It has been the top-selling fragrance among multiple countries for three consecutive months. The launch is also their largest of it’s [sic] kind for the United States in 20 years. The initial sales projection for the fragrance has since been shattered, now corrected to reflect roughly $200 million in its first year.1
***
[Jose Manuel] Albesa [of Puig] said Good Girl is “breaking historical records.” The eau de parfum has doubled both sell-in and sell-out objectives in all markets and has been top selling female fragrance in several countries for three consecutive months, he added.
It’s unclear whether the success is due to the scent’s atypical packaging (it’s housed in a teetering stiletto bottle); a racier than usual marketing and advertising campaign with a tag line of “It’s So Good to Be Bad”; the juice itself (jasmine is a key accord, like many of the house’s fragrances that came before it), or a combination of the three — but it’s working.2
Who knew? It's easy to forget how entirely unrepresentative our scent of the day polls are — best selling fragrances sometimes pass perfumistas right by. Often, that's for good reason, but since I'd heard little enough about Carolina Herrera's new Good Girl either way, I figured I should give it a shot. My quest was made easier by the fact that Good Girl has done so well they brought it to the US last December, over a year ahead of its originally scheduled debut.
Good Girl was inspired by "the duality of women" ("We can be both good and naughty", Carolina Herrera Baez assures us)3, and the floriental blend (representing the "opposition of light and dark") was whipped up by perfumer Louise Turner. The notes: jasmine, tuberose, cacao, almond, coffee and tonka bean. The bottle is surely love-it-or-hate-it, and despite my general predilection for kitsch, I'm firmly established in the hate-it camp. It's rare that I see a bottle that I dislike so much that I'd have a hard time buying it even if I loved the juice, but Carolina Herrera has crossed that threshold. It would take some serious artistry to get me to buy a fragrance packaged in a shoe.4
So, what does it smell like? Good Girl opens strong and sweet, and while it calms considerably, the sweetness is there to stay. There is a bit of bright fruity-berry citrus in the top notes, but it's quickly overtaken by the floral notes, which are, I suppose, the promised jasmine and tuberose, done here very much in the department store style: fresh and crisp, no indoles, no rough edges, and not much depth despite the loud tone. The dry down is quieter, and while it never loses its sweetness, it's less of a gourmand than I expected. The coffee is nearly missing in action, and the chocolate and almond are just a whisper. It just smells like the base of your basic mainstream oriental, with the usual creamy-sweet vanilla, musk and woods, decorated here with a judicious drop of almond extract and a few chocolate shavings.
Verdict: I won't have to worry about the stiletto bottle, because I'm not going to lose any sleep (or money) over Good Girl; on the contrary, it will be no easy thing to remember what it smells like two weeks from now. It's wearable if not my style, but it's not what I'd call sophisticated, much less distinctive or memorable. It could use a shot of coffee, and maybe some more bitter cocoa powder, and perhaps another handful of almonds.
My vote: the "teetering stiletto bottle" is selling the juice.
Carolina Herrera Good Girl is available in 30, 50 and 80 ml Eau de Parfum.
1. Via Carolina Herrera’s Good Girl Showing Historically Good Promise at Beauty Fashion Fragrance.
2. Via "Carolina Herrera’s Good Girl Fragrance Breaks Records, Comes to U.S." at Women's Wear Daily, 1/18/2017.
3. Ibid.
4. Although from what I can see on the internets, the love-it camp is much larger. People appear to adore this bottle. If you love it too, do comment and tell me how crazy I am.
I agree with your sentiments 100%. I tested it a couple of months ago along with Decadence. Good Girl was nothing to write home about. I mean, it was nice but it’s average IMO. I also think the bottle is quite unsightly but I appreciate thier effort for trying something new.
Average is exactly right. It is one of many that I imagine started out interesting and got toned down afterwards. (I like to think of it that way, that they chickened out. Otherwise they started off to make meh to begin with, which is more depressing.)
If that bottle cost half as much and was filled with, say, a Jessica Rabbit-branded candied rose, I would buy it unsniffed just to laugh at it when I was sad. In the context of the sexy ads and straightforward juice, though, I don’t really get it.
