Sunset Fantasy Is Britney Spears's Most Decadent Dessert Perfume Yet
I love Britney Spears. We all love Britney Spears.
I always wonder if being a superstar is what she really wanted, or if after reaching her level of stardom, she decided she didn't want it anymore. But what do you do? There are some heights that you can't climb down from.
Throughout her career, she's always said, almost with a tinge of longing, that if she wasn't a pop star/worldwide icon/living legend, she'd be a school teacher. Imagine. Imagine being the most famous pop star in the world and having your fallback be a job teaching children in an elementary school teacher somewhere.
In 2008, Vanessa Grigoriadis told us, in her haunting and heartbreaking Rolling Stone cover story The Tragedy of Britney Spears, "For the past few years, Britney has begged friends to help her run away, to leave everything behind and become a stylist or schoolteacher, or move to an island where she can work as a bartender."
Imagine vacationing in Bali or Key West and walking into a little beach bar and seeing a girl behind the bar that looks familiar, but you can't quite figure out why. You swear you know her face, but now it's a little happier, a little more tan from a few years on the beach. Imagine Britney Spears making you a Long Island iced tea in anonymity.
She never got her island. Not yet, at least (though if the Vegas money keeps coming in next year, she could probably just buy herself one). She does have everything else, though. A successful Vegas residency that just wrapped, another one on the books, an alleged new album, two sons, a home life that she loves, and a hot boyfriend.
Oh, and a new fragrance!
Sunset Fantasy is a summery scent that really takes you on a ride throughout wear. It smells like fruit, candy, and cream. It smells like summer and escape. I think it might smell like Britney's island, wherever it is.
There are some names that simply speak for themselves. Names you know that, when you see them, you're about to smell an exquisite, singular, transcendent scent. Names like Diptyque. Byredo. Kilian.
Names like Britney Spears.
I do not say this in jest because we do not joke about Britney Spears. Britney, that's The Legendary Ms. Britney Spears to you, has been one of the biggest names in fragrance since her first scent, Curious, launched in 2004.
More than any other celebrity, Spears's fragrances just keep coming, because they just keep selling, because they're just...good. Curious is a floral vanilla that was as predictable as it was successful. Her biggest seller, Fantasy, is a dark, fruity scent that was famously given a four-star review by The New York Times, proving that celebrity fragrances and quality fragrances do not have to be two separate categories. Today, she has 23 scents, and while they're not all home runs, the majority of them are interesting, gorgeous, and delightful. And I can say that because I own all of them.
Celebrity scents — Spears's especially — are incredibly lucrative. In 2016, it was reported that Britney annually rakes in $50 million dollars from scents alone. Annually. She has a reputation for making (or at least putting her face on) fragrances that people love and enjoy wearing. Pair a fragrance with a celebrity people love, and you've got an irresistible product. And who doesn't love Britney Spears?
After 10 years of Fantasy flankers (12 to be exact) the last new fragrance in the Britney collection was Private Show, a fragrance that was, by some hysterical miracle, inspired by Britney's love of Frappuccinos. And it's REALLY good. Warm, sweet, gourmand, sticky, like iced coffee with a few extra pumps of vanilla syrup. It was unlike any scent Britney had done, and the best part is it felt like a little tribute to the hundreds of photos of her clutching a giant Frap over the years.
It felt fun, which is exactly what a pop star fragrance should be. Spears has always negotiated her celebrity with a bit of a wink, and Private Show is a perfect example.
Her newest offering is Sunset Fantasy, out this month and, in a lot of ways, it takes the best parts of her collection and blends them all together for a fragrance that feels both referential and new. I wonder if Sunset Fantasy is her love letter to that island she wanted to leave her career for and sling drinks, the island she escapes to when things get a little tough.
Sunset Fantasy opens with grapefruit, mandarin, and apple. At its heart, there is peach, raspberry, and orange blossom. The base isn't as sturdy as most base notes we're used to — no patchouli, no tobacco. Instead, there is vanilla, amber, sandalwood, and the whole scent rests on a big fluffy note of steamed, frothed milk. Oddly, there is almost a complete absence of the florals have been such an integral part of almost all of Britney's scents.
It opens big and bold while still being delightfully palatable. It's the perfect synthetic, confectionary citrus — no zest or tang, no acid, just sweet and chewy. You instantly want more. The whipped cream base reaches up and twists itself into the scent soon after you spray it on and guides the scent throughout the wear. The peach and raspberry take center stage, vivid and alive. The peach note is thick, though this time, it's more true to real peach nectar than a Haribo Peach Ring. After a few hours, the fruits level and let the sandalwood, vanilla, and cream mingle with their memory to reveal a scent that's soft and velvety, less energetic, but just as lovely.
Spray Sunset Fantasy onto your arm and it is lush and juicy, but not juicy in a fresh, spray-of-citrus sort of way. It's confectionary, syrupy, fruity, and somehow really, really delicious. It should be too much, it should be cavity-inducing, but it's not at all. After a minute, there's a creamy note, like the one that was so nice in Private Show. It's not so much like a creamsicle but a bowl of peaches with sweet cream poured over them. It smells like piña coladas and daiquiris, all of those blended cocktails that no one ever orders but everyone drinks in '80s movies.
Lest the sugary, creamy description lead you to think that this fragrance goes the way of many other celeb scents (into body spray territory), it does not. Sunset Fantasy has body, depth, longevity, and a close-range sillage. Sweet ≠ cheap.
The iconic Fantasy bottle that has reinvented itself almost as many times as Britney is now dressed in a gradient pink and orange, that looks exactly the way the fragrance smells. If you're into seasonal scents, it's not exactly what I'd call the perfect scent for this snowy winter we're right in the middle of, but it's a reminder that warmer weather is on its way, a promise of summer.
There are many things about Britney Spears that we may never know, but as time passes, we see her reveal little bits of her personality through her Instagram, her live shows, and yes, even her fragrances. Now more than ever, she seems more happy and alive than she has in years. She seems like she's having fun again, like she's enjoying being a pop star. But I wonder if she still wants to escape, or at least, if she still dreams of teaching a kindergarten class, mixing drinks on an island where nobody knows her name. Maybe she finds her escape in different ways now. Maybe the closest thing she can get to a her island is to bring it to her, and all of us, with Sunset Fantasy.
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Watch Britney Spears's cover shoot:
