By Invitation

I fell down a heck of a rabbit hole to suddenly find this luscious fragrance. I am extremely picky about fruity and floral fragrances so I often don't even bother testing them. Every couple of decades the perfect floral falls in my lap, either a free gift with purchase, some random spritz in a store, and it's never what I would have otherwise picked up. While making room for some new perfumes after parting with a bunch of vintages I found a tiny old sample vial on card in the back of a drawer. It was Marc Jacobs Decadence. I'd never even tested it, probably assuming another designer floral wasn't worth risking a migraine that day. Spritzed it on a tester strip and was mesmerized! Started shopping for it, and of course, discontinued! I looked up the profile here and before I knew it I was shopping for By Invitation instead. Bought the large bottle as a tester because I took note that the cap wouldn't be long for this world anyway. Now I feel like I need to grab a couple more as this is exactly the kind of warm, sweet, bright but not cloying feminine fragrance that always disappears before its due. I love my modern and exotic fragrances, but it feels nice to find a pretty fruity floral once a decade or so!

So I purchased both style bottles as I managed to find the discontinued old style bottle in store, it's a pretty bottle but man they're soo cheaply made, I've only had it for a week and it's already broken and now I have to re bottle it anyway the fragrance itself is gorgeous! Both bottle designs for By Invitation do smell similar but there are definite differences, i would say they're like flankers of each other, the old style bottles have more sweetness, character and depth, the praline and woods are more prominent and there is a an oud like tone that comes through, there is no patchouli listed in the notes but I smell a slight minty patchouli here, anyway I do love this older formula more. The new bottles are more powdery and bright with more emphasis on the citrus notes, the sweetness is dialed down by a touch and with less praline and woods, i feel like they have made the new formula in the new bottles more crowd pleasing However they're both lovely and i enjoy wearing both

THIS is AMAZING! Truly unreal. I cannot belive it is a celebrity scent. Just for reference, I have two signatures scents that are Chloe New and Stella and Stella Rose Intense. This in my opinion is in the same vein as Stella Intense. It does not actually smell like a dupe or anything, but throughout the drydown, I get an aroma that is similar to the drydown of my precious Stella. Since I am not great with identifying notes or describing them yet, I do not know what notes are to blame for this but this is now one of my favorites. On my skin it smells completely different (fruity and fresh) in the beginning than it does during drydown. This feels magical to me. I put this on last night before bed and it is 11 am almost next day and I can STILL smell it. Best purchase ever. Blind purchase at that! LOVE. This is seriously THE ONE. The one I have been searching for all my life. In same vein as Lovely and Narcisco Rodriguez for Her BUT WAY BETTER. Just amazing for a celeb scent.

By Invitation, I knew I was going to like you when I first sprayed you on my skin. This fragrance is juicy fruity in the best kind of way. Raspberries, cherries, strawberries and bergamot are bouncing all over the place in this perfume. I smell them all throughout the projection of this bottle of juice. The rose and jasmine notes are a beautiful wonderland of springy goodness. The praline, sandalwood, and musky vanilla in the base notes smell absolutely yummy. By Invitation smells strikingly similar to Valentino’s Born in Roma. There are some slight differences but they smell a lot alike. It also reminds me of Reb’l Fleur but Reb’l Fleur is much more boozy fruity than this one. By Invitation is a very pretty, sexy, feminine and flirty fragrance. I love the way it smells. I love the many compliments I get while wearing it and I love how I feel when I put it on. It has great sillage, projection and longjevity and is better suited for the spring, summer and autumn months.

I really can understand this comparison to Decadence; Here you will find the same combination of sour, ripe and sweet, but... although the aroma here is very sour berries and even more sour ripe citrus fruits (that become such a "bitter, little fermented" drought) , while in Decadence that effect comes from a combination of dry papyros, plum and vetiver. In both scents, that dry/bitterness is immersed in an extremely polarizing sweetness. Decadence with heavy sugar plum jam, but Invitation with jammy rose and praline. The drying of this is very citrusy, slightly woody, not green at all, yet sweet and very intense too. All in all all , to my( ! ) nose this is very pleasant and quite interesting scent, I really enjoy this now in hot summer ...but still I think, this can be very opinion-sharing scent too! Do you need Decadence if you have this? Absolutely!! ('You might like it) Do you need this if you already have Decadence?. for fun, definitely yes!