fun scent!

[blueroses]

I've been meaning to try this scent for ages because I adore fizzy champagne notes and almost always enjoy strawberry.

 

Sometimes champagne scents (not just BPAL, but in general) don't really smell like wine to me, but just ... fizzy. For me, that's not necessarily a bad thing, because I like fizziness. In the imp, Bon Vivant clearly smells like a berryish white wine.

 

Once applied, there is an initial burst of effervescence and sweet strawberry, which quickly dries down to a light white whine with a pinkish note. If I didn't know it was strawberry, I'm not sure I'd be able to pick it out. It just smells pink.

 

I'm pondering a bottle purchase of this one.

[HerbGirl]

Fizzy Strawberries...this is delicious. I can't wait for my bottle to arrive!

[Akurarei]

Bon Vivant

 

not sure if I've ever reviewed this one before - if this is a double, my apologies!

 

In the Frimp:

Sharp Fizziness with a sweet sugary undertone

 

On my Skin, Wet:

Sharp clear musk - no fizz, no sugar

 

On my Skin, Dry:

Clear musk with a touch of sweet red fruit. It does not smell like strawberries to me, just a sort of generic red candy.

 

Verdict:

While it's not a morpher, it's quite interesting as it dries down and settles on the skin.

it does have a festive feel to it but there's no occassion associated with it.

I like the fact that it's a mellow, little-throw musk with some sweetness.

 

if I smelled this at random, I would never think 'champagne' - maybe soda water with a drizzle of red fruity flavor.

not for me, but the frimp will get used up when I want a subtle musk.

[girlcalledmoment]

I was expecting to like Bon Vivant, because I've been on a strawberry kick, but I wasn't expecting to be as enamoured with it as I am. This fragrance immediately reminds me of sticky red sweets - the kind your mum never let you eat a lot of because of the additives, but then, as the gumminess recedes, the champagne loveliness bubbles into action, softening the edges enough to make the sweet strawberry assume a ladylike, elegantly boozy quality. It speaks of strawberry bellinis in small hands, little red nails and heart-shaped sunglasses - Lolita, perhaps, or a beauty pageant princess from the fifties. I say the fifties because she's sporting a gingham playsuit.

The fragrance this is most like, and I think it's very much like it, is Yves Saint Laurent's Yvresse, formally called Champagne (before Champagne threatened a lawsuit or somesuch), which actually smells like a peach bellini and not a strawberry one. I've always flirted with the idea of owning Yvresse, which dries down a bit more powdery after a chypre-length (i.e. tenacious) top and middle note period. Of course, Bob Vivant is far more linear and fleeting, but it's not a fickle puppy either. Though lacking the chypre element, Bob Vivant's fizzy joy is still multifaceted, and supplies enough holiday snaps for a daydreamer.

4.2/5

[lavenderfrost]

 

In The Imp: At first sniff, it certainly smells like a party blend. What you see in the description is what you get - fizzy champagne and strawberries.

 

Immediate Application: Same as in the imp.

 

30-45 Minutes Later: There was this lip gloss called Sweet Lips that I was crazy about in high school - you could say it was like a flirty teen version of Bonne Bell's Lip Smackers. Even after I got disgruntled with makeup altogether, I still hoarded Sweet Lips because it tasted great and honestly helped soften my lips.

 

This is a dead-ringer for strawberry-flavored Sweet Lips. Not unpleasant, just a little juvenile. I'm enjoying the trip down memory lane.

 

Verdict: Might trade with someone who has something I'm excited enough about, if a second testing later in the month gives the same result. Right now, it looks like I'll stick with Thalia if I want a sophisticated champagne-based party-ish fragrance.

Edited April 20, 2011 by lavenderfrost