Kilian
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Cardamom and bergamot create an almost medicinal brightness, immediately complicated by pink pepper's bite—sharp, almost peppery-hot rather than fruity-warm. Within two minutes, the plum begins its emergence, initially suggesting a candied quality that makes you wonder if this will tip into dessert territory.
The caramelised plum and apricot arrive fully, glossy and stone-fruited, but the rose intercepts them with unexpected dryness—it's neither fresh nor powdery, but textured, almost leathery at its edges. This is where the fragrance reveals its actual character: a sophisticated interplay between sweet fruit and structural florals, neither overwhelming the other.
Patchouli and cedar dominate, stripping away the fruit's immediacy and replacing it with dry, woody minerality. Frankincense lingers, providing a subtle resinous sweetness that prevents the base from becoming austere, though any remaining plum is now merely a faint memory—shadow-sweet rather than present.
In the City of Sin announces itself with the sharp crack of cardamom and pink pepper—a spiced greeting that immediately signals sophistication rather than sweetness. Calice Becker has constructed something deliberately contradictory here: a fragrance that wears the trappings of a gourmand (that caramelised plum is genuinely indulgent, treacly in the best sense) yet refuses to surrender to pure confection. The rose in the heart prevents the fruit from becoming cloying; it's a rose with substance, textured rather than perfumed, anchoring the apricot's silky warmth with something more structural.
What emerges is a fragrance for those who gravitate towards amber-adjacent orientals but find most too pedestrian. This is urbane and slightly restless—the scent of someone moving through velvet-roped spaces, checking their watch, catching their reflection in mirrored walls. The patchouli-cedar base is dry and distinctly woody, almost confrontational, refusing to soften into the sweet notes above. It's frankincense that mediates: resinous, faintly ecclesiastical, giving the composition an unexpected spiritual edge beneath all that hedonism.
Add fragrances to your collection and unlock your personalised scent DNA, note map, and shareable identity card.
3.6/5 (169)