Lately I have been making an effort to feature more local brands on my blog and they have been received so positively! So today I am introducing local fragrance company, FDLV Fragrances.

I was sent these four samples sizes to test out. I will be honest in saying I was hesitant before trying them. Only because I am a fragrance lover but I am not the greatest with reviewing them. It is so much easier to capture the beauty of cosmetics products in photos, but not so much with perfumes. Overall, I have become such a fan of these four little tubes! There are three that I am near-obsessed with, and one that I am not such a fan of. This all comes down to personal scent and flavour preferences, though. Also, I have a considerably large collection of designer perfumes and I wondered if this version would live up to my expectations.

 

FDLV

 

FDLV Fragrances (acronym for the French phrase Fleur de la vie which means Flower of Life) is owned and run by two Cape Tonian sisters. While they may be local, the perfumes themselves are made in Europe.

I have never been one who purchases “non name brand” perfumes. I just always thought they were watered down versions of actual fragrances that wouldn’t last on the skin. The FDLV range of perfumes is made up from the same ingredients, without the fancy label or name attached to it. Basically it comes down to it being a scent of higher priced and fancily labelled bottles.

The range is made up of ‘perfumes’ which is the highest available concentration of perfume oil.

 

 

On the FDLV website, they have a FAQ page where they state that your FDLV fragrance should stay on you for give or take six hours. Now, I am in no way exaggerating when I say that the scent ‘Bizarre’ stayed on me the entire day. From when I spritzed it at 7.30am to when I was driving home at 4.30pm. Now that is a tall statement to put in a blog review! ‘Bizarre’ actually reminds me very much of the original Elie Saab fragrance.

The only fragrance I did not love, would be ‘Sunny’. It just isn’t my kind of scent. Hoever, ‘Lush’, ‘Bizarre’ and ‘Riches’ are all divine. I honestly love all three of them and would happily take the full size versions! And, on the topic of full sizes, FDLV is amazing in the way that you can purchase these sample sizes from them FOR FREEEEE. All you do is pay the courier fee which is R25 – R99 depending on how fast you want yours delivered.

Here is a small breakdown of the notes before you go ahead & choose your own:

Sunny: a warm woody scent with jasmine and white amber.

Lush: honey, patchouli, orange blossom and amber.

Bizarre: bitter orange and raspberry with neroli, amber and orange blossom .

Riches: rose, amber, patchouli and musk with vanilla.

 

FDLV

 

If I had to choose, I would say ‘Bizarre’ and ‘Riches’. Both are just such divine, lush scents which remind you of much more expensive perfumes. You can see from the above pics that ‘Riches’  is very nearly empty..

 

You can purchase the full size 30ml versions of these directly from www.fdlv.co.za/shop/ 

There is also a generous discount code, ‘rayne’ which can be used when you place your order. Alternatively the coupon code in the images above can also be used for a 10% discount.

So a big thank you to the ladies at FDLV Fragrances and I cannot wait to see this locally owned brand reach greater and greater heights!

 

Rayne XX

 

Columbus