See Prices

More

We may earn a commission when you buy from links on our site, including the eBay Partner Network and Amazon.

Burning Ben Strangers Parfumerie 2018

7.7 / 10 97 Ratings

A popular perfume by Strangers Parfumerie for women and men, released in 2018. The scent is spicy-smoky. The production was apparently discontinued.
Compare

More

We may earn a commission when you buy from links on our site, including the eBay Partner Network and Amazon.

Main accords

Spicy

Smoky

Resinous

Woody

Leathery

Fragrance Notes

Cognac

Espresso

Amber

Beeswax

Dark chocolate

Hay absolute

Hazelnut

Javanol

Patchouli

Tobacco

Burnt rubber

Castoreum

Cherry

Labdanum

Leather

Pimento

Tar

Frankincense Plum

Plum

Saffron

Perfumer

Prin Lomros

Ratings

Scent

7.797 Ratings

Longevity

7.985 Ratings

Sillage

7.784 Ratings

Bottle

7.075 Ratings

Value for money

6.736 Ratings

Submitted by PanicRoom · last update on 03/05/2026.

Source-backed & verified

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Nesnás Qareen

Burning Barbershop

Reviews

8 in-depth fragrance descriptions

05/18/2023

7.5Scent 7Longevity 7Sillage

EnomisCVD
138 Reviews

EnomisCVD

Helpful Review 2

Burning spiced coffee

Prin, as a film maker and graduate student in that field, often finds inspiration for the creation of his fragrances from that world.
In this case the film is the South Korean "Burning."
Specifically it is a scene from the film, where there is also a moment that can be interpreted as homophobia (which is why the fragrance belongs to the LGBTIQ collection).
The fragrance is focused, as you can guess from the title, on smoke.
Burning tires and woods, coffee shop, liquor, spices and incense.
Basically it is a smoky (not so much) and slightly boozy coffee with some spices on an amber base.

09/26/2019

9.5Scent 8Longevity 8Sillage

Maggy4u
369 Reviews

Maggy4u

2

Burn, Ben, Burn!

Burning Ben is a tribute to a character (Ben) from the movie "Burning" by South Korean director Lee Chang-dong. He tries to address the mystery of the world with this film. Something that obviously goes wrong, but nobody can say what. His aim is to depict the rage of today's youth - without perspectives, apathetically. A youth looking for a culprit for its misery.

Although the film does not fall directly into the LGBTIQ genre, Prin probably dedicated one of the most beautiful scents of his collection to this film, around a triangle relationship. And especially the character Ben. Ben himself is rich, handsome and the archetype of a winner. So he doesn't fit into the desperation of youth portrayed in the film. He is, perhaps, rather the reason or also the guilty one, who lets the destitute appear even poorer and more powerless. While he takes what he wants.

But let´s do it, step by step.

The story unfolds around Hae-mi, a dreamy young woman who sets off for Africa with her hard-earned money to find the meaning of her life. Before that she met Jong-su, a boy from her old school (and her hometown) by chance and the two spend time together. There will be more. When she asks Jong-su to look after her cat during her absence (and search for meaning) in Africa, he agrees. But he never sees the cat during the following weeks and at some point he doesn't believe that it exists anymore.

When Jong-su picks up Hae-mi at the airport after weeks, she introduces him to Ben, whom she met in Africa. From now on all three of them spend more time together and Jong-su can only watch Hae-mi decay more and more Ben. One evening, while eating together, Hae-mi explains in tears what a huge fear of dying she has. She'd rather just disappear, go up in smoke as if she never existed. She never exists. This very open and emotional moment and her tears are only acknowledged by Ben with a lack of understanding for the despair, inner conflict and life fears of "the others". He, Ben, never cried before.

At another meeting, under drugs, Jong-su confesses to Ben not only that he loves Hae-mi, but also tells him about the loss of his mother and how his father forced him to burn all things and souvenirs after her death. Ben uses this keyword to report on his "hobby": burning abandoned greenhouses. Ben's complete lack of empathy now contributes even more to Jong-su's despair and enemy image.

After a disturbing phone call from Hae-mi, in which only steps and screams can be heard, Jong-su now completely believes that Ben is trying to kill his beloved (Hae-mi). After that call, Hae-mi disappeared without a trace. He's watching all the greenhouses and also Ben to put him to death. One day, when he is caught by Ben and invited into his apartment in a confusing way, he meets a cat who hears the same first name as Hae-mis cat (whom he had never seen). He also finds, among many watches and bracelets, things at Ben that belonged to Hae-mi.

In the conversation Ben mentions that he also wondered how Hae-mi could just disappear. Like it's gone up in smoke. (Yes, almost the same words...)

