Nanette Lepore Shanghai Butterfly, or, a fling with a flowery fruit basket

Ok, first of all, this has to be one of the worst bottles I have ever seen. SO CHEESEY. So. Late. 90’s. In the worst way. That sort of retro-girly-cosmo cartoon aesthetic that looks oh so dated now. But I sniffed, and liked. I don’t love it, but I feel the reviews I found when I was browsing the internets for other people’s opinions about this scent and in the perfume bibles were a little harsh. Ok, it smells a bit like D & G Light Blue. So what—is that a crime?If emulation is so bad, most perfumers should be locked up by now. Luca Turin was especially hard on it—one star? Come on, it’s not that bad.

It’s nothing special, but it is certainly wearable. It is a straightforward fruity floral scent, good for a girly spring mood. It’s like carrying around a fruitbowl filled with apples, oranges, and lemons, which some fairy magicked so that the boughs of fruit blossoms were still on it. The sillage is not great, but, again, not terrible either. It’s something I imagine donning for a casual spring dinner al fresco with friends. If you want to smell like you just chopped up a fruit salad in a flower-filled kitchen, or maybe a bit like a gin and St. Germain cocktail, this will do the trick. It doesn’t strike my nose as particularly synthetic smelling, a comment I saw pop up fairly regularly in other reviews. It smells clean, naïve, and girly. No complexity or intrigue. You could give it to a 13 year old girl and it would suit her just fine, I am sure. A good spring/Summer scent.