Drink Caffe

Hilde Soliani Drink Caffe is a 2021 release from the queen of gourmand herself, fittingly coffee-rich, with the only actual listed note as coffee. I detect a good range of coffee scents, some dark roast and espresso mixed with milk and vanilla, very pleasant, not among the very sweetest of coffee-rich scents (which is generally how I’d classify Theodoros Kalotinis Coffee Addict), and without the extremes of Kerosene Follow, and without the spicy, earthy aspects of Akro Awake, but somