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Opera

III-III Love Kills Masque 2019

7.6 / 10 85 Ratings

A popular perfume by Masque for women and men, released in 2019. The scent is floral-spicy. It is still in production.
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Main accords

Floral

Spicy

Fresh

Earthy

Green

Fragrance Notes

Turkish rose

Ambrarome

Ambrette seed absolute

Animalic musk

Egyptian geranium

Rose oxide

Turkish rose absolute Cedar

Cedar

Indonesian patchouli

Perfumer

Caroline Dumur

Ratings

Scent

7.685 Ratings

Longevity

7.972 Ratings

Sillage

7.670 Ratings

Bottle

7.966 Ratings

Value for money

6.636 Ratings

Submitted by Ravenous · last update on 01/03/2026.

Source-backed & verified

Interesting Facts

The fragrance is part of the Opera collection.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Rose de Taif Extrait de Parfum

Portrait of a Lady Eau de Parfum

Eau de Protection

Gris Dior / Gris Montaigne (Eau de Parfum) by Dior

Gris Dior Eau de Parfum

Reviews

5 in-depth fragrance descriptions

12/23/2020

7Scent 7Longevity 7Sillage

Landshark321
755 Reviews

Landshark321

2

Fresh, balanced rose/geranium pairing

This a long overdue proper sampling of Masque Milano Love Kills, the third entry of Act III and one of the house’s 2019 releases that I had the privilege of first smelling last June at Perfumology. It’s a fresh, green, citric rose scent with Turkish rose, geranium, patchouli, cedar, and musk. It seems to contain a healthy dose of geranium with all of its spicy, herbal, fresh, and sharp sides.

What’s not to like? It’s balanced, not overly sharp, with good harmony between the rose and geranium, and it’s romantic, as its name suggests, while not being especially heavy or feminine, so it’s versatile and year-round friendly, as it works perfectly well on this cooler winter day but would be nicely boastful in the heat of summer. An easy winner of a release from Masque Milano, which has a good variety of challenging and easy-to-love scents.

It’s priced at $158 for 35ml, within the current range of Masque Milano pricing, with a 10ml travel size also available for $57, at great boutiques like Perfumology.

7 out of 10

04/14/2025

6.5Scent 6Longevity 7Sillage

Raluko111
461 Reviews

Raluko111

1

Rose + Geranium is a tricky one for me.

I have to admit, Masque Milano's roses are kind of challenging for me, but if I had to choose, I'd pick II-IV Kintsugi over this one any day. Geranium is a hard note to like for me, but throw in the ambrette seeds and I really start to feel like I'm walking on eggshells. It's too spicy, this geranium, and it's not a scent that attracts me. And there's just a bit too much rose, too. Not just rose, but like rose water, rose essential oil, like I'm being tossed into a rose syrup, like that Greek-Cypriot dessert, Mahalebi, which is just a reddish-pink pool of sweet rose juice that I could never stomach. It's painful for me.

10/01/2023

9.5Scent 9Longevity 7Sillage

Parma
279 Reviews

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Parma

Top Review 24

Portrait for Now

I really like 'Love Kills'. It is a subtly physical rose-patchouli scent with a strong resemblance to Malle's 'Portrait of a Lady'. A bit slimmer and more contemporary than the Parisian Rose, which always seems slightly old-fashioned to me. The Milanese beauty notably omits incense and the often very classic clove, and despite also having enormous longevity, it is more restrained. However, not quiet.

Scent Development:

It opens with a fruity-sour rose, medium-dark, full-bodied, and slightly sweet. Lightened by a citrus note that gives the fragrance a delicate freshness until the end. It is underscored by a gentle, soft animalic note, which I would best describe as a "skin in the evening." A restrained, warm physicality that makes the rose so interesting and attractive to me. Probably caused by a combination of animalic musk in a creamy texture, slightly coarse-powdery ambrette seed, and the subtly synthetic, velvety-corporeal amber note. A carefully measured patchouli contributes a spicy-earthy tone (not musty-cellar), enhances the aroma, and adds verticality. Deep in the drydown, the protagonist develops a beautiful soap-like texture, which I have rarely smelled better in its almost silky nature - combined with the soft-spicy physicality. This creates the aura of an aromatic, elegant rose. Well-groomed and slightly suggestive at the same time.

