Jennifer Lopez released Glow, her first fragrance, in 2002, making her something of an old hand in the current celebrity fragrance boom. The fragrance was meant to target women in their late teens and early 20s, who presumably make up a large part of her fan base. Glow was a tremendous success, ringing up over $100 million in sales in its first year. No doubt it helped to attract other celebrities into the fragrance market, and J Lo herself has not been idle — she has just launched her fifth fragrance, Love At First Glow.
The original Glow was created by perfumer Louise Turner, and has notes of neroli, orange blossom, pink grapefruit, rose, sandalwood, amber, soft musk, jasmine, orris and vanilla. Jennifer Lopez was said to have wanted to capture the fragrance of freshly washed skin, and that pretty much tells the story of Glow: this is a very clean and very soapy floral musk. It starts with citrus and orange blossom; subtle floral notes are evident in the heart — the rose is soft, but noticeable — along with a tiny little tinge of powder, but the overall impression is of a scented guest soap. The musk notes are rather strong, and intensify the longer it is on skin.
As has often been the case with celebrity fragrances, I expected little, so was pleasantly surprised. It is very wearable, and has excellent lasting power. It is not particularly unusual, in fact, as has been noted elsewhere the dry down smells rather like the popular perfume oil China Rain, versions of which are available at Terranova or Body Time. Nor is it particularly sophisticated (for a more elegant take on guest soap, try Hermès Caleche). But you could do significantly worse with a celebrity fragrance, and for that matter, you could do significantly worse for the price.
Jennifer Lopez J Lo Glow is an Eau de Toilette. If you shop carefully online, you can find 50 ml bottles for around $25.
Glow is definitely my favorite celebrity scent. I've been wearing it since it first came out and I love it. Sometimes I forget just how much, as it gets lost among my niche fragrances. The sillage is great and as you mention the lasting power is too. I need to make a mental note to wear this one this week.
:O) Victoria O
V, I have a long way to go in terms of smelling all the celebrity offerings, but so far I would place this 2nd, after SJP Lovely. I am not moved to buy either, but would wear either if I had it. I read so many bad reviews of Glow that I was expecting a scrubber, but it really is nice. Do you like any others in the J Lo line?
and a side note: I love Cumming too, but I never count it in with the others because it is so weird.
Would you beleive me if I said I haven't tried it!!
M, I just smelled it last week for the first time, so of course I believe you! But I am determined to try to break out of the niche-snob thing & at least give other kinds of fragrances a try.
As a matter of fact I like all the JLo's except Miami Glow, I'm not big on coconut. Glow is far and away the best, but I do like Still with its Sake Note and the cool oriental feel. It's distinct and different. I also have Live. which I rate third but still enjoy. I have a sample of the new Love at First Glow araound here some where, I haven't even got to that one yet.
I agree with you that it is among my favourite celebrity scents. JLo Live is also nice.
I tried this with an open mind, I swear. Luca Turin likes it. However, it is waaaaay soapy on me. I did like it better than Curious (wow, there's a low bar.)
Still is next on my list to try, thanks V!
V, Have only tried Live very quickly & need to revisit. It didn't appeal to me on a card, but then, neither did Glow.
M, I did not remember that LT ever talked about Glow. Yes, it is waaay soapy! Sometimes I like soapy, sometimes I don't. Did you really think Curious was that bad? I thought it was ok.
I really need to get out and try this and the Brittany Spears two and SJP. I get so caught up in hunting down things that are hard to find that I forget to look at the ones that are everywhere — in the stores and on people. Probably another reason I don't get to them, just too accessible.
Hey, but you've tried the Antonio Banderas! That might be a more sensible approach
Well, that and Sand & Sables, you know.
Well I don't know nuthin' about J Lo scents but did get a laugh over the ad photo! She looks like a praying mantis…I've heard of “contouring” a body photo but it looks like quite a bit of J Lo's lower body is missing…the waist especially. Yep, it's MONDAY and I'm catty. K
I've never been able to bring myself to try this one. I really loathe Jennifer Lopez, and would be embarassed to be caught sampling anything bearing her name.
The notes sound pleasant enough however, so maybe I'll break my no Jlo rule. I must say that I love the bottle for her Live perfume. Don't know what the juice smells like, but I would be tempted to purchase that one for the bottle alone.
LOL — of course, lets not forget the Sand & Sables!
Meow!! But you're right
heh. *ashamed* that's what I was thinking. And it got my mind off the low-bar estimation of the fragrance. *tries hard to concentrate again* xoxo
hi R! great minds on the same *ahem* track. xoxo
As usual, I am blissfully unaware. I know who she is & that she was engaged to whatshisname but then married someone else. Have never heard her sing or seen her act.
I don't like the Glow bottle at all — the Live one is much better.
