Series 1 Leaves : Lily
Eau de Toilette, Comme des Garçons (2000)

I bought a full bottle of this due to my love affair with real Lily of the Valley...this was back in the day when the bottles were green and I was filled with faith.

Initially I was enamored with Lily, but she quickly wore out her welcome. Turns out she's loud, cheap, fake and a bit psychopathic at the core of her being.

I thought about keeping her around for room spray, but I really can't stand to be associated with her anymore.

Life is too short to waste another moment on Series 1 Leaves: Lily

Seriously, leave this fraud behind.

Genre: Green Floral

Lily is a cool, liquid, and elegant exercise in minimalism. The citrus top notes are sharp, sour, and acidic, with an air of cider vinegar about them. Crisp and slightly astringent green notes then herald the transparent muguet accord that emerges in their wake. The brisk greens and tart citrus ward off the stuffiness that burdens some muguet fragrances. The end result is bright, clear, and summery.

Lily is a simple scent, linear and not all that long-lasting. It's also happy and uplifting, and I think it makes a great warm weather pick-me-up.

Definitely worth checking out. It opens with quite a tart, loud Lily underpinned with some rose but eventually softens nicely and doesn't go 'powerdery' like some CdG scents can. Doesn't as last as long as I would like but it's a great fragrance to spray on at the start of a beautiful day before heading out.

Early on in my perfume explorations, I bought a bottle of Lily at the cool CDG boutique while on vacation in New York because I liked the peppery greens. Years later, I almost never wear it and only sort of like it, though I use it as a room spray a lot, just because it's around and I want to use it.

It's mostly a mix of the familiar lily chemicals, very green and vaguely aquatic, with a shot of pepper on top, leafy greens in the middle, and a weird milky characteristic that reminds me of sap or the smell of a broken-open piece of aloe. Eventually, this is joined by some faux rose, which lends the whole mix a bit of a white floral quality, as well as a shot of powder. Once the powdery flowers come in, the perfume takes on a fairly realistic quality, though that fake green chemical character never really goes away and there's a waxy plastic note (a CDG trademark) that I usually enjoy in CDG's scents, but that I feel really exaggerates the artificial cheap undertones that are bothering me in Lily.

Knowing what I know now, I'd probably pick Malle's Lys over CDG's Lily. It's very similar, but minus that plastic cheapness and with a part in the drydown that smells dead-on like stargazer lilies, which I love. That being said, I think the truth is that I just don't like lily scents that much. Oh well - live and learn!

Running against the herd here! On first sniff my face automatically turned away in aversion. Thin lily-ish scent with screechy green aspect pulled to the fore. Smells cheap and artificial - perhaps if I'd given it time it would have become better as other reviewers seem to think. Or perhaps not for me.

I guess I'm joining the fan club here: This is a quiet and lovely lily of the valley scent… remarkable for it's simplicity. It opens green – too green, but it doesn't stay in greenness very long. It softly takes on the lily of the valley note, supported by an unaccustomedly quiet freesia in the background giving just the perfect complementary vibrations. From there Lily simply lets its beauty slowly wane and dissolve. …A graceful feminine beauty with good sillage and longevity..