What makes you feel, life is beautiful?
How do we resist the challenges of our times to feel Happiness instead?
What is Happiness, anyway?
What makes you say, yes, “La Vie est Belle.”
From the moment Lancôme released its new fragrance for women in 2012, the joy of its message and its originality – the iris gourmand that made history in the perfumery field – resonated to become the chosen scent for so many women. Here was a fragrance to Happiness. The expression of ultimate contentment, where the unexpected sweetness emerging in iris translates the beauty of a smile.
Transcending the juice inside, La Vie est Belle’s success story is born in the most beautiful belief Lancôme shares with the world: Life is beautiful. 10 years on, as we celebrate our iconic scent’s anniversary, we take a moment to reflect on what that means now. What makes us happy, and what prevents us from feeling joy?
In 2022, we also mark this anniversary by beginning a new era for Lancôme as a fragrance house. For the first time, our iconic scent can be refilled. And to preserve our patrimony and the future sustainable sourcing of our perfumes, Lancôme opens its Domaine de la Rose, a haven of biodiversity in the birthplace of perfumery, in Grasse.
10 years since we released La Vie est Belle into the world, more than ever, we at Lancôme believe in the hope of its message. In the very human need for togetherness to be able to join in the joyful expression of four simple words, “La Vie est Belle.” -Françoise Lehmann, Global Brand President Lancôme International.
More than a fragrance: It is a message
In 2012, Lancôme declared, “Life is beautiful.” Four words charged with meaning. Speaking across eras, across horizons, from the four corners of the globe, the beauty of this French expression has never needed translation. Its message can be felt, without being understood, in the joyful melody of its four syllables: La Vie est Belle. By its simple joy, the name chosen by Lancôme has resonated with millions of women worldwide.
Today, “Life is beautiful” resonates with hope. To find Happiness in a world ever more in need of To celebrate the courage of those advocating for a time where all can say: “Life is beautiful.” Happiness is collective, rather than individual, defined by generosity and unity. With this hope of togetherness, Lancôme enters a new decade of La Vie Est Belle. A decade is just the beginning for La Vie est Belle because its message is eternal.
Refillable and recomposed with more renewable ingredients: La Vie est Belle symbolizes Lancôme’s sustainable luxury approach. Expressing Lancôme’s action for future Happiness, the House unveils a new, eco-designed, refillable version. Reducing the environmental footprint of La Vie est Belle as much as possible without changing the sensory experience that has made it such a success: this is the challenge that the Lancôme Perfumes and Packaging teams have taken up. Emblematic of this ambitious approach, meticulous and innovative work on the perfume’s raw materials has enabled them to favor sustainably sourced ingredients. For example, the Patchouli essential to the La Vie est Belle fragrance comes from a sustainable source in Bali. As for the alcohol, of plant origin, it comes from France. Right down to the heart of its formula, La Vie est Belle aligns with the brand’s commitments by acting to better respect biodiversity and the environment.
The iris gourmand that made history
A message, a bottle, a muse, so many reasons to first fall in love with a scent, but only one reason to stay in love: the fragrance itself. The true essence of luxury, the fragrance of soul and light, La Vie est Belle embodies the joyful spontaneity at Lancôme’s heart. From the intricate processing of ingredients to creating a lasting olfactory impact, it has carried the hallmarks of great perfumes from its beginning. The rest, as they say, is history.
What contemporary perfumery’s success stories share is the originality of their juice. Worn by millions daily, La Vie est Belle is no exception.
In 2012, a trio of French master perfumers undertook a bespoke approach to each ingredient, using avant-garde technologies to pioneer the entirely new fragrance note at the heart of La Vie est Belle – the first iris gourmand of the House. It took three years and no fewer than 5521 trials for Anne Flipo, Dominique Ropion, and Olivier Polge, to achieve the required balance of 63 raw materials that make up the original eau de parfum. A light-dark composition built around iris, patchouli and this unusual gourmand accord.
With iris weaved into its composition from the first to the last note, rather than more commonly only as a heart note, here was a scent with the unprecedented power of projection. Whose quality of ingredients, made of 50% natural concentrations, a rare luxury, was instantly detectable.
Fusing originality, instant aura, and remanence, La Vie est Belle instantly entered women’s lives, becoming the signature of millions. Creating the first iris gourmand required subtle alchemy between technology and talent. Selected for their exceptional properties, perfumery’s most noble natural raw materials were each refined, sublimed, and intensified one by one.
French iris pallida concrete, one of perfumery’s rarest and most expensive ingredients, is blended with a note of irone, enveloping iris aldehyde. Jasmine sambac and Tunisian orange blossom, in the form of sublime absolutes, illuminate this floral heart.
Indonesian patchouli essence has been fractionated to obtain only its quintessence, the purest fraction, a “heart of patchouli,” as perfumers call it, to amplify its strength, potency, and depth. Finally, the fragrance’s smile, its delectable sweetness– arrives in a burst of unexpected radiance. Like spun sugar infused with notes of vanilla, tonka bean, praline, blackcurrant, and pear, it envelops the composition’s delicate notes in sweetness.
A true concentrate of luxury, La Vie est Belle contains almost 50% natural ingredients. A fragrance composed of rich contrasts and quintessential ingredients to diffuse the most beautiful aura imaginably.
Available at Woolworths, Foschini and Edgars stores.