Vanilla & Musk Body Mist

The name sets an expectation this one does not quite meet, and that is worth knowing before you buy. Coup de Coeur's own copy sells it as vanilla plus the warmth of musk, but the pyramid published by their retailers describes something lighter and fruitier. Orange and apple open it, with lily of the valley giving a clean, slightly soapy floral lift, and the heart moves to coconut milk and jasmine, which is where the creaminess arrives. The base is vanilla, heliotrope and sandalwood: powdery, soft and skin-like rather than animalic. What you actually get is a gentle, laundered warmth of the kind people mean when they say a fragrance smells like clean skin, with a milky sweetness running underneath. That is a perfectly good thing for a body mist to be, and arguably more wearable than a real musk would be at this concentration. It behaves like the rest of the range, sitting close and fading inside an hour or two, so spray generously and keep the bottle to hand. It is the most neutral scent in the line, easy in an office, easy on people who dislike loud fragrance, and a sensible layering base under almost anything sweet. Vegan and not tested on animals, per the brand.