Jong-su then lures Ben out of town. Kill him and pour gasoline over him, then burn him. Hae-mi disappears without a trace.

That's Burning Ben.

The scent smells of smoke and delicious coffee. It smells like wonderful, noble car seats (Ben's Porsche). It smells like expensive cognac. Simple, but expensive. Wealthy, but astonishingly unobtrusive.

He smells of the being and the end of Ben. (you have to watch the film!)

With his pretty, perfect face and the lack to see the world as more than just a playground of his desires.

06/25/2025

ClaireV
969 Reviews

ClaireV

2

Smoke innovation

Burning Ben is so, so good. You definitely need to love phenolic scents to like it, but as long as your fetish is smelling like beef jerky on a campfire, then Burning Ben will really do it for you. It runs along the same lines as Le Labo Patchouli 24 or Slumberhouse Jeke - basically big, billowing bombs of birch tar, cade, and lapsang souchong smeared over a sweet or boozy baseline. But it features an innovation so good-smelling and so damn right that I can't believe nobody's thought of before now: coffee! The burnt, aromatic 'fresh roast' coffee bean note lifted out of SM Café and grafted right on top of the burning cade-birch heart of Burning Ben makes for a smoky, tarry coffee darkness that smells fantastic.

At first, as you might imagine, it's a bit too intense, like a billycan of coffee that's boiled over on a campfire and is now sizzling meanly on the embers beneath. The addition of the coffee gives the birch tar leather a more masculine bent, and for part of this ride, I feel like I'm wearing my boyfriend's leather jacket, infused with his scent of aftershave, manly musk, and general 'maleness' - this I find sexy in a cross-dressing way, and for people who find Patchouli 24 not masculine or butch enough, well, voila Burning Ben.

But before all of these intensely burnt, roasted flavors can run over into harsh or bitter, an oriental-ish and sweetly nutty base arrives to soften the edges. The basenotes are vague and amorphous in a way that makes you think, 'Mmm, that smells good', but also leaves you at a loss to define any one particular note or accord that's making it so.

The best I can do is to say that it's more like a texture than a taste, like those firm salted toffees whose pleasure lies mainly in the chew. Salty-sweet amber, toffee, beeswax, crushed hazelnuts a sensuous mélange of silky, warm 'brown' flavors that are the perfect accompaniment to the sharper, smokier notes of birch tar and coffee up top. Burning Ben is one of the Strangers Parfumerie scents that smells ever better the more it goes on - perhaps the forceful nature of phenolic scents in general is what ensures the richness doesn't attenuate as quickly. Anyway, I love this category of scents, so it follows that I love Burning Ben. Beyond my general bias, I think that Burning Ben manages to pull off a bit of innovation in a genre that I suspect is rather a self-limiting space.

07/07/2021

7Scent 5Longevity 5Sillage

Lioncourt
126 Reviews

Lioncourt

2

20th century flavour

Interesting fragrance in which I would highlight the smoke and tobacco part, perhaps also the coffee, with a spicy leather background.
I associate it with an old masculine scent, like that of the charismatic men who frequented the bars of the 20th century.
And it seems dark to me, although relatively warm.
In principle, described like this it does not seem something original, but I would say that I do not find similarities with other fragrances and it has a lot of personality.

In my case it is not at all a powerful perfume in sillage and projection.
Relatively short skin longevity.
For a quality niche perfume context, its performance is not a highlight.

Updated on 07/07/2021

03/05/2025

8Scent 8Longevity 8Sillage

Landshark321
773 Reviews

Landshark321

1

Dark, varied blend that smells great - sweet, spicy, resinous, boozy, maybe even animalic

Strangers Parfumerie Burning Ben is seemingly one of the house’s better-known entries that I neglected to sample my first time around with the line but am happy to try out now. It immediately smells of a combination of various dark and smoky elements, from leather to liquor to coffee, with affectations that range from sweet to animalic to spicy, really a sort of smoky multifaceted blend that’s especially fitting for cooler weather and/or nighttime situations. I mainly get a bit of leather varnish, espresso, chocolate, nuts, resins, and spices. It’s really fascinating and performs reasonably well, though it’s always difficult to make a full assessment off of a dabber sample.

As with much of the line, Burning Ben is EDP concentration, priced at $90 for 30ml, and sold in the US at boutiques like Luckyscent. I find the pricing to be very reasonable nowadays, even up slightly from $80 a few years ago, but $3 / ml is very fair for niche perfumery, and I feel I’m a bit overdue to retry some other entries and perhaps pick up a couple bottles from the line.

8 out of 10

More reviews