Ever since I went to Japan, L'Occitane has been a completely different brand for me. L'Occitane is a French brand but is actually the most popular in Asia, with Japan leading the way. In Shinjuku you can find the biggest L'Occitane store in the world with no less than five floors! The stores are completely different there -  some even have restaurants, specialised mens floors and spa services in them. The flagship store in Shinjuku also has a counter offering the possibility to create personalised gifts such as the 'My Shea' service where you can create your own personalised gift box of shea butters with packaging, messaging & extras you choose yourself. Pretty awesome, huh? I started noticing the extra mile the L'Occitane often goes to enhance the customer experience - we might not have restaurants and five-storied shops here yet, but the brand is very strong here nonetheless and their products have a special place in my beauty cabinet. Today I want to muse on their latest fragrance Arlésienne, which launched a couple of months ago. L'Occitane has always been a little rebellious with their fragrance launches: just like their Christmas collection last year, this new launch does not smell like your typical Autumn/Winter scent.


Let's take a small moment to admire the pretty packaging. We're looking at rose gold caps, embossed flowers on the back of the bottle and pretty illustrations of roses and violets on the front label, along with the golden Arlésienne logo. The eau de toilette is a see-through bottle with just the pink logo on the front. This launch is seriously pretty on the outside! Luckily the inside is pretty too: the fragrance opens with mandarin and saffron flower, has a heart of Grasse rose and lily of the valley and ends with violet, sandalwood, blonde woods and tonka bean at the base. The burst of mandarin quickly fades on me, although the saffron gently lingers around. I mostly notice the delicious rose and violet - I'm a sucker for rose fragrances so it's a winner. It does turn a little powdery, but nothing too bad as I don't usually like powdery scents. This is a fragrance I am definitely loving - it's a gorgeous light scent that lingers on all day, perfect for daily use and although we'd probably classify this as a Spring scent I gladly wear it to brighten up these cold days.

As we can expect from L'Occitane, they like to make their launches pretty extensive: there's a whole array of Arlésienne products you can buy separately or in gifts packs along with the fragrance. The fragranced Arlésienne Body Oil will add an extra layer of fragrance along with some shine to your collar bones, but if you like dry oils as a body moisturiser you'll love this too. I'm not a huge dry oil fan to use on my body (I can't stand the hot sensation when massaging it in), so I mainly use this to intensify the eau de toilette when going out. The hand cream in this collection is with the Velvet formula which isn't as moisturising as the shea formula - I guess this is a matter of preferences and I just like the thicker shea formula better. My hands are high maintenance! I also noticed an Arlésienne Perfumed Hair Mist available as a webshop exclusive - I am a huge fan of hair fragrances as living in a city quickly makes your hair absorb all kinds of scents you'd rather not experience.

While snooping around the L'Occitane website I also noticed their gift baskets to be on sale already at -20% - including the Arlésienne packs. They might drop some more in price when the official Winter sales begin, but if you're still looking for a New Years gift.. You're in luck!