Reviews of La Perla by La Perla

La Perla is another one of those 80's Big Hair and Shouldered Honeyed Chypre Feminines that stir my Libido.
I like women to wear them and if the Patchouli has enough oomph like them on my Boy skin as well.
It starts with a Sweet Freesia breeze mildly sharpened by a touch of Camphorous Carnation.
A good dose of Oakmoss supports the Bouquet of Rose and Jasmine to give the tickle to the Brain Cells. Honey projects it's Animalic and deep Sweetness coaxing one to nuzzle the Earlobe.
Base it with a Benzoined Sandalwood and plonk of Dirty Patchouli and Your Wish is My Command.
Lovely Experience.
From an Eau de Parfum sample.

The high 80's was an especially great period in the history of perfume, and no genre represents the decade better than the Fluorescent Rose Chypre.
Like this, many of them are excellent until the drydown, which can get a bit thick and airless.
Still very good though.

This fragrance is seamlessly blended. A sophisticated perfume which conjures up images of a darkly beautiful Italian woman in black stockings and a satin basque. It's lofty elegance makes me think of fine dark chocolate. For me, this is an occasional indulgence but worth the wait.

I might be the odd woman out here, but I have both the original and reformulated versions of the edp, and love them both.

For some reason, I get the image of a scarlet maple in full autumn splendor for the vintage: lush, rich and luminous. The reformulation is that same maple fast-forwarded to winter, where minus the leaves, you can see the intricacy of the jagged branches reaching into the dove-gray sky. Both have a place in my wardrobe.

As Emmapeel0099 says in her review, this fragrance seems to have been reformulated recently. The bottle is different now, too - it is low and elongated, not exactly difficult to spray, but not as comfortable in the hand as the older tall bottle.

La Perla is now a very pleasant, inoffensive floral chypre-lite: tame, polite and powdery. I have a difficulty making out the notes. Many people liken it to Paloma Picasso's signature fragrance, but to me the latter is sharper and edgier, though still beautifully blended. La Perla is pretty, but nothing about its current iteration stands out to me (unlike the EDT from a few years ago, which was clearly recognizable as a rose chypre with the necessary tang of oakmoss - this has been replaced by tree moss in the current version).

This was one of my favs and I wore it for years. Very smooth and sophisticated. It seems they have recently changed the formula. Currently it smells like bug spray on me.

Smooth, rich, well balanced chypreI try out as many chypres as I can get my greedy little hands on so stumbling upon this one a few years ago was a special moment. Such a beautifully complex, well blended fragrance. So well blended that I have a hard time picking out the individual notes.The opening is only mildly citrusy to my nose; I pick out some sweet notes like orange blossom or jasmine almost immediately. Some spiciness from the cardomom and coriander adds a nice touch as well. The heart notes are sweet (rose, jasmine again, iris, lily of valley), but the peppercorns are also slightly noticable which seems to offset the sweetness of the florals. The honey doesn't seem to stand out as a distinct note, all accords flowing together in a soft way.The basenotes are wonderfully earthy. A musky incense seems to be buried in there among the woody elements of vetiver, patchouli, and oakmoss.Compared to many fragrances of this era, LP is soft and inviting. Sillage is strong, use sparingly. Longevity is great as well, about 9 hours on me. I'd recommend this as a night time fragrance since it smells so sumptuous. Pros: Lush, great sillage and longevityCons: None"

one of the few perfumes I have repurchased! Conjures up opulence. affluence and luxuriousness (Is there such a word?)

Waxy neutral soapiness with floral (mostly rosey) accents, a patchouli backbone, a touch of animalic brew and an ambery/honeyed base. Effectively this is an underrated juice, is really 80's in style and works in the same vein of more notorious concoctions as Diva, Knowing, First, Beautiful, Cabotine by Gres and others. La perla is an extremely soapy, rosey and opaque juice, in my opinion the classic bergamot/rose/patchouli interaction is balanced and almost dark with some sophisticated spicy/floral sparks emerging at distance from the general oriental soapiness. The spiciness is not so compelling as is in Opium or Magie Noir but is anyway noticeable and mostly botanic. This is an averagely dry and balanced laundry/oriental mysterious and a bit "detergent/victorian old style" with its laundriness emerging from an ylang-ylang, aromatic spices, woodsy resins and benzoin link. The (milder) dry down is really waxy and soapy with a dark rose/patchouli dominant combo and some neutral barely emerging woodiness from vetiver and sandalwood. A classic chic fragrance which i fully enter in a really exclusive élite.

I really fell head over heels for La Perla, which I first encountered last year when a fellow fragrance traveler sent me a generous sample of this gem. I had never even heard of this perfume, much less seen it anywhere for sale. To me, La Perla, like Moschino's first perfume, is a made-in-the-1980s classic which deserves to live on and on and has been severely underappreciated, passed over by the masses lured in to the major counters to buy the latest new big thing (whatever it may be, and however it may smell...) by massive attention-getting marketing campaigns. Meanwhile, La Perla has been shrouded in relative obscurity--I presume because the company has lingerie not perfume as its primary focus? More evidence for this "other priorities" theory would seem to be the cap on the La Perla bottle. It's probably the cheapest one I've ever seen, more akin to something that you'd find on a stick of deodorant than a luxurious perfume. But it wasn't the ugly, tacky, five-cents-to-produce cap that kept me and so many others away. It was the near total lack of any significant effort to promote or sell this beautiful perfume!!!!!

