Smells like Louis Vuitton Imagination: Reverie body butter

Louis Vuitton Imagination smells of citrus (bergamot and orange), ginger, black tea and ambroxan. Reverie is our take on that profile, with bergamot, ginger and black tea, in a pheromone-infused body butter at $34 a jar.

Who made Imagination?

Louis Vuitton launched it in 2021, and Jacques Cavallier Belletrud was the perfumer. Its notes sit between fresh and warm: bergamot and orange are the bright part, ginger adds spice, black tea gives it a dry body, and ambroxan finishes it.

What does Reverie change?

Reverie's three notes are bergamot, ginger and black tea. The orange and the ambroxan are not on our list, so the tea carries more of the weight. If you liked Imagination for the ambroxan, you will miss it here, and Savanna is the scent in our range that keeps it. We read it as a lighter, drier take, with citrus and ginger and the tea behind them.

Reverie sits in a shea butter and cocoa butter base and takes its cue from the original without copying it.

Is Reverie a fresh scent or a warm one?

In between, which is why it is the most flexible of our six. Bergamot and ginger lean fresh, and black tea leans dry and warm. A practical test: if you reach for a citrus scent in spring and a wood one in winter, Reverie is the one you will wear in both. We would wear it in the daytime and in mild weather, with a shirt, in an office or at a long lunch.

For an evening, pair it with Oud Timber. Reverie for the day and Oud Timber for the night gives you a light scent and a deep one, and neither repeats the other.

Who should pick something else?

If you want a sweet, heavy scent, Reverie is the wrong pick and Oud Timber is the better one. If you want to be noticed across a dinner table, look at Rogue 540. Reverie is for the man who wants a dry, light scent that stays out of the way.

How do you wear it?

Put it on in the morning, right after the shower, while your skin is damp. Tea notes are quiet, so you can use a little more than you would of a louder scent, on the chest and the forearms. It lasts 12+ hours on most skin, longest on damp skin.

If you own Imagination, try the butter first and the spray over it. We have no controlled test of that combination, so treat it as something to experiment with.

What does it cost next to a bottle?

A bottle of Imagination costs about $320. A jar of Reverie is $34, about $286 less, or 2 for $59 and 3 for $78.99. The free scent swap within 14 days covers a wrong pick.

Bale is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Louis Vuitton.

Quick answers

• Does Reverie smell like Imagination? It follows the profile, in our own formula, so it should feel familiar and not identical.
• Who is Reverie for? A man who finds the usual citrus scents too common and the usual wood scents too heavy, and wants tea and ginger instead.
• Does black tea smell like tea in a butter? We read it as a dry, light note and not a brewed one, and your skin will shape it.
• Is it a good gift for a father? It is a good fit for a man who wants something lighter, and our gift guide says more.
• Can you wear it to work? Yes, in our view. It is one of the quieter four of our six.

See Reverie body butter, or take the scent quiz to compare it with the other five.