Beautiful Belle

First off, I love the clear glass bottle. This fragrance, to me, is more than just a Beautiful flanker. While it has some of the 'Beautiful' factor going for it, it stands alone as a modern but at the same retro/vintage perfume. For you to not only appreciate this fragrance, much less love it, you have to be into florals. This is a floral bomb. At the same time, it's a subtle scent and not a bomb-bomb either. The opening notes are fresh and citrusy with orange blossom and mimosa. The yellow floral aspects come through first within the first couple of minutes. A bright, sunny yellow flower-forward scent. It evokes the image of a park in the middle of a city (as in Central Park; but any city park) in the warm summertime under the trees of yellow flowers. It has distinctive green notes and herbal nuances. I suppose the green stuff I detect are the shrubs and leaves of both the orange blossom and the gardenia. The white florals gradually open up but later in the performance. Then it's no longer yellow floral but a real sweet white floral character: gardenia and tuberose. This is the finest but yet subtlest non-offensive pairing of two of the most aggressive florals that are otherwise bombs for your nose; gardenia and tuberose. These are shy white florals; dainty and sweet, lady like, elegant. The rose also adds to the sweetness. The litchi is most obvious as the fragrance begins to get into the dry down. It's a delicious fruit, almost tropical, with a tangy nearly pineapple like flavor. But it is straight up litchi. The marzipan is the one note I cant pick up on. If others can, that's them. To me the litchi is the real sweet factor of this scent. It brings the whole thing together into a atypical feminine perfume. It is mature-hearted; meaning a woman in her 20's can pull it off. But it is more for a woman over 30 or over 40 and up that has an attachment to florals. The perfume is classy and expensive smelling. Because it is so floral and sweet, it is better in the spring and summer months. At times, too, it gives of that powdery cosmetic, for women only - make up, perfume, woman at her toilette type of vibe. This perfume is an all purpose scent. That means it can be formal for weddings or other formal events to be worn with a pretty gown or dress; lunch with the girls, shopping, going about your day and smelling good kind of perfume. It's just a feel good woman's perfume. Downside: the scent does not last very long. While it is strong enough to be smelled in all it's glory and all it's facets, the dry down comes too soon and the whole thing is gone in less than one or two hours which is not long enough to really enjoy it as a traditional perfume. It could have lasted longer and had better projection. One needs to reapply many times through the day to really enjoy it. This is also very much a department store perfume; meaning that it is not a specific boutique smell i.e. Chanel, Dior, but the kind you definitely get at a Macy's or Sephoras. I bought mine at the JFK airport Duty Free Shop. I did not have a good experience with the sales lady that sold it to me. She was the only one working there that day and had an attitude. I was in the section where you have past the security checkpoints and you wait for your flight before boarding and she was still suspicious about me; like I was going to steal some perfume. Maybe others have stolen perfume from that shop in the past; but she was not supposed to ask for my boarding pass like I didn't have it. How did I get there if I didn't have it for God's sake. I also did not like that she asked where I was heading to like it was none of my business. She must not like her job at all. But the experience with the perfume itself was wonderful. It is a gorgeous perfume. I did blind buy it. There was no way of smelling it on a blotter but it was a happy and successful blind buy. I recommend this fragrance to fans of florals; particularly yellow and or white florals, and fans of sweet womanly mature scents. I also was quite hooked when I read the reviews here on Fragrantica as I looked at my phone before I bought it; particularly the ones that described this scent as evocative of Disney princesses Aurora and Belle. I think this is more Belle, not Aurora. Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) would be more rose-centered. She was Briar Rose and she sleeps with a rose over her folded hands during her sleeping spell. The fragrance would smell more 'pink'. This one is yellow and creates the image of Belle in the yellow ball gown she wears to dance with Beast. At the same time it is calm and soothing, garden-like, giving off the Belle in the French countryside or in a garden vibe. This is just so beautiful. Thank you Fragrantica for getting me interested in it.

Hello from Deco Dawn, I hope everyone has enjoyed the Summer and is looking forward to Christmas 2018. This is my review of the 'New' Estee Lauder Fragrance Autumn 2018 Beautiful Belle. I tested this at the airport in October and I loved it. I now own 2 small 4ml bottles as I like to trial all new launches and tiny bottles are ideal for my Xmas party handbag. Review A lot of thought has gone into the marketing & design. Lovely packaging. White box with Gold Edging. Looks very classy. Bottle is a glass square with etched design on front with gold accents to spray and lid. 30ml is handbag friendly, larger bottles 50ml and 100ml are perfect to adorn any ladies dressing table. Price ranges £52, £72, £99. Upon first spray Belle reminds me of two Classic Estee Lauder classic fragrances, 'Tuberose Gardenia' and 'Intuition'. Product is made of high quality ingredients. Belle is a combination of the two fragrances. Kind word of warning to potential buyers Belle does not resemble the original Beautiful at all, in any of its previous incarnations. So test before blind buying is advisable. I would class this fragrance as a Floriental. White floral explosion opening, fresh and flowery, the heart of the fragrance is Tuberose & Gardenia and with a Musky, sensual & sexy Drydown. Aerin Lauder is the creative Director. Romantic but modern, stays very close to the skin, radiates within arms length. I would use this fragrance during the daytime as very polite, inoffensive & office friendly. Very long lasting 8 hrs plus. Classy, sophisticated and smells very expensive. Very Estee Lauder. An ideal gift and perfect for the lady in your life. Age range IMHO due to the price tag classy ladies that lunch who can afford it. This fragrance will be a huge success, purchase and buy the Blockbuster make up set for Christmas 2018. Don't just try it buy it. I love it. A big thumbs up from Deco Dawn. xx

I don't have any experience with the original Belle, so I don't have any attachments or bias in that regard. All I know is that I love heady tuberose and sweet white florals; and I am drawn to scents that combine them with a musky or woody base, which usually increases the lasting power on me. So in that regard, I really do enjoy this fragrance. The first tuberose-heavy scent I acquired this year is the Gucci Bloom EDP and Beautiful Belle by Estee Lauder reminds me of that scent, at least in regards to how it reacts to my body chemistry. On my skin (particularly my neck and chest), Beautiful Belle and Gucci Bloom are near duplicates. I can really pick up that woodsy-tuberose combo that vacillates between sweet floral and deep floral. They both have an intense sillage that can really engulf a small area and leave a trail. But when I smell Beautiful Belle on a note card or the skin on back of my hand (which reacts differently than the skin on my neck, for some reason)...Estee Lauder reminds me more of Woman by Ralph Lauren. Ralph Lauren Woman is a bit more feminine, a bit more girlish and the same can be true of Beautiful Belle, depending on how your skin reacts to it and how it emphasizes certain notes. If that marzipan is emphasized for you and highlights the creamy sweetness of tuberose and gardenia in the middle notes, it is going to be candied and perform as if a perfumer added some citrus-floral notes to Pink Sugar by Aquolina. So it all comes down to how this reacts to your skin, which is true of all perfumes. Based on my experience, it will either perform as a girlishly sweet floral with a slight depth, or a deep and heady floral that skates the fine line between classic and overly mature. The latter is what I get and I actually love that. So this perfume is a win for me.

Love this so much! Gifted myself a full bottle for my 30th birthday as a transition scent. My husband called it “sexy grandma” because it does have some maturity to it after all the vanilla heavy gourmand younger scents I’ve worn. But it’s not “old” by any means. My little daughter loves it too! She breathes it in deeply and always says how good it is! Awesome lasting power. On clothes I can still smell it the next day. It’s different then my previous fragrances and that’s exactly what I wanted for a transitional scent. It’s not for wintertime. I love gardenias but usually not in my perfumes...however - this one changed my mind! As a huge lychee lover, I love the juicy lychee opening. Then the beautiful white florals come through. And the dry down is so unique with that creamy “white chocolatey” marzipan but then it’s balanced and matured with the suede note! Similar to leather but different. It bugged me at first until I realized what it was and then I really enjoyed it. Funny enough I was wearing my suede shoes when I realized what that note was too. It just all makes sense together and works well with the tuberose. It performs so good on a hot day. Makes me feel beautiful and happy. There is a real romance happening with this one. The feeling of being in love and feeling good in your own skin. And the feeling of being surrounded by white flowers on a beautiful sunny day. That’s the picture that comes to mind when I smell this one. Definitely a good wedding choice too.

My mother’s garden was a riot of colours and fragrances, with jasmines and frangipani and roses and tuberoses all vying for attention. In a quiet corner, quite by itself, grew a gardenia plant. For the rest of the year it didn’t really play a contributing role, but come spring, it burst into blooms, perfuming the air itself with its heady scent. On spring evenings, particularly after an unexpected bout of rain, those gardenia blooms seemed to glisten and sparkle, spreading their fragrance all around. Beautiful Belle captures the essence of those gardenia scented spring evenings to perfection. The first whiff is just as heady as the real deal, and as it settles down, it becomes softer, quieter and less persistent, but still very much, well, beautiful. This is a walk on dew soaked grass, bare feet, in a white dress and hair let down, feeling the breeze caress your skin. I don’t get much of the other notes (what marzipan? What litchi? Where is the rose?) Instead all I get is a harmonious gardenia through and through - dulcet and creamy. Wearing this tonight as a sort of “palate cleanser” from the heavily gourmand perfumes I have been testing, and loving the soft white cloud that seems to be following me everywhere I go.