Pure XS For Her

Okay, let me start this review by stating that this too has been REFORMULATED. And of course it isn’t just that the package has been changed. I recently got it as a blind buy, in discount and I got the 100ml bottle (2023 batch code). Right away I noticed that the package was shiny and not the more luxurious velvet box it once had been and I had seen on reviews. I was crestfallen at first because experience has taught me that when the box and bottle changes, the juice inside has been altered too. But, as I hadn’t got to smell the initial one, I experienced trying just the reformulation with nothing to compare it to). Regardless, I loved it. I could pick up on first notes a wonderful Olympea+Olympea intense combo (only it was a combo of the aspects I loved most of the 2 perfumes, minus the notes that were clashing and were too much). So, all in all a great improvement compared to those two perfumes. After a bit -the first notes rarely last more than a few minutes on me- the flowers,the vanilla and some buttery yumminess start peaking through, all mixed and very well blended together. After a while, as the perfume evolves and moves to the heart notes, I pick up most buttery orange blossom and it is divine! This phase lasts the most, and you get the Yang ylang and the coconut in the background, also very well blended and not too prominent. This phase is a joy to sniff at! As the perfume moves to its base notes, you are left with a more vanillic buttery aftermath of the flowers. In all its phases, this perfume is lovely, I rarely get to say that I love all the phases of a perfume. Also, I had hoped when I blind-bought this, that I would get the buttery popcorn note most mentioned in their reviews, and I did, at least I get the yummy buttery aspect of it. I am not sure if there is an actual popcorn note per say, but I think a caramel used version for this would have been even better ,but as I had never had caramelised popcorn (just the regular one), I am a bit unsure how it actually smells in real life, however, I can imagine. In any case, this note, this ‘butteriness’ really suits the perfume, so don’t fear this! ————- Yesterday, I travelled with some friends and I got to a big reputable cosmetic store, and I found the original one, a last 50ml bottle with a 2018 batch code (the year it was first released) also on a 30% discount and I snatched it, since I had planned to get a backup bottle of the initial one, had I ever had the chance to come across it in a physical store. This is amazing too, not much difference in the notes you pick up (meaning it isn’t that you will get a different perfume than the first, thankfully), however, this is richer, warmer, with more amber, more gourmand and each phase develops more slowly, lasts longer, the projection is better, and the sillage too. With the reformulation as usual, they weakened the juice. Also in the newest version the flowers especially the orange blossom is a bit more prominent than in the older version. I will keep this for winter colder weather, and the 100ml newer version for spring and summer, as it is lighter and ‘airier’. However, both can be worn in any season, if you are not an oversprayer with the initial one. Mind you, it is a very hot summer weather here in Greece as I am testing them here side by side. ———- Now, on to the CHANGES of the 2 versions: OLDER/INITIAL VERSION: Packaging: velvet box with indented and a bit textured golden letters in front, and golden lettered info on the back as well as on the bottom of the box. Juice/perfume colour: rich,ambery colour Bottle: bottle shape and snake shape the same, with shiny golden letters of the ‘pure xs’ logo. Snake scales a bit more pronounced on this one (not noticeable difference with the newest). Golden rim shown under the cap., and the whole sprayer part to the rim noticeable under the cap is all golden and metallic.The sprayer sprays evenly and and well enough (more dispersed sprays) and feels way better than the newest version. The plastic cup is heavy and feels very well made weight-wise. At the bottom of the bottle, perfume details engraved on the glass. Perfume Perforrmance: richer, warmer, more ambery, develops slowly, lasts longer and projects more - more suitable in colder weather but also wearable in all weather conditions if not oversprayed. More gourmand, very well blended. Peach and popcorn undenotes more pronounced NEWEST/REFORMULATED VERSION: Packaging: shiny box with shiny slightly indented logo letters in front. On the back, smaller more muted (not golden) letters of perfume info as well as on the bottom of the box. Juice/perfume colour: lighter more rosy colour (kind of resembles the colour of the box but it is difficult to tell the exact colour on the new one, as in both versions the bottle glass is coloured and gradient (darker on top, lightens as it goes further down, however, the colour difference in between the oldest and newer version is quite noticeable!) Bottle: logo letters in front muted and not shiny golden, on the bottom of the glass the perfume info lettering is also engraved on the glass. No golden rim shown under the cap, as the whole sprayer part is all black plastic. Sprayer not as good as the initial as it sprays in a more concentrated stream. Cap is a much lighter plastic that feels cheaper weight-wise. Perfume Perforrmance: lighter, airier, more floral (yet with gourmand aspects), develops faster, lasts less than the initial version and doesn’t project as much - more suitable in spring and warmer weather but also wearable in all weather conditions. Also, very well blended. Coconut and ylang ylang undernotes more pronounced. ————— Love them both for different reasons, love the initial one more since it ticks all the boxes (even package and bottle-wise) ————— Edit: the ambrette and amberwood at the dry down of the perfume are more prominent on the original one making it kind of unisex smelling for those whose skin tends to accentuate the earthy,woody notes (and mine does), so keep that in mind too, whereas the reformulation practically lacks these notes. Also a reason to wear the original one in colder weather.

