20 000 Flowers Under the Sea (No. 31)

Edit: okay, what happened here? After smelling this a few more times, I’m finally getting the marine notes, and now I’m obsessed and have gotten this perfume back into my collection. A strange one for sure. If you don’t feel like it’s for you at first, keep it for a while and come back to it periodically. It’ll grow on you. An unsuccessful blind buy. This is beautiful, but not for me. Unfortunately, I don't smell any of the marine or salty notes listed. All I get is ylang ylang and lily, which are totally gorgeous smells, but I was hoping to get more of the salt and coral so that the fragrance would be more "20,000 Flowers Under the Sea" rather than just "20,000 Flowers." Reading everyone else's reviews here tells me that my nose is what's off, though. It seems like others are picking up on the coral, salt, etc. so this is a me problem, not an issue with the perfume itself. All that being said, I gifted this to my mother today and she absolutely adores it. I think she'll get a lot of use out of it in the spring and summer months, which makes me super happy because like I said, it is a beautiful smell, and it deserves to be enjoyed!

20,000 Flowers Under the Sea is, I believe, the only aquatic perfume in my collection. Aquatics aren’t my jam, but I have a (perhaps unreasonable) love for this fragrance. The opening definitely conjures a fantasy oceanic setting with an invigorating, salty, white lily and ylang-ylang breeze grounded with a subtle, coarse coral accord. The balance of salt water and florals is perfect for me and the dry down is airy and uplifting. TokyoMilk in general makes fun, relatively inexpensive fragrances that I often find enjoyable. I’m impressed that they made an aquatic scent that didn’t get a “meh” reaction from me. Indeed, Margot Elena, its creator, developed a distinctly aquatic scent that I actually really like. To be honest, I don’t know if this scent hits my nose just right, or if it is objectively an excellent scent in this category. Like many other aquatics, the longevity and projection are on the low side of moderate. Super cute bottle and a good value, though.

I love easy to wear, refreshing fragrances like this. It's simple and wholesomely intimate. Very marine floral and somewhat beachy without being too salty. I like the coral note, though I'd prefer if salt and coral traded places in terms of strength so the coral could overpower the salt, sea salt fragrances don't compliment my chemistry too well. It's very inoffensive, delicate, and ideal considering I'm in regular contact with someone who seems to be allergic to a lot of perfumes, tends to get watery eyes and cranky. This one does not cause issues for him. The bottle is pretty, as are all of the TokyoMilk perfumes from this collection.

I purchased an already maturated bottle, so my review may be different. The ylang-ylang in here is so sunny, bright, fizzy, banana-esq, and honeyed. The lily in here is beautiful and was dunked into clean ocean water. The salt here is clean and mineralic, but still very wearable. There is a note in here I can’t describe, but I assume is the coral accord. Really beachy, clean, and girly. I can’t wait to pull this out during my vacations, as I imagine this would smell great after a dip in the ocean.

So floral. I am sad that it has been discontinued.

A pretty floral aquatic; I get the comparisons to Chanel's Beige a bit, although that seems a bit more honeysuckle oriented. I bought Tokyo Milk's 20,000 Flowers Under the Sea for a song at TJ Maxx, and it came in an absolutely gorgeous keepsake box with a quotation from Lord Alfred Tennyson, of whom I am a big fan. This isn't hugely different from the fragrance I wore yesterday, Shi by Alfred Sung, but I don't get the harsh metallic-chlorine effect that I get from that one; 20,000 Flowers also smells a lot more floral (a heady mixture of whites and yellows, not unlike Beautiful, only with much more of the salt-aquatic-marine vibe). The name of this perfume takes forever to say in English; it's better in French, where you have only have to say two syllables for the number (vingt mille) as opposed to four syllables (twenty-thousand). Also, this smells more like perhaps 50 flowers, not 20,000, but I think 20,000 flowers would be overpowering unless the sniffer was also underwater, and then how would she breathe? Oh well. I guess as perfume names go it's at least nominally descriptive. Update: Two hours later, this has dried down to mostly a skin scent, only one of my elderly cats, the youngest, Labadie, who is 16, went crazy for this. I could tell it was the perfume and not me because he kept trying to lick all the places I applied it. Whatever ingredients are in this, it makes elderly domestic shorthair boycats go CRAZY. Maybe it smells so much like the sea that he thinks he smells fish or something? Update: It's super hot, early July, and I was casting about for a scent that wouldn't be cloying in the heat, and I thought of this, mostly because the name itself is cooling, and I am a flo ho who doesn't own many aquatic fragrances and feels ambivalent about salty marine accords. One of the notes is coral reef, and I can't imagine that those smell great IRL, important as they are to the greater biosphere, but that is neither here nor there. I still quite like this fragrance, which reminds me a bit of Pleasures Intense by Estee Lauder, only with more emphasis on ylang-ylang and perhaps less in the way of white florals. I definitely pick up on lily, though, which confers a little cleanliness to the creamy, almost buttery ylang-ylang, and I definitely get the salt. It occurs to me that this is the perfect beach fragrance for those who dislike coconut. I do not dislike coconut in the slightest, but it doesn't pain me to be without it in a scent. No one will think you just smell like sunscreen, that's for sure. There is something ever so slightly dated about this, something vaguely early '90s, but that's a mark in its favor, as far as I'm concerned. We live in idiotic times.

