Cheap and Chic - I Love Love

Cheap and Chic - I Love Love is a citrus detonation dressed in pink—a fragrance that reads as optimistic rather than sophisticated, exuberant rather than nuanced. Olivier Cresp has bottled something that smells like biting into a ruby grapefruit whilst standing in a florist's cold room, the sharp acidity of citrus oils cutting through a haze of tea rose petals and redcurrant syrup. There's an unexpected cinnamon prickle in the heart that keeps this from being merely pretty; it's the spice that stops the sweetness from cloying, adding a faint warmth that grounds all that fizzing fruit. The cedarwood base feels almost tokenistic—this isn't a woody fragrance so much as a fresh one that happens to have wood notes listed—but the musk does enough heavy lifting to prevent complete evaporation. The thanaka wood (a Burmese tree with cosmetic properties) presumably adds a soft, sandalwood-adjacent creaminess, though it whispers rather than shouts. This is the fragrance equivalent of a dopamine hit: immediate, cheerful, uncomplicated. It's for those who want to smell clean and happy without the sterility of aquatics or the weight of white florals. Summer lunches, Saturday errands, the kind of scent you spray on when you're already smiling. At 3.7 stars, it knows exactly what it is—undemanding, uplifting, and utterly transparent about its intentions.