Delizia Oscura

Hopefully at this point I have been given enough fagrantica clout for people to trust my opinion on how fragrances behave. This was quite the stunner for me. What I enjoy doing nowadays is sampling a fragrance without looking at the notes before and not reading any reviews. I want my reaction to be as authentic as possible with as little influence as possible. I am a huge fan of chocolate in fragrance. I am not the biggest coffee fan when it is in my fragrance wardrobe. The initial hit of coffee in the very beginning was not my favorite by any means. My instant reaction was that this was not going to be good. However that was short-lived and the hazelnut chocolate Violet concoction began to be sculpted. There is no getting around the resemblance to the infamous chocolate hazelnut spread that we all know. If you don't like that, you are not going to like this in the slightest. Is it a gourmand fragrance? Absolutely without a doubt. Does the violet give the fragrance complexity? Absolutely. This is not your typical synthetic cheap Bath and body Works sweet adolescent body mist. This is done very well and has a deep complexity that I appreciate and I want to wear and experience. It is very much an adult gourmand. Similar to how you would say you are having an adult hot chocolate. There is something in the composition that gives the illusion of contemplation. Meditation. Violet works as almost a foam-like olfactory texture on the top of the dark chocolate mocha. Not too sweet though. Chocolate used I'm sure is guittard and is served in a porcelain white cup and saucer. If you would like to eat a pastry, perhaps a chocolate croissant is the best match this evening. Delizia Oscura hits the spot for those of you who crave great chocolate fragrances, but have a hard time finding one that is not juvenile.

Being a gourmand and also a violets lover in perfumes, I couldn’t wait to try out Delizia Oscura by Calaj. I was familiar with other works of the perfumer, so I already knew that when Flavius Calaj starts playing with notes and ingredients, some real good magic is about to happen. And it did. Let me just start by saying that the opening is majestic. Divine. A gourmand lovers dream! It opens with a blast of violets wrapped in waves of black chocolate, with a couple of hazelnuts sitting patiently in the background. It immediately transported me to my childhood days, when I used to pick up all the violets from my grandma’s garden and make little bouquets that would make the kitchen smell like heaven all day long. The same authentic, pure note of violets I found in Delizia Oscura, especially in the opening. Yes, you also get a high dose of chocolate but the notes blend so well together, that they never become overly sweet. It's a perfect balance that somehow allows you to enjoy the notes both together and separately. After 2-3 hours, the hazelnuts and the milk note start to dance on my skin, leaving the chocolate and flowers lingering nearby, never dissapearing completely and for the next 8-9 hours, it feels like something delicious and creamy melted on my skin, with chocolate and violets appearing just when I thought they were gone. 12hours+ after, what remains on skin is a coffee-caramel-latte scent that sticks with me untill the next day. What a journey in a bottle it has been! From start to finish, this is a very well blended perfume, a piece of art and a very unexpected journey on skin! In terms of performance, saying it's a powerhouse seems like an understatement! For me, this is what art is all about in perfumery! Definitely give it a try, especially if you are a gourmand lover.

I got to test it and it is really good. I mean, violet and coffee lovers beware, for you will encounter a long lasting trail of delicious hazelnut waffle, violets and coffee. Closest perfume to it I can think of is Akro Awake, but the image painted by Delizia Oscura is even more nuanced, as all the notes are revealed the more the fragrance sits on the skin. I love the fact that the gourmand elements are balanced by a sort of cold, almost metallic feeling, very suited to the vicinity of violets. From the huge blast of violets and coffee in the opening, the fragrance then emerges as a vivid picture of eating waffles as a kid, yet it is not a juvenile gourmand. Really, thumbs up for this one. Edit: the more I wear it, the more it seems gothic, as in a Transilvanian castle movie. Total unexpected love and the performance is great.

Delizia Oscura smells like a place you carry with you. That place being a beautiful, charming cafe on a hillside somewhere in Italy. You are sitting outside at a table being served chocolate-hazelnut pastries, raspberries, and coffee. As you look down the hill, you see little purple violets and white lilies blooming down the edge of the road towards the water. Your mouth tastes like delectable nutty, dark, chocolate treats, and rich coffee beans--you don't even want to brush your teeth, because you want to keep that flavor with you as long as possible. You ride your bicycle down the hillside road, and think about coming to this cafe again tomorrow, and perhaps each day after.