Margot Elena is certainly creative---I found "Song of the Siren" marked down at T J Max, snapped it up and then went on a re-sale hunt on Mercari to find the other 2 scents in this series--Mermaids are kind of an obsession of mine and the packaging is just gorgeous on these!! I've got all 3 now--and I just love this one! The sweet yellow floral Ylang and white lily mixed with mineral salt are girly fresh but muted--this scent reminds me of something--but I just can't place it--it's January in upstate NY--but I can't wait till spring arrives to wear this one!

This is a wonderful beachy perfume that doesn't smell annoyingly like sunscreen. The florals dominate at first, but they fall back in the dry down to reveal more of the coral reef marine note. There is a perfect amount of salt so that it doesn't overpower the fragrance, but it also keeps it from smelling too sweet.

Light sweet girly floral. Springtime in a bottle. Soft.

It’s a very soft white floral scent. I’m not picking up on the salt or marine accords. I love the bottle but I don’t feel that this fragrance sparks any love in me for it. It’s nice but not something I’m going to wear. Too bad because the bottle is so pretty.

This is the scent that really helped me discover how much I hate ylang-ylang.

No, this is not for me. The opening is fresh and floral, with some salt and that slight hint of fruitiness that ylang ylang often conveys. But within minutes an unpleasant, artificial aquatic note unfolds that reminds me of some kind of household cleaning product or liquid detergent straight out of the bottle. Sharp and harsh. I sometimes like synthetic smelling fragrances, but this is just unpleasant. It's worse on cold skin, so I guess it's a spring/summer scent, but I wouldn't really recommend this for any season.

The best of it's line, 20,000 Flowers Under the Sea was so pretty I had to go back to buy it. 20,000 Reminds me a little of Mugler Alien despite lacking a stated jasmine note, but the ethereal jasmine + white amber accord of Alien is definitely here in spirit. However, 20,000 avoids being a copy-cat by layering ylang and a very saline salt water on top. The ylang is sunny and banana-y but mellow so it hangs in the background and the salt is fizzy and feels like it clears your sinuses, like literal salt water rather than generic beach air. Aquatic white florals can be trite but 20,000 feels very natural and genuine.

This was the one I was drooling over the most and is in fact the one of the three new TM I prefer. Having discovered recently a newfound love for Ylang-Ylang I was disappointed of 20 000 Flowers Under the sea which is mostly a lily scent. The marine feels is not overpowering, this is mostly a floral perfume. I don't like it enough to buy a full bottle but still, it's so beautiful to look at! The name is a mouthful also, in French it's a bit easier to say Vingt-mille fleurs sous les mers...

This is a fresh and sweet floral perfume with very prominent ylang-ylang. I am not a fan of ylang-ylang, it's one of the more mature/musty smelling yellow flowers but this seems to be relatively youthful because of the fresh white flowers and salty notes. It still adds that tinge of musty old flowers though, just not too noticeable. The salty notes are beautiful tho! Sooo feminine and pretty without becoming aquatic. In my opinion this would have been much better without the ylang-ylang!

Really lovely, I have not been disappointed in any of the 3 in the collection they are all beautiful. They cover 3 different styles of scents, green, warm and flowery, this one is the flowery one obviously, but it’s much more, the drydown is lovely, makes you feel like you’re on the beach in Hawaii! So pretty, and I’m not a fan of Ylang Ylang alone but this blend is perfect.

Oh how I love this fragrance. It captures the essence of an underwater garden perfectly. The ylang ylang almost gives this a beachy vibe plus the aquatic salty notes. This is just so pleasant in summer. It’s really refreshing and unique.

I just came across this fragrance today in the tjmaxx site (US), for those who want to grab it! Previous commenter said the frag was discontinued but you can check there.

I don't sense the floral very much in this... to my nose, it's all marine and salt accords. Very delicate and reminiscent of sea water.

This is the fragrance that made me realize I do not like Ylang Ylang. If you love it, this is for you.