Liquid Illusion Juliette Has A Gun 2018

This is a fragrance that integrates in a youthfull and airy manner the orris notes and the synthetic notes that you’re able to feel in the opening. I get also cherry as a note, even though it’s not listed as one. It’s a nice perfume. It’s a pity they didn’t make it stronger . I get moderate to little projection for around one hour , and then it dissapears. Maybe it’s meant to be worn with the Superdose Not a perfume from the same brand , to increase its strenght.

Many of you will surely know Bob Ross. He was that charming American with the wonderful hair, he painted wet-on-wet, and his pictures and his technique are simply beautiful to me.
Bob always said that you can't do anything wrong when painting, everyone would do it differently, and everything would thus be right. I even tried it once, but my kind of art reflects a different understanding and had a slightly surreal touch of a forest fire after a comet impact with a mud fight of the sea creatures!
I always loved watching him when the reruns were on TV, as he painted an inviting beach, an island, a clearing in the woods... and everything looked so magically simple.
And with so many pictures, I always thought: Nooo Bob, don’t do it, because I knew exactly what would happen:
in a picture that was perfect for me, he would then paint happy little friends, there were trees, bushes, whatever.
And I always thought, put the brush down Bob, don’t do it, nooo there doesn’t need to be a happy little bush, it will be overloaded, just leave it as it is.... But Bob never listened to me (of course, they were recordings...)
What does this have to do with the scent of Juliette Has A Gun, the Liquid Illusion?

Let me tell you!
So now I come to the scent! I was lucky to be part of the sharing that the wonderful BlueValkyrie organized. Thank you once again! I was so excited about the scent! And I was (almost) not disappointed!
It is a sweet, fluffy almond dream, yes indeed.
Gentle, caressing, alluring, and yes, a bit erotic. A wonderfully powdery, not at all dry iris comes along and rounds out the scent, simply beautiful on the skin, and a pleasant sigh escapes my mouth. You lean back in your chair and just enjoy. As if Bob were painting a picture. Such a painting always takes a little time; you don’t just throw it onto the white canvas.
Now let’s say the scent lasts 6-8 hours on the skin (and it does). About halfway through, however, there is something that bothers me a bit. Is it the tuberose? The interplay of the individual fragrance notes on my skin? I don’t know... you slide around in the chair and think: nooo, stay like this, there’s nothing to change! Bob paints an iris and something appears in the scent that bothers me. Whether Bob paints happy little tuberoses... tuberoses... whatever, you slide to the edge of the chair, furrow your brow, and think: it started so wonderfully, it was clear it wouldn’t stay like this!
PUT THE BRUSH DOWN BOB!!!
There’s something ticking in the scent that I don’t like at halftime; I can’t say it any other way.
However, Bob keeps painting undeterred, and the scent then becomes cuddly warm in the base, and the iris is still there. When you look at the picture, you want to scratch off the little bush/shrub/whatever next to the iris and the almond with your fingernail, but that’s not possible.
You slide back in the chair and view the overall (art)work from a distance (I even put on my glasses for that). But take your time with it, observe it from different perspectives, see light and shadow, consider individual components that are sometimes not so perceptible, and linger for a while to then absorb the scent within you.

Liquid sensory illusion. Maybe something is deceiving me about the scent, bringing forth something I hadn’t thought of, whatever. A truly wonderful almond-iris scent with hints of warm tonka bean, it warms the heart wonderfully on colder days, and it should be tried in the summer.
It is and remains very close to the skin, the sillage is rather subtle, and the longevity could be a bit better, although there have been others that quickly sought the exit on my skin. Bob paints, so to speak, with half strength, uses less color, lightens everything up a bit,... so to speak. He washed the brush too early...
A truly beautiful scent, I like to wear it. However, for the price, the sillage and longevity are too low for me.

Sometimes, although rarely, one realizes in that very moment when one finds something that one had been searching for it. Before, one was not even aware of the search. One walked around with a gap of some sort. And one did not notice it. Something was missing, completely unconsciously. Free according to the actually common motto: What one does not know, one cannot miss.
Now I can be quite happy that what I was missing was not something essential like freedom from fear or even love, but something peripheral:

I found my iris scent and only realized in that moment that I had been searching for it.

Iris in fragrances had always been ambivalent for me until now. There was the iris note that I knew from my grandmother's friends. They were really very old, and I was very young at the time, which made them relatively even older. When I smell this venerable note today, these old ladies from my grandmother's skat and poch round appear before my inner eye: gray permanent waves, upright posture, age-marked, knotted-brown, but nimble hands, as they play a card or take a trick with sparkling eyes.
These are beautiful memories that this type of iris evokes in me. But if I were to wear such a scent myself, I would feel disguised and about a hundred years old. So this iris does not work for me.

Then there is iris, often in natural perfumes, often in classics, that smells like liquefied car tires to my nose. This iris note is a bit like the fascination of horror: I have to keep sniffing and discover something wonderful behind the car tires. But unfortunately, it is so overwhelmingly overshadowed by the tire wear that it is hardly perceptible.

Then there is "violet." Now it gets complicated.

Behind "violet," there is usually the scent of the roots of Iris Pallida or Iris Germanica, which through a time-intensive process of maturation and processing become iris butter. Since the scent obtained from the iris roots resembles that of violet flowers, it often appears under this designation in the pyramids.

