I have been longing to love one of the perfumes in the By Kilian In the Garden of Good and Evil collection, because I want the dang box. I am in lust with that goofy, fat, insolent gold snake curled on that pristine white plastic box that can double as an evening clutch. The series explores the concept of original sin and forbidden fruit, and I like fruit in perfume. I just can’t quite find the love for this collection yet. The latest launch, Playing With the Devil, is a veritable fruit salad, so I was alternately hopeful and nervous. Lots of fruit can be a wonderful thing, or not.
Snake by Lynette Shelley
Opening with a burst of blood orange, the fragrance is bright and cheerful at first. However, something starts to go a bit wrong after about ten minutes. Perfumer Calice Becker, who is exceptionally talented, has created a fragrance that goes from promising to cloying in very little time. This fruit salad becomes an overcooked compote, with too much vanilla and not enough brandy. The acidic blood orange in the top notes dissipates and becomes consumed by sugar. Maybe tonka bean, benzoin, and vanilla are overkill, and a bigger dollop of the snap of the pimiento would give the perfume some lift. As the perfume dries down, it becomes a bit sour, like under-ripe cafeteria fruit masked by syrup. I’m sorry to say that this perfume will not be the one I buy for the box.
Serpent and Cross by E.W. Ringstaff
Playing With the Devil isn’t bad, and I know it will find fans. It’s just not what I have come to expect from a line of perfumes that I initially thought was over-priced, over-hyped, and ridiculous before it won me over completely and emptied out my wallet. The Oeuvre Noir and Arabian Nights collections are both wonderful, and the Asian Tales fragrances, though not to my taste, are well-done. I’m beginning to think that In the Garden of Good and Evil is simply targeted to a market demographic that I am not a part of; the pink, fruity, sugary crowd gone upscale.
Maybe somebody who doesn’t like their snake box will send me theirs (wink, nudge).
Notes: blood orange, black currant, peach, lychee, pepper, pimento, cedar, sandalwood, patchouli, rose, jasmine, tonka bean, benzoin and vanilla.
Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Saks Fifth Avenue in San Francicsco.
–Tama Blough, Senior Editor