Sickly sweet and shrill plastic strawberry and coumarin mess.

I was a little bit worried about even wearing this. I tested it on paper first and it smelt like my 80s Strawberry Shortcake Doll on steroids, sickly sweet and artificial also like biting into a Strawberry Chapstick; super sweet, artificial, medicinal - like the whiff of strawberry scented marker.

So I approached with caution when testing on my skin. ONE SPRAY on the back of my hand. Quelle surprise!!… a beautiful fresh juicy strawberry, bright and vibrant, a little shampooy. Some fresh apple notes. Reminiscent of a less sweet Body Shop Strawberry Body Butter.

About 15mins later it starts to turn into a disaster again for me. The artificial, plastic and ethanol strawberry has made an unwelcome return, this time accompanied with a sickly sweet plum syrup and tonka bean! I don’t dislike tonka bean, it’s used wonderfully in many perfumes I like to give a warm, sensual base. But in Strawberry Letter it smells like Phlur have liberally poured in the synthetic coumarin with a shaky hand.

It’s all just too much for me. I try my best to grin and bear it, for the sake of an honest review, hoping it will dry down into something, if not enjoyable, at least acceptable. But two hours in and that one spray on the back of my hand is emanating a toxic cloud of sickly sweet artificial plastic and ethanol strawberry, plum syrup and a bucket of coumarin. The headache and nausea is too much. I admit defeat. The hand has been scrubbed… several times!

Now I need to say that I will acknowledge that I have a sensitive nose. Some people seem to get a lovely strawberry fruity perfume with this, some get the artificial plastic strawberry. I’m afraid I’m in the latter camp, this perfume is definitely not for me.