La Vie est Belle is a mega-popular perfume by cosmetic brand Lancome, one of the most successful and best-selling perfumes in this decade and a true successor to Thierry Mugler Angel from the 1990s. Many perfumes are considered to be the successors of Angel, but there can be only one crown prince, both because of the perfume composition and the commercial success, and that prince is La Vie est Belle. For those who liked Angel but found it to be a little “too much,” they will have a decent substitute in La Vie est Belle.

Perfume experts or passionate lovers will not be thrilled with this perfume edition for many reasons: it does not offer anything original (the derivative of the composition and the notes is obvious from the first to the last chord), it is similar to many others (children of Angel who appeared before 2012) and too much popularity (a couple of years ago, while walking along quay in Zemun you could smell La Vie est Belle on every second girl, just like now every other guy smells like Creed Aventus or a copy of it). But with all this in mind, we can safely say that La Vie est Belle is a beautiful perfume, harmonious, and with incredible performances.

la vie est belle

The perfume composition of La Vie est Belle is fruity floral, with large amounts of gourmet notes (caramel) and patchouli. As I said, already seen, but unlike many (and believe me that there are many, way too many) perfumes from this genre in all price categories, the difference between them and La Vie est Belle is that LVEB does not smell cheap. Not that expensive ingredients are the reason, they are actually quite cheap, starting from the cheapest fast growing iris to ethyl maltol, the holy grill of all the sweet fragrances of today. On several occasions, I wrote about maltol, but for those who do not know it is a synthetic fragrant note that smells like fried sugar, cotton candy, with a touch of strawberries and vanilla.

La Vie est Belle (or some perfume like it) everyone should have in their perfume collection and wear it when they want some fun, sweet, delicious perfume. This is not a perfume that should be anyone’s signature scent and I can not imagine anyone having only this perfume because it would be as if a person lived exclusively on biscuits or macaroons. It’s okay to eat them from time to time, but if you eat too much … well, you’re sick of it. And I want to believe that people are much more complex beings and that they would choose a bit more complex perfume as their signature fragrance than this one.

La Vie est Belle is Jennifer Aniston among perfumes. Cute, pretty girl from the neighborhood. She is not a Hollywood diva – Angelina Jolie, which is probably a deadly tuberose, or Julia Roberts (a face of LVEB) who would be a lovely lily of the valley. You may like La Vie est Belle but it will not enchant you. Simply because it has no depth and complexity for it. But, as I always say, not every perfume must be a masterpiece, just as not every musical composition have to be that. And just as we do not always want to listen to classical symphonies, but sometimes want to relax with the light notes of pop music, in parallel, sometimes we also want light perfume notes. And La Vie est Belle is exactly this, light, rhythmic and loud notes that will make us smile and dance. If you need a perfume for that, I strongly recommend LVEB.

[Fragrance notes] top notes: black currant, pear; middle notes: iris, orange flower, jasmine; base notes: tonka, praline, patchouli, vanilla.

[Fragrance group] fruity floral.

Perfume creators are Olivier Polge, Dominique Ropion and Anne Flipo.