Kayali
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The pistachio and hazelnut hit immediately, roasted and creamy with an almost savoury quality that the rum amplifies into something boozy and indulgent. Cardamom adds a resinous warmth, while bergamot tries—and mostly fails—to brighten what is fundamentally a dense, nutty opening. Within minutes, you're already aware this isn't going anywhere subtle.
White florals emerge with surprising force, peony and geranium particularly, bringing a clean, almost soapy quality that interacts strangely with the stone fruit sweetness of peach and pear. The raspberry adds a tart, jammy edge that keeps things from tipping into pure cream, whilst jasmine floats somewhere in the background, more texture than distinct floral. It's here that the fragrance reveals its synthetic bones most clearly—everything feels smooth, rounded, slightly plasticky in that distinctly modern gourmand way.
Cotton candy dominates, backed by marshmallow and tonka in a trinity of soft, pillowy sweetness that the lokum makes vaguely rosy. The cocoa never fully materialises as chocolate, reading more as a dusky backdrop, whilst the woods provide just enough structure to keep this from smelling like pure confection. What remains is tenacious, clinging sweetness—comforting if you're in the mood, suffocating if you're not.
Olivier Cresp's Yum Pistachio Gelato is a full-throated love letter to the gelato counter, amplified to absurd, irresistible proportions. The pistachio note arrives as a creamy nut butter rather than the bright green paste you'd find in actual Italian gelato—think roasted, salted, almost marzipan-adjacent richness that's been whipped with hazelnut praline and a generous slug of rum. It's the sort of opening that makes you involuntarily check your wrist for sticky fingers. The floral heart—white peony, geranium, lily of the valley—performs an unexpected service here, cutting through what could have been cloying sweetness with a soapy, almost laundry-musk cleanliness that somehow works. These aren't romantic florals; they're the synthetic brightness of a pristine gelato parlour, all white tiles and chrome scoops. By the base, you're deep into fairground territory: pink clouds of cotton candy tangle with lokum, marshmallow, and a whisper of cocoa that never quite commits to chocolate. The woods—cedar and sandalwood—feel more like structural scaffolding than actual woodiness, there to stop the whole thing collapsing into pure sugar.
This is for the sweet tooth who's exhausted by minimalism, who wants their fragrance to announce itself from three paces. It's deliberately, joyfully synthetic, wearing its artificiality like costume jewellery. Whether that's your vibe depends entirely on how you feel about smelling like the platonic ideal of dessert rather than an actual kitchen.
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3.8/5 (146)