Delizia Oscura Calaj- is sooo freaking yummy with out having loooked qt the notes this is what i smelled blind from my bottle...I smell sweet Roasted hazelnuts almonds prailine and a touch of maple syrup its very sweet but it's done it a way it's not too sweet or cloying I'm getting chocolate powder dusting over like a violet flower maybe lily of the valley or something that keeps this from going too sweet its really yummy!! I get coffee and it's powdery but Also gooey caramel melted things and milk this is just nice so warm sweet and delicious kinda c comforting too as well.

When I sprayed this I felt nuclear burst of chocolate and iris.Flavius told me its not,its violet.I would bet its iris. Dark chocolate,iris,coffe,vanila.One more thing👆It have nuclear performance.Not average but NUCLEAR! This thing is something you cant wash with anything.Not with soap and water,alcohol...Projection is way above any normal👀It fill any space that you enter.This is one of the most powerfull parfumes I ever tried.

This smells like power and dominance. As soon as you spray it, you get hit with the smell of strong black chocolate and coffe beans, hyper realistic - I might add. It lingers on and on and you can still smell it after a shower 12 hours after puting it on your skin. As a dark chocolate lover myself, this is so so good 😋.

This is SUPER strong. I sprayed 1 spray after a shower and it was just as strong the next morning when I woke up. This is a chocolate and the way the violet and hazelnut mixes, it reminds me of a pack of cigarettes just open. It is odd but it smells fire to me.

It’s simple, like delizia oscura gold, gourmand masterpiece!

I saw the notes for this fragrance and though the warm gourmand spin on a violet perfume would be worth a try... First off, it’s well-made—the components smell great, and at certain moments blend magically. Despite the beautiful mess this perfume becomes over the course of its long, long lifespan, all the peculiarities of this juice come from the combination of notes rather than the quality of the ingredients. I enjoyed the opening; got mostly ylang-ylang, coffee and bergamot in a sparkling floral coffee kind of way, then the coffee amped up and I was essentially a walking cafe latte candle. Violet, hazelnut and LotV seemed to warm up next and that’s when I felt like I was wearing an osmic art piece. It was almost headache-inducing, but such an interesting journey that I couldn’t stop taking whiffs of my wrist. Violet is prominent in the heart and while I love the strength, I feel like it and the raspberry pull away from the general warmth (and overall tone) of the other notes. Slowly, and I do mean slowly, the fruity-floral components wind down, and the base reveals itself like some decadent, luxurious dessert (or breakfast). Violet and hazelnut seem to linger the longest of the upper notes, and the coffee will haunt you where the spray touches your clothing. This perfume is for gourmand lovers that want a prominent floral curveball thrown in. I think it would asphyxiate in warm, humid weather; save this for more open social settings in cooler to cold weather. I enjoyed feeling like I was wearing an art piece, and I think I’ll give my decant another test before giving it to the one coworker who adored the base (she’s a true gourmand lover), but this is not a dumb reach by any means. The deep drydown is absolutely delicious, but the journey there might give others around you a headache if you overspray...

this perfume! Is like a real powerhouse. it's the strongest, craziest, and maddest scent I’ve ever come across. The strength is so intense that it can make you feel nauseous and trigger migraines. However, despite its potency, it's also a beautiful gourmand fragrance with chocolatey and nutty notes. So, if you're someone who can handle strong perfumes, this one might be right up your alley! 🌟👃💪

This is an explosion of chocolate and violets!! The start is sooooo yummy, chocolate chocolate and again chocolate! 10 mins in the violets appear and we have a stunning violet fragrance with good longevity. This fragrance is honestly parma violets sweets on my skin, for the lovers of violets this is a must!

If you like sugar free coffee and chocolate on yourself, you might want to consider getting this fragrance. High quality of ingredients, performance and uniqueness make this bottle worth having.

Dark chocolate and violets, there is a confection like this.

This smelled strongly of coffee and paint thinner for about a half hour. It turns into almost a gourmand coffee and pastry shop smell that’s good, but it’s a vibe. I was waiting for it to die down a little throughout the day but it really hangs in there. Eventually I scrubbed it off around 5 because I wasn’t trying to smell coffee all evening.

This is the first fragrance to really stump me. I cannot for the life of me figure out what to make of it. I kind of like it, and yet I don’t. This scent evolves so much as it journeys from the bottle to your skin. If you just hold the atomizer up to your nose, you are hit with cloying fumes of buttered popcorn and maple syrup. Once you go to spray it, the chocolate comes forward. However, it’s an artificial chocolate scent that doesn’t do much for me. In my opinion, this doesn’t start to improve until the dry down wherein the raspberry and violet become prevalent. The coffee note soon emerges, cutting the sweetness of the gourmand components. The result is a slightly powdery, confused, sugary hodgepodge. I think that there is far too much going on here. The strength of this fragrance is no joke. You can spray this one time, walk away, and come back to find that the scent has completely over taken whatever room you were in. I sprayed this one time in my room and the scent has been hanging in the air for days. Honestly, it’s obnoxious. Wearing this makes me nervous that I am suffocating those around me. I’ll admit, my main fragrance vice is that I get a thrill out of blind buying. I am not sure if it’s luck, but I always end up liking or loving all of my purchases. This fragrance is the exception. Delizia Oscura is a fragrance that NEEDS to be tested regardless of your stance of blind buying.

