La Vie est Belle
Lancôme (2012)

Generic mainstream sugar floral. I'm awed reviewers can differentiate between these. They all smell the same to me. That said, the body cream does smell nice on other people, with some distance.

I tested from a 4ml mini. I never check reviews before testing because I don't want to be biased. I used a very small amount--much less than a typical single spray from a full bottle.

Overwhelmingly sweet, synthetic, piercing, cloying. There is a certain synthetic thickness that is very common that I've always found headache inducing. I've always assumed it to be a synthetic amber accord but I don't know. Whatever it is, LVEB has used a lot of it.

I was absolutely choked by the incredible potency. I clenched my teeth and my neck and shoulder muscles tightened. I'm not exaggerating my own reaction for laughs. It was hard to force myself to take even breath shallow breaths.

I found that it was impossible to fully scrub off--I tried soap, cleansing oil, hot water and Dawn with a nail brush, several alcohol swabs, and a facial scrub Vitamin C powder wash. I tried mayonnaise and bit of ham fat rubbed in. More soap.

I opened the back door in near freezing weather to clear out the fumes.

I've tested fragrance that I hated immediately, but never one that I thought might actually kill me.

Woody, Saccherin, Faux Vanilla Caramel Muck with an inadequate Patch counter, overpowers the Feathers of Jasmine, Austere of Waxy Iris and Delicate sweetness of Blossom.

Insipid Top notes fail to cut through
this Depressive Anaerobic Soup.

A Fine and Vulgar example of NAFF.

This fragrance gets a lot of hate mail. I don’t think it’s warranted in this case. It’s a sweet, and very addictive patchouli, praline and Tonka, and it’s made even more alluring with the use of sweet juicy pear and orange blossom. You do have to enjoy sweet fragrances to like this, but if you do, it’s hard not to like. The other thing that’s amazing here, is the performance. It doesn’t seem like most modern perfumes have much longevity these days, but this is not lacking here. In fact, this one is incredibly strong and projects very well, so go easy on the atomizer. But it will last all day!

The life is beautiful/life is beautiful. I don't care for man made food & chemical notes of the modern perfume world. I tried the perfumed body creme and it wasn't bad at all. I use a dash on pulse points, so not much. It's not too starring, stayed close to me. I didn't get cheap, chemical smell at all. It's nice.

I watched a Jeremy Fragrance Top Women's Perfumes video on YouTube and decided to try them all. I don't regret the experience, but it reinforced how we all have olfactory bias. His is candy sweet with a touch of praline.
Unfortunately the praline is an aromachemical that's been a bugaboo for me since forever. It always smells like burnt caramel to me and ruins any fragrance it's in. When that note's combined with fruit it becomes worse, like burnt fruit stew. Yeah, it's as bad as it sounds. So many of his recommendations were really bad to me.
I've heard about La Vie Est Belle for years, so I don't know if this one started a trend, like popular ones invariably do, or if it'’s copying the dna of a prior popular one (as perfumes invariably do). But I don't really care, they're all swimming in the same school of fish. Most of the ones I sampled in this group smelled of the same burnt fruity caramel.
I can see why it would be popular if you don't have aromachemical issues. It's bright, fun, vivacious, a little bit party-girl, sassy, feminine, sweet. But, like I said, it's similar to many other fragrances that can be described exactly the same way. There's not a lot of depth, and a herd mentality, but really, if it's a fragrance you like that shouldn't matter.
When you find this many similar ones you have the choice of picking the one you like most. But I have to pass on the whole school of fish.