'Oh Sienna!' Lidl Suddenly Diamonds review: a BOSS Orange dupe for a Paltrow sum

Regular readers will know that I have been a bit of a champion down the years of the discount grocery chain Lidl's perfume range - I have featured three so far on Bonkers: Suddenly d'Or (a close match of Ghost Luminous), Suddenly Madame Glamour (a masterly copy of Coco Mademoiselle), and in the men's arena, G Bellini X-Bolt (a convincing dupe of Hugo BOSS Bottled). Some people might have moral reservations about such parasitical copying of designer fragrances, though the whole concept of supermarket 'own label' products is predicated on the imitation of their more expensive brand equivalents - to varying degrees of flagrancy.  So speaking for myself - and coming from a food marketing background where I once presided over £11m's worth of own label coleslaw(!) - it is a commercial strategy to which I am pretty immune.  Moreover, the Lidl perfumes are such remarkable copies that I feel somewhat in awe of the perfumer responsible, assuming it is just the one.  All I know is that the range is made in Switzerland, and it took me forever to ascertain even that.

So anyway, I was in Lidl at the weekend buying pork medaillons and whatever else caught my fancy, whilst trying very hard to resist the domestic security alarms, walnut veneer-lookalike coffee tables, home gyms, twin packs of shocking pink vests (more shocking than they look in this photo, trust me), cosy 'leisure suits' (size 16 only), remaindered Valentine's baking moulds and Dumbo books - when I spied the latest Lidl perfume release - Suddenly Diamonds - another women's fragrance this time.

The first thing that struck me was that they had changed the bottle design - it was a chunky rectangular bottle this time rather than the cheap, plasticky teardrop-shaped one used for the previous two Suddenly scents. It was reminiscent in fact of the bottle style of a number of designer and even niche perfumes, so that was an improvement right off the bat.

The name 'Diamonds' proved to be a bit of a misnomer, mind - well, in fairness ALL the Lidl scent names to date have been misnomers(!) in the sense that they are not remotely suggestive of the perfumes they are copying.  Suddenly Diamonds is not an imitation of Emporio Armani Diamonds, for example, but the orange writing on the bottle pointed instantly to BOSS Orange.  After all, G Bellini X-Bolt was a dupe of a BOSS scent last time, so maybe the marketing people at Lidl thought they were on a roll with poor Hugo!

BOSS Orange edt and edp in Boots

But Boss Orange??  That would not be my pick, unless it is in fact a runaway bestseller and I simply had no idea. Admittedly, Coco Mademoiselle was always going to be a hard act to follow - Chanel No 5?  Marc Jacobs Daisy?  Lady Million? One of those annoying Be Delicious scents? - I don't actually know what the best sellers in the market are these days.  It would probably upset me if I did.  Maybe BOSS Orange is particularly easy to copy, because having got hold of a sample of it and the Lidl I am very impressed at the likeness.  More between the BOSS Orange edt and Suddenly Diamonds than the smoother, more rounded edp.  Hey, I didn't even know there were two!  Both the BOSS Orange edt and Suddenly Diamonds have that bright citrus opening, followed by a syrupy orange-y cotton candy, musky drydown, which kicks in pretty soon in fact. The Lidl scent is in a slightly 'deeper register', if that makes sense, ie is slightly less fruity and bright and kind of 'flatter' and more musky maybe, but I am splitting hairs really, as the resemblance is compelling.

BOSS Orange edt

Top notes: red apples 
Middle notes: white flowers, African orange flower
Base notes: sandalwood, olive tree, vanilla

BOSS Orange edt and edp testers cosying up in Boots

If BOSS Orange is your thing, for £3.99 you really can't go wrong.  It will cost you about eight times as much in Boots, say. Oh, and the 'Paltrow sum' of the title is a bit of artistic licence, for Gwyneth is of course the face of BOSS Nuit pour Femme, while Sienna Miller features in the BOSS Orange campaign. But they are both Boss girls, so obviously I couldn't resist it.

Now I absolutely hated BOSS Orange when it first came out - in fact the musks gave me an instant headache.  When I tried it again in the interests of this scientific inquiry it wasn't as bad as I remember, though absolutely not what I would wish to wear.  I don't hold with assigning demographic parameters to fragrance as a rule, but this does smell 'young'.  Younger than Sienna, even, and she is just the wrong side of 30, I see.

I must say I am rather disappointed by Lidl's rather lacklustre choice of BOSS Orange after the completely brilliant coup of choosing Coco Mademoiselle, and it has got me wondering about what scent I would like them to imitate in future. Well, I'd be interested to see what kind of a job they made of No 5 at that price point, hehe, though my guess is that it's more likely to be another ho-hum designer scent again... ;-(

In closing, I would like to pay a special tribute to the BOSS Orange bottle, which would cost a bob or two to replicate, even if the Lidl folk were that bold, and I am sure they wouldn't be.  It reminds me of those lovely nobbly glass bricks you get in hotel bathrooms.

