Bath & Body Works
Bath & Body Works
76 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The citrus trio—citron, grapefruit, green mandarin—detonates with chemical immediacy, all sharp, slightly plasticky brightness. Within seconds, there's an almost medicinal quality, as if you've accidentally sprayed yourself with a high-street air freshener rather than perfume.
After perhaps an hour, the citrus begins its slow fade, allowing whispers of absinth and cardamom to surface. These middle notes add a faintly herbal, peppery dimension, but they're too tentative to make real impact—the synthetic undertones persist, and the composition becomes a blurry, soapy green rather than anything with proper character.
By the fourth hour, there's virtually nothing left. A faint, powdery sweetness—presumably the patchouli and sweetgrass—lingers on skin as barely perceptible ghost notes. The fragrance has essentially evaporated into nothingness, leaving only the faintest suggestion of amber-tinged sweetness that requires a nose practically pressed to the skin to detect.
Sweet Pea Forever arrives as a bracing citrus shock—all zippy grapefruit and green mandarin that crackles with the brightness of a freshly peeled orange. Yet there's something distinctly synthetic about this opening, a chemical sharpness that lends the composition an almost aerosol quality, as if someone's spritzed air freshener directly onto your wrists. The fragrance wants to be a cheerful, aqueous green floral, but the citrus notes remain stubbornly dominant, refusing to fade into the background where they might allow the heart to breathe.
When the absinth and cardamom do finally emerge, they arrive more as whispers than declarations—ghostly suggestions of spice and herbaceous intrigue that fail to gain purchase against the relentless citric assault. The cardamom might have provided warmth and complexity; instead, it reads as vaguely peppery flatness. The neroli, which should provide a delicate bridge between the fresh topnotes and something more sensual below, instead becomes another green, slightly soapy layer.
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2.4/5 (108)