When Anna Sui launched La Vie De Bohème in 2013, I tried it as soon as I could, and then I promptly forgot all about it. I think it smelled a lot like 2010’s Forbidden Affair, but you could also have also shelved it with all the Secret Wish flankers. The thing is: yes, Anna Sui does design girlish frocks in sheer fabrics and pastel florals, the sartorial equivalent of airy, grapefruit-y scents in pink bottles. But the designer also offers a more sophisticated aesthetic in her clothing: beaded flapper dresses, cut-velvet tunics, tall boots, fringed scarves in vintage-inspired textiles, lots of black and purple and red.

I’m a longtime Anna Sui customer when it comes to items in the latter category (at least, when they’re on the sale rack!), so I was curious about La Nuit De Bohème Eau de Toilette. It’s meant to be a “more dramatic and elegant version” of La Vie, with notes of champagne citrus and blackberry; lotus flower, rose and oud; cedar, vanilla orchid, patchouli and amber. It was developed by perfumers Jérome Epinette and Michel Almairac, and it’s packaged in a very shiny golden iteration of the La Vie rose-and-butterfly bottle…

Read the rest of this article »