La Fille De Berlin

truly, the most perfect rose scent out there. makes me feel like a feral animal. a soft, jammy, gently spicy rose that dries down to something sensual and hard to pin down - sweet and musky, like dried spit and lipstick. the rose is blood-red and blossoming with pearls of sticky magneta dewdrops all over. i think it's the honey note that makes this smell salivary, or like the crook of somebody's elbow - delicate, intimate, warm, skin so soft and vulnerable you want to sink your fangs in. i don't quite pick up on all the gothic, thorny, bloody allusions people make when they discuss this scent, but it still has something of the gothic about it, though in much more of a "virgin in a silk nightdress trying to outrun the vampire" way. it's a fairytale fragrance, and every fairytale inevitably will have its dark undertones, but i don't feel frightened or threatened by la fille de berlin, it's just strikingly tender and romantic; it makes me blush rose-red. absolute perfection.

The first time I wore this, it didn't sit right with me. The rose was jammy and grandma-esque, and the spiciness felt like it was completely disconnected from the overall scent direction. However, as the time passed, it transformed, and boy, did it transform beautifully. Now this rose has become much lighter, but this lightness comes from the fact that its stem has been cast under a layer of metal. Perhaps this image is a trick of my consciousness, and the real picture is much more violent; this metallic aspect is the smell of blood. Regardless, the rose itself didn't lose its comforting aspect and is still quite feminine. That being said, despite this being a one hundred percent feminine fragrance, as a man, I enjoy wearing it. This scent is like my companion, surrounding me with comfort and melancholy care. If you try to describe it through feelings, then for me it is the smell of unhappy, unrealistic, and non-reciprocal but very romantic and therefore pleasant love...

This is an experience, typical of Serge Lutens. It opens with a blackberry burst, like it’s squished and juice squirts out and then it dies quickly. It makes me think of an artery squirting blood and then just oozing. The rose is right up front, like my nose is in an actual deep red rose. There’s no doubt this is a red rose on the cusp of decay. The honey brings an animalic note - a little like sweat or the start of decay. And the patchouli is different here. It smells damp and a little musty, like a mausoleum or an old damp funeral home. It’s very vintage, too. I can pick up notes of face powder and lipstick. I’m not sure how wearable this is, but it’s been interesting for a few days. I do keep remembering my grandmother’s funeral - the smell of her powdered face and red rose rosary when I leaned into her coffin to say goodbye. Gosh, I miss her. I’m not getting candy or sweetness. The juice is super dark, so be careful of your clothing.

I’m obsessed with this scent. Upon just smelling the cap from getting it out of the box, you’re hit with something fresh and jammy, it almost reads blackberry to me but not in the way a fruit gummy would, but fresh, natural, and ripe. Theres a heavy powdered quality to this that carries the jam with it. It isn’t a sugary powder, it’s a clean, baby like scent that feels like a cloud that envelops you even at a distance. There’s then a factor of this that has a certain skankiness that somehow reads more sexy and scandalous than offensive. Upon spraying, it definitely gains a metallic factor, but instead of being cloying, it’s exhilarating and just adds such an amazing amount of depth to the fragrance that gives it more mystery and makes you feel domineering. It wears down into an intimate powdery musk, that feels like being held in romance. I love this fucking perfume dude

A rose petal rosary on bloodied hands. For the longest time I couldn't make out exactly how I feel about La Fille de Berlin, but I knew one thing for certain; this perfume won't be my daily reach. It holds a heavy emotional weight. It smells like a strong woman who finally let her walls down and allow herself be loved for the first time, only for it to be taken, brutally ripped out of her life. She's grieving, mourning, boiling with rage for being powerless against fate. She has yet to accept the ephemeral nature of life, the ruthless cycle of death and rebirth, the reality that change is the only thing that's permanent. Hits a little too close to home.