Top Notes
Heart Notes
Base Notes
Rate
Collection
Classify
Notes05/13/2021
Pinkdawn
Translated
Show original
Pinkdawn
Top Review
14
Love strikes like cold steel
The curtain's going up. Enter Rose. It's a grand entrance. The rose is immediately present, almost kitschy sweet and heavy like in some oriental perfumes. I'm a fan of rose scents. But this is too intense for me. If you take a closer sniff and let the scent develop after this overdose of ripe rose, it soon comes across as surprisingly fresh and green, almost citrusy - and makes you sit up and take notice. At least to me. Because I like this modern kind of rose. But no sooner do I begin to rejoice in the unexpected freshness than a dark cloud rolls in in the form of an equally unexpected metallic pungency. Where did it suddenly come from? I have no idea. But it's there. Possibly the geranium breaking into the rose idyll.
Even if no geranium appears in the fragrance pyramid at Parfumo, most other sources mention it. For me, it is in any case clearly noticeable.
Geranium and rose meet each other yes more often in perfumes. On the one hand, to stretch the expensive rose oil, on the other hand, to make the fragrance more durable. Nothing against the delicate white flower, but I am not a fan of its floral sweetness. I may be unfair, but in geranium I always see the cheap "substitute rose" of low quality, which spoils any rose fragrance for me.
Here, it's a little different. I recognize the concept. Love Kills is a parable of the transience of love. You could also say the life of a rose as an allegory to the short-lived nature of romantic relationships.
Okay, you don't have to put something in everything. I'm also bothered by the rigorous apodicticism of such metaphors. After all, not all love stories end up as drama or are shorter than a rose life. Do they? But this one is about the finality of love relationships - be it through the daily grind that kills rapturous feelings, betrayal, disappointment, jealousy, stranded hopes, or whatever - and the melancholy inherent in it by its very nature.
For me, the message is clear: In the beginning, there is the still green rose with its promising freshness. Then it blossoms into a beautiful, velvety bloom and develops such a heavy, dark-sweet fragrance that it is almost too intense to enjoy as pleasant. But while one wonders if so much rose is allowed in a fragrance or on a person, geranium conquers the scene. Its citrusy spiciness makes the unisex fragrance wearable for men, but also brings this almost painful metallic sharpness into play, as if a sword were cutting the wonderful rose in two.
So the geranium is a deliberately used player here, intended to show olfactorically how the innocent, heavenly love affair is beginning to crack. And the early tragedy remains. At this point, the fragrance develops a certain cleanliness and neatness that cannot be interpreted quite clearly in the play of this allegory. I would say: the passion is now out of the relationship. One still remains together, but under different conditions.
The association with Freddie Mercury's 1984 song "Love Kills" suggests itself. It's not one of his best, even if it is his first solo track. But there's this line of lyrics, "Love strikes like cold steel, scars you from the start. Love kills."
So Freddie doesn't seem to have had too good an experience with love either.
I wonder if Caroline Dumur, who created this fragrance, was thinking of Freddie and his song when she mixed up "Love Kills"? I don't know. It doesn't matter, either. The message - coincidentally or not - is the same.
Even though this fragrance didn't exactly take my heart by storm right now, you have to give it credit. Here one wanted to create no pleasing floral round dance. The fragrance tells a - extremely dramatic - story and is an interesting, varied composition with exciting scent progression, which remains in the memory. But it plays very much to the fore. You have to like it, share its mood. Then it fits. It won't conform to you or "underline your personality" as perfumes are so fond of being expected to do. It's far too strong itself for that. An "all or nothing" thing. No compromise, no tolerance, no harmony. It's more about power and dominance. If you are willing to accept that strength, you will find yourself in the fragrance. For me, it's too intense and ultimately too superficial in its message. Program music, that's what you call it in musical compositions. Moreover, I am not prepared to have the destructive course of the fragrance, from the rosebud to the toxic relationship, forced upon me. May the story be true - I don't want to be constantly reminded of the power of love to kill.
