New Romantics

as I said in the shop floor to my coworkers, New Romantics chooses you, and not the other way around. it’s a genuinely head scratching scent for a lot of us including me, because it just... reads like orange rind. when I smelled this on the strip, I had war flashbacks from bartending days where i was making 10 aperol spritzes a minute and peeling orange after orange in a valiant attempt to please the drunken masses, but on the skin, it’s a different story. on others, they tend to wrestle with the citrus and spice and whatever the hell davana wants to bring to the table that day, and on one of my coworkers, this smells EXACTLY like an orange scented cleaning spray. on me however, it turns into this bright orange, ripe and juicy, tropical sunshine filled papaya. straight up papaya. a dolls head type papaya, but papaya nonetheless. one of my friends said “you smell like a high class escort” which was so funny because I described this to people as “filipina barbie on the streets of Salcedo village in the 80s smoking and awaiting her next meeting”. the dry down I notice ends up into this creamy spicy warm sweet scent that really makes me think of fixing my hair after a hookup. I honestly don’t know what is super valentines about this, but I absolutely love it nonetheless. longevity is similar to white label perfumes which is fine, esp for the price point. I love it a lot and I think this should be layered to appreciate it. EDIT 6/11/2024: she's back as Betel, have fun yall!

I remember the 80s and this does not smell like my 80s (best just leave it there!) Love it though - rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb! Wierdly on a bed of bananas and custard stewed with sweet spices - who would eat that? Smells good though. No hint of sick for me but I guess that is the slightly sour note otherwise attributed to sour fruits of various kinds. Anyway, I am finding New Romantics absolutely addictive. Ok, maybe that's an 80s substance sense memory after all ;)

on my skin, the sweetness is only slightly apparent; this reminds me a lot more of jasmine tea, or perhaps a raspberry herbal tea. i also sometimes get the wish of a tangerine peel, but it's nothing too sweet and smells quite natural and soft that is hard to find in other lush perfumes (except for karma maybe). for me, it's a really pleasant surprise and i'm sad it's a spring exclusive!

this smells exactly like forest berry jello at first sniff, exactly the kind my mom used to make from the packet - I can imagine it even now. the cloves stay, or something else spicy, I kinda like it as it still reminds me of that jello smell but now it reminds me more of the universal Lush smell (to me!!).

Now let me tell you something... The opening smells exactly like the orange flavoured CAPRI-SUN! And the dry down is sipping on mulled wine on Christmas Eve. What more can you possible wish for???? Love in a bottle.

This smells just like a Capri sun at first for me, and then it mellows out into a powdery, bright orange candy with a hint of coconut. One of my favourites!

This smells exactly like a ripe Peach stone, I absolutely love it.

I work in lush and DID NOT like this perfume when I tested it on a spray card. I tested it again on my skin when I noticed we only had one bottle left and really liked it! It smells very fruity on my skin at first (like a fruit punch with a tiny bit of turkish delight?) but then it turns to a really fuzzy white flesh peach which smells so cute! (if you imagine eating a peach on holiday. The peach is sweet BUT not overly ripe and it is still a bit crunchy, not soft and mega juicy...lol) It reminds me slightly of a Victorias Secret or Hollister body spray in the sense that it is quite a young scent but it has grown up a tiny bit?... this scent just makes me feel really sweet and cute and I can't wait to wear it in summer with a cute floral sun dress!

I don’t understand what everyone’s problem is with this fragrance...like calm down people it’s not that bad. And also no it does not smell like orange juice? I don’t know what type of orange juice everyone out here is drinking but proper orange juice does not smell like this. NR smells 100% like a christmas fruit tea. I actually think it’s the most photorealistic perfume I’ve ever smelled. And that’s also where the acidity in this perfume comes from. It’s not rotten or overripe, it’s like the fruit scent you get from tea. If you’re European and you’ve ever bought winter fruit tea bags, you know what I’m talking about! It’s not sophisticated or mind blowing but a comforting scent for the winter months.

Imagine being on a beachside restaurant having brunch and cocktails way too early in the morning. Orange peel, fruit compote, some acidic almost liquor type note. Polarizing, sometimes smells like a citrus scented bathroom cleaning agent. I never wear this alone unless I want to piss off everyone in a 2 meter vicinity, but adds a beautiful complexity to clean soapy perfumes when layered. DO NOT blind buy unless you’re brave.