Chocolate/nutella covered Boy Scout popcorn and a large mocha. Starts off super nice with a creamy and sweet mocha like accord with a hint of some berry sweetness. Almost immediately after this initial whiff the ultra sweet, thick, and Nutella-esque hazelnut and candied violets begin to poke through, forming a weird buttery sweet popcorn like accord to my nose. Then, after the popcorn like accord fully blooms to partner with the coffee, the dark chocolatey, lactonic, and vanillic backbone supports it all the way through. Really tried to like this one, but it wears super buttery and too heavy on my skin, and I think it’s mostly due to the overdose of hazelnut and violets in this. It’s very realistic and evocative, but not something I could ever see myself wearing and enjoying as it’s way too potent. To my nose it smells like they took the popcorn note from “La Fin Du Monde” by Etat Libre D’Orange and the thick, somewhat greasy hazelnut note of “Pentimento” by Jorum Studio and slapped them into a creamy coffee fragrance. Way too much creaminess, and heavy sweets for my taste, and I really wish it utilized a bit more of the listed fresh and fruit notes to really cut though the thick sweetness. If you’re a gourmand lover and looking for something different you gotta try this. Nuclear projection and performance. 4/10

I'm so glad I didn't blind buy a FB of this because I was about to. I'm going off of a sample here. This is very heavy on the Violet which I normally would love. But it goes in the soapy direction here and I can't do soapiness. So this is chocolate soap. Nope, can't do it! Definitely not a safe blind buy. And it's NUCLEAR, I can't even wash it off so there's that...

yes- exactly it- "Chocolate/nutella covered Boy Scout popcorn and a large mocha" dries down to brown sugar/maple syrup - not for me

Sorry! Lets start with the positives, i like the brand and the other perfumes are good but this one... Longevitiy is litterly on skin for 2 days im not even kidding. This fills up any room or house in an instant. Both projection and longevity is 10/10, insane and the strongest perfume ive smellt. It smells purple in a way of You can imagine what i would Smell like But the scent itself is like rusty Old metall that has coffe poured over. People Will say it smells like curry, same with kerosene followed... So thats what it smells like on me, the coffe chocolate comes after it settle down and in this case the day efter u spray. So if You want to Wait a day to finally Smell good try it out.

Worst perfume I’ve ever smelled... Do yourself a favor and don’t even think to buy a sample. This is something extremely loud and annoying but not a perfume to wear, it is noice

Smells like swissmiss cocoa powder and popcorn kernels. Very odd.

to put it simply, I want to give the biggest thanks to Go Hu Yang's review for convincing me to blind buy, and I agree wholeheartedly with them, if I could hug them I would now onto my review... I don't like sweet gourmand's but I'm not opposed to realistic/toned down gourmand's like dua's crumble couture or teo cabanel's je ne se quoi, and tbh, I'd also classify this as a gourmand an hour in/the dry down you smell for most of the duration of this fragrance is the most realistic brown sugar boba and taro milk tea imo, and it's so utterly divine as someone who owns mancera choco violet as well, I can say for a fact that these are identical in the first five minutes ONLY, after that choco violet becomes a creamy ferrero rocher hazelnut chocolate milk with candied violets (very sweet), and this becomes a dry coffee bean/brown sugar boba/taro milk tea scent (not all that sweet but realistic), I would never go so far to say these are alike past the opening, and I honestly like this one more overall lowkey if someone did brown sugar boba and then added a shot of vietnamese coffee to taro milk tea this is exactly how this would smell, might actually order that one day sounds good as hell I managed to snag a full bottle secondhand, and maybe that's why I don't get the laundry detergent people mention, but every now and then I do get a bit of hand soap smell, though I wouldn't say it's prevalent I blind bought this despite my hatred for gourmands and I'd honestly recommend doing the same if you find a bottle for a good price, but you must like REALISTIC chocolate/hazlenut/taro smells

