Black Perfecto by La Petite Robe Noire Eau de Toilette Florale

Perfume-y LEATHER ROSE & ALMOND. Overall a rose fragrance, the other notes accentuate the darker facets of rose delivering a long-stemmed 'black' rose that is standing in a perfume decanter. Opens with rose water that sinks into a deeper rose with almond-extract accents, riding on a musky, tannic leather base with black-tea tannin accents. All along there is a perfume-y quality carrying all of the notes, and the result is a much lighter feel than what you would expect from darker notes. Here and there you will catch glimpses of familiar elements. The rose here is deep and velvety with some near-iris accents (not listed). The rose-leather combo reminds me of Habit Rouge EDP Guerlain, another rose-leather combo from Guerlain, although this is much lighter and more feminine. The perfume that all the elements are swimming in smells something like Coco Mademoiselle Chanel EDT, and this is a similar overall vibe of light, powdery-rose, 'perfume-y' feminine composition. In oversimplified terms, you might call this a leather Coco Mademoiselle. Although this has a light feel, it also has really good performance and could be worn year round, although the scent profile reads spring, summer & fall nights to my nose. It's a love for me. Enjoy! Batch No. 7X01 (2017-10) Quotes from the box [admittedly lost in translation - probably sounds better in French]: I'm incredibly sexy and more rock than ever, Dressed in an "all leather style", I bring out every side of rose, Let my decidedly black style stir your senses. In La Petite Robe Noire's perfume wardrobe, I'm Black Perfecto. "In it's way, a perfume is an invisible dress, playing on us dressing ourselves to reveal our personalities." -- Thierry Wasser, Parfumeur Guerlain. Update 11/24/23: after this has aged awhile after the first sprays, there’s a gorgeous cherry chapstick vibe as well.

I have the original Black Perfecto EDP, so I can compare the EDP with the EDT directly. First of all, this is much heavier with the rose than the EDP, especially on first spray. The roses are heady, sharp and green at first, then settle down to a smoother mix with the almond. There is very little fruit here - someone below said it smells like cherry, but no, not at all for me; it's not cherry I'm detecting, but almond. Less cherry, just luscious roses with almonds and leather. The almond is a really fantastic, super-realist note - beautiful and addictive. I am getting the leather note much more clearly here than with the EDP. Perhaps because the scent layers are simpler in the EDT, the leather and rose are amplified without those deep cherry-rose and patchouli notes I detect in the EDP. This really is much more floral, more rose, more leather. It does have an edgy, rock n' roll feel to it, so the bottle design is a perfect reflection of the scent - I mean, seriously, would you look at that bottle, on its own it's perfect-o! I am glad I have both because I can really detect a different approach in the two scents; the EDT is vibrant, edgy, minimalist, whereas the EDP is more sumptuous, cosy and sexy. A beautiful scent and the perfect accompaniment to my black leather jacket come Autumn!

La Petit Robe Noire EDT Florale was another love at first sniff for me. A couple of years back, I was in my rose phase and I wanted to collect all the rose dominant scents on the market that I tested and loved, no joke! This was phenomenal and unique smelling among all the designers releases and very affordable... This stayed with me throughout the years and I had even bought a back up bottle since then, I love it so much. Also, since 2018, when it was released, Guerlain chose to discontinue it for some reasons... As one would expect by looking at the notes, this version of LPRN is centred around three types of rose, black tea, almonds and soft leather. The rose in this is a sweet, deep, rich, dark rose, the black tea offers a certain level of freshness and the leather, which is not very pronounced on me, grounds up the floral notes. Offers some edginess and oomph. Cannot say too much about almonds or musk since I don’t really detect them in here. What I can say for sure is that this blend is strong, nuanced, balanced, sweet and intoxicating! LPRN EDT Florale is a masterfully blend created by none other than Guerlain’s in house perfumer Thierry Wasser. For an EDT, this performs incredible. More like an EDP. Please, bring it back Guerlain!!

A blind buy succes! A tale of burgundy roses I was never a rose perfume person, although I do enjoy their fragrance as flowers. I feel like the scent doesn’t translate well in perfumes. LPRN Florale proved me wrong. The rose here is the smell of burgundy roses my grandma grows in her garden. A jam like sweetness, but deep, rounded, full flavored. At no point is this a watery, pale rose. No no no. I can smell the cherry, although not listed, it is a LPRN after all, but it is toned way down and only plays support adding a fruity edge. Vanilla is dripping all over the roses and the whole affair is wrapped in leather. The leather is soft, mellow, it reads almost as suede to my nose. Once in a while, probably with body temperature, the leather decides to take the lead and it is amplified to remind me this perfume wants to be taken seriously. A flanker of a flanker, but a very good one. I definitely prefer it to the original Black Perfecto; BP lacks the chic factor the roses bring. Who would have thought I will ever say this?!

The name is ridiculous and I'm not a big fan of the bottle, but this is one of the few fragrances I liked instantly. This was a blind buy and dirt cheap (22 €) so I wasn't going to be mad if I didn't like it, but surprisingly this is likely to become my signature in the autumn. I think the reason I like it so much is that there is something very similar about this to Anglomania by Vivienne Westwood, albeit this one lacks spices completely. Like Anglomania, this little flanker has tea and leather which I really like. On top of that this is quite rose heavy and rose is my all-time favourite note. I wouldn't describe this dark or edgy by any means. It's a soft, slightly creamy non-citrus rose scent which does not have patchouli unlike the original Black Perfecto. The longevity is surprisingly good for an edt. I'm going to be wearing this a lot once the weather turns cooler.