This time I'd like to dedicate this review to my beloved Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, her voice was so divine and unique. And Black Sugar is the soul as the voice of the greatest Aretha. R.I.P.
I've been attracted by the dark flask with the name "Black Sugar" and gold vines stretching all around it, despite it was located on a female shelf zone. I've been expected something sticky and cloying as Blue Sugar for men, so I reluctantly sprayed it on a paper strip. As soon as I moved the strip close enough to my nose, I got a blast of cough syrup aroma rich of delicious raspberry and a kind of like deep licorice. The balsamic, burnt, smoky, soft depth, sweet yet not sugary, and the medicinal aroma was so strong that for a moment, I was misled and not sure whether I liked it or not.
Whoa! Where do I begin? Black Sugar is merely brilliant. It can have a "rubber wheel" kind of essence, but I believe it's due to the leather and incense. For the sake of clarity, the opening isn't a smell of burnt rubber, of course, it's more akin to pure burning wood, which is oud. It is oud at its best, the real middle eastern oud, mixed with burnt sugar. It's loud, it's in your face, and it's unbelievable. Italy's Aquolina, renowned for its luscious fragrances, enters into oud territory with this efficiently priced, perfectly unisex, creamy agarwood and vanilla offering. I'm surprised by cheapies easy to find online, and this is a great surprise: niche quality, EDP, quality for coins. The entire composition is mysterious as it seems to blend elements that wouldn't typically go together and, as such, seems genderless.
Acquolina Black Sugar is composed of smoky notes of amber, myrrh, and agarwood, combined with sweet notes of vanilla and raspberry. The dark notes are given by the introduction of raw leather, smoky incense, and creamy sandalwood. Back to agarwood, I've never smelt pure oud, so I'm not sure what it smells like, but I did a little research on it. What I obtained is that oud is the resin from moss or mold grown on individual trees. It takes hundreds of years for it to "rot" to perfection. When the wood becomes infected with a particular type of mold, the tree reacts by producing a dark, scented resin, which is often called "liquid gold." Oud is used to refer to both the resin-saturated wood (the agarwood) as well as the oil distilled from it, and It has a note of dark and dirty leather.
Ride out the initial rubber tire blast and try to relax through the moments of bug spray because I promise. The good times are coming. When it all melds together into a burnt sugar caramelized crust lying above a full fat dense whipped vanilla cream custard filling, you'll be glad that you were patient with Black Sugar and allowed it to do its thing.
The incense and leather die down as time goes by, and you're left with a slightly smoky, but not burnt, vanilla and brown sugar, rich of molasses, resinous myrrh, creamy sandalwood, and sweet amber.
Lasting power and sillage are monstrous like all the perfumes in the Aquolina line are, but this one is special. It's a shame it didn't catch on. It has a very middle eastern vibe. Try this if you like smoky vanilla, buttercream, licorice root, rubber tire, vinyl, dark leather, burnt agarwood, resinous myrrh, and incense. Excellent dark blend and hints of berries, smoke, and licorice allow this oud scent to veer from the usual offerings. Perfect for fall and winter seasons, maybe for evening and night out, this is a genderless cologne.
Ultimately, I've got several oud-based colognes, and I thought that G.M.V. Frames Oud was the strongest one, yet I was wrong. Black Sugar is more potent than that, it's the most vinyl, burnt, smoky, and medicinal oud essence I've ever smelt in my life.
-Elysium
Myrrh
Frankincense
Leather
Oud
Raspberry
Vanilla
Sandalwood
Elysium
Pollita
Stanze
Helena1411
Heikeso
Puderduft18
Precious
Seejungfrau
Astraea
Strangelove
