Bottle Design:
Pierre Ballereau

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Ultrared Rabanne 2008

6.5 / 10 37 Ratings

A perfume by Rabanne for women, released in 2008. The scent is fruity-sweet. It was last marketed by Puig.
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Main accords

Fruity

Sweet

Floral

Synthetic

Fresh

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Strawberry

Red currant

Heart Notes

Liquorice

Star anise Jasmine

Jasmine

Marshmallow

Base Notes

Cedarwood

Vanilla

Perfumer

Calice Becker

Ratings

Scent

6.537 Ratings

Longevity

5.632 Ratings

Sillage

5.832 Ratings

Bottle

6.140 Ratings

Submitted by DonVanVliet · last update on 08/10/2025.

Source-backed & verified

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Reviews

7 in-depth fragrance descriptions

12/22/2012

6Scent 5Longevity 5Sillage

Missk
1357 Reviews

Missk

Helpful Review 5

Sweet yet balanced

Ultrared by Paco Rabanne is a pleasantly sweet fragrance, which is neither too sugary nor too fruity. I find it nicely balanced and very easy to wear.

It goes on rather lightly, with a candied burst of orange and strawberry. With every fruit note in this fragrance, a levelled cup of icing sugar follows. It certainly prevents this fragrance from smelling like anything other than not so fizzy sherbet.

I don't mind Ultrared, however my sweet days are well and truly over. It was evident from the very first spray that this wasn't for me. However, I stuck with it for a whole day in order to give it a fair chance.

The scent overall was light and fun. It was a mish-mash of icing sugar, sweet berries and powdery marshmallows. Its subtle nature was quite welcoming, and I never once felt suffocated in a shroud of candy sweetness, which is a good thing.

The only negative aspect was the drydown, which my boyfriend commented on as having a stale-like quality. He went so far to say that I smelt like I'd smoked a cheeky cigarette and tried to mask the scent with a cheap body spray. Sometimes his opinions can be brutal, yet very helpful. Sniffing my wrist a few times, I can kind of see what he was getting at.

I personally prefer the masculine version of Ultrared. I feel that it has much more character and depth. I didn't mind this fragrance, however I obviously didn't enjoy it enough to snap it up at a bargain price. The longevity could have been better too.

10/12/2023

Catsylvania
8 Reviews

Catsylvania

3

Don't seek as ye shall not find any anise in this

When I stumbled upon Ultrared in one of the Chemist Warehouse stores, I wasn't even aware of this scent's existence. A quick search yielded a promising pyramid, which indicated the presence of anise and licorice! Being an anise fan, what more could I want? Ultrared is pleasant. It's sweet, but not too much as the red currant seems to sour up the mix enough to ensure the concoction doesn't condense itself to a syrup state. The marshmallow note gives plenty of playful softness and cushioning to the scent. However, a sweet "red" berry scent wasn't what I was hoping to find as there were very faint traces of not even anise, but licorice itself, which is usually very prominent in most scents. Ultrared will disappoint anyone looking for the two forementioned notes. The silage is surprisingly questionable, and the scent does tend to sit very close to the skin after about an hour in my personal experience. Longevity is good, no complaints in that department whatsoever. Having said that, unfortunately, I didn't reach for this scent much and will be letting go of it.

08/27/2024

4.5Scent 6Longevity 7Sillage

Czarcasm
77 Reviews

Czarcasm

1

Berries and sugar in a clumsy bottle

Honestly, Ultrared is a bit disappointing to me. It starts out very fruity and juicy, almost to the point of being sharp. The red currant is rather strong, but I can't identify the strawberry at all. After the fruity top notes have gone, it becomes extremely sweet. Just sweet, sweet, sweet, nothing else. Ultrared is the type of scent that I think young teenage girls would love. I find this even sweeter than the Britney Spears Fantasy line.

The marshmallow note is in there somewhere, but I had trouble distinguishing it at first. To me, this smells more like cotton candy or some sweet candy stick you buy at carnivals. Ultrared is noticeable for the first hour of wearing it but after that it just becomes a skin scent. It lasts for only 3 to 4 hours, which I find a bit disappointing.

The vanilla and strawberry are non-existant to me. I can't smell the licorice or anise on my skin at all, only when I sniff the sprayer itself do I get a hint of them. I don't understand how some people find this similar to Loverdose, one of my signatures. Loverdose is a lot darker, the licorice and vanilla are a lot more prominent and overall I find Loverdose to be a more interesting and complex scent.

Overall, I'd hoped that Ultrared would have more dimensions and a more mature feel to it. I'll probably not wear it out much, because I find it to be too young smelling, it just doesn't suit me. This is a comfort scent I'd wear at home. And then there's the bottle. Such a clumsy thing. It does not have a flat surface to stand on so it easily rolls away. The top of the bottle needs to be pressed down completely for it to spray. It's a pretty big bottle so this is incredibly clunky to handle. Often times I pushed it down with two hands...

07/02/2023

6Scent

DogiCoco
637 Reviews

DogiCoco

1

Innocuous berry marshmallow

Ultrared smells like the listed notes say: Red berries on vanilla-marshmallow fluff, with a hint of licorice/star anise that only comes out later in the drydown. The berries are quite tart and sour, especially in the opening, so I would say the redcurrant is more noticeable than the strawberry. I sense a splash of lemon, too. But the overall scent still has a lot of sweetness due to the marshmallow note and vanilla.

It's simple, cute and pretty, not as unqiue and sexy as Ultraviolet from the same line. They barely have anything in common. Ultrared has a celebrity scent vibe to me, sweet and harmless without much interest. If the notes were a little richer and the sweetness deeper instead of just sugary, I would like it more. It's not an unpleasant scent by any means, but I think you can get lots of better perfumes in the berry/vanilla category. This might also be the lightest Paco Rabanne fragrance, if you don't count summer flankers.

01/23/2015

6Scent 5Longevity 5Sillage

Roveena
123 Reviews

Translated · Show original

Roveena

Helpful Review 1

Oh, Paco...tell me, where are the berries!

Well, this is yet another fragrance that leaves me puzzled. Based on the descriptions here and on other websites, I assumed that Ultrared must be a sweet fruit bomb, and since I am totally in love with Ultraviolet and was unusually looking for a sweet, playful, youthful, and fruity scent, I thought I couldn't go wrong here; after all, what Paco Rabanne has created once, he should be able to do again.

But I was mistaken. For one, I find Ultrared not sweet at all. Sure, there is a certain sweetness that comes with the berries, but it is really tame and subtle. Subtle is indeed what characterizes this fragrance for me: no significant sillage, no special longevity, no edges or corners, and it does not deliver what the fragrance pyramid promises. Jasmine, marshmallow, berries, etc. suggest a considerable bomb that leans towards gourmand, but that is not the case at all.

Instead, Ultrared is delicate and unremarkable. The berries, which one can usually easily sniff out of a perfume, are somehow pale and unremarkable here, like a basket of berries that was carried past you, leaving just a last hint, a final trace of scent. The comparison to a strawberry margarita is quite fitting, as the fragrance also brings an alcoholic-aldehydic note.

With Ultrared, you can't really go wrong; it's that unobtrusive. Maybe I just don't have a nose for this fragrance - I don't even know if I would recognize it on another woman, as Ultrared has so little profile and expressiveness for me.

Conclusion: What a pity, what a pity, but I really know better fragrances from Paco Rabanne.

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