Lys 41

My favorite scent from Le Labo! Unsure as to why this was named Lys, as it’s a tuberose scent. Tuberose is at least 85% - 90% of what I smell from this fragrance. Other notes are softly well blended to enhance the tuberose. It does have a warm, summery tuberose monoi feel. Smells like clean young sunkissed skin. It doesn’t have the green sharp eucalyptus vibe of Carnal Flower or Moon Bloom, and it lacks the sugary bubble gum gourmand sweetness of Love Tuberose. It's stronger, better performing, and slightly more musky/less soapy than Gucci Bloom. I can pick up some green notes in the first 15 minutes and then they fade into the warm summery tropical smelling tuberose. My only issue is that I seem to go anosmic to this scent after an hour or so. It isn’t a beast-mode fragrance, no matter how much you overspray, but it is much stronger and longer lasting than any other tuberose scent I've tried. After an hour I mostly get gentle bursts of this when I smell myself directly. Though if I spray before bed, I can still subtly smell this when I wake up. I don’t think this smells mature at all, to me it does remind me of some sunscreen I used as a kid 20+ yrs ago back when sunscreens smelled amazing, so it reminds me of the way I used to smell when I was under the age of 10. It doesn’t have coconut or other sunscreen notes so it’s close, but doesn’t quite enter the sunscreen genre. I really don’t get any lily or jasmine at all, and I own/wear Alien and Jasmine Sambac body oil regularly and I have a garden full of jasmine. Gucci Bloom has more of lily dominance than Lys 41. I do not know what Santal 33/sandalwood notes others refer to here. I’m a Santal/sandalwood lover and would say this is a tropical floral scent with no obvious woody notes, it certainly doesn't have any sort of sharp green sandlewood/pickle accord (I don't read Santal 33 as pickles but I know what note others refer to as pickles - to me it smells more green fresh crisp almost like cucumber). I know a lot of people refer to tuberose scents like this and Carnal Flower as elegant lady scents, however they work very well on more casual, earthy types of women as well. I don’t feel like putting on a fancy dress and heels when I wear this, I feel like wearing a sexy bikini or a white crop top with cut off jean shorts. Maybe a flowy beachy vacation dress. Love it, I’m still looking for something similar with a bit more strength, but this is the best one I've found so far.

Inhaling from the vial gives a heavenly heady naturally sweet floral with that grapey bubblegum note I’m so drawn to in certain tuberoses. But this is lily, no? Was beginning to think I couldn’t distinguish lily from tuberose until I saw the note list and tuberose is the most prominent note in the fragrance. This is, in essence, a tuberose scent. There’s also participation from jasmine. After abt 15m the savory drier woody elements appear, a bit of saltiness I associate with sandalwoods. Compared to Serge Lutens Un Lys this is quite a bit more syrupy sweet that’s more charateristic of tuberose and jasmine. We’ve gone deeper into the the tropics and the distinction between lily and tuberose becomes very clear. SL Un Lys is truly a lily scent and the contrast between these two scents reveals lily as tamer, gentle. But to be clear the drier woody elements of Lys 41 tame this tuberose, which at first hints at unbridled indolic sensuality. However, the woods continue to expand and while that grapey bubblegum expressed by only the dirtiest of tuberoses remains, this scent stays grounded. I’m impressed with how Le Labo has achieved this balance, capturing what are for me the most beautiful elements tuberose has to offer, elements many find off-putting, yet here tempering their darkness, damp and danger in a beautiful and very wearable scent. I get no suntan lotion or beachy associations. Tropical, yes. I also get little if any vanilla. All the sweetness and warmth seem distinctly floral and what I’ve come to expect from tuberose and jasmine. I don’t doubt there’s vanilla here as it’s so often deployed in base notes, but the sweetness in this base is softer and subtler than most vanillic drydowns so it doesn’t read as vanilla so much to me. Surprised its sillage rating is modest, as I found this to expand noticeably for at least an hr and a half. 2 1/2 hr in it’s nearly a skinscent so I’m side eyeing the longevity rating. As for the lily, f*ck that. Nah, it’s fine. It’s just the skinscent that’s left is the only place the lily appears, light amid the haze of musk. In truth, I love this and regret not having revisited this sample in seven years. I’ll admit I’d become a bit dismissive of Le Labo for no reason other than it’s seeming ubiquity. A flimsy excuse. This is a remarkable scent. 8.5/10.