All of this feels somewhat lighter and less serious compared to the Malle scent. Also opulently designed, but more composed. Approachable. Warmer. Moreover, excellently balanced. Pleasing without sacrificing a distinctive character.

Longevity and Sillage:

Just as the scent character is somewhat less expansive than in the Malle scent, the projection and sillage are also reduced. You are perceived subtly, and a light hint of the fragrance remains in the room. I can easily perceive it all day long without having to make an effort.

Conclusion:

In my opinion, 'Love Kills' is a successful, more everyday-friendly, and slightly modern version of the very similar 'Portrait of a Lady'.

Note on Ingredients:

Amber note is a fully synthetic aroma compound that was developed in 1926 by the French company Synarome as a replacement for ambergris. Its scent profile is described as “warm and enveloping ambery note with smoky nuances {and an} intense leathery and animalic heart {with} salty and mineral notes.” However, I do not perceive smoky, leathery, salty, and mineral facets in this fragrance. You can sense its potentially scent-defining power, which is restrained here through careful use.

Classification of the Name:

III - III Love Kills is part of Masque Milano's Opera line. The Roman numerals before the actual name indicate the respective acts and scenes of the in-house, four-act fragrance opera, which mixes themes of life (experiences, places, moods, feelings, reflections, relationships, dreams). In this act, love - symbolized by the rose - plays the main role. It depicts the blooming and dying of this primal force in a tragic love story. Inspired by Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet."

As with many brands, this is a nice addition and possibly necessary to differentiate from competitors and appeal to a certain clientele, but for me, it is rather uninteresting. At least I do not like it more or less because of this thematic embedding and do not recognize the connection (for me, it is, for example - if one engages with this interpretation - a solid, mature love in the drydown and not one that ends with death, as the brand narrative would like it to be understood).

Further Information:

In 2020, 'Love Kills' was nominated for an Art & Olfaction Award in the 'Independent' category.

05/13/2021

7Scent 9Longevity 8Sillage

Pinkdawn
68 Reviews

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Pinkdawn

Top Review 17

Love strikes like cold steel

The curtain rises. Enter Rose. It’s a grand entrance. The rose is immediately present, almost kitschily sweet and heavy like in some oriental perfumes. I am a fan of rose scents. But this is too intense for me. If you sniff closer and let the scent of this overdose of ripe rose develop, it soon comes across surprisingly fresh and green, almost citrusy - and makes you sit up and take notice. At least me. Because I like this modern kind of rose. But just as I begin to enjoy the unexpected freshness, a dark cloud in the form of an equally unexpected metallic sharpness rolls in. Where does that come from? No idea. But it’s there. Perhaps it’s the geranium breaking into the rosy idyll.

Even if no geranium appears in the fragrance pyramid on Parfumo, it is mentioned in most other sources. For me, it is clearly noticeable.
Geranium and rose often meet in perfumes. On one hand, to stretch the expensive rose oil, on the other hand, to make the scent more lasting. Nothing against the delicate, white flower, but I am not a fan of its floral sweetness. I may be unfair, but I always see geranium as the cheap "substitute rose" of lesser quality that ruins every rose scent for me.
Here it’s a bit different. I recognize the concept. Love Kills is a parable about the transience of love. One could also say: the life of a rose as an allegory for the brevity of romantic relationships.

Okay, one doesn’t have to read too much into everything. What bothers me about such metaphors is also the rigorous apodicticity. Because not all love stories end in drama or are shorter than a rose's life. Right? But here it’s about the finiteness of love relationships - whether through the everyday life that kills the passionate feelings, betrayal, disappointment, jealousy, stranded hopes, or whatever - and the melancholy that inherently comes with it.

