If you spent time around me between September 2019 and February 2020 (life before lockdown!), there’s a good chance you caught a whiff of Régime des Fleurs’ Chloe Sevigny Little Flower. It was my most-worn fragrance over those months, not to mention my most-complimented.

I wrote about my visit to the Little Flower launch at NYC’s Dover Street Market (read about it here!) and I reviewed Little Flower for Now Smell This (see here).

To recap: Little Flower is “Régime des Fleurs’ take on Sevigny’s favorite bloom—the rose. Dewy, romantic, with a woody musk finish.”

It includes notes of black tea, bleeding heart, blackcurrant bud, peony, palo santo incense, pomelo, honeysuckle, and a precious Ottoman rose absolute.

Within a couple months of its release, Little Flower had (justifiably!) become the brand’s best-seller. (You can find it on the RdF website here.)

Yesterday Robin posted a general announcement about a new fragrance from Byredo, to be launched in June 2020. Can you guess why it made me sit up and squint?

It’s named Lil Fleur. Here’s some of the promotional copy:

“Lil Fleur explores the floral components and the note of Damasc rose as dominant and presents it in a new, modern and complex light.”

Notes include cassis, tangerine, saffron, Damask rose oil, leather, light woods, ambergris, and vanilla.

This Little/Lil Flower/Fleur parallel plus the concept of a fresh, modern damask rose with notes of citrus and blackcurrant (cassis) seems highly suspect to me.

And, according to Parfumo.net, Lil Fleur was developed by the same perfumer as Régime des Fleurs’ Little Flower.

If you’re a regular reader here, you’ll know that nothing makes me “thornier” (hah) than “imitators” (to put it diplomatically).

What do you think?

Top image: John Tenniel