LOL — ok, I can see that!
Ha! Someone please make that perfume!
Thank you for the review.
I wouldn’t have guessed ten years ago that one could walk into a Macy’s and buy a plastic fetish pump full of department store perfume. (I am not shocked or offended, just surprised at the short timeline from sex shops to Louboutin to Macy’s.)
So true!
And we owe a belated thank you to Louboutin for not doing shoe bottles.
Yet.
I was going to say, although the toe is slightly different, they totally ripped off Laboutin’s 8-inch stillettoes:
http://www.bitrebels.com/design/christian-louboutin-8-inch-heels-nsft-not-suitable-for-toes/
Very happy to see that those are not intended to be worn on real feet!
Not standing up, anyway.
After sweet and sweet here to stay I was turned off.
I understand that companies are out to make money and its a big business…you have to have a crowd pleasing scent…and it may have to appease globally…and be office friendly..and impress the stiletto loving crowd..and be.. and be…
I do not always mind sweet. If they’d amped up the coffee and cocoa, so that it had bitter undertones, I would’ve like it much better.
Taking bets now on what color the first flanker will be
“Nude!”
I haven’t seen this yet. But the marketing is similar to Poison Girl and Black Opium, skewed a bit towards a more mature buyer, but with same suggestion of rebelliousness. The repetition is getting a bit boring isn’t it?
Yes! And it also joins Black Opium in promising coffee that it doesn’t deliver (although IIRC, BO has more coffee than GG).
I’m not a mall shopper, but still, I haven’t even caught a whisper of this fragrance. Not really surprised but with the sales records I would have thought it would surely have been *someone’s* SOTD.
Also, I had Ellen on this afternoon to keep me company while I dusted the bookcases and she reported that Blue Ivy was fronting her own fragrance line. I double-checked that Ellen wasn’t joking, and yep, it’s true!
http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/02/blue-ivy-carter-beauty-line
At five years old!! smh
Might be just because it was exclusive to Macy’s…now I can’t remember if that’s through March or April.
I had to google Blue Ivy, and I’m proud of myself for that!
It is odd to me that Beyonce’s line doesn’t sell more. She is another one that should have financed her own fragrances, and done something better than what she got out of Coty.
If the shoes fit..not for me..I’ll pass
Ha! I was wondering if I’d be ok with the bottle if it was a little black leather ballet flat, and decided no, not even then.
Agreed
Very timely review, Robin, since Hajusuuri and I came across this while sniffing at Macy’s the other day. My verdict(s): Hate the bottle. The juice, when sprayed on a card by a SA, was a dead ringer for Hawaiian Punch! With those top notes. there was no way I was gonna test it on skin.
So it has more in common with Black Opium than I remembered!
I will have to re-sniff Black Opium now, since I don’t remember it being that as sticky-sweet as Good Girl was.
“as sticky-sweet”. Did not need “that” in there!
Oh, it probably isn’t. It just stuck in my head that Angie let someone smell it and they said “grape juice”.
Robin, I always lament that your skin time and talents are wasted on a perfume like this. I guess it’s a public service to review well-known perfumes and hopefully encourage readers not to fall for the hype. Nonetheless, it makes for a dispiriting read. I hope you get to review something inspiring next time!
Oh, no need — I spend most of my skin time on good fragrances! But I think it’s interesting to know what’s out there and what’s selling, plus, hey, you never know what you’ll find! I regret that I totally skipped mainstream perfumery for the first few years after I fell down the rabbit hole.
I personally don’t think this is a waste…
I actually LOVE The Bottle and love the heft and feel of it when you pick it up. It’s actually a lot more playful and fun in person. And the scent, to my nose at the least, is not nondescript or mainstream… it’s very much something that will catch your nose and make you ask the person wearing it what it is. It’s not a shy or discreet scent, which makes sense for the bottle it is in. I mean, I don’t know how others perceive it, but I was actually deeply impressed. and I went in loving the Gimmick that would most likely sell the first few thousand bottles (The Kitschy Shoe Bottle) but actually found the scent far more unique and memorable than i would have suspected and also it doesn’t smell Cheap or just cobbled together to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Maybe it’s me… maybe I’m the one with the problem. I just don’t really find this unlikable in the least…
Bottle or scent.