Nevertheless, I believe I can usually smell a difference, depending on whether "violet" or "iris," or even "iris butter" is listed in today's pyramids.
Most often, "violet" smells more artificial to my nose, only vaguely floral, often less powdery. And when it smells powdery and artificial, it is called "violet leaf."
Après L'Ondée by Guerlain, for example, smells wonderfully of the violet pastilles from the pharmacy to me, but not of what I would classify as "iris." Also, "56 - Violet Powder" by Aura Soma or "Insolence" by Guerlain tend more in this direction.
I like some scents from the violet direction, including those with violet leaf, but to me, they do not smell like my inner conception of "iris."

Liquid Illusion does. Liquid Illusion smells like what I smell behind the car tires, like iris, powdery iris, not like violet, not like violet leaf. Liquid Illusion hits my inner reference of iris. Iris, freed from disturbing factors like car tires or a hundred years of age.

My spontaneous notes a few minutes after the first spray are: "Dream iris! Cooking-dry! Noble and modern, but not cold. Great!"
That is the top note.
In the first tests, the iris seemed to recede and make way in the heart note for a slightly sweet mélange of vanilla/heliotrope/tonka. I still found that pleasant and noble, but no longer as outstanding as the top note. It seemed to me that the iris faded too quickly; I realized that I had been searching for exactly this iris without having known it until now. In the base, a little musk seemed to come in, and the weighting seemed to shift a bit towards tonka, so that the scent ended with a powdery-soft, still slightly sweet tonka-musk foundation.

Now I was uncertain: Should this quickly fading dream iris go on my wish list or not? At that price?

Since I know that the individual perception of scents can change with longer wear, I waited: Would I perceive more or less iris in the long term? Would the musk in the base eventually annoy me, as musk often does?

The development could not have been better: I now smell iris even through the heart note, and the musk recedes more.

Thank you very much, dear Sweetsmell75, for the consequential decant.
Thank you very much, dear little frogs, for the also visually and haptically wonderfully beautiful remaining bottle in the heavy lacquer box.

You have filled my iris gap.

I only knew the brand "Juliette Has A Gun" by hearsay, but the brand name suggested to me that it’s not firing blanks, but rather shooting sharply, and therefore I expected a scent with a proper "bang".

Since I love iris fragrances, I was very excited to snag a sample of Liquid Illusion during a sharing. The anticipation was huge, and my disappointment afterwards was even, much greater. But let’s take it step by step.

Upon spraying, I smell a lipstick note that I really like and that especially piques my curiosity. Something wonderful must follow. Unfortunately, not much else happens, although a creamy/powdery note joins in. The tuberose has canceled its appearance, and tonka also refuses to show up. From a fragrance in this price range, I expect a bit more than just powdery, creamy lipstick, even though I find that very nice. What I find much worse is that LI can only be perceived if I press my nose directly onto the spot where I previously sprayed, and I have to search for that spot like a drug-sniffing dog.

My husband clearly smells the almond and floral notes, but not the lipstick. Overall, he perceives the fragrance differently than I do, but he also describes it as extremely subtle.

Several hours after application, a beautiful, cool whiff of scent keeps wafting into my nose, which I cannot identify more closely. This is clearly LI, even though I cannot perceive any iris as I know it, nor any of the other components listed in the pyramid.

LI leaves me puzzled. I cannot and do not want to evaluate this fragrance, even though I find what wafts into my nose from time to time exceptionally pleasant. From a perfume that isn’t exactly cheap, I definitely expect more. I want to be embraced and accompanied permanently, and a rather random appearance, like lightning on the horizon, is simply too little for me.

Maybe it’s just my skin, which reflects scents very poorly, and I am doing poor Juliette an injustice. Perhaps she really does shoot sharply, and I just don’t hear or smell the bang. It’s also possible that a fragrance ingredient has been used that can only be perceived by a few chosen super noses, and my olfactory organ simply does not belong to this elite circle. After 7 times (in words: seven) spraying, one should perceive a bit more, right? Questions upon questions, and I am, which is actually rare, completely speechless and puzzled. However, the name fits perfectly, because for me, the fragrance is just an illusion.

As I am a very big fan of Not a Perfume Eau de Parfum by Juliette Has a Gun, I purchased a discovery set from the luxury line about half a year ago (it wasn't exactly cheap, but oh well..).

Together with my best friend Helena, I then sat on the bed and tested all the fragrances. Initially, we were both quite disappointed, as almost all the scents smelled musty and somewhat like my 80-year-old neighbor at first impression. So, the samples disappeared into the cupboard for a few months.

Today, I spontaneously decided to test Liquid Illusion again and I must say: I am really positively surprised. NOT all the fragrances from the luxury line smell like grandma ( Moon Dance definitely does, but I will write a separate review for that)!

Since I still find it somewhat difficult to distinguish the various notes in a perfume (and I probably haven't smelled all the fragrance notes yet), I was very surprised when I first sniffed my wrist after spraying. I had never smelled this fragrance like this before.. it must be the heliotrope.

Liquid Illusion smells slightly powdery, clean, clear, powdery-floral and slightly reminds me of Lipstick Fever, especially in the first few minutes.

The development of the scent on my skin is quite linear. It changes very little in my perception and also doesn't have an extremely long-lasting presence.

Nevertheless, I find the scent beautiful. I would/will wear it in spring and summer in everyday life/ for an iced coffee with Helena.

Conclusion: Sometimes it really is worth giving a fragrance a second chance :). Tomorrow, I will continue with the next scent from the Luxury Collection, I am already looking forward to it.