Lys 41 billows about sumptuously, luxuriantly around its wearer; a huge bouquet of white lilies, immediately recognisable. This is a very photo-realistic composition to my nose. I get none of the vanilla nor the woody notes it proclaims to contain. Nor does it in any way connote anything at all close to sunscreen for me. Just white lilies through and through, from the very first spray to the very last aroma molecule that dries up and dissipates off my skin. I also have Diptyque’s Do Son, which has similar notes of tuberose and jasmine. They share DNA, to be sure, but where Do Son has a rich creaminess about it (almost bordering on oily for me, somehow), Lys 41 has a freshness and a clarity about it that lends to its sense of realism. I wholly agree with the reviewer who said this fragrance is very Hawai’i. It imparts a beautiful tropicality in the most natural and straightforward way. Where I currently live, June and July nights are redolent with the scents of grand crinum lillies, Easter lilies, and white angel’s trumpets wafting through the air near streams and coastlines. It’s magical, meditative, a wonderful respite from the oppressive heat of daytime. This fragrance smells just like those starlight-kissed nights. It finds perfect synergy with heat and humidity to create a salubrious bubble of refreshing beauty around its wearer. Compliments abound from people of all ages and genders. It is the end of November now, however, and I’ve just worn this for the first time outside of summer. To my slight dismay, but to hardly any surprise, it did not carry with it that same sense of resplendence. If you live somewhere hot and humid, Lys 41 is absolutely exquisite. If not, well—it may seem a bit more typical, a bit more pedestrian. Just goes to show how relative and context-specific our responses to smells are—and how fragrances respond to different atmospheric conditions as well, I suppose.

this was the first perfume i had ever bought with my own money (had a peculiar taste for the finer things even as a freshman in high school). my mom had initially gotten upset at me b/c i spent the labor day allowance $ she gave me for clothes to buy this instead. savored it, used it at my first ever homecoming, my two proms, with a soul-crushing situationship when we were cuddling on nye of this year. i think this is why he's broken no contact many, many times since. i wore it also when we broke up b/c it was (still is, i've just run out) my comfort scent. this is one of the most beautiful fragrances i have ever had the pleasure of having. i truly do not think i am worthy. if you do not enjoy it, either mail me yours or give it the time it deserves to mature in its maceration. i believe a few years ago when i bought it initially, it was a strong sweet lily-like white floral. after a few years though, there is this truly amazing scent that comes out that i can only describe as sunlit - this incredible warmth beyond words. i imagine this is what heaven would smell like. as for the sillage/longevity, it's perfect for my taste. somewhere closer on the spectrum to a skin scent, yet lasts for far longer than you'd expect. i'm writing this in my college dorm now, away from home, and all i can think about is how much i would give to just savor the last bits i had of this fragrance. update: my best friend bought me it for my 18th!

GOD. Actually getting teary-eyed at the prospect of reviewing this perfume but seeing as it's my absolute ride or die I feel as though I must. My mom wore La Chasse aux Papillons by L'Artisan Parfumeur when I was younger, and this scent reminds me of that one every time, even after years of wearing it. Tuberose is truly the goddess of all flowers. It's beautifully white and yellow and light and dark and nasty and sweet and harsh and totally chill like oh my God. Lys 41 smells like everything lovely and neutral and tragic about girlhood, like lying on your stomach on the floor kicking your feet in the air and writing in your diary while the breeze from the open window flutters the pages. Maybe you're writing about terrible things but the moment is calm and beautiful. Maybe you're still wearing somebody else's lipstick on your neck and wondering why you've never really liked roses, or a record is spinning on the turntable and you're sticky with the heat of dancing around the bedroom you've danced in your whole life. Not sure where I'm going with this. I love being a girl and I love my mom and I love tuberose. I love that there are so many ways to be a girl and to smell like a girl. Before I had a full sized bottle of this I would save my little sample to wear when I was going to see my girlfriend. I really love her a lot. There are so many things in this world that I love. Ok that's all.