Dark Roses

This fragrance was my first full size perfume and my gateway drug. This humble, inexpensive bottle set me on the path to becoming a frag head. Dark Roses is sumptuous, romantic, and modern. The roundness of the rose is so perfectly balanced, never sharp, never powdery, or nose-tickling. It’s sensual in an understated way without being amber-heavy. Could be worn by someone of any age. It doesn’t knock you over the head with projection, but does last a day or sometimes more on fabrics. Doesn’t last more than a couple hours on my skin, but I’ve come to enjoy re-spraying it. The ultimate scent for the rose-obsessed who want a true photorealistic rose with some depth and intrigue.

i didnt expect to love this so much as i typically go for heavier perfume concentrations, but it’s just amazing to me. it smells as velvety as rose petals feel. amazing for layering with other rose scents as it retains its own character despite the softness. and something about it just smells so clean to me — I want to bathe in this! a perfect, soft, realistic rose.

This is so incredible! I want to bathe in it. Longevity very good for a Demeter fragrance, projection is there. It's also smells almost identical to yves rocher's discontinued Pur Desir de Pivoine, so if you are a fan of it or wanted to try it, this is as close as it gets!

I feel like Fragrantica doesn’t have all the notes accurate on here. I just tested this fragrance. I personally HATE Rose leading perfumes. But it was part of a set. I surprisingly really like it. You can definitely smell the Rose but as the name suggests it’s a darker take on a regular Rose scent. I didn’t notice the Patchouli. All I got was Rose & fruitiness. It honestly smells like a medley of dark berries but only Red Currant is listed.

The name doesn't fit this perfume at all. It's quite pretty, but there's nothing dark here. This is a bright, lush rose bush with abundant fresh blooms as well as rotting roses on the ground below. It's buoyed by a sweet, juicy fruit note, but it really reads as photorealistic rose. I'm looking forward to layering with this.

Yes the opening is rotting roses- and I love it for that reason. Personally it reminds me of my auntie's overgrown garden, I used to play under her big climbing rose and crunch the decaying flowers underfoot. It's a very fall/ winter, sweet, dusty dead fragrance. I think it's great!

sweet, fresh roses. smells fairly photorealistic to me which is nice! not powdery like other roses tend to be. after a few minutes the patchouli comes forward a bit more, evolving it greener but the rose is still there and crisp

I typically hate rose scents as so many are just extremely heavy and screechy to my nose, but this is a gorgeous, smooth rose. It's the kind of rose you can smell for hours and never get sick of.

It smells like roses from a garden. That's it in my opinion.

I see what people are saying about the opening here smelling like rotting roses, but it reads to me as slightly not that. Alongside with a punchy floral/rose accord, there's an intense candy-ish note at the start, I think the red currant note. It's a bit toothache-y, calls to mind syrups and sour fruit candies shedding sugar and citric acid. Hiding underneath this, a powdery, bitter flair, a vague but menacing shadow. Between all that, a reasonable interpretation of rotting roses. To me, the feeling is more of sprays and bouquets of flowers covering up something unsavory -- a concept I like a lot. Without that bitterness and a lurking richness from the amber, the perfume would be painfully teenager-ish, but it narrowly avoids that, brushing up against -- dare I say it? -- a certain gothic sensibility. The candy notes back off after only 30 minutes to an hour, leaving the rose, the bitter powder, and the amber (this last one being very faint). Thus it is until it disappears after 3-4 hours. Sillage is never huge on me, but I also use it cautiously. The whole composition is fun, even if I'm not always in the mood to actually smell it.

It's a nice rosy scent. Simple and not overcomplicated, not overwhelming. Personally, I can't smell anything beyond the roses (and alcohol in the first 2 minutes). I perceive the smell as freshly cut roses from your garden, still wet from dew and slightly cold after the night. Will work as a daily non-offensive smell. Good enough when you want to smell like something, but probably won't impress many people. It just is.

another unremarkable rose scent, however i like it more than other rose perfumes. I don't find anything dark or gothic about it

I agree the notes are wrong. This opens like rotting roses. A sickly sort of sweet, like composting roses. I guess it works for a Dark Flowers collection but as someone who was expecting a rose scent with depth this is a hard, loud NO. I did get a quick blast of fresh aromatics about a minute after I spritzed, but it was fleeting. I will say that for a cheapie this is a powerhouse of a scent. No idea what the longevity will be but it's got the silage of bagpipes at a funeral.

I was really looking forward to this, but unfortunately to me it smells like soil with a hint of rose. Nothing like what the accords would suggest, nothing fruity about it and no sweetness. Like licking flower stems.

Dark Roses is a juicy rose note + mixed 'red' berries (strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, perhaps even boysenberry, & cherry), + something green in the background that moderates the sweetness. The combined effect doesn't resemble anything particularly natural, nothing one would encounter in a garden, or a pie shop for that matter, but it does smell good. Distinctively good. I always try to describe what I'm smelling before looking at any main accords or note pyramids. I see what I called mixed berries is labelled as 'red currant'. If so, it is a very intense red currant. Actually the davana note is likely also part of my mixed berry note. Davana has a sharp but full, fruity smell. Patchouli can have both green and fruity elements (so this can be considered a fruitchouli of sorts) and the vetiver supplies most of the green in the background, in this case, without any noticeable 'dirt' included. This is a unusual and rich scent, with elements of fruit, sugar, contrasted with some green bitterness. I suppose the bitter undercurrent is why Demeter is marketing this as something gothic & spooky for Halloween, but of course, this scent can be enjoyed either with or without such cultural suggestions.

Very recently, I was inspired to compare Dark Roses with Lancome's Storm & Roses, because of their bittersweet green rose note profiles and also because both are named and marketed to suggest something morbidly Gothic, ..."It was a dark and stormy rose". Of the two, Dark Roses is the more moderately sweet and enjoyably wearable of the two, especially due to its amber base. It also has the more complex note array, ...so much for price point reflecting anything other than price. However, for the edgelords (edgeladies?) out there, the strong and unsubtle black currant note in Storm & Roses does take that scent into a more gloomy and extreme place of bitterness. ...make of this what you will.

A fresh airy, soapy, aquatic, synthetic, musky almost sharp rose. Very lightweight, slightly green, synthetic & bittersweet. I prefer heavy, bit stronger & less sharp roses like lady vengeance by JHAG, but it's still a good rose nonetheless, just not as dark the name exaggerates it to be.

it’s giving fake rose and chemicals. not a fan.