Cthulu

There are already a number of reviews for this fragrance, so instead of describing it, I would like to place it in relation to other scents.

Calice Becker has created a whole range of Kilian fragrances. Aside from the Kilians, I only know her from Tommy Girl, which at the time of its release was, in my opinion, a great hit that unfortunately did not receive the recognition it deserved. Therefore, her masterpiece should be among the Kilians, and among these, Intoxicated and even more Back To Black are repeatedly praised. The latter is the first and so far only Kilian fragrance that I own. My desire to like it is correspondingly high, but I must unfortunately say that it leads a shadowy existence in my fragrance ensemble.

I occasionally take the bottle in hand and smell it or spray a bit on a test strip, but I really wear it very rarely. It smells good - but I apparently do not want to smell like I have fallen into a pot of honey, like Pooh Bear. Among the three fragrances where honey plays a significant role and that I own, it is the one I mostly overlook. I am also not a fan of the initial honey wave in Naxos, but here a wonderful velvety drydown quickly dominates the gourmand beginning. Chergui is overall more balanced and spicier; especially the hay and - to a lesser extent - wood and leather notes stand up to the sweetness.

However, in Back To Black, all notes are overshadowed by the dominant honey, and even over time, in the transition from the top note to the drydown, not much changes. Sticky, highly concentrated sweetness is the dominant impression - whether this creates an aphrodisiac effect, as the perfume programmatically promises, I doubt. Occasionally, wood and incense poke through the honeycomb, but from my perspective, these remain too background and never step into the ring with the overwhelming sweetness.

Many highlight the powdery character of the long, long drydown, but even that I hardly notice in light of the all-encompassing honey bomb.
The fragrance is definitely long-lasting - even after 24 hours, it is still very noticeable. Precisely because of its strength, its radius, and its durability, I would really like to like it - not just on a test strip, but also on my skin. Also, the noticeably high-quality ingredients used speak in its favor. But one must feel extraordinarily comfortable with overly sweet fragrances to enjoy Back To Black. For me, while it can compete in terms of quality, it does not in terms of wearability with the mentioned honey fragrances, and in the genre of sweet gourmand scents, another "black" fragrance - Tom Ford's Noir Extreme - is much closer to me.

I am currently testing a range of James Heeley fragrances, of which I previously only knew Sel Marin. I was led to Note de Yuzu through the search for a citrus scent with decent projection and longevity. Mission accomplished, I would say! Although the scent associatively takes me less to a lemon grove and more to a sailing ship.

The salty note gives the fragrance an aquatic quality, but in a completely different way than most marine scents do. These often smell too "green" instead of "blue" to me, reminding me of algae and seaweed rather than the sea and freshness. This is also the case with Sel Marin, or with Montale's Embruns d'Essaouira, both of which evoke a harbor more than the sea and possess an unpleasant iodine note for me. I have always preferred distinctly "blue" scents as maritime fragrances, like - a cliché - Nautica's Voyager.

Note de Yuzu shares a fine musk note in the base with this fragrance, which supports it subtly yet decisively and gives it some depth. However, apart from that, Note de Yuzu takes a different path; it is, literally and metaphorically, a "yellow" scent. On this sailing trip, you have the scent of the sea in your nose, unclouded by seaweed, algae, fish, or shellfish, and you are close enough to an island to catch the scent of the lemons that tempt you to go ashore.

James Heeley's Note de Yuzu is for me the provisional end of my search for a lasting and intense citrus fragrance; I like it better than, for example, Patricia de Nicolaï's Eau de Yuzu, Acqua Viva by Profumum Roma, or Nudas Veritas by Ateliers des Ors, which I have tried recently. Now I am eagerly awaiting Initio's Rehab, which should be arriving soon.

The philosopher Slavoj Zizek once referred to Coke Zero without caffeine as the pure nothing. This formulation also fits this fragrance wonderfully. Even while the sprayed liquid dries on the skin, the scent vanishes into the imperceptible without ever having been present. A hint of orange and lavender lingers, but to say that one could 'smell' this would be too much. It's astonishing that this exercise in olfactory reduction comes from the same perfumer with the unpronounceable name who is also responsible for Yves Saint Laurent's Tuxedo, which is quite popular here.
So unfortunately, this fragrance is not worth mentioning, and I only wrote this review because after trying out some rather prominent scents today, this petit rien caught me off guard ;-)