I don’t understand how La Belle gets so much attention while this poor gem is overlooked. I wasn’t immediately in love with it, but it grew on me. It gets a lot of compliments. Performs better in medium to cooler weather. Kind of vanishes in scorching heat, but so do many of my scents. Only an issue for others who live in the 105 degree Fahrenheit dry sunny desert in the summer. Spring and fall in my climate is when this girl shines. It’s a million times better than any of the Black XS flankers. I blind bought and immediately resold some of those. This little gem is created by Quentin Bisch, the same nose that created la belle, Delina, and all the best perfumes that are most loved by women with taste who aren’t complaining Karens or niche snobs. I’ve been wearing this scent for a few years. My husband loves it. It’s actually one I grab whenever I’m looking for a daytime fruity cheerful scent to wear running errands. I don’t like many straight up fruity body spray type scents, they seriously scream at me. This is light but not too sheer, with the popcorn note that when sweetened by this scent, makes me think of a sugary fruity corn breakfast cereal gourmand. It sounds strange but works very well. I wasn’t into the sol de Janeiro scents at all, but I feel like this is in the same family as those types of scents. The SDJ frags though all smell quite cheap cloying and synthetic on my skin, but this is more expensive. This is quality. This does for me what I hoped the SDJ frags would. I’m surprised there weren’t more flankers made by the same perfumer. I personally attribute any lack of success of this fragrance to the underwhelming other flankers in this line, which all felt very flat cheap and stale with no discernible interesting notes. I’m not seeing this scent for sale much anymore. I guess it’s probably getting discontinued. Frankly I think Paco should have QB redesign the rest of the line + some new flankers and relaunch it. I just bought 2 backup bottles, because discontinued or not, I’m not ready to part with this one. I never noticed any reformulation with this over the years, though I did have a messed up nose from Covid for awhile that made this and some of my other frags hard to smell/made me rapidly go nose blind. I never lost my smell from covid but it did make some perfumes/notes more synthetic plasticky and headachey for a brief time, pure XS excluded. This is a tough scent to describe, but honestly to me, I read it as a similar vibe alternative to La Belle. Light and fruity, only Pure XS is a slightly tropical popcorn gourmand and La Belle is a spiced vetiver style scent that makes me think of the holidays and pie. Summer and winter. Different, enough to own both for sure, but feel like they should be worn by the same girl. This also can totally be an Olympea flanker. Every Olympea flanker I try smells nothing like the original. The Pure XS popcorn note is at least a little salty which makes it feel way more like Olympea than any of the current Olympea flankers. They both have a similar PR light sweet summery vibe too.