I’m so confused. The box just looks like a box (vaguely Chanel-like), except in gold lettering it says, “It’s so good to be bad.” But the scent is called “Good Girl.” So the theme is sort of ‘good girl gone bad?’ (Not to be confused with the BK perfume of that name!) Okay. I can sort of roll with that–but what’s so naughty? A shoe. A very high-heeled shoe. A very uncomfortable shoe. A sexy shoe? Not really. A bad shoe. A good shoe gone bad!!! Oooohhh. Got it now!
Lol!
The theme seems to be that women can be / are both good AND bad. Then the flowers are supposedly the light part (presumably, good) and the “roasted beans” (tonka, coffee, etc) are the dark part (presumably, bad). Something like that.
But I am puzzled by the reference in WWD to the “racier than usual marketing and advertising campaign” — it’s really not nearly as racy as many:
https://nstperfume.com/2016/07/25/its-so-good-to-be-bad/
Plus, sorry I just gave a deadpan answer to your comical comment.
Robin, I really appreciate this review. I originally liked the bottle, but after a while I got sick of looking at it. I had hoped the perfume had more depth than you had described. I really like the original Carolina Herrera, and thought it might have been a modern version of it. I guess I thought wrong:(
Well, give it a shot! Maybe you’ll like it way more than I did. And, I don’t hate it, I just don’t think it’s nearly as good as it should be.
Ha, great review and I’m with you regarding the bottle- pure ridiculousness. I have to admit the notes sounded good until you you explained the note list is a false representation of what is actually perceived in the perfume. Cha-CHING! More money saved for a FB of Salome, Onda, Dries, Bois de Iles, etc, etc, ad infinitum????
Well, give it a shot if you can, but even if you like it I don’t think you’ll put it in that list of perfumes.
Oh wow. That is an ugly bottle!
I am not even sure they sell it here in The Netherlands…never saw it in stores, no ad campaigns, no SA’s promoting it.
I just checked the online shop from one of biggest mainstream perfume retailers here (douglas), they do not even offer it online.
But this review indicates we are not missing out.
Douglas does carry it in some countries, but not in The Netherlands at the moment…
Ahem, the exclamation in my former post may be a bit too straightforward(?) Sorry, but we Dutch can be that way.
Oh and the whole idea that coffee and tonka notes represent the ‘bad’, that made me laugh out loud!
It made me think of all the girls in the starbucks sipping on their frappuccinos and other horribly sweet coffee cocktails.
Bad girls!
Well, bear in mind they did not say those represented the bad, they said they represented the “dark” part — “bad” was my interpretation
Ah, so sorry!
So. Dark huh?
Hmm still not feeling it
Coffee represents ‘waking up’/a new day for me hahaha
I smelled it on release last year,for the life of me,cannot even recall a single impression of it.Totally forgettable fragrance,and that bottle is a serious contender for “worst idea to have on your dresser if you have small enquisitive kids at home”-prize.
It is not the first forgettable fragrance to become a best seller! We’ll have to see how many awards it wins this year.
The bottle is hideous and I hate the name of the scent. Thanks for taking one for the team Robin!
Oh, don’t even get me started on the name.
I really like the name; Good Girl is what I call my plus sized chihuahua. If only the bottle was shaped like a chubby black chihuahua, then it would be absolutely irresistible. My Good Girl smells like corn chips, which is preferable to Robin’s review of the actual thing.
I remember vividly my first impression of this thing
Had I not seen it first on the pages of Vogue I would have been laughing and rolling my eyes at the thought that someone in some clandestine fake perfume factory actually thought that ANYONE could believe that a perfume in a big violet glass shoe with a golden heel called Good Girl was indeed a real fragrance by Carolina Herrera.
What on earth, hell and heaven was Carolina Jr thinking when she did this thing? And what on EHH was Carolina Senior taking when she approved of this thing bearing her and her daughter’s name?
I still don’t have the slightest idea of where this fit in the whole Carolina Herrera brand