Why do I love La Perla? In part, because it is a sophisticated yet comfy modern chypre, which was amazingly created between two patchouli fads. On the one hand, there was the hippie era, when (I'm told...) dark patchouli oil mingled with old faded, not-washed-for-months jeans. On the other hand, we continue to witness to the present day the post-Angel deluge of sweet patchouli frags. Somehow La Perla manages to avoid both excesses, being rich in patchouli and moss but neither very dirty nor very sweet. Instead, this perfume is soft and sultry: a perfect piece of silk lingerie, in fact. I love to sleep in La Perla, I really do.

Opens as an 80's floral.
I continues as a soft oriental with low sillage. The flowers are crushed under for of that one BIG 80's note. The flowers turn to dust, smelling powdery. Not for me!

I discovered La Perla through a great thread on Basenotes about underappreciated perfumes. This is a 1980s perfume that is in the same rose chypre vein as Paloma, Diva, Scherrer and Knowing. To my nose it's closest to Ungaro's Diva, which, of those I've just mentioned, is the one I like least. A bit too much sweet honey for me. La Perla differs from Diva in just the right places, though, and I really like it. The honey is toned down, the rose is a touch darker, the patchouli is amped up substantially and the spices seem more integrated. As the scent progresses, it gets drier and the honey fades. The rose and the patchouli come together; the patchouli makes the rose drier and the rose warms up the cool, earthy patchouli a bit. Long lasting drydown.

This is the only perfume which I have bought for the third time now. Because of its woodiness, for me this is a winter-perfume. Over time I've collected the bath foam, body lotion and the refillable miniature spray. I have worn this since I started working and never ever considered it too sexy for the office, though I did use the body lotion for day and added EdP for the evening (nowadays I just adjust the dose).

I revisited this perfume after a few years absence. I wore it religously for several years in the early nineties and always, always got a complement from somebody! As time went on, I became a bit fickle and have moved around sooooooooo many different fragrances. Looking for inspiration at lunchtime today and suffering from the winter blues, I picked up a bottle of La Perla - amazed at how cheap it is these days - obviously no longer 'trendy'. Having said that, it was never a name that everyone knew, like Eternity etc. I had a quick spray from the tester before heading on to a meeting this afternoon and the guy next to me was positively drooling! I'd forgotten how wearable this one is. Other reviewers talk about it being a sexy or heady fragrance which I guess it must be judging from today's reaction, but I find it really wearable. Its one of these that works with a business suit or a pair of jeans and its sexiness is definitely understated. It never gives me a headache or makes me feel nauseous which some fragrances sadly do after a while. I went back to the shop after work and bought a bottle. I think I'm going to stick with this one (again!) for a while!

This is such a pretty perfume - reminds me of Cabochard, but with a lighter, brighter top note. Lasts really well.

A lovely and interesting scent, though I Believe there is a "tad" too much patchouli oil in it. I Do love it though.

I think la perla is just beautiful, it ticks all the right boxes for me. Rich, rounded and woody its longevity on me is fantastic and its great sillage always draws favourable comments. Smouldering and sexy a big thumbs up from me especially for the EDP.

What an amazingly sophistocated chic fragrance this is. Men absolutely LOVE this, and I get more comments from this than any of my others despite this not being my favourite. Totally agree with all Goddess-dreams very eloquent comments. Not for everyday use, although it is so reasonably priced, IMHO this is way too special to wear in the daylight hours. However, I find myself tempted, and usually succumb to wearing this for work.

This is in the same kind of sexy category that one would find Agent Provocateur in. I cannot believe how dramatic and passionate this fragrance is. I also cannot believe that I've been missing out on it for this long! La Perla is most definitely bottle worthy. This is a fragrance perfect for all those special occasions/evenings out when you're dressed up and looking like a sex-goddess – also perfect for opera and ballet, for fine-dining, and those very ‘special dates' - very much femme fatale! La Perla is undeniably feminine in a smoldering, assertive way – she's not an easy pray – she is the huntress.

I like this because you can't smell yourself coming.... It reminds me a bit of Opium because of the spiciness (I have aterrible nose and can't describe well.. :( It got staying power and gets you noticed... use sparingly otherwise you will kill people with scent.. I much prefer it for winter-- it's too heavy for summer and spring

Reminds me a _lot_ of Magie Noir. I can't say I'm particularly fond of it right out of the bottle, but I do like the drydown. It _does_ last, however, particularly when layered.

Fabulous scent. Lasts all day. I am always asked what I am wearing when I wear this fragrance - everyone loves it and almost no one else wears it.