I’ve seen reviews saying this has the Black Opium, La Belle, Good Girl, and Olympea DNA. Well, I haven’t smelled all these perfumes yet but if that’s the vibe it gives? Then I’ll definitely enjoy these perfumes as much as I enjoyed Pure XS. Here are some additions to the roster—perfumes that smell like this pretty babe: Classic Ari EDP, Beyoncé Heat, and SDJ Cheirosa 62. If we had to mix all of the perfumes I mentioned, it’d be Pure XS’ frankenstein version (sounds lovely to me) The reason why I got this perfume was because of its bottle 🐍 which is the same reason why I bought my signature scent: Mugler Aura. I also wanted to buy it because it has shared notes with Aura. Well... obvi they’re not close at all lmaooo but they share that same lovely ylang-ylang note that does not smell like cat piss. I also got intrigued by the popcorn note, which made me crave for this perfume like I just HAD to HAVE it, I was badly ITCHING for it. Sure, the popcorn note was there but it wasn’t as salty and buttery like what most people claimed. I wanted this to be as salty as a briny anchovy (ew?) but it wasn’t even one bit salty to me. Mugler Aura was surprisingly saltier even if salt wasn’t a listed note. An exact description of how this smells to my nose is “grape soda with grape jelly and plain freshly cooked popcorn on the side”. You know what it exactly smells like tho? The viral fruit-shaped jelly snacks that people had to pop using their teeth. EXACTLY LIKE THAT. The other fruits are undetectable. I would’ve never guessed this had coconut and peach notes lol it’s simply a loud grape to my nose. A LOUD SYRUPY GRAPE FLAVORED MEDICINE. (Which I love bc I enjoy medicinal smelling fragrances) If you’re a creamy, caramely, vanilla cake gourmand girlie, please, don’t even bother getting this bc it won’t be for you :( This was way fruitier than I expected. Though It does get creamy and caramel-like in the dry down it’s still extremely muffled by its grape syrup facet. The grapey note doesn’t seem to go anywhere from initial spray until the perfume completely wears off. Nonetheless, it’s definitely in the same threshold of scent profiles I consider as my signature. Regarding projection and longevity, longevity is pretty good but projection isn’t as strong as I expected but it could only be me? 🤷 I’d be convinced that I get easily noseblinded by it but idk, Mugler Aura is hella strong and I still get whiffs of it after 22 hours with just a single spray. I’ll have to keep testing Pure XS but so far I love it !! Definitely one of my top 4 signature scents. I just know this will be my biggest dent alongside Aura my babe 🐍🍃 Edit: Sprayed this before sleep and 11 hours after, it’s still there, it lingers but it’s pretty tame. I guess this perfume just isn’t loud lol

I loveeee this !! Delicious syrupy peachy popcorn - cute and sexy ! On me the first pray is straight up syrupy peaches - they smell like these jelly sticks I’d get from the Asian shop as a kid or one of those little jellies in a cup that was normally sold in a massive plastic bear or jar also from the Asian store - gives me nostalgia of being little and downing 4 of those and struggling to get the jelly out of the tube. For me the popcorn doesn’t come until later but once it’s there it’s there to stay! I own the reformulated version without the gold ring in the cardboard box and found the popcorn note comes during dry down and super strong too - smells like salty caramel popcorn that’s been slightly burned (in the best way possible sooo yummy! And peach syrup. The tester in the shop was the old version with the gold ring and found I didn’t get as much popcorn from that however smelled really similar to Olympea. The reformulated version somehow has more popcorn on me then the original - guess my skin chemistry is weird but it’s a good thing in this case as I love love love the popcorn note - I almost didn’t want to buy it due to reviews saying the popcorn note is basically gone after reformulation but it seemed to work out ! For those wanting the popcorn note I can suggest to wait a little bit and clear the atomiser for me the first few sprays where just straight up peach syrup. I’ve only worn it one day and got heaps of compliments - I think this works for any Occassion day or night in any weather but probably best for a date night or something as it does have a really sexy undertone. I’m currently wearing it in the Australian summer and she smells beautiful. Can’t wait to try her in the winter - longevity and silliage amazing creating an initiate scent bubble that follows Blindly bought the reformulated one a full 80ml bottle and luckily with no regrets - definitely wanna make this a staple in my collection.

I bought and reviewed this last summer and was very unimpressed with the performance. It would vanish without a trace after an hour or so and was so soft I could barely read it. Well, I’ve whipped the bottle out a bunch of times throughout the fall, winter, and spring and must say it’s quite lovely. It doesn’t scream uniqueness or overpower the room, but it works great in temps below 75-80f with a bit of humidity. If you have long dry hot California summers, this may not perform well for you at all on hot days. But it’s lovely the rest of the year. It reminds me of a sweeter almost candy version of Olympea. I think I mentioned before that this has a bit of a captn crunch berries cereal vibe-fruity sugar with a bit of a salty savory edge that works well with body chemistry and results in a scent that is more gourmand than flowery perfume but unique enough to distinguish itself from the common fruity mall chain store body sprays. Even though this isn’t my favorite scent I own, it’s a nice and easy go-to. My spouse compliments it a lot whenever I wear it. On cooler days sprayed on clothes and hair, this will easily last 6 hours or more. Sometimes I can smell it on old laundry. I reordered a bottle since I wasted so much trying to get this to work last summer. Maybe this works well in some warm climates, I wish it was a better scent for the hot dry desert, but mostly I need to stick to cool days with this one. It just vanishes too fast in the hot hot heat of summer sun. But it’s a crowd pleaser for sure, even though I’d describe it as a more youthful scent girls would love to wear to the club, it’s frequently complimented among 35+ year olds as well.