One of my stupider habits is my refusal to buy nail polish remover. I tell myself that I don’t paint my nails often enough to justify such an utter extravagance. This means that whenever I do paint my nails, I have to spend the next few weeks hiding my chipped, tacky toenails inside of equally tacky Uggs. Because just buying the damn nail polish remover at freaking CVS would be too reasonable, I have come up with an alternate solution: I use perfume samples that I’m not particularly fond of. (I used up both By Kilian Asian Tales samples this way.)
The point of this seemingly totally unnecessary story is that I’d relegated Florabotanica to nail polish remover status after reading several negative reviews. I’d never actually smelled it until recently, while I was desperately trying to scrub off the remains of weeks-old Essie Blue Aruba. The scent kept wafting up to me, and I eventually realized that I was kind of enjoying it! Florabotanica is a bright, clean rose fragrance. It reminds me strongly of the late, great Herbal Essences Rose Hips shampoo (yes, that was a roundabout way of saying that Florabotanica has a distinctly shampoo-ish vibe). Think Stella McCartney Stella without any of that amber base.
Florabotanica smells nice. In this crazy world of Snooki perfumes, “nice” counts for more than you’d think. Still, it’s a little shrill for me, and I really don’t think that it’s particularly unique or special (particularly considering its recent predecessor, the lovely Balenciaga Paris).
SCENTS OF SELF 
You can use perfume for that?! I wonder if it strips your nails. You can get a small thing of nail polish remover for like $2 by the way 🙂
2 posts in a week! We are being spoiled! Does crap perfume really work as nail polish remover? Hilarious. I usually have a fortnightly pedi, a group of us go but I’ve missed 3 sessions and there are nasty little wisps of bronze tinted blood red left on my nails. It’s pretty damn awful but I keep forgetting till I’m in the bath.
Portia xx
Oh wow, I love the idea of using crappy perfume as polish remover!! (I mainly use mine to spray my cats’ litter-box area…) And I can’t get over the ad for Florabotanica-Kristen Stewart just looks so pissed!! Like she’s in a remake of ‘Heathers’ in the Winona Ryder role (except with more ugly-pretty graffiti flowers and strange clothes). So hearing that it’s a clean rose is certainly a surprise.
Tried Florabotanica while passing through Macy’s and my 14-year-old daughter kept saying she hated it! It wasn’t a scrubber, but it’s nothing I’d want to wear.
Love Blue Aruba! Good to have you back!
nail polish remover is so cheap! cheaper than the polish itself! treat yourself!!!
Ooh! I loathe the smell of nail polish remover. Plus, I have an Asian Tales sample! 😀
That is hysterical that you are using Asian Tales to remove nail polish! A great way to use up samples of fragrances that are not nice . . . and also kind of wickedly decadent, like bathing in Fiji Water or something!
I have to say that the minute I saw the ad for Florabotanica, I was skeptical. KStew just looks so miserable! But I have to admit that I thought the bottle was much cuter in person, even if the juice was a snoozer . . .
So funny, Ari! So what does it mean that I DO own nail polish remover, despite the fact I never paint my nails? (Got my one and only mani-pedi three years ago before going to Mexico……. wait a minute, that was the trip where I determined to find a perfume for myself, and then ended up down the rabbit hole. Hmmmmm, coincidence?)