Sun Moon Stars

Such a beautiful floral musk perfume! So my story about the first time I fell for Sun Moon Stars goes like this. I was just finishing high school and already getting into vintage fragrances. A black girlfriend of mine had received this scent as a gift and she absolutely hated it. She preferred Victoria Secret perfumes. She asked me if I wanted it and I said spray it on me girl and she sprayed it on my wrist and I got to smell it. I loved it! After I experienced it the first time I knew I would always have to have it more than once in my life as I do with all my other fragrances. So my girlfriend gave me the bottle for free. The bottle in the EDP spray looks exactly like in this Fragrantica photo. Opens with some vague nondescript fruits but not too fruity, not really. Some peach and bergamot orange thrown into a blender but for some reason I am not really feeling the fruit. It's not as peachy as other Sophia Grojsman perfumes like Tresor (?) but it is as floral as her Yves Saint Laurent PARIS original. Where is the pineapple? This scent is FLORAL folks. What you get is mostly a rich and juicy flower juice. It is the flowers in a fluid syrupy kind of mix. I smell the carnation, I smell the rose, the iris, the jasmine, the heliotrope, the narcissus and the orange blossom. The orange blossom is really singing the high notes in this and joining her is the heliotrope. To me the flowers despite being multi colored seem to lean toward blue like the color of the bottle. To my nose if this were one flower and not many it is more like lupine. Smells like a bunch of lupins or bluebonnets. They are artificial in a painting by Monet. This is a floral Impressionist painting come to life in the form of a scent. It is also whimsical and playful in a fairy way. Smells like a pretty little fairy with bright colored wings and leaves a trail of a rainbow in the air. Smells like a unicorn. This fragrance matches up with the song She's A Rainbow by the Rolling Stones from the 1960s. It has a hippie flower child thing going on. I have a vision of a rainbow haired fairy princess. The flowers are heavy and if you spray too liberally the whole thing will choke you. It is a stifling scent if you spray more than two times. So the real beauty is in the light subtle effect if you spray only once in the right spot i.e. the neck the bosom the wrist. This is a flower bomb. And yet there is no real maturity to it. It has an innocent child aura. It smells like kids in a Kindergarten class playing with Play-Doh. As such I sense this scent would be perfect on a female school teacher that works with children. This is a motherly and womanly scent but young and who loves children. She is a happy woman. The perfume has a happy vibe. She is wearing a fairy tale princess costume and reading a children's book to small kids. This is not at all seductive, exotic, sultry, sexy or bewitching. It's not for a date night to attract a man. It's for a woman to wear to be noticed and complimented by other women or as I said a teacher who likes to smell good in class. This has a casual air but might suit a dressy event in the day time and in spring such as a tea party or picnic. This is a fabulous floral musk. The musk is in the dry down but it is not a sex bomb musk. It's a powdery musk that is enhanced with vanilla. There is clearly amber and it is keeping this whole thing together as a gorgeous fixative along with the musk. I'm also smelling the wood notes of cedar and sandalwood. The whole thing has enormous sillage and long lasting life. A whole day. This is my kind of perfume but I would only wear it in spring because in summer it's too gross. I also would only wear it with other women around me in a relaxed and semi formal event such as a picnic or a lunch or a tea party. This is a dreamy fragrance and I am here to sing it's praises. If you like PARIS by YSL the vintage then you will also love this one because it's got that same kind of magic floral spell going on. I love it!!!!!!!

Sun Moon Stars is a magical fragrance. I don’t mean that figuratively. Once upon a time (aka the 90’s) my mother owned Sun Moon Stars. She had a full-size bottle, and because I was fascinated she bestowed upon me its teeny matching sample bottle for my very own. I dearly wish I still had that memento from my early childhood - there was something so enchanting about the bitty blue-glass bottle that fit perfectly in my child-sized palm as I traced a chubby finger over the embossed celestial bodies. Even though it was long since empty, I could still remove the cap and catch a whiff of the warm heady scent it had once held. I pretended it was a chalice for some mystical potion with which to enchant and lure in the object of my affections (aka Daniel from my kindergarten class). I longed for the day I might inherit my mother’s large bottle, which to my child’s fanciful mind would never run dry until it was my turn to receive it - my destiny, my birthright. You can imagine then my devastation when my mother got rid of it because it wreaked havoc with her allergies. Heartbroken but resigned, I wandered lonely and stinky in this world, certain I would never recover from the debilitating blow of mother’s treachery. How dare her medical malfeasance take this perfume from me? Surely it was writ in the heavens that Sun Moon Stars would be mine! And, as though by fate itself, a few years ago my breath caught in my throat as I perused the shelves of a secondhand shop - there, waiting for me as if by magic, was the unmistakable blue bottle from my youth. It was dusty and splashed with candlewax but still nearly full, weighty with the promise of that powerful perfume my earliest memories could still recall. I paid the potion-seller’s price in a daze, not certain this was anything more than a daydream, clutching my treasure to my chest. How to describe this fragrance upon my first spritz? It was as though returning wearily home after a long journey and opening the door to your cozy house - the bright heady scent of a vase of fresh-cut carnations and daffodils, mouthwatering warm spices tempered by a touch of powder, and an eventual drydown to sweet creamy vanilla and the comforting glow of amber, which swaddles you as you sink into your favorite chair beside the crackling fireplace. Sun Moon Stars is luxurious and exotic, shimmery, it sinks into your skin and becomes a part of you, and clings to your clothes so that you still smell hints of floral and incense as you balance the laundry basket against your hip while loading the washer. It’s the scent of a secret smile the lovely young lady across the room sends you behind her glass of champagne - alluring, playful, gorgeous, elegant, tempting! In a word: magical.

