Leis

I've been marking deals on regime des fleurs fragrances ever since sniffing "gold leaves" and for the first time in my perfume history I am a fan of a perfumer now, Mr. Mathiew Nardin. (already blind bought three of his creations, two of them home runs (gold leaves and this one), one a strong like) I blind bought this, since I was just daydreaming about a "salty white floral" surfing the internet, and a good deal of this came within my sight. Looking up the notes, I am also a sucker for tuberose, so, I pulled the trigger. SoOO glad I did. This is all I ever wanted a tuberose/white floral scent to be, like you know when a scent matches your fantasy that you could never articulate?(duh, it's a scent) wonderful feeling. Just the right amount of narcotic, heady, sticky sweet, eye-opening fresh, breezy, sexy, young, mature, playful, airy, grounded, all together. I don't want to sound just like a crazy fan so I'll try to describe, visually. I see a bush of lush tuberose/white flowers, hidden deep in a rocky cave by the ocean, with just a ray of sunlight and moonlight passing through the rocky roof of the cave. Or, on top of a hill by the ocean with breeze blasting and waves hitting. I swear I can hear the sound of the waves smelling this. But also it's so sweet. salty sweet but not gourmand. Not like it screams FLOWERS either. Very chic and modern, to me! I know the notes are different, but this is what I wanted tropical tuberose scent like, orchid soleil, to be but wasn't. I feel it is very femme. I feel this perfume wakes up the young girl in me, but also doesn't throw me off my base from where I stand mentally. Love <3

I smelled it again at last, and Kate Bush’s “The Sensual World” was all I could think of. “Mmmmmm yes.” Back in the late teens, I was a late teen reading Into the Gloss and discovered Régime des Fleurs there. I was enchanted by the art, the bottles, the fantastical notes, the whole universe. When the Oahu collection was first released, I purchased the discovery set and remember only that Leis was my favorite, and that I seriously loved it. At the time, I wasn’t really in the habit of buying actual bottles (well, I’m still not...) but it has remained on my mind ever since. As we all know, it’s been basically disappeared off the face of the Earth for years, but I had an eBay alert set, and it proved fruitful. My bottle just arrived and it was sealed, but the juice has turned blue on top and pink on the bottom. This is the scent that I have been chasing in other tropical florals. It smells like my childhood memories of walking through Honolulu at night: neon, sweet, pink, blue, heady, spectacular, crystal clear and yet utterly dreamlike, diving headfirst—in a bikini—into a mocktail.

Leis is up there with some of the better Regime des Fleurs offerings. Soft and mild but undeniably present. It's not cloying at all and it lasts very well. It's true to the notes and sits close to skin. You'll never offend anyone with this pretty fragrance. It's casual enough for every day wear and would work well at an office, too.

Reminds me of Princeville Botanical Gardens, of squeezing honeycomb ginger and watching the sugary syrup collect. Salty, sun kissed, white floral heaven.

This one has an interesting evolution on my skin! At first I got pure florals with jasmine sambac as the standout note. Then about 30 minutes later it turned to pure salt (and it was the dirty salt, something I don't like very much). After about 2-3 hours, the florals really warm up and the salt note becomes cleaner, giving me a salt smell close to my skin and florals further out. A really nice scent to wear for a casual beach feel.

I grew up in Hawaii and was longing for something to take me back to stringing plumerias together in the back yard with my sister. This perfume, sadly, doesn't do it for me. It smells like a Hi-Chew flavored polly pocket--which certainly does take me back to my childhood on the island, just not in the way I would have preferred. It's a gentle, somewhat feminine, plastic scent. I do enjoy others from this collection though, namely Falls and Vines. They're more naturalistic renditions of the humid, botanical freshness of the islands.

I was really hopeful for this one, but it falls flat compared to the amazing frangipani/plumeria scents out there. My favorites are Sun Goddess by Musicology (for a creamy vanilla frangipani) and Isles Lointaines by Keiko Mecheri (for a lighter almondy frangipani)

This is indeed a vacation perfume, but much too heady and sweet for me to wear. I can’t make out any particular notes, except, in general terms: tropical flowers and sticky fruits. I could imagine Leis working on the right person though.

Save yourself the effort and money and avoid this one. I have to admit the other reviews are surprising to me. As these are all my favorite notes and RDF usually does okay in terms of balance and naturals use, I expected Leos to be right up my alley. BUT: 1.) NOTES - The listed notes are all wrong. This is primarily a gardenia perfume, followed by a STRONG AF synthetic citrus and LOTV heart and base. Any other notes are just wishful thinking. 2.)COMPOSITION-The presence of ginger lily, plumeria, tuberose, and ambergris are extremely minimal, to the point you can't tell if they're actually present or if it is the synthetic indolic gardenia that is prominent in so many hand soaps and body care products that make-believe they're Gardenia. Now don't get me wrong. Synthetics have their place. But they can't be so loud and poorly blended that they pull attention or are fully inharmonious. Where are the typical Hawaiian florals here?! 3.) LONGEVITY- After the initial florals evaporate (maybe 20min?) you're stuck with an achingly cheap drugstore LOTV soap. It screeches, rather than sings. That said, the synthetic LOTV and citrus are so powerful and in such a high concentration that 1/10 of a single drop will last all day on your skin and possibly years on clothing and leather. No, that is not an exaggeration. Even after more than 12 scrubs with boric acid and baking soda, I could not get the synthetics off my skin. 4.) PRICE - insane for what this is. There's a reason they discontinued this one. If you're looking for a good tropical, there are very significantly more beautiful and safer, more affordable, alternatives. TTAG by Pilar and Lucy if you want a slight head shop feel, plain gardenia enfleurage if you want the real thing (or tuberose if you are looking for a tuberose scent), Isabey Gardenia, etc. If you want a vintage that smells more true to Hawaii, complete with actual ginger grass (cymbopogon citratus or flexuous), Hawaii by Myrurgia (1960s-ish) is apparently quite good. The gingergrass note on that one lasts a long time on clothes and stays through the long dry down.