Smells Like Trouble: Louis Vuitton Étoile Filante Review

Welcome to Tynan Sinks’ fragrance column, Smells Like Trouble. As Review2Coupon’s resident fragrance connoisseur, Tynan will be sharing the scents that linger on in his mind, and nose, and clothes.

In the fragrance world, Louis Vuitton scents are kind of…illusive, which, unfortunately for me, only makes me want them more. For years, they’ve been taunting me, beckoning me to smell them but being just far enough out of my grasp that they have thus far evaded me. “That’s fine,” I lied. “I have a billion scents! I don’t need those. I don’t even WANT them.”

But then I saw the arrival of Étoile Filante and I knew this little game I was playing with myself wouldn’t last much longer.

I think a lot about how brands bring fragrances to life through a screen. Talking about a scent while you’re wearing it is challenging enough. But explaining a fragrance using words alone? It’s almost impossible. So obviously I chose it as a career.

I’ll admit it: they got me. Louis Vuitton describes their new scent saying “Experience a journey of light… Like a sun in the heart of the night, the shooting star sends a universal message of hope…”

Like…okay, beautiful.

Described as a bouquet of osmanthus, magnolia, and jasmine with a top note of juicy strawberry, I was intrigued. I don’t usually die for florals, but a strawberry note? What could this smell like? What would their idea of light smell like?

Light is a lot like scent. You can’t touch it, but its presence is unmistakable. You don’t think about it when it’s there, but you miss it when it’s gone.

In the way that you can only experience scent with your sense of smell, you can only experience light with your sense of sight. It doesn’t have texture or weight or taste. Both scent and light are elemental and instinctual.

I thought I knew what I was getting myself into with this scent: light, white florals. And yea, maybe that’s it, or a lot of it, but it’s also so much more. The addition of the juicy, red strawberry and the exclusion of anything other than musk at the base really to work to make the florals shine in a new way. It adds to them without overcomplicating them.

This would be perfect for those who love a classic floral scent, the sort of thing you think of when you think of perfume. But it’s also great for a person like me, who usually detests a typical floral and wants his fragrance to smell like anything but flowers. I keep going back to this, though. It think it’s a really interesting take on a classic, and shows that, when paired right, you don’t really need much to put a new spin on something familiar.

So was the Louis Vuitton scent worth the hunt? Yea, I would say so. If they’re all blends of classic and innovation, then I’m eager to smell the rest of them.

There are a lot of ideas at play here, but it works because Étoile Filante combines a few notes to achieve a scent that is half traditional, half surprising.

I keep thinking about its concept of light, how it tries to portray light through fragrance, and if it’s successful or not. I think, too, about the similarities between light and smell. Étoile Filante is a fascinating take on light as a scent, and also light in terms of weight. It’s bright white florals mimic the purity of light, while the sweet top note is like the added warmth of golden hour. It’s overall a very breezy scent, without any heavy notes to weigh it down.

I think I’ll keep wearing this well into the spring and summer. I love how it keeps me on my toes as it evolves on my skin, and I can’t wait to see how it wears from a gloomy winter to a spring that is sure to be full of light.