Smells like winter berry fruit tea with orange juice. Pretty unique, lush quality (which is good imo, long lasting and decent projection) but i hardly ever wear it. Message me if you want this, my bottle is pretty much full and I'd gladly swap it for another perfume (we can seal the deal on vinted)

to me this perfume smells like pure orange juice, and then when it dries down it's like a really powdery cinnamon candy/big red gum.

I get a stone fruit/peach note like crazy. I love it.

I went to test this one as after reading the generally negative reviews on the Lush website as I figured it wasn't a safe blind buy, even for someone like myself who has a lot of Lush perfumes. I came out £30 poorer! This doesn't smell anything like I'd expected from the reviews. It's also quite strong to me - not Lust levels of strong (not many perfumes are as strong as that beast!), but stronger than many other Lush scents I have. I smell tons of orangery citrus in here and I find those zingy, fruity notes to be the dominant aroma, not the davana or spices.... there is certainly a bit of a resinous feel, but no more so than many other Lush scents. I can sense the through-line to this from Love, Karma and 1000 kisses deep for instance so I do still recognise this typical Lush. My first thought was "this reminds me of something edible from my childhood" like fruit salad sweets or wham bars or something and as I was born in 1982, the name New Romantics and the perfumer being inspired by the 80s rings true to me. Then I started thinking about what it was reminding me of from Lush specifically, because it really does smell familiar. It reminds me A LOT of Very Very Scary shower gel! The acid yellow bottle my husband and I used to love, which came out for halloween a couple of years back - I referred to it as our P0rn Star Martini shower gel because it reminded me of the passion fruit cocktail that I used to be partial to in my younger years. New Romantics has a very similar scent - it smells like a tangy cocktail! In a way I'd say that this is almost the grown up version of Princess Peach body spray.... I'm wondering if that is the same perfumer (I don't know why Fragrantica don't name the Lush Perfumers anymore, but I believe the nose behind New Romantics is Emma Vincent?!). She clearly loves zesty scents. Supermilk and Avocado Co-wash are hers too I think and they all have sherbetty elements. I never had an impulse body spray that smelt like this (I had many of them fyi!) but I definitely had some Escada summer limited editions that weren't far off. This is almost the Lush equivalent of those "wear it to the bar" style Escada's like Rockin' Rio and Hippy Chic but with much nicer ingredients, so not as cheap smelling. Having said that, you will not smell chic or expensive in this. You'll smell youthful in a 2-4-1 cocktail joint kinda way..... Nowt wrong with that! *Edit!* I remembered what this smells like from my 80s childhood... Sunquick Real Orange Fruit Concentrate drink! Lol what a blast from the past! I'm sad to say that this one seems to give me headaches so I might have to return it :(

smells like bananas, tropical fruit, crayons. a lot of people say it smells like vomit and i can see that but i don't immediately think of it upon smelling. i think this perfume is lacking something and i'm not sure what? patchouli maybe?

I am starting to have a big Lush collection and getting bored because they tend to all go to the same direction. This one is no exception. No big surprise here.

Smells like a specific type of chewable multivitamins that I was fed as a child by my mother. Very nostalgic, but not a great smell.

I cannot smell any citrus notes in it, just a lot of cloves. It can feel somewhat suffocating if warm weather or when overspayed.

This perfume was quite a pleasant surprise for me. Normally, I'm not a fan of fragrances with citrus notes, but this one really impressed me. It evokes the sensation of a spicy citrus-infused milk tea, despite not having any milk notes in it. There's a subtle medicinal scent to it, but oddly enough, I find it rather appealing. The longevity is impressive as well. It's a pity that it's only available as a limited edition in a 30ml bottle. Hopefully, Lush decides to bring it back. Edit: I changed my mind, it smells like shit.

this one smelled soooo bad/sour on my skin, like passion fruit almost? but with a bad stank :( I think the davana oil just isn’t for me

