Paris*L.A.

This is a great new gourmand offering from A Lab on Fire. It opens with a spicy top that smells like a combination of Red Hots cinnamon candy and Coke. At first it seems layered over a light vanilla note, but then a deliciously rich, buttery almond accord appears and takes the vanilla along with it. I had a hard time believing the perfumer was going to pull this off successfully, but the "macaroon" in Paris*L.A. is fantastic. I actually get a little hungry smelling this. It takes you right to the heart of the dessert, and you can easily imagine all the ingredients as they're being prepared together in a bowl. Almonds, butter, sugar, and egg whites presented in small, chewy little cakes--they're all there in just the right proportions and seem composed by a skilled, graceful hand. What I really enjoy about Paris*L.A. besides the fun, unique notes that are presented, is the fact that it's smooth and wearable. There's nothing clumsy or "blob-like" about this. It doesn't become overbearing, as gourmands often do. Uncompromisingly sweet in what it presents--Coca-Cola and Macaroons--Paris*L.A. manages to avoid becoming cloying because it is never too heavy. In fact there's a fresh, fizzy quality to the entire fragrance that keeps it afloat and buoyant. I suppose this is the Coca Cola in play, and it does a wonderful job of balancing the macaroon. As far as masculine vs. feminine, this seems very much unisex to my nose and I'd have a hard time labeling it one or the other. I consider this a casual, day or nighttime fragrance. It's fun and has a playful, carefree nature. Projection is solid--it gets out there, but it's not crazy. Longevity is around 6 hours. Overall, Paris*L.A. feels like a very modern take on an unabashed gourmand, and it should find plenty of happy fans as word about it starts to spread. Hats off to the perfumer, Laurent Le Guernec, who did an excellent job with this, and to A Lab On Fire, a company that's created quite a diverse lineup by releasing unique fragrances with a stylistically modern appeal. Paris*L.A. sits right at the top of that list.

This is a gorgeous fragrance! The opening is clearly dominated by a zesty and crisp lime note. I would say that this lime note is dominant for an hour or so, until the scent of cola truly appears. To me the cola scent reminds me a bit more of cola candy than Coca Cola, but the lime not balances out the sweetness and makes it beautiful! Paris LA is a true mouthwatering gourmand. Perfect it the heat of summer! I certainly smell the ginger and can also detect a light scent of macaron, but to me this fragrance is more LA than Paris, When I spray this fragrance my mind creates an image of myself pouring cola into a glass of ice cubes as I squeeze in some drops of lime. I really love it! Thankfully I'm at home because it would be weird to smell my cleavage all the time in public. The sillage is moderate and longevity on my skin is about 4 hours. My skin eats perfume so I believe this would last much longer on others. Edit: 4 hours longevity in the heat, much longer (10+ hours) in cooler environments.

At first spritz this gives me a shock of fizzy ginger and strong cloves as well as something lemony. The ginger and cloves are the main players throughout. I agree the coriander is present as well, it further supports the fizzy zippy spicy effect. A bit of almond in the background, as well as something like half baked dough and a certain lived in feel that I cannot place. Almost like an elevator full of people. This is certainly a unique perfume, a bit harshly spicy gourmand. Try it and you will see for yourself. Regarding this being close to La Danza delle Libellule, they share this lived in intimate background feel but that's all according to me. I think it's more like 20% Mandorlo di Sicilia and 70% Kenzo Jungle L'Elephant... and 10% their own.

I have a similar feeling toward this perfume as cake n' cuddles -- this feels made for me. I love the fizzy gingery opening and on me, the thyme and coriander are very apparent along with the almondy macaron accord. The thyme in particular cuts through the sweet macaron, bringing total balance and interest in the drydown. When I wear this, my husband snuggles in really close, breathes in deeply, and says "Mmmmmmmm." Based on reviews I've read, the thyme must not be apparent on everyone, and I believe it is a key element in the composition. I'd say this is definitely a try before you buy scent.

