Lola Marc Jacobs 2009 Eau de Parfum

I love sweet fruity scents, so I tried to give this fragrance a chance. I really tried. Lola got so much publicity going for it with its unusual bottle and a promise to vow me with its youthful and fun composition. Unfortunately this scent is worse than many celebrity scents I have tried.

The composition starts with citrus and awfully synthetic pear. The overall effect is unpleasant and frankly I had an urge to scrub it off. There is a bit of improvement as the scent settles on my skin into a sweet non-distinctive rose composition. The scent has formidable strength and tenacity to remain on my skin even after I washed it off, so both, sillage and longevity are nice.

The best part of this perfume is the bottle. It is certainly unusual and unique. When I saw it in person for the first time, I did not know what to make of it. It really walks the fine line between being unique, fun and whimsical, or cheap and tacky. After much debate, I think, somehow, it does manage to remain in artsy rather than trashy category. So I will give credit to Marc Jacobs for its unusual path with the bottle creation.

There are many nicer fruit floral scents on the market, so if you are looking for a fun girly scent I would recommend looking elsewhere. Overall score 5/10.

This is definitely girly girly, sweety sweety. If you are into mysterious or sexy orientals you will probably not like this. There is a very sweet and also kind of harsh top note. Harshness I think comes from the pepper. I have yet to smell the base notes of vanilla and tonka. The middle notes are what I think most people are getting as they don't seem to fade any (at least on me). Rose, peony and geranium are the middle notes and I think that the raspy sweetness is continuing to come from the geranium and peony mostly. It seems to be very strong and lasting and I think some people could find it cloying. However, if you could step away from yourself, say three feet or so, you would probably find it to be much more pleasant. If a person wearing this walked into a room, I think others would just pick up the warm sweet aromas of the florals. I don't think it would come across as sicky sweet to them. I would wear this in the springtime with a sundress and sandals.

Well, what can I say, I genuinely don't understand this fragrance's popularity.

Personally I find this to be your average fruity floral, nothing too ground-breaking here I'm afraid.

Lola is basically an opening of peppery and musky citrus followed by a fresh burst of pear and predictable florals, finishing with an uninspiring blend of musk and vanilla.

I'll give credit to Marc Jacobs for refraining from making this sickeningly sweet like most new perfumes aim to do these days. The scent is playful and young without making one smell like a candy shop.

I can imagine that this will be quite popular this Summer as it seems that already women and young girls alike are buying Lola like hotcakes. From just over-hearing what people have said about Lola, many are attracted to the bottle design. I, for one, don't find the bottle to be overly appealing. The pictures on here seem to flatter the bottle, in real life Lola looks quite tacky, especially with the multi-coloured, plastic folds which are meant to represent god only knows what.

Since I'm a collector of perfume vessels, one generous and well-meaning friend of mine gave me this version of "Lola" as a present. The bottle looks wonderful on my dressing-table, but the scent is nothing I could ever wear. Are you familiar with our cute little German soft candy "gummy-bears"? "Lola Velvet" smells like gummy-bears in a bottle. The Gummibärchen are accompanied by the stench of a polythene sheet or a plastic bag, and "Lola Velvet" ends up smelling so utterly artificial and devoid of any natural ingredient that you start craving for the latest Escada-Summer-Scent. Lola has no soul - it's purple plastic in a bottle.

Lola by Marc Jacobs has become one of these perfumes that were first very popular, and now due to being discontinued are rare and expensive to buy. I have a 30 ml bottle of it that I sort of treasure now. It reminds me of a number of Lancôme perfumes with rose and berry notes in them. Also, it’s a distant cousin of Magnifique, a discontinued fragrance that I failed to buy and which then disappeared completely. To me Lola is not light and not very lighthearted either. I never can wear it casually or for everyday. I only feel like wearing it at night for going out. Which sadly has not been a thing to do for almost a year now due to the pandemic. I think it complements a burgundy velvet dress or a little black dress kind of occasion. It also may have been the reason it got discontinued because it just isn’t an easygoing kind of casual scent. However, it’s a gorgeous dark romantic fruity rose scent that is great for that special date. It’s an absolutely gorgeous Rose peony perfume, and the bottle is very unique. The flowers are made out of vinyl plastic, but the total effect is very chic with a rock star glamour kind of twist from the 80s, but not old fashioned at all. It is warm and a little sweet, romantic but heartbreaking at the same time. So hard to describe it! It’s a shame it was discontinued.