Lulu

[SophieCedar]

Tobacco flower, white gardenia, bergamot, and bourbon geranium.

Tobacco flower is strong so it prevails here... I can smell bits of the rest. All elements are notable. It has a clean white tea feeling to it. Nice for hot summer days like today!

[likie]

I have read many reviews where people describe scents as "soapy," and I've never experienced it myself. But with Lulu, that is all I could smell: soap. Period. Like, raw, freshly-milled, barely-scented soap. On my skin it was mostly the same. I suppose that's probably the gardenia, but I'm not certain.

[darklorelei]

I'm so happy to get a chance to try this! It's basically all my favorite notes, so I've been really anticipating it.

 

In the imp: holy HELL is this hideous. Super sharp florals.

 

Wet: Soapy white floral, but almost dies completely on my skin. Not really getting bergamot or geranium at all, which is sad. Oddly, for once I wish this had more of a base, which is bizarre as basenotes tend to be my nemesis.

 

Drying: Still fairly faint (at least to my sinus-y nose), but the geranium is finally starting to come through. Yay! Over a bit of soft sweetness. I want to say that's the gardenia, but I have really weird scent associations, so it could well be the tobacco flower.

 

 

Overall: I like this. It's way more floral and girly than I usually go for (despite my love for these notes). Not sure it's a bottle yet, but definitely hanging onto the imp for now.

[blu°]

This is really sharp and soapy on my skin for about 10-15 minutes.

 

Then it softens a bit and I get something really nice underneath the soapiness that reminds of some Lush product. Maybe the gardenia-bergamot-combo?

 

It still smells soapy, especially in the throw. It's driving me mad that I seem to smell something delicious behind that veil of soapiness that I just cannot define or catch for the life of me.

 

I wish I got only that background smell, but as it is, Lulu is probably too soapy-clean for me.

Edited September 17, 2010 by blu°

[wendyb1063]

I am not sure why, but this smells very much like Black Lace on me once it has dried down. The tobacco flower smells more like tobacco to me than the nicotiana I have grown in the garden. I think this is one I am going to have acquire in bottle form.

[plainjean]

Floral, bergamot-y soap. It's really dry-smelling on me, and I'm just not digging it.

[grrrlennyl]

Lulu

 

On: Incredibly perfumy, floral, and soapy.

Half an hour in: I really don't like this. It's too heavily soapy.

5.5 hours in: Slightly sweet, but mostly still a soapy floral.

Overall: This was awful on me.

[virusq]

I bought this expecting tobacco, bourbon and geraniums. From the bottle, it was overpowering. It made my eyes sting with something overly perfumed and floral, but I tried it anyway. It was much less offensive on my skin, but still very, very gardenia. At the end of the day, there was a much lighter gardenia smell with a citrus background that was kind of nice, but I never found the tobacco or geranium I was looking for. Didn’t work out for me.

[stellamaris]

I love Lulu. Very happy about loving her, as Emma and I are currently not on speaking terms. Lulu was the completion of my District hoard, I mean collection.

Lulu to me is very green, like the smell you get when you first walk into a florist's shop. The feeling is like walking down the street in early autumn or late summer on a cool morning, and you can smell someone has mowed their lawn a block away. It has nice throw and lasting power, and is not headachey or soapy in the least for me.

Fresh and gorgeous.

 

This is so garden rich, and there is nothing else like it in BPAL, but it does have the freshness and green for me like Ya Te Vo, but a bit more girly. Just a bit though, I think this would be fine on a boy too.

Edited September 20, 2011 by stellamaris

[Gateau]

The florals in this do tend towards the soapy, but in a natural, rich-smelling way, like peony. The result is something that puts me in mind of expensive hotels and high-end department stores. It's very Plaza Hotel, the Carlyle, and Bendel's to me. This would be a great gateway BPAL for someone who likes fancy perfumes and Chanel No. 19.

 

After it dries I get less soapiness and more tobacco flower. It's a very pretty floral. Will definitely use my decant and may seek a bottle.

[JazzieCazzie]

Received an imp of this as lagniappe in a recent swap and it was up to bat in my ongoing project to review and/or revisit every imp and bottle in my collection, A-Z (with some doubling back as I receive new scents via swap or purchase), with the ultimate upshot coming when I hit up all my Ws and complete my list of swappable goodies to post.

 

I'd never dabbled in the District scents, having been on a buy break during their hey day, so Lulu was definitely "new-to-me."

 

IN THE IMP: As pretty much everyone before me has mentioned, definitely "white floral." To me, it seemed clean without being soapy at that point, and surprisingly fresh and clean rather than the more "lush" floral I associate with gardenia. In fact, I got what I am pretty sure was tobacco flower (the more sharp white floral) and virtually no gardenia.

 

Dabbed cautiously but generously, considering the notes, on one wrist and in crook of arm.

 

WET: I actually really, really liked this when wet. VERY hard to put my finger on the notes or even a description. It becomes more "lushly" floral when applied than it was in the imp, but never really went full-bore gardenia on me either. I totally get the "high end department store/five-star hotel soap" comps. Can't figure out which note that is ... my guess is bergamot, but I could be wrong. And it reminds me a lot of scents from my past, hidden in the back recesses of my mind, which I can't quite locate. Someone mentioned it was like a perfume their mom might have worn in the 70s and that could be it (though more likely I would have worn it in the 70s since I could probably be the mom of most BPAL-ers -- or yeah, it might have been my mom who loved herself some perfume).

 

DRYDOWN: And here is where the lovely Lulu earned a relocation from the keeper box to the swapper box. It just didn't work. It never went headachy gardenia. It never went wonky per se. It got kinda boozy and too much perfume, not enough freshness. And boy does it have long lasting legs. Am gonna have to do a washup before dinner.

 

OVERALL: It seems from the reviews over these two pages that Lulu wasn't a super popular scent and has only a few fans and that somehow surprises me. It seems like something that WOULD have a lot of universal appeal, even if it's not right for me.

 

On a scale of 1-5, I give it about a 2.8. It would have been over a 3 were it not for the unfortunate drydown.

[Monster]

Lulu is a morpher! It starts out as a strong tobacco flower. As it settles into my skin, the geranium comes out a bit more making the perfume go sharp and more high-pitched. Dry, this is a faintly sweet, dusty gardenia. Initially and for about 30 minutes, Lulu has a good throw and then quickly fades into a close to the skin scent. I would describe this as a feminine white flower (and not the indolic kind). It's very pretty, just not my taste.

[roseus]

Starting off with a great heady gardenia with a bit of sharp tobacco flower, and some brightness from the bergamot. Dry however the tobacco flower takes over, and this ends smelling like an expensive soap.