So back at the beginning of our solitary confinement, Miss March was bugging me about this fragrance, did I have any, would STC get it back in stock because she wanted to smell what Rihanna smelled like. I think my lip curled and my nose went EWWW, because my memory of this was disgusting marshmallow. No, no, no and hell no. She went on about some of the Sephora reviews comparing it to Fruity Pebbles. She did a very entertaining post on it.
You know.. I kinda like fruity Pebbles in the abstract and the actual, but I don’t want to smell like a marshmallow fruity Pebble, and I sort remembered how by Kilian Love Don’t Be Shy was… yeah, like that. Again, no, no, no. We finally ran out of that crap, and I’m not getting it again.
Welp.
Here I am, I couldn’t stop thinking about it and why Rihanna, who can afford to wear anything, would pick this (yeah, yeah, no celebrity actually wears the crap they make and foists on the public – I’m speculating), and I had to smell it again to see if I was missing something in my memory banks.
In the process, I asked my sister if she remembered it. OMG, she, she lurvesssss it, so much she bought some (this is my sister, who really doesn’t have to do that at all) and she was sad because she thought it was gone and she was down to her last 10 ml travel spray to tuck in her cute little black travel cover.
So many feels all over the place with By Kilian Love Don’t be Shy, which used to be just By Kilian Love. I don’t know how some of these perfumes got extra words in their title as time went on, maybe a confusion thing. But I think there was/is just one called Love with different notes? I don’t know.
So the scary little marshmallow sugar puff showed up, and I sprayed, prepared for the hate to set in. Well, huh. It’s a gooey mess on the start, which you expect with these notes – neroli, bergamot, pink pepper, coriander, iris, jasmine, rose, honeysuckle, orange blossom, musk, vanilla, civet, caramel, sugar and labdanum.
Then a funny thing happened, I didn’t hate it. Maybe it’s been reformulated into a less offensive cupcake, but it turns all soft and deeper, and there just seems to be more there there. Calice Becker is one of my favorite perfumers, so it’s always worth hanging out with her creations.
Eventually, By Kilian Love Don’t Be Shy struck me as love – it’s all frilly and happy and giggly and sugary floral sweet in the beginning – sickening to everyone except the people in it. Then someone says something jarring that doesn’t line up with all those love feelings, and in that moment the love bubble gets a little hole in it that lets in reality. And the hole gets bigger, letting in some darker things, like civet and musk, and there is some sads and prickling disappointments.
As love loses the happy and the giggly and reality pours in over all those happy, sugary notes, it may or may not last, and it’s that moment before love goes into the crucible of choosing. You know the other person, and then you KNOW them. And you have to look at all the sweetness and all the bitterness that now overlays it and figure out what you can live with.
By Kilian Love Don’t be Shy, you changed my mind. the longer I wore it, the more I really loved it. I didn’t love the open, but I had to get THROUGH the open to find what I did love, Like love.
So what have you changed your mind on that surprised you most, or do you change your mind? If I do a giveaway drawing for this, would anyone enter? I will! Will draw two commenters at random for a sample of By Kilian Love Don’t Be Shy, but if you really, really hate that, I can find something else that you might like. 
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