A patchworked, potentially incorrect history of the Lolita Lempicka perfume

I fell into a deep internet hole and only an eBay gamble saved me

My first “real” perfume was Vera Wang Princess. I remember seeing the news of its release on Now Smell This and losing my mind. The name! The heart-shaped glass! The cap with adorned by wearable gold rings! I had to have it.¹

And when it debuted in 2006, it wasn’t the stuff of drug stores and discounters that it is now: On the weekend it was released, I drove three hours for my first Sephora trip ever and bought it for something like $60. With notes of “lady apple” (???), water lily, chocolate, and amber, this floriental fragrance felt like one of the fanciest, most grown-up things I had ever owned. I sprayed it every day and wore the rings until the gold color rubbed off.

But on that same Sephora trip, another perfume bottle caught my eye: An ivy-embellished purple apple whose gold stem, engraved with a heart as if someone had carved it into a branch, also doubled as its sprayer. It was Lolita Lempicka, a decade-old fragrance that was somehow still trekking along on the Sephora shelves.

The cute bottle caught my attention, and unlike a lot of perfumes of the 2000s, the scent truly looked like it belonged in its bottle—and its ads. With notes of ivy, violet, tonka, and a lot of star anise², Lolita Lempicka smells like a sheer-winged, powdery fairy in an ivy-covered tree, or a cheeky forest maiden in a gossamer gown who has to leave the ball by midnight.

But at the time, it felt a little too earthy for me, never suiting the person I wanted to be when I was a teenager. I’d wear it on occasion, but I never purchased it. Then in college, I got into niche perfumes, and haven’t purchased a big name fragrance in just as many years.

But earlier this winter, I remembered Lolita Lempicka. It felt like the right moment for it, with enough distance from the 90s for celestial decor and whimsigoth to feel timely and fresh again. Plus, I realized last year that my favorite perfumes these days are rather powdery. Maybe Lolita Lempicka would suit me, finally, in my mid 30s?

What a fun little throwback impulse purchase, I thought. They used to sell these bottles at discount perfume shops, back in the day. I bet I could snag a bottle for $20.

Well… I lost that bet.

Yes, you can still buy a bottle of Lolita Lempicka for just a couple bucks. But the question of whether or not you’re getting the perfume you remember, is another story.

As it turns out, the internet is full of people trying to find the “original” Lolita Lempicka, with many differing accounts of how the perfume has changed over the years.

Since its debut in 1997, the fragrance been through so many reformulations and bottle changes for reasons both known and unknown. There’s the original bottle, of course, sometimes sold in a box labeled “Pacific Creations” or “Leslie Leonor International.” Sometimes with the words “Le Parfum” emblazoned on its glass, other times not. There’s the angular bottle… Do we really need to talk about that hideous facsimile? And then there are various flankers in frosted, opaque, and metallic bottles of varying colors, released over the last 30 years to various (usually low) levels of success. Not to mention the brand’s other fragrances, often bottled in equally cute vessels³…

So instead of a fun little impulse purchase with a cute bottle I could leave on my vanity table, I fell into a deep internet research hole, trying to find my licorice-scented white whale, the exact perfume I remembered from my childhood.

Here, I will present my findings, with some very obscure, old website links to explain my hypotheses. I cannot guarantee my presentation’s accuracy. I cannot ensure your faith in me. But if you’re trying to find the original Lolita Lempicka EDP, perhaps my final purchase may sway you.

Let’s start from today, shall we?

2021: Lolita Lempicka Le Parfum

Yes, the bottle style I remember! This was the first thing I found, and what lead me to believe that my search would be simple.

“The bestseller makes its great comeback!” Exclaims the website, where it’s currently available for €109 (~$128). “A gourmet and ultra-sensual accord of licorice and violet sublimated by a surprising note of anise, voluptuously sublimated by a cloud of musk.”

This is the label’s most recent attempt at a reformulation of the original perfume, in its original bottle, but it’s not the original. From perfume heads on the internet, it seems to be very close, but not as long-lasting—I remembered smelling the original on my clothes the day after, with just one spray.

When shopping, note the “Le Parfum” on the box and bottle. Maybe it is a good enough match to the original, but at this price point, I figured I’d rather put in the work to find an actual vintage bottle.

2017: Lolita Lempicka Mon Premier

This bottle marks the introduction of the words “Leslie Leonor International” on the box and bottle sticker. In 2017, the actual human fashion designer Lolita Lempicka took her name back after 20 years of licensing and now keeps it in the family—Leslie and Leonor are middle names of her children, according to Wikipedia, who help run the business in France and New York.

I read somewhere that the licensee held the rights to the original apple bottle for some years after the license expired. I’m not sure if that’s true or not? But I’m sorry, this bottle suuuucks. Even if this contained exactly the same scent as the 1997 original (and it doesn’t—it’s a much stronger, flatter, cherry-dominant scent, from what I have read), I would not purchase it.

