Magnolia
Osmanthus
Georgywood®
Lily
Ylang-ylang07/14/2025
Omnipotato
266 Reviews
Omnipotato
Helpful Review
3
Unnecessarily sweet
There's this trend with both masculine and feminine perfumes these days to make everything sweeter. In men's fragrances, this is resulting in a glut of "amberwood" fragrances that take the existing traditional men's fragrance structure like the blue shower gel or fougere, and add lots of sweetness to it, especially in the base. In women's fragrance, which was already sweet to begin with, it seems like there is no escape from the utter sweetness pervading designer fragrances. And I think Balmain's Rouge is an unfortunate victim.
It's a beautiful structure of florals (magnolia and osmanthus, two of my favorite floral notes in perfumery) atop a woody, musky base. It just didn't need to be so sweet. There's this cheap synthetic sweetness that overrides all the interesting bits of this fragrance unnecessarily. It doesn't feel like the natural boozy sweetness of an osmanthus flower at all. Ruins what would have been a great fragrance.
It's a beautiful structure of florals (magnolia and osmanthus, two of my favorite floral notes in perfumery) atop a woody, musky base. It just didn't need to be so sweet. There's this cheap synthetic sweetness that overrides all the interesting bits of this fragrance unnecessarily. It doesn't feel like the natural boozy sweetness of an osmanthus flower at all. Ruins what would have been a great fragrance.