Source: antrad.net

G Bellini X-Bolt: Lidl Scores Another Bullseye With A "Bosting" Dupe Of Hugo Boss Bottled For Men

I am sorry my posts have been so sparse of late - now that I have some work again, I sense it will be even trickier to juggle that and the ongoing house renovations. I am mindful that I still haven't written up the remainder of my Belgian sniffing trip, however I was sidetracked the other day by a phone call from my brother. He had just picked up a bottle of Lidl's latest perfume release, X-Bolt by G Bellini. He explained that it was allegedly a copy of the original Hugo Boss for men (the bottle alone is a bit of a giveaway), and was curious to know if I had tried it. I don't think my brother had actually sniffed it himself at that point, because I remember him saying that if it turned out to be awful, it could always be repurposed as bathroom freshener, the fate of Jasper Conran Mister a few years back.

Well, as someone who has tirelessly championed the incredible smell-alike coup which is Suddenly Madame Glamour (a convincing, if somewhat weaker and more watery imitation of Coco Mademoiselle), I had to see for myself without ado, so I picked up a bottle of X-Bolt in my local branch of Lidl yesterday. Then today I nipped into Boots to spray on some Hugo Boss Bottled (to give it its full name), so that I could conduct a side-by-side comparison, albeit on female skin. Which is another reason for posting this right away, while the Hugo Boss is still relatively fresh on.

Hey, I have to say that once again I am very impressed. I don't know exactly what notes I am smelling, other than a vague luminously woody ambery quality and a slightly herbal facet, but I do detect a marked resemblance. The main difference seems to be that when you first spray Hugo Boss, it is soft and refined from the off (as men's designer scents go), whereas the Lidl scent is a little brash at the outset, but quickly settles down.

As you get into the drydown, the Lidl scent has acquired a more elegant character while the Hugo Boss seems to have become slightly more loud. This curious phenomenon may in fact be nothing more than the fact that by dint of wearing off more quickly - or making a bolt for it - X-Bolt has less of that "chemically men's aftershave-y" aspect in its latter stages. It has less of anything to be perfectly blunt. And remains at all times (while it is there at all) vastly superior to any men's fragrance I have ever tried bearing the suffix "Sport". If Hugo Boss Bottled is a 10 I would give X-Bolt a solid 8. I would quite happily sniff a man wearing X-Bolt, despite its naffly butch and somewhat Lynx-esque name; I would think he had dropped some serious cash on this bottle, not the princely sum of £3.99 for 50ml.

So in case anyone is curious here are the notes of Hugo Boss Bottled from the website of The Perfume Shop:

"With fresh, fruity top notes of apple and citrus fruits; warm, floral middle notes of geranium, cinnamon and cloves and base notes of cedar wood, vetiver, olive wood, sandalwood amber and musk."

In the past, I had hell's delight wresting the notes of one of Lidl's first feminine releases, Suddenly d'Or, out of the company's technical department in Scotland (see full saga). I see that Lila Das Gupta, writing about the launch here for Basenotes, has managed to get hold of them - perhaps Lidl has softened its stance on such matters following the huge success of Suddenly Madame Glamour, conceding that public relations is a two way street.

Top - Fresh lemon and limes, the aniseed note of tarragon
Middle - Fresh Fruity apple with a flowery aspect
Base - Vanilla, woody notes and a dry balsamy character

Source: Basenotes

Hmm, comparing those two lists they do seem to be along broadly similar lines. I wonder if the perfumer for Suddenly Madame Glamour pulled off this one too? To get so close to replicating a designer scent of this calibre on a shoestring is a remarkable technical feat, even if it might seem to some like a cheeky manoeuvre.

And as was the case with Suddenly Madame Glamour, X-Bolt has also done a blinder in a blind test, this time involving 108 people. It was carried out in London in June - in Mayfair, I see - so if respondents anywhere in Britain were going to turn their noses up at a cheapo grocery store perfume, it would be there! (Well, assuming they weren't bussed in from other less affluent neighbourhoods, that is - and maybe they were, in the interests of a representative sample.)

Whoever the respondents may have been, they were anything but sniffy...according to this article by PR Newswire consumers preferred Lidl's fragrance over David Beckham Homme (no surprises there...), Dior Homme, D&G The One, and Hugo Boss Bottled. I don't think it can just be coincidence that Hugo Boss featured in the test line up...

Has anyone else out there carried out a side-by-side comparison between the two? If so, let us know in the comments. But I for one am certainly struck by this new star in the grocery store galaxy, this "bossa nova", if you will - or do I mean "bosso novo", with it being for men...? ; - )



Photo of Hugo Boss Bottled from The Perfume Shop, photo of Lidl store from Wikimedia Commons via Clemensfranz, other photos my own