If you can stand the dark rose-patchouly mixture, you will be rewarded with a literary-like fragrance, which shows a varied course, has a remarkably strong sillage and durability and is very extreme. Not for the superficial, not for wallflowers, office workers or status people. Rather something for existentialists, courageous, curious and depressed.
The strange name "III-III Love Kills", which somehow reminds me distantly of X Æ A-XII Musk,
by the way, is supposed to mean something like III. elevator, III. scene, I read somewhere, which underlines the dramatic character of this perfume.
(With thanks to NatRocks)
Even if no geranium appears in the fragrance pyramid at Parfumo, most other sources mention it. For me, it is in any case clearly noticeable.
Geranium and rose meet each other yes more often in perfumes. On the one hand, to stretch the expensive rose oil, on the other hand, to make the fragrance more durable. Nothing against the delicate white flower, but I am not a fan of its floral sweetness. I may be unfair, but in geranium I always see the cheap "substitute rose" of low quality, which spoils any rose fragrance for me.
Here, it's a little different. I recognize the concept. Love Kills is a parable of the transience of love. You could also say the life of a rose as an allegory to the short-lived nature of romantic relationships.
Okay, you don't have to put something in everything. I'm also bothered by the rigorous apodicticism of such metaphors. After all, not all love stories end up as drama or are shorter than a rose life. Do they? But this one is about the finality of love relationships - be it through the daily grind that kills rapturous feelings, betrayal, disappointment, jealousy, stranded hopes, or whatever - and the melancholy inherent in it by its very nature.
For me, the message is clear: In the beginning, there is the still green rose with its promising freshness. Then it blossoms into a beautiful, velvety bloom and develops such a heavy, dark-sweet fragrance that it is almost too intense to enjoy as pleasant. But while one wonders if so much rose is allowed in a fragrance or on a person, geranium conquers the scene. Its citrusy spiciness makes the unisex fragrance wearable for men, but also brings this almost painful metallic sharpness into play, as if a sword were cutting the wonderful rose in two.
So the geranium is a deliberately used player here, intended to show olfactorically how the innocent, heavenly love affair is beginning to crack. And the early tragedy remains. At this point, the fragrance develops a certain cleanliness and neatness that cannot be interpreted quite clearly in the play of this allegory. I would say: the passion is now out of the relationship. One still remains together, but under different conditions.
The association with Freddie Mercury's 1984 song "Love Kills" suggests itself. It's not one of his best, even if it is his first solo track. But there's this line of lyrics, "Love strikes like cold steel, scars you from the start. Love kills."
So Freddie doesn't seem to have had too good an experience with love either.
I wonder if Caroline Dumur, who created this fragrance, was thinking of Freddie and his song when she mixed up "Love Kills"? I don't know. It doesn't matter, either. The message - coincidentally or not - is the same.
Even though this fragrance didn't exactly take my heart by storm right now, you have to give it credit. Here one wanted to create no pleasing floral round dance. The fragrance tells a - extremely dramatic - story and is an interesting, varied composition with exciting scent progression, which remains in the memory. But it plays very much to the fore. You have to like it, share its mood. Then it fits. It won't conform to you or "underline your personality" as perfumes are so fond of being expected to do. It's far too strong itself for that. An "all or nothing" thing. No compromise, no tolerance, no harmony. It's more about power and dominance. If you are willing to accept that strength, you will find yourself in the fragrance. For me, it's too intense and ultimately too superficial in its message. Program music, that's what you call it in musical compositions. Moreover, I am not prepared to have the destructive course of the fragrance, from the rosebud to the toxic relationship, forced upon me. May the story be true - I don't want to be constantly reminded of the power of love to kill.
If you can stand the dark rose-patchouly mixture, you will be rewarded with a literary-like fragrance, which shows a varied course, has a remarkably strong sillage and durability and is very extreme. Not for the superficial, not for wallflowers, office workers or status people. Rather something for existentialists, courageous, curious and depressed.
The strange name "III-III Love Kills", which somehow reminds me distantly of X Æ A-XII Musk,
by the way, is supposed to mean something like III. elevator, III. scene, I read somewhere, which underlines the dramatic character of this perfume.
(With thanks to NatRocks)
7 Replies