This is an atomic frag, and I'm not exaggerating. It tops followed and follow from Kerosene even, which I have samples of. I got a sample of this and got a tiny drop that had leaked on my hand and that tiny drop filled up my whole apartment, as well as stayed put after washing my hands a hundred times the following two days after. I liked the drydown, but not the top- to sharp and pungent and a messy swirl of things that blasted my nose that felt overwhelming. I still have the almost full sample and haven't dared to try it again. Thank god I didn't blind buy this one because of the "innocent looking gourmand notes". I love choco violet (even though I don't love nor hate violet in frags) that this is compared to, but I find that one more wearable and smooth. :D Will update if I dare to try this again! Would love to sample the Gold Limited version of this (which is a completely different scent from what I understand) but can't find a sample anywhere. Anyone who knows where to get a sample in Europe, please tell me! <3

This starts out so gorgeous and unique in the realm of gourmands. There is coffee, chocolate, an ever slight raspberry which quickly evolves into violet. The violet and chocolate are intoxicating together and this is where the fragrance peaks for me. It reminds me of Celeste with chocolate replacing the cotton candy vanilla note. The chocolate grounds the violet making it less sweet and playful than Celeste. It is magnificent. If the fragrance stayed here I would buy a bottle immediately. Alas, the drydown loses all its floral charm and becomes the overdone sweet burnt caramel/sugar type of smell that evokes autumn. It is a lovely story but I find the lingering end underwhelming.

Delizia Oscura wants to be a tribute to Italy by Flavius Calaj. The warmth and welcome he found here were priceless. Translating everything olfactorily was a real mission, made up of pleasant memories: a chocolate with coffee inside tasted and surprisingly appreciated, espresso coffee as good as anywhere else, the sweet violet present in many appreciated fragrances in my beautiful country. The result is a gourmand, atypical, characterized and sweetened fragrance by this flower, by lily of the valley, with toasted hints thanks to the hazelnut and soft thanks to the milk. A cuddle, for me for the colder seasons. A wonderful creation.

While testing this brand came up sample of Dlizia Oscura, I didn't have high hopes for it as heavy sweet gourmands are not for me. Well this one is unlike others. It's not sweet, rather bitter. Opening is a mix of nougat mixed with nail polish. 1h into perfume and I can get dry cocoa and coffee bean being rosted. After sometime nougat changes into freshly harvested hazelnuts and blended with leaves. Also getting washing powder. Later this transforms to hazelnut milk or taro boba. 36h later you can expect drydown wich puts everything into background and soy sauce note emerge. I enjoyed this experience so much! Now need a bottle .

A nuclear gourmand that lasts longer on my skin than any other scent in my collection and projects like the loudest mf in the room. This will get you noticed. I'm getting a slightly powdery violet/hazelnut chocolate bar with a caramel drizzle and some earthy coffee beans. Can't find the other notes but who gives a shit? The 4 main notes are so dominant that you should essentially know what you're getting into by reading the reviews. Better than Followed, Perverso, and Elixir by Centauri Perfumes. Sorry, but not sorry 🤷🏻

Delizia Oscura ("dark delight'' in italian), by Calaj, smells like hazelnut Romanian waffles, dark chocolate, dark roast coffee beans, vanilla, dill and lovage. The opening is delicious, you smell the Napolitane cu alune și cacao. My problem with this fragrance is the dry down, and it is a big problem because the dry down lasts for days. Once it sets, the perfume smells to me of hazelnuts and sour dill and lovage. It does not smell repulsive, it is just not how I want to smell.

Forget beast mode, this perfume has nuclear performance. I could smell the sample before spraying it and one spray filled up my whole living room for hours! It’s a very nice smell but for me it’s more fitting as a candle than something I would like to smell like, it’s just too foody for me but it’s a well done perfume nonetheless with performance like no other.

Delizia Oscura sono io...spiego...vi siete mai sentiti profondamente voi? Comprato in base alle recensioni, appena indossato mi è parso un abito sartoriale. Inteso, complicato, crepuscolare. La viola e la liquirizia esplodono annegate nel cioccolato ma mai diventa gourmand. Che dire? Lo amo, è il profumo che cercavo. Resterà mio per sempre. Grazie Calaj...

Smells a lot like le gourmand but even STRONGER. The projection is so intense its hard to get the individual notes and my nose is way too sensitive to wait that long. If you don't wanna smell like nuts af then don't get this.

A strange fragrance. Strong coffee/syrup smell with a laundry detergent smell on top. Like Followed but add detergent. My whole family hates when I wear either. No joke the strongest fragrances I’ve ever encountered.

This is a stronger version of Mancera Choco Violette and with added coffee and hazelnut. It’s incredibly strong, one spray will fill a room.

fudgiest, dark chocolate, with just the right touch of salty sweetness