Viva La Juicy Noir Juicy Couture 2013

One of the nicest and most wearable fruity-florals around. Not in the least "noir", but all about berries (strawberries,raspberries) mixed with a sweet caramel-vanilla aromachemical. Poor lasting power and moderate sillage, but cute, tacky bottle. Not the right perfume for a night-out (too conventional), but a pleasant fragrance for every day when you just need a friendly gourmandy-fruity fragrance.

Out of all the VLJ flankers this is one of my least favorites after VLJ "Petals Please" being my least favorite. I also think this is very different from the others.I know lots of people love this one some even love it the most out of all the flankers. So I really badly wanted to like it. But to my nose it is sour and smells more like rotten fruits and has a strong artificial strawberry note. If you don't like this one I recommend you try out the OG VLJ or the VLJ Gold Couture as I think those are much better. I do think the bottle is pretty but unfortunatly that's the only positive thing I can say.

For years I didn't really care for Viva La Juicy, but one day in 2020 I suddenly started to crave it. The original VLJ doesn't work on my skin, it opens up nicely but turns into a boring sour fruity-floral after a while. So I was looking for something very similar with more caramel sweetness and a little less florals. Gold Couture was not an option for me as it's way sweeter and has too little VLJ DNA. So I blind bought VLJ Noir, as all JC fragrances except the original VLJ were pulled from the shelves here in Germany. I guess they never became as popular here as in the US. Luckily this flanker is just what I wanted it to be! I wear it quite a lot when I want something girly and easy-going, no matter the season.

The opening is very fruity and literally juicy, with lots of berries and a little mandarin. There is still some of the clean, fresh honeysuckle and white floral blend of the original, but less of it. Even though the base is full of creamy caramel and vanilla, the overall effect isn't as one-dimensionally sweet as in VLJ Gold Couture. The caramel here feels glossy, not sticky.
Like many people have said before this isn't really dark, "Noir" scent, but it is a delectable fruity floral gourmand and my favorite by Juicy Couture. The performance is about average.

Found a sample and totally had to have it for nostalgia's sake. I remember Juicy Couture perfumes from my teenage years, but for the life of me couldn't recall what exactly they smelled like, so I needed a reminder.

I definitely remember that there were a lot of body sprays and products with the similar smell in 2000s - sweet berry with hints of plastic. This indeed is a defining fragrance line of an era. I didn't notice much development of the scent, just the same sharp sweet and sloghtly sour screech all throughout.

The performance is surprisingly great for the price point, staying up to 6 hours and counting, but devolving into a skin scent after an hour or so. It's definitely worth all the nostalgia, but probably not exactly full bottle worthy for me.

Viva La Juicy Noir was my go-to back when it was released, but I haven't revisited it until now. Curious about how it might have changed in the ten-plus years since it's introduction, I bought a travel-sized spray and explored it again.

Firstly, if there's been reformulation, I can't detect it. It smells just the same and evokes nostalgia for that mid-2010 era of my life. Perfume is such a time machine!

Secondly, it's interesting to revisit a perfume like this today. With all the super-saccharine and uber-gourmands of today, a scent like Viva La Juicy Noir reads as downright restrained. It's sweet but not heavy, fruity but not overbearing. The citrus tempers the sweetness of the fruit at the top, the florals in the middle are nice (but blend together into a vague "floral" and not necessarily into individual notes I can read), and the base is a nice amber wood (I don't get the caramel at all, the vanilla is just a whiff). On me, it doesn't project very far and the longevity is pretty good (the fruits disappear pretty quickly, but the florals and amber wood last for hours).

All told, this is a pretty pleasant scent. It's not challenging or especially groundbreaking, but it is a nice option for a fruity sweet fragrance that isn't saccharine and isn't cloying.