I have the old bottle (the house was called A Lab on Fire) and absolutely love it. The drydown has a distinctly lactonic note on my skin that makes this unique and sensual, much more than the sum of its parts. I hope the new version has kept that quality. The citrus here is very subdued, this is a sweet and somewhat spicy perfume. To me it smells like Coke with ginger and a hint of cinnamon milk. I blind bought Mancera’s Tonka Cola based on my love for this, but they’re only very faintly similar in the opening. This is a far more delicate and complex scent, Mancera’s is unwearable for me.

This perfume is just pure happiness for me. I smelled it and immediately smiled. It's cheerful and warm, yet not heavy. It's a very modern gourmand fragrance that garners compliment. I find it to be quite unique and complex. After testing numerous perfumes to wear as my wedding day fragrance--and thinking I had already settled on Angel Sucree--once I smelled Paris*LA, I knew it was exactly what I was looking for and fit everything I wanted for my October brunch wedding in Tennessee. It was made for me for that day. I still wear it now mostly on special dates with my husband. :)

Magical and dreamy perfume... transports the unconscious into a sweet world where there is a sweet melody and a Parisian landscape. Really interesting the beginning with the coca-cola/lime agreement is something extraordinary that I had never heard... it's really unusual and modern. Ginger participates in a sustained way, a wonderful sweet but well balanced fragrance. In the bottom it is soft and comfortable, really beautiful! Extraordinary perfume in my opinion. Sillage: 8./10 Longevity: 10./10 Scent: 10./10 Overall: 10./10

Drydown smells so lovely. This is where this shines. Yet for $195 it is only 50ml. They should make it 100ml for that price. Still a lovely light Gourmand scent. The macarons give it this vanilla scent i think. There is a slight soda vibe here. Macarons and soda mixed. If you want something for the summer then try this. Especially if you are sensitive to strong scents. If you think Dua Brand Zesty Cola, Kola Tabac,Snif Soda Snob or Outremer Cola was too strong for you then this scent is for you.

Sometimes you feel like a fragrance was just made for you. That's the kind of strong connection I have to this fragrance. Paris LA is IMHO an ingenious combination with so many odd angles on some of my favorite sweets and spices. I couldn't tell you what I love more, the fizzy spicy limey coca cola or that awesome and unapologetic macaron note. This fragrance is FUN. Sweet and sassy. Great lasting power and moderate projection and silage. Perfect for what it is. Brava, brava.

From what I was reading here I expected coca cola. Well, on me the macaron dominate closely followed by the citrus. I have a job picking out the distinctive coca cola note. Who on this planet doesn't know what that smells like?!! It settles down to basically the smell of macaron on me. I can't say it bowles me over. Sweet powdery almonds. Pleasant but a bit meh. It's getting too close to all the cheap girly scents already out there. Moderate longevity and sillage at best.

A Lab on Fire can really do no wrong. (however I hate that they jacked the prices of all their fragrances up and they’re virtually impossible to find) On my skin, Paris * LA is Vanilla Coke without being too sweet. You can definitely pick up the lime note in the initial spray however it’s not very detectable after about 20 minutes. This is a fun and youthful fragrance that I think all ages could wear and appreciate.

I literally get cocoa cola, lime, and what I am happy to call macarons (sweet, almond powder). It's odd, that should not make for good perfume, but you know what? It's delicious in a playful sort of way. There's something undeniably fun and carefree about it. It's summer wander around downtown with a girlfriend. It's an afternoon sipping a coke in the sun. It's fun, and summery and I find I keep coming back to it.

I have hundreds of perfumes and this has to be one of my favourites, it's sweet, complex and high quality gourmand. I have a new bottle and am old bottle. The old is sweeter, ambery. The new bottle is very powdery. But both are gorgeous how they have so many facets. This makes a new genre of perfumes noone talks about - day time date perfume. I'm not the only one who does that surely??

