come up roses

1. come up smelling like roses . Emerge untarnished from a difficult situation, have no stain on one's character, as in He was suspended for a month but still came up smelling like roses . Eric Partridge believed this usage originally was fall into shit and come up smelling like roses , but the vulgar initial phrase is now generally omitted. [ Slang ; first half of 1900s]

2. Turn out extremely well, as in I had my doubts about this project, but now it's coming up roses . [ Slang ; c. 1960]