Sowmya GibishCarolina Herrera’s Good Girl perfume came out in 2016 in that stiletto bottle everyone has an opinion on, and it’s grown into a whole shelf of spin-offs since. There are something like a dozen now. The three people actually stand in Sephora sniffing back to back are the original Good Girl, Very Good Girl, and Good Girl Blush.
Same heel, same name, so everyone assumes they’re three versions of one smell. They’re not, and that’s where people waste money. The original is dark and sweet. Very Good Girl swaps all of that for red fruit and rose. Blush is the soft, powdery, slightly boring one. Quentin Bisch worked on all three, which is the only reason they really count as siblings.
Carolina Herrera Good Girl
Perfumer
Louise Turner and Quentin Bisch
Fragrance Family
Amber Floral (gourmand)
Notes
Top: almond, coffee, bergamot, lemon
Heart: tuberose, jasmine sambac, orange blossom, orris
Base: tonka bean, cocoa, vanilla, praline, sandalwood, amber
Best for
Cold weather, evenings, sweet-scent lovers
This is the one that knocked Chanel off the top spot to become the best-selling perfume in the world, so you’ve smelled it whether you clocked it or not. It opens on almond and coffee, moves through tuberose and jasmine, and lands on cocoa, tonka, and vanilla. Sweet, but in a warm grown-up way, not a cupcake way. And loud. The first hour or two it really projects, and on most people it’s still hanging around by bedtime.
Two honest problems. First, half the room is wearing it too, so don’t expect anyone to ask what it is. Second, the opening reads as flat-out hairspray to some people for a minute before it warms up. There’s also a strange split where a few people get barely any longevity from it while everyone else gets a full day, so test it on your own skin first. On a cold night when you want to be noticed, though, nothing here beats it.
Carolina Herrera Very Good Girl
Perfumer
Quentin Bisch and Louise Turner
Fragrance Family
Floral Fruity
Notes
Top: red currant, lychee
Heart: rose
Base: vanilla, vetiver
Best for
Daytime, warm weather, compliment-fishing
The red one smells like red Skittles. That’s a compliment. Tart redcurrant and lychee on top, a soft rose underneath, and just enough vanilla to stop it tipping into sour. It’s bright and a little bit candy, and it pulls compliments out of people who never normally say anything about perfume. If you’ve smelled Parfums de Marly Delina, it lives in that same lychee-rose world, just sweeter and a lot cheaper.
Day, night, work, dinner, it doesn’t really care where you take it. The sweetness is the thing that’ll lose some people, and if fruity-candy isn’t your taste you’ll know within seconds. It also doesn’t last like the original, more like five or six hours before it goes quiet, so a travel size in your bag helps. And the bottle tips over if you breathe near it, but you’ll forgive it.
Carolina Herrera Good Girl Blush
Perfumer
Quentin Bisch, Shyamala Maisondieu, Christophe Raynaud
Fragrance Family
Floral (soft, creamy)
Notes
Top: bitter almond, bergamot
Heart: peony, ylang-ylang
Base: vanilla, coumarin
Best for
Office, everyday, soft-floral lovers
Blush is the one I’d think twice about. Not because it’s bad, it’s pretty, but because it’s so soft it nearly vanishes. Take the almond from the original, make it gentle, and wrap it in peony, creamy ylang-ylang, and vanilla, with coumarin underneath adding a warm, hay-like, tonka kind of sweetness. No coffee, no fruit, nothing with a sharp edge anywhere. It smells clean and expensive and a bit like really good shampoo.
Performance is where it loses me. It sits right on your skin and goes quiet after a couple of hours, so it’s never filling a room. And some days I find it a little faceless, a nice powder floral with no real hook to it. What it’s good for is everyday, the office, spring, the days you want to smell nice and not think about it. If the original was always too heavy on you, this is the gentle way in.
So which do you actually buy?
If you just want the famous one, get the original. It’s sweet, it’s a safe bet, and people will half-recognise it. Very Good Girl is the one I’d send most people to, especially if you’re not precious about perfume, it’s fun and it gets a lot of compliments for the money. Blush I’d only bother with if soft and inoffensive is what you’re after, or if the other two have always sat too heavy on you.
If I could keep one? Very Good Girl in summer, the original when it’s cold. Blush would be the first one I’d let go.
All three come in 30ml, 50ml, and 80ml at Sephora, noon, and Carolina Herrera counters in the UAE, and the 80ml lands somewhere around AED 500 to 560 depending where you shop. If you can’t choose between them, the mini stiletto sets are a cheaper way to test-drive a few before you commit. Perfume Mag rounded those up in its guide to the best perfume sets you can get in Dubai.
Yazhini Manimudi
Sowmya Gibish