For me, the message is clear: At the beginning is the still green rose with its promising freshness. Then it blooms into a beautiful, velvety flower and develops such a heavy, dark-sweet scent that it’s almost too intense to enjoy it as pleasant. But while one wonders whether so much rose is allowed in a scent or in a person, the geranium takes over the scene. Its citrusy spiciness makes the unisex scent wearable for men, but it 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 consciously employed player here, meant to olfactorily show how the innocent-heavenly love relationship begins to crack. And the early tragedy remains. At this point, the scent develops a certain cleanliness and neatness that cannot be interpreted unambiguously in the play of this allegory. I would say: The passion is now out of the relationship. They still stay together, but under different conditions.

The association with the song “Love Kills” by Freddie Mercury from 1984 is compelling. It’s not one of his best, even though it’s his first solo track. But there’s this line: “Love strikes like cold steel, scars you from the start. Love kills.”
Freddie also seems to have had not too good experiences with love.

Did Caroline Dumur, who created this scent, think of Freddie and his song when she mixed “Love Kills”? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. The message is - whether by coincidence or not - the same.

Even if this scent hasn’t exactly captured my heart in a storm, it deserves respect. Here, they didn’t want to create a pleasing floral array. The scent tells a - extremely dramatic - story and is an interesting, varied composition with an exciting scent progression that stays in memory. But it plays very much in the foreground. You have to like it, share its mood. Then it fits. It won’t adapt to you or “enhance your personality,” as one often expects from perfumes. It is itself far too strong for that. A “all or nothing” affair. No compromises, no tolerance, no harmony. It’s more about power and dominance. If you are ready to accept this strength, you will find yourself in the scent. For me, it is too intense and ultimately too overt in its message. Program music, as one calls it in musical compositions. Besides, I am not willing to have the destructive scent progression from the rosebud to the toxic relationship imposed on me. Even if the story may be true - I don’t want to be constantly reminded of the potentially deadly power of love.

Those who can endure the dark rose-patchouli mixture will be rewarded with a scent that has a literary quality, shows a varied progression, possesses a remarkably strong sillage and longevity, and is very extreme. Not for the superficial, not for wallflowers, office people, or status seekers. More for existentialists, the brave, the curious, and the depressed.

The strange name "III-III Love Kills," which somehow reminds me of X Æ A-XII Musk,
is supposed to mean something like III. Act, III. Scene, I read somewhere, which underscores the dramatic character of this perfume.

(With thanks to NatRocks)

06/02/2025

9Scent 9Longevity 10Sillage

Sbel
29 Reviews

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Sbel

Helpful Review 2

"Not Every Love is Gentle"

Love Kills - When a fragrance looks at you

A quiet confession of flowers, shadows, and light.

Some fragrances do not speak loudly.
They simply look at you - silently, directly, without shyness.
That’s how Love Kills is for me.

A fragrance that does not seek to please, but rather to feel you.
It does not tell a simple story.
It lingers - in the air, on the skin, in the memory.

When I wear it, there is immediately a heaviness
but a beautiful one.
Like a curtain of deep night air that gently drapes over me.
The first notes are like a glance:
bright, enchanting jasmine - almost vulnerable.
But soon everything becomes warmer, darker.
Amber, rose, a hint of metal and leather
as if a memory is rising,
one that you don’t quite want to let go of.

I don’t wear it every day.
And I don’t want to.
Love Kills is for the quiet evenings.
For the nights when I walk through the city,
shoulders pulled up, heart open.
Or for a moment by the window,
when the rain falls against the panes
and I am simply “me” - calm, soft, a little proud.

It is not a fragrance that smiles.
But it sees you.
And if you allow it,
it stays with you - for a long time.

“Not every love is gentle.
But some fragrances know how to love in the dark.”
- Love Kills