Mainstream Monday – Sniffing a Popular Perfume
When I first say Viktor & Rolf Bonbon in a Duty Free store, I thought the bottle was some sort of deformed butterfly. (It was an overnight flight, OK). Well, it’s a glass bow and quintessential “pink juice”.
Bonbon smells like a lot of other things, especially things by Victoria’s Secret or celebrity perfumes from a decade ago. It opens with mandarin oranges in syrup with a side of cotton candy. Give it a few more minutes and it makes me think of one of the most terrifying edible visuals I could – imagine peaches in syrup poured out of the can into a pastel-colored parfait glass and then top it with a can of La Lechera (dulce de leche). If this vision appeals to you, then keep reading this review and maybe go out and find yourself a sample of Bonbon. It goes through a stage of abstract florals drenched in caramel and then topped with brown sugar. I get some weird phantom fruity thing in the heart. It’s like strawberry jam! The dry-down is like a caramelized amber with vanilla bourbon. There’s the faintest traces of woods but they almost come across more like a vanilla bean pod because of the sweetness of this fragrance. After wearing this a few more times, it’s almost like Bonbon could have easily been a flanker to the brand’s Flowerbomb, like a sweeter version of it without all of the patchouli.
It’s not that I think Bonbon is bad. I like sweet fragrances occasionally. But, I like stuff like Prada Candy (caramel iris) or my guilty-pleasure Aquolina Pink Sugar. I’m also not above wearing celeb fragrances. I guess with Bonbon, I just feel disappointed because to me it doesn’t really stand out from literally the hundreds of gourmand-fruity-florals launched in the past decade. I also find the bottle a lot less exciting in person too.
Notes listed include mandarin, orange, peach, orange blossom, jasmine, cedar, guaiacwood, sandalwood, caramel and amber. Launched in 2014. PERFUMERS – Cecile Matton and Serge Majoullier
Give Bonbon a try if you like gourmands or florals that lean heavily gourmand. Or perfumes like Juicy Couture Viva la Juicy, Britney Spears Curious in Control (seriously, that is a real perfume name), Victoria’s Secret Sexy Little Things Tease and Noir Tease, Jessica Simpson Fancy, Vera Wang Princess, YSL Mon Paris and the list goes on and on.
Projection and longevity are average.
Bonbon comes in a few sizes with the 1.7 oz bottle retailing for $98 at Sephora.
Victoria’s Final EauPINION – Caramel cotton candy and flowers. It’s not something for me, but neither was Flowerbomb.
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*Sample obtained by me. Product pic from Parfumo. Ann Savage pic from fanpix.net. Post contains an affiliate link. Thanks!
I can’t figure out why because I don’t wear many perfumes like this, but I really enjoy Bonbon. Maybe it’s that I wear syrupy sweet gourmands so rarely that this one hits the spot. I got a sample in a Sephora order and like to wear it in the evening sometimes. I don’t think I’ll buy any after I use up my sample, but I’ll enjoy it while I have it.
I have weird things like this too. I can’t explain it and we don’t have to 🙂 We can like what we like.
I do think that a gourmand is really enjoyable. For me, I can only wear them a few times out of the year (but I do go through some rare “gourmand streaks”).
Thank goodness for samples that get me through my many moods 🙂