At the intersection of wearable but unique. I don't usually enjoy fragrances with vanilla in them because I think it overpowers and makes them all smell the same, but this is the one exception that is full bottle worthy because of the lime/spice that knocks it into its place and keeps the whole party interesting.

Az egyik legkülönlegesebb illat,amivel valaha találkoztam.Nagyon tartós..édes gourmand illat...istenien coca colas. Masok is dicsérik rajtam.Olyan,mint egy süti...amibe beleharapnál...Imadom!Már várom,hogy megvásárolhassam Madisonban.❤

What is this stupid comment about white people and spicy food ?! Go away and take that passive aggressive racist crap with you. You’re so desperate to be oppressed it’s embarrassing.

Overall, a playful and surprisingly wearable fragrance — once you hit the drydown. The initial blast is unpleasant. I love the zippy, zingy quality of cola, which is what drew me to Paris*LA in the first place. But on my skin at least (and as always, your mileage may vary), the top notes here are terribly unbalanced — way too much cinnamon! The opening is like Big Red chewing gum. The effect is hot and harsh, rather than being refreshing and lightly medicinal. I don’t get a cola vibe, just cinnamon jawbreaker. That said, as it settles in, it turns into a lovely creamy vanilla, marzipan, spice, lime, and ginger situation. I get a bit of strawberry, too, though it’s not listed in the official notes. It reminds me of a Coke float, or drinking a Slurpee on the beach + creamy suntan lotion. This is a youthful fragrance, which isn’t to say it’s young or immature — I’m 29, and I think it’s perfect for a daytime date, brunch with friends, poking around a flea market, etc. UPDATE: I’ve since sampled L’Artisan Mon Numero 10, and it’s everything I wished Paris*LA had been. Also has a strong cola effect, but is less intensely sweet and less harsh. If you aren’t a gourmand lover but are looking for a cola effect, I recommend giving it a sniff. (Hardcore gourmand types likely won’t prefer it, as it contains leather and incense.)

On my skin, I get a caramellic, sugary note that could be at home in both the Coca-Cola and macaron accords. However, due to the eggy and creamy/milky notes in combination with the sweetness, it hews more closely to the macaron side instead. What a pity, for I was looking forward to trying a "Coke fragrance" too! I do detect some hints of spices - cinnamon and cilantro - which could have steered the fragrance towards the Coke, but I feel that the fragrance wasn't sufficiently transparent or effervescent to make it feel more like an ice-cold glass of good ol' Coca-Cola. Nevertheless, this is a pretty good fragrance - a word of warning though, Paris*L.A. is a rather saccharine scent, so it can easily get cloying in hot weather! I think this could be a fall scent.

My review is based on a little dabber sample, so the longevity and sillage I experienced from my sample may not be accurate to an atomizer version. This is quite gingery and softly sweet. I got this hoping for a Coke Float vibe (cola and vanilla ice cream). While Paris LA isn’t that, it’s surprisingly wearable in that it isn’t overpoweringly gourmand. It’s still juuust this side of abstractly sweet that it doesn’t get on my nerves the same way my niece drenching herself in BBW’s Strawberry Poundcake does. FB worthy at this point for me, though I may start with a decant first I also wanna add to be cautious because the second time I tested this fragrance I got a mild skin rash on the application area. Hasn’t happened since though

Soda notes make me skeptical about a perfume's wearability, but to my surprise, Paris * LA is quite pleasant. I have a small luckyscent dabber of this and immediately I could detect cola and some ginger to mellow out the citrusy sweetness. I think the macaron note, though really unique, is kind of unnecessary because it ends up making the perfume a big sugar-fest that is borderline cloying. The way ALOF captured the crackly, sugar-almond shell of a macaron is pretty photorealistic though, I have to say. Unlike the ratings below, I don't think this is a great summer perfume, but it would be a perfect pick-me-up scent in the fall and winter. A sweet reminder of summer.