LouLou
Eau de Parfum, Cacharel (1987)

(Review of an early 1990s Cosmair era EdP)

If you love yellow florals and you’ve not smelled LouLou… what are you waiting for? Seriously. You’re missing out on an icon of the yellow floral perfume genre.

Powdery aldehydes usher in one of the largest processions of fruit and yellow florals I have ever smelled. If this procession was a parade, it would bring the entire city to a halt. Sour and zesty bergamot, juicy oranges, watery and blue plums, and a waxy blackcurrant lay over mimosa and marigold florals that couldn’t be more golden yellow without the interference of genetic manipulation. The marigold is properly "musty-musky", a touch earthy and bitter, and a hair green-citrusy, while the mimosa radiates with a golden sunshine glow of the silkiest honey, sweet, and unctuously nutty like baked pecans. Oof this is decadent! Almost to the point of being a bit lewd, if I’m honest. But LouLou is not done because up next is the yellow floral of ylang-ylang. Smell this and smell languid tropicals, baked and rich bananas in the form of breads or creme pies - and cue the drooling. Helping with this is a vanillic, fatty, and creamy tuberose that is no wallflower sitting quietly in the background, but it never pushes itself forward of the ylang-ylang as far as my nose can tell. Earthy and warm balsams and resins at the base push it over the top. Creamy sandalwood, a sticky and warm and vanillic benzoin, and fatty animalic musks.

My Lord. Is there anyone looking at me right now? Am I drawing ill-advised attention to myself? Never has a floral perfume made me question if I might have the psychological underpinnings for a food fetish - until I first wore LouLou, that is. Make no mistake that LouLou is floral first and foremost, but if someone wanted to state this has one foot over the line into gourmand territory I don’t know that I could make an argument against it. Also don’t think from my description that this is an ultra sweet, cloying and lumpen floral/food bomb either. It’s sweet, but naturalistically so. It’s not cloying or lumpen, but it is rich and thick whilst maintaining air and space; however, it is very likely unsuitable for the heat and humidity of summer depending on your locale - so be warned: it is big, it is strong, it is diffusive, and it lasts an age.

Stunning work. Simply stunning. When I want a yellow floral for the winter that gets my juices flowing and steels me against the gray cold I reach for LouLou, and when I want something more stately and elegantly refined, I reach for my favorite Frederic Malle, Une Fleur de Cassie. These are my two yellow florals that will always hold a special place in my heart and my collection, and I cannot laud any higher praise than this.

Loulou strikes me as the rebellious offspring of L'Heure Bleue, gritty and brazen, willing to cuss you out if crossed. It's punk rock in a way. Perfumer Jean Guichard was inspired to take a Guerlinade-like base of heliotrope, orange blossom, benzoin and vanilla, and surround it with the fat, smoked plum similar to that of Balahé and Poison, hot cinnamon balls and olibanum. The loud, swaggering ylang-ylang makes it over the top.

This is not to say that LouLou is a "challenging" wear, at least to the right nose. For all its seeming brassiness, half of its development does purr like a kitten, and words like 'sexy' and 'cozy' do come to mind. There are facets that resemble berry flavor Bubble Yum, 70s-80s plastic toy figures made by Kenner, and headshop joss sticks, but that sliver of classic charm injected into it harnesses LouLou as a proper perfume and not a cheap novelty. This colorful and unforgiving wonder is an icon for good reason.

Smelling aromachemicals on their own is a sort of devilish delight, complete with the challenging question: do I want to know?!

Luca Turin touches upon a "mysteriously raspy note," that makes LouLou more palatable. This is indeed my experience with LouLou, deconstructed: from the methyl salicylate up top (jasmine-tuberosy smoke and mirrors, or is it just pure wintergreen rub?) to the cashmeran drydown, it seems there's always something dissonant, keeping all the sweetness compact, a little bullying-making-fun for the sake of keeping things interesting and the conversation flowing - very cold-wheater, so Christmassy! Like the 'mushroom' in gardenia, the cashmeran in LouLou is a detail you never forget, even when resmelling Mugler's Alien, after having considered it an innovative masterpiece, and eventually realizing it's (just) LouLou light (on the sugar).

A favorite perfume, a shielding, warm, invisible blanket, from the favorite Jean Guichard!

I've been interested in this scent for a while - because of its quirky 70s style plastic bottle that reminds me of some furniture in my grandparents' house, and therefore my childhood. And this scent is just a little bit older than me - we're pretty much peers.

So I was super glad when I was gifted an old mini (with a blue diamond shaped bottle and pointy red hat, it looks both like child's toy and a psychedelic creation at the same time) and started digging into it.

What surprised me is that although I kept wearing it, I couldn't really grasp it - and after a few months I cannot really do it yet - but I wanted to write out my impressions nevertheless.

It's a punch to my nose at the start, very big, very oldschool, very heavy. It kind of scares me at first. Starts off slightly dusty, then the sweetness begins to creep in, and so it sweetens gradually. It's never a truly sweet scent, more like slightly sweetened and slightly dusty woods. And in the end, when it's softened and mellowed, when the dust settles, it's sweetly woody, then and only then I really enjoy it. In this stage it sheds off the oldschool vibe and smells neither "young" nor "old" - just timeless.

Jasmine, iris, mimosa, tiare, sweet vanilla. I get it all and I love it. It also has a nice vintage feel. So good.

A perfume in the same line as Anaïs Anaïs - looks innocent but not. Very sweet to the point of causing diabetes - but not tacky. Praline reigns supreme. This is a perfume for young women, unlike the former, that was supposed to be a "teenager perfume" but is suitable for women of all ages.