Aromatic Blends: Orange Flower & Lychee Kiehl`s for women and men

This smells beautiful, it's a close second to Jo Malone Necterine Blossom and Honey Cologne. Light, sweet and fruity, just love it.

Lychees come in a can, in my experience. I have never seen a lychee in nature. What do lychee plants look like? Are they trees? Are they bushes? Do they grow in the ground like tubers? Are lychees encased in hard nut-like shells? Do they grow anywhere outside the Far East? No idea, to be honest. The only lychees which I've ever seen or eaten have been canned in light sugar syrup or served in Chinese restaurants.

Last week I made a batch of coconut rice with lychees. This is a recipe which I invented by accident a while back, having endeavored to create a coconut rice lychee dessert but without having added any sweetener beyond the light syrup in which the lychees were preserved. So that's the recipe: Calrose rice + coconut milk + a whole can of lychees, syrup included + some extra water. Let it bake in a big bowl for an hour or so and you'll have a big batch of coconut-scented rice studded with lychees. It tastes remarkably good with spicy oriental vegetables and sprinkled with soy sauce-seasoned sesame seeds.

Why is any of this relevant to Kiehls ORANGE FLOWER & LYCHEE? you may ask, and not without reason. The answer: because this new aromatic mist by Kiehls is much, much, much sweeter than canned lychees in light sugar syrup. These lychees are suspended in a very heavy, sugar-rich and viscous syrup. The composition is so sweet, in fact, that I am reminded while wearing it of what I consider to be the sweetest perfume in existence. No, it's not By Kilian LOVE, which comes in a close second place. No, the sweetest perfume in existence, at least among all those which I have sniffed to date, is MOR LYCHEE FLOWER.

I do like these aromatic mists by Kiehls, but this one, of the four in the series, is by far the least appealing to me for the simple reason that it is way too sweet for me to choose to wear as a perfume. In fact, after putting some on before going out today, I came close to layering something on top of it to cut the sweetness. Instead, I decided to wait it out. It's an aromatic mist, so it did not take that long for the sweetness--along with the scent--to dissipate.

There is a touch of orange flower in the composition, and I might be smelling a smidgeon of the honey and the rose mentioned on the box, but lychee is the star of the show. I had hoped for a bit more balance between the two named notes. If truthfully named, this creation should really be called LYCHEES IN HEAVY SYRUP. It's a natural smelling fruity-floral fragrance which might work for people who usually wear designer and celebrity fruity florals. For me, this is just too sweet.

Loved the way the sample bottle smelled, but on me, was nothing but straight orange. After a while I smelled a hint of powder but still way too heavy on the orange. Too bad.

This is really beautiful. It was bugging me on what it reminded me of and then it hit me, it's very reminiscent of Nina by Nina Ricci. The Lychee does come out in this. It is very interesting because I would have bet that Nina had it too, but there are really not any notes in common. This is the second fragrance from Kiehl's I have purchased, the other is Cedar and vanilla, also lovely. They are both really growing on me. The lasting power of the Kiehl's perfumes are amazing. I may have to get the fig leaf and sage next.

I sampled the matching lotion layered with this scent. I get no orange flower, no lychee, no honey what I do get is a big whiff of grapefruit! Pink grapefruit to be more exact. I would have purchased the perfume if it hadn't been completly gone in 30 minutes. The lotion was sticky and hardly smelled like anything so passed on both.

I was gifted a 1.5 ml spray sample of this and enjoyed wearing it today. I applied 2 sprays to both my right and left antecubital fossa (AKA "elbow pit") this morning. I actually was still able to slightly smell this after wearing it for 7 hours and I'm guessing had I layered it with the matching body lotion, I have as well in the travel size, it might have lasted even longer. This is a close to the skin scent and not likely to offend anyone even if you are in close quarters. After about 5 minutes this scent loses any sharpness it may have. The orange blossom does seem to dominate this scent for about the first hour, but it really evolves into something much more beautiful in my opinion. I know it is not listed as a note but I smell orange mixed with orange blossom and the honey note seems to give it a sweet creaminess that I really enjoy! I also know that the scent has the word "lychee" right in the name of the scent but I have wore this all day and have not noticed it, but that could just be my inexperience in detecting notes or my body chemistry.
If you enjoy fruity florals with a touch or sweetness, while still having a clean fresh scent this is definitely worth testing. I will most likely add this to my collection next spring or summer because this is when I would wear this scent.