Not for me. At all. I own 17 Lush fragrances & have smelled a lot more, so I’m not a neophyte regarding their typical scents. I get that they’re out-of-the-box & can be somewhat strange scents. This one, however, is simply unwearable for me. This smells like a teenager’s cheap body spray & is not in any way how I (at 53) want to smell. At first spray, I was immediately reminded of how an early 1990’s Victoria’s Secret store smelled when I’d first enter it — overpowering juvenile fruity scent. Then, it became a sour orange-heavy fruit punch...with spices & earthy raisins mixed in, reminding me of being immersed in the mish-mash of a Yankee Candle store. It smells over ripe & somewhat sickly. Nope. Very off-putting to me. Sad to say...this was a complete blind-buy fail. I’ll never leave the house with it on...& can’t stand it enough to wear it only at home. So much for the intrigue I felt for a scent being created to honor the New Romantic wave of music from the 80’s, which I lived through & loved! This scent is not in any way indicative of the 80’s & upon dry down + several hours, it legitimately evokes only one single scent memory of the 80’s for me —> the smell of my mom’s open box of Kotex maxi pads sitting on the back of the toilet. (OMG...) No, I’m not kidding. I really wish I was! Maybe one of my nieces will like it...but I doubt it.

The unsuccessful sum of disparate parts. There's a strange, almost unblended quality in its competing notes. Peaches spiked with cloves would have made a distinctive, perhaps even pleasant perfume, but when overlayed with a Lushy bubblegum sweetness, the overall impression is an offputtingly medicinal take on those foamy candies you find in pick and mix. It's jarring. A terribly overpowering and misguided formulation. Like a child mixing medicinal shampoo with peach bodywash and whatever else they've found by the bathtub for good measure. An absolute Frankenstein's monster of a fragrance. You could sympathise more with such a bold experimentation if it wasn't so cloyingly headache-inducing. Please don't persevere with this one as it doesn't get any better on dry down, but will cling to you as all Lush fragrances do. A truly disagreeable fragrance.

I tried so hard to like it but it makes me gag. It's super sweet and fruity, which I usually love. It smells like overripe peach and citrus mixed with wet green and earthy notes - but something rancid takes over. It almost smells like rotting fruit that's been left in the dirt to decompose. It also sticks to everything, it takes days for it to leave my clothes.

Whoever said it smells like winter fruit tea is spot on. Don’t get me wrong, I love drinking these kinds of teas, but wearing them is another story. I blind bought this thinking I’d love it, but alas I think it’s going to go in the re-sell pile.

Retro chewing gum (the only reference to the '80s) and the nausea-sweet stench of a dead cat. No.

first perfume to ever make me gag. smells like pepto bismol and ammonia

This smells exactly what, in my head, I thought Tom Ford’s Bitter Peach would smell like—and I’m shocked the notes dont include peach or apricot. It opens up very warm with cinnamon and clove, but then it quickly evolves into a very ripe bowl of peaches and apricots. It has a very good lasting power too. If I wasn’t 10 weeks pregnant and repulsed by 99% of scents, I would say I actually really enjoyed this one and even wear it regularly.

powdery citrus, tbh or citrusy powder unique, with a flower scent added, but I don't see it as a good perfume. Something is just weird. But it's an okay everyday sweet citrus, if anyone likes it with powdery smell added Tried my best to explain it... Hope someone can do it better!

imagine the fruitiest, orangiest shower gel you have. this is that. this should be a bath bomb not a perfume. unless you want to smell like a kid who spilled orange juice all over themselves. in order of visibility: orange, peach, clove. i don’t get any davana or pink pepper

on me this smells like a sexy overpriced apricot citrusy cocktail from some hipster bar where all the staff are way to beautiful and intimidating and even the glassware makes you feel poor. Boozy, slutty, idk who davana is but I’m gonna kiss her

Smells like you dumped sweet tarts in a warm cup of emergen-c with lingering notes of fresh vomit. I hate to be harsh but this one is bad. I’m a huge fan of lush’s perfume line but I can’t imagine what they were thinking with this one.

I get a strong burst of orange at first then turns into early 90’s impulse spray. It’s extremely weak which is strange because most lush fragrances are beast mode. Not for me.

This is quite strong. It's a sweet, gourmand fruity musky fragrance.

Hyperrealistic peach warm fruit compote, it's actually divine

Yep, this is a very sour, almost acidic fragrance. Will pass.