LOL! Don't think too hard, its not worth it
I sound like such a b!tch sometimes… no, honestly, I don't think any of the Celebrity or Celebutante frags are “bad” (Jessica Simpson excepted, but that's a completely different price point and thus an unfair comparison). I think they all hired people who knew what they were doing and crafted an end product they should be pleased with that works well with their demographic. I guess (paraphrasing you?) I am just so decidedly not their demographic that I'm repulsed — if I could broad-brush, they are much too sweet for me and generally rest on that extremely popular vanilla (?) musk base that is not a favorite of mine. But if I were 20 years younger I'd probably think they were the bomb, you know? I'd have sniffed Mitsouko and said, eeeeeeew, who wants to smell like that?!? PS it wasn't a review, but I remember somewhere on LT's blog comments somebody snarked at Glow and he said, but I LIKE glow! I swear it's on there somewhere, plus I think he compared it to another frag, will see if I can find…
M, No need to feel like a b!tch, it is all true enough…we are both way older than the target market here. Both Curious & Glow surprise me because frankly, they are as good as many of the mainstream designer releases, in fact, better than some. Curious is sweet, but I've smelled worse from higher end brands!
Amen on that… the new Lancome. Hypnose. Yawn. Those awful Estee Lauder fruitwater things. The awful Escada waterfruit things. Wah wah. BTW did you EVER get ahold of a sample of Ralph Turquoise? I've been trying, just for cosmic laffs. Can NOT get one from those SAs. Even tried the RL Boutique.
I like this and have a bottle. Of course it's not groundbreaking or anything like that, but I think it's well made and smells great.
Hugs!
R, agree w/ all of that!
I always thought Still came out before Glow – I don't know why . . . I remember the Still ad with her sporting the huge rock her fiance gave her, and which she presumably has since given back. I didn't care for Glow – in the same way I didn't care for JPG Classique (the vanilla/musk thing). But I like Still, it's like sweet milky tea. Might even go and dig it out and throw some on this hot-wet-humid morning. I just love it when you review non-niche perfumes!
Still was 2003. She has worked fast! I will get to Still & Live eventually
I have all of Jennifer's fragrances. I love them all. I LOOOOOOOVE this bottle. Its beautiful. HOWEVER, I'll have to say live is the best perfume bottle. My favorite fragrance is True Star and True Star Gold. Will you be reviewing those robin??? Have you smelled them??? I love them! True Star Gold is very citriusy. I think you might like it
I have not tried the True Star Gold yet, but didn't care for the original True Star. Can't say why as I'm on vacation and don't have access to my notes. And I have the worst memory in the world
I bought this a LONG time ago when it first came out, and I did like it.
This is the first of two fragrances that I got tired of rather quickly.
Needless to say, I barely finished the bottle, and this quickly got tossed aside for bigger and better.
This is definitely NOT scent that I would pick up again.
You know, it's almost 2 years since I wrote this review and I've since smelled quite a few more celeb scents — my respect for Glow has increased dramatically. I do think it is one of the better celebrity fragrances out there, partially because it was one of the first of the “new wave” of celebrity scents, and so didn't bow to trendiness as much as many that came later.
I admit that Glow is a nice scent, and it is different than the others out there, but you have to admit that Glow was responsible for the slew of celebrity fragrances out right now (post Liz Taylor) – everyone saw the success of J-Lo's perfume and they too wanted to jump on the scented bandwagon.
I still say that Glow still veered toward the trend of “clean” although Glow upped the ante when it came to smelling “clean”.
I will agree though that it is still different that the other scents that came out later, and if it came down to recommending a celebrity scent or sudden death, I would probably recommend Glow.
For me personally, I just got tired of the “soapy-ness” as posted above. After a while, it just got to be too much.
Quite true that Glow was on the “clean” trend, but I guess if all the other celeb scents had gone w/ clean instead of gourmand fruity floral, I'd be happier
Ditto on that. =0]
i just got a sample of this from scentedmonkey.com and it's okay so far, but the one thing i wanted to say is that there was a distinct “slightly rotten tomato” note when you first open it/put it on that, (thankfully!) goes away quickly. anyone else smell this? what ingredient could this be? lol
Ouch, no, don't get that at all! But if you “almost” love it, you might try China Rain instead.
thanks for the recommendation…i don't even almost love this fragrance. it stays very powdery and magnolia-ey on me. I'll try it again, but i don't have high hopes!
What to do, if you have next to no money, can’t afford expensive perfume, and won’t wear something that smells cheap?
I don’t leave the house without perfume. I just never do, it would be like leaving without all my clothes. I wear the perfume to match my mood, if I can, but failing that, I wear Glo. It’s light and sweet, never heavy but pervasive, it lasts nicely. A scented guest soap? I should be so lucky as ever to havve smelt anything so nice. I didn’t realize there was orange blossom in it, I must say! Now I’m not surprised I like it so much. Orange blossom is my all time favorite smell, and I’m trying to find a good, lifelike fragrance. Anyway, for daytime wear, I love my Glo, and even now, when I have several perfume bottles to choose from, I still wouldn’t be without that tall, slim bottle with the top that falls off so darn easily! Go, Glo!
Most unfortunately, the really good orange blossom perfumes tend to be really expensive. The Cote Bastide Fleur d’Oranger isn’t too outrageous, around $50 for a huge bottle.