When Charlotte Tilbury's fragrances first appeared at Sephora, I was curious. I did sniff them there and wrote them off: they all had a weird streak to it and I decided to forgo the brand. I got this sample from a free sample giveaway on social media and decided to revisit at least one of their fragrance in the comfort of my home to see if my nose has changed idea. Spoiler: it hasn't.
This starts out beautifully. A soothing lavender, a bright bergamot zing and a delicate neroli. It has comforting and soothing qualities to it. After a few minutes, the aquatic note comes up and adds a calming quality to the scent. All was well. Then... there's the atrocious synthetic accord that comes up. I don't get how it came to be or if it's a mix of notes that went wrong, but it smells like a cheap air freshner or a bathroom cleaning product. It absolutely wrecked all enjoyment I was having of this fragrance up until then. Far from my nose, I can also catch a weird waft of baby powder product (?). Drydown is salty, woody and aquatic with that weird screechy synthetic note that is absolutely off-putting.
There are definitely better soothing herbal and aqautic fragrance out there than this one. Sample before you blind-buy and even then... Try out other fragrances in the same category. You'll definitely find a better offering out there than this one.