Leslie Leonor did release Lolita Lempicka Original in 2020, I assume due to customer outrage, lol. Unfortunately, it was presented in this same angular bottle, with the addition of a gold leaf charm that says “ORIGINAL”! on it. I don’t know how close that scent is to the actual original, but if it’s in this style bottle, it’s not what you’re looking for.

Sure, the apple stem of that iconic ‘90s bottle had some issues, often breaking and wasting its juice with bad sprays, but this barely even looks like an apple. Whimsy who? This weird triangular bottle with its angular box motif is surely an artifact of the the 2010s Great Beige-ification. NO THANK YOU

2012: Lolita Lempicka (Pacific Creations)

This is the 5ml version, which is tiny so it looks a bit different!

Some people say that the flourish-y boxes labeled “Pacific Creations” are symbols of the very first Lolita Lempicka formulation. And yes, from my research, parent company AmorePacific had the license for the Lolita Lempicka name from launch⁴. They were apparently the company who first got the license and launched the fragrance.

However, it seems that they started adding “Pacific Creations” to the packaging and bottle stickers until the 2010s. It’s possible that this french subsidiary of AmorePacific didn’t exist until 2015, since I can’t seem to find anything earlier online about them.

It is also possible that this scent is comparable or the same as the pre-2010s juice, but regulations change constantly and scents are constantly reformulated. if you’re looking for the earliest possible version of this scent, this isn’t for you. Check the sticker on the bottom of the label, and the text on the bottom of the box. If it says “Pacific Creations,” keep looking.

1997: Lolita Lempicka

After seeing some posts about bottles that were merely labeled with “Lolita Lempicka Paris,” I started looking around for one. Given that I couldn’t find much about Pacific Creations existing in the 90s, I thought it might be a good bet.

I found an unopened Lolita Lempicka box on Ebay, sans any other company names, and bought it… for about $130. So much for a cheap little impulse purchase, but I was in too deep to go back now.⁵

And after I click “buy,” I realized… I had no idea what I was getting. The box still being in its original cellophane seemed like the ideal purchase—No degradation from the sun, etcetera—but I started second guessing myself. Maybe it would be one of the angular bottles, or something differently entirely? Oh god, maybe it would be empty????

My panicking finally led me to this genius idea: Asking a friend to send me a photo of the sticker on her ancient, early 2000s bottle of Lolita Lempicka. LOL. To my relief: No “Pacific Creations,” no “Leslie Leonor,” just “Lolita Lempicka Paris.” So at least I had one good hunch.

When my bottle came in, I opened up the box to find the original style bottle, with a sticker on the bottom that matched my friend’s. Instant relief.

~Unboxing~ photos, on our appropriately whimsygoth-esque duvet cover

Of course, the apple sprayer was already broken from years of plastic disintegration. I laughed so loud at this. Thankfully, it sorta snaps into place and sprays just fine.

And upon that first spray, I was taken straight to that enchanted forest, with nary a top note missing in its old age.

Ivy bedazzled with anise-scented dewdrops over a mossy floor of vanilla and tonka bean, all gauzy fabric and crystal jewelry under a starry sky. An expertly-blended blanket of cozy nostalgia and sweet whimsy. Exactly as I remembered.

This was it. I found her.

LOL.

In other nostalgia-related news…

…I am totally over all the artificial art on the internet. It’s so exhausting to analyze a photo, illustration, or even a tattoo design, wondering if someone actually drew it or not. It makes me want to not engage at all.

The other day, I scrolled onto my aesthetic tumblr from college that hasn’t been updated since 2011. How relaxing, to see a feed of images that you know a robot didn’t make, because robots weren’t doing this shit 15 years ago. A feed of images, all created by someone’s actual skill and talent and imagination, and curated at least semi-on-purpose⁶.

From my Tumblr’s archive. I’m nothing if not aesthetically consistent!

When I talk about this stuff, I do feel like “old man yells at cloud.” After all, this is what the tech oligarchs have decided we need, with all their billions of dollars they could have used to end hunger or homelessness. I know the complaining is useless.

And yet, I will still do it, because I don’t want to spend my life looking at “art” a human person couldn’t put enough effort into learning how to create themselves, or consuming “writing” a human thought would be better off generated by a robot, rather than their own brain.

But I will keep creating things, and I hope you will still look at them. As long as you’re in my little corner of the internet, you can know that what you’re looking at is real, and from my heart.

Here are a few new tattoo designs that are available to get, plus a couple of the tattoos I’ve done lately that I really loved! You can always book with me through my website if you’re interested. I’m currently booking through April in NYC.

1. Even now, I do still think it’s one of the most effective perfume bottles out there for its market. So effective in its simplicity.

2. licorice lovers rise up!!!

3. This deep hole led me to Oh Ma Biche by Lolita Lempicka, a sparkling peachy-orange bellini scent that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE for springtime, and snagged for under $30!

4. At one point, they also apparently owned the license for Annick Goutal, one of my faves!

5. Not to mention the hours of research I spent on this weird fixation

6. I remember people being so up in arms about stealing images and removing reference links. That’s just become a normal part of sharing on the internet.