Jennifer Lopez launched Live, her fourth fragrance, last year. Live was developed by perfumer Dominique Ropion, and the notes include lemon, orange, pineapple, redcurrant, peony, violet, caramel, tonka beans, vanilla and sandalwood.
Not surprisingly, Live is a fruity floral — hey, almost all celebrity fragrance releases these days are fruity florals, and despite what I keep reading about how the trends are changing, it sometimes seems like at least 90% of all fragrance releases are fruity florals, and sweet ones at that. It isn't my favorite category so it doesn't exactly strike joy in my heart, but if it is yours, I don't think you have anything to worry about for the near future.
The ad copy describes Live as an "upbeat fruity floral" inspired by J Lo's love for dancing, and that is exactly what it smells like: young and energetic and fun. It starts with citrus and pineapple, and the top notes have a kind of tropical cocktail feel, but the dry down is deeper and sexier, with warm woods and lots of musk, and the caramel-vanilla is pleasingly subdued.
Despite the warmth and sexiness, it is still more clean than not. Unless I'm mistaken (sorry, running late and no time to Google it) this is the fragrance that J Lo wanted to smell like baby's heads and cake. I'm not sure I get either, but there is something like clean skin in the dry down. At any rate, Live is nicely done and very wearable. I don't adore it but I don't hate it either. I have read complaints about the lasting power but I had no such trouble with it myself; a kind of indistinctly fruity musky-woods lasted nearly all day on me.
Live Luxe, the first follow-up to Live, launched earlier this year. It is yet another fruity floral, this one created by perfumer Claudette Belnavis. The notes include pear, peach, melon, apple, muguet, amethyst freesia, honeysuckle, diamond musk, amber, vanilla and sandalwood.
Live Luxe did not impress me nearly as much as Live, although of course it all depends on what you are after. The top notes are again sweet fruits: mixed at first; later, I smelled mostly apple. They are followed by sweet florals and then a rather pale, thin base: there really isn't anything to temper the sweetness as there is in Live; there is little warmth, and I didn't find it particularly sexy. It smells like perhaps it is geared towards a younger market than the original, or perhaps it is simply meant as more of a summer fragrance? Either way, it is not my cup of tea.
Yes, if one loves this sort of thing, there are plenty of options to explore.
Celebrity fragrance reviews are so difficult to write for me these days–I find myself saying the same thing over and over again.
After today's review, and looking at tomorrow's line up, you should be getting hazard pay.
Live wasn't really so bad I felt, but god, am I sick as ever of the fruity-floral fad. I just don't get it – how on earth is the market not completely oversaturated at this point is beyond me. I agree with Angela, with what's coming tomorrow and the next day, you should be getting some sort of extra recompensation. That is a lot of fruity-floral for one person to have to take
LOL — maybe its easier to just say the same thing over & over
LOL — somebody's got to do it…
Well, I'm sure the market is oversaturated, and that is why so many of these fragrances disappear so quickly. But J Lo seems to have good staying power — none of hers have been discontinued yet, so far as I know.
Her Glows get discontinued. All except the first glow. The other glows are just limited editions. Kinda like ELizabeth Taylor's white diamond expansions. I looooooooooooooove Live jennifer lopez. I got tired of Live Luxe after 3 days. It started to make me wanna throw up. I took it back to Macy's.
Well, yes, the flankers are mostly LEs, but what I meant was that they haven't cut any of the originals.
Well, My Macy's said Still Jennifer Lopez was discontinued :(. I'm tired of it anyway
I brought Live and I experienced buyer remorse almost immediately. Thank goodness it was a Christmas gift set that I've never opened and I returned it the day after. Live smells pretty good at the beginning, but it didn't impress me nearly as much after it dried down. Live Luxe reminds me too much of those Escada seasonal perfumes. In fact, Live Luxe smells very much like one of them! Miami Glow is the only J Lo perfume I brought even though I've considered a lot of them. I also got Miami Glow at a huge discount so I didn't feel so bad about buying it. :p
My favorite is actually the original Glow. We'll see how she does with Glow After Dark, but it sounds pretty Escada-ish too.
This is the first J-Lo fragrance that I've liked. THe others to me were just okay. But I loved this one. It was bold and fruity!
Do you mean the Live or the Live Luxe? I need to try the newest, the Glow After Dark.
Oh, I meant the Live Luxe.
Is the Glow After Dark out yet? I'd like to try that one too.
It is out. Boscovs has it, and assume other department stores probably do as well.
Okay! I smelled the Glow After Dark today! (At Dillards). It's very fruity, which I didn't expect. My 6-year-old sister said it smelled like candy, which made me laugh… but she's not completely wrong. It's not too bad.
Fruity candy is exactly what I'd expect, LOL…hope to smell it soon.
When you FIRST spray it, it smells good! After like 20 seconds, it starts to smell bad! I dunno whats wrong! LOVE the bottle!!!!! And the lotion is soooooo cheap! Theres these flakes in it. Not exactly glitter, but when you shake your hand, the flakes flake off, lol! I HATE body glitter anyway
Still haven't smelled it!! Hopefully this week…
Live Luxe is huge in my store right now, fruity fragrances are all the rage in the 15 – 30 age bracket. Its soooo strong and peachy, but personally it does make me nauseous after a while and I don't think people love it forever.
They certainly do seem to be all the rage — and they just keep coming out with more of them