Review for the frosted bottle EDT: I've been on a pineapple kick recently, and decided to give this a shot despite the negative reviews. My immediate impression upon spraying was that it was what I had been expecting from Guerlain's Insolence. Very fruity, almost acrid florals, the slight artificial gloss of freesia...it was a little uncomfortable, but intriguingly voluptuous, and definitely created an impression of edgy elegance contrasted with impetuous sensuality. The fruit fades within the first hour, and the freesia does as well (yay!) What's left behind is a surprisingly spicy blend of woods-seriously, there's got to be a missing note, this is SPICY- a wonderfully buttery narcissus/orris root accord, a touch of orchid, and a warm strong carnation note, providing a touch of sharpness. From time to time I do catch something that smells like nail polish...faint, just a hint. It's like a practical joke is being played on the wearer. Vanillic heliotrope also wafts in and out during this phase. The heart isn't sweet, and it's more the oily version of the often powdery florals. For me this is a sign that real ingredients were used, rather than synthetics. After a couple of hours the powdery aspects of the scent appear, and it sweetens quite a bit, resurrecting that almost voluptuously feminine accord- think layered raw silk,cotton so thin it's almost sheer, lace chemises.... I would characterize SMS as work wear with a sense of humor, that slides into boudoir wear as it evolves. There is something playful about this scent, and yet it evokes a certain presence, a sense of authority, in the opening and heart. It's an interesting combination, and one worth experiencing. The dry down is more reminiscent of an evening scent to me. I would think that it would layer well, also. I'd suggest applying this just before leaving work to go out for drinks. By the time you made it home the scent would be ready for bed. SMS is built like a vintage floral, and doesn't follow the contemporary trends. I like it, and understand where the poor reviews are coming from- SMS uses a different frame than many are used to. This is the perfect contemporary floral for a vintage lover! Sillage reduces greatly after the dry down is achieved... shame, that. In my opinion, if you like vintage florals (40s-60s) give this a shot. If you prefer contemporary florals, you probably will not enjoy this particular scent.

I bought Sun Moon Stars in 1999 for the first time. I didn't understand it and, after being tired of the evidence of "wasted money", I got rid of my full 3.4 oz bottle (the worst part of it was the crime I committed with it - I think, I just threw it away). Fast forward to modern day. I got a bottle of a Hempz body lotion in Vanilla Plum, and as I was putting it on, I got hit with the most sweet heavenly sense of nostalgia! After a few days of trying to remember what was this aroma that gave me these feels, I realized that it was Sun Moon Stars by Karl Lagerfeld. Immediately, I needed a bottle, or, better, two. I go online, I search, I find out it's been discontinued. This pushes me, surely, to obsess even more. I find and buy a couple of expensive original bottles. Gestalt is closed, life is great. However. Recently, I stupidly bought a cheap bottle of what looked like SMS perfume on a certain auction site. In a sleepy haze I didn't think to check twice for detail shots (there were none) or reputation of a seller and hurried and bought it, thinking I was lucky and getting a deal. Long story short - the perfume I received was fake. The box says "united colors & prestige beauty". The seller argued with me about the perfume being re-released. I checked news, knowing how legendary and iconic the fragrance was - there was nothing in the fragrance community news. It was never re-released, the patent rights never were transferred to any other manufacturer. Please, beware of this. The cheap price will give you a bad-looking copy with a faint smell that may be reminiscent to the original conceptually, but even for a "dupe" the quality is scandalous. It starts with a hit of pure alcohol, with middle notes of more alcohol and then in "base" you'll hear something faintly powdery and fruity.

The original Lagerfeld version was my signature from 1994-1996. Nobody else in my social circle wore it; they were all sporting fluffy pink girly-girl scents, where this one was deeper, more mature, and just a pinch dark. It was me in a bottle. A gift from my then-fiance, I stopped wearing it when the relationship fell apart, but I never stopped loving it (or him, deep down). Scent is so strongly tied to memories, and it was so beautiful but so painful that I had to let it go. Fast forward nearly 30 years, and I picked up the United Colors remake on a nostalgic whim. At first I was deeply disappointed; it was a weaker shadow of the original. Vaguely familiar but thinner, more synthetic, and missing the deep hue that I always imagined as the Moon part of the equation. I put it away and mused about how the perfume went the same way of the relationship--a pretty memory lost to time. Then an hour later I raised my arm to open a cabinet and there it was, the long-lost scent in it's beautiful painful glory wafting up to flood my senses with vivid flashes of nervous laughter, a diamond, excited promises, and the unspoiled optimism of a young girl in love crossing the threshold of womanhood. Such a sweet ache, all stirred by a simple waft of scent. In life we learn to keep the good memories and leave the bad behind, and that's oddly what this remake seems to embody. The initial disappointment of the synthetic opening fades away with a little time, leaving behind traces of the beautiful scent I knew and loved. The magic lasts and lingers just like the memories. A true love for me, and just like true love, even this remake is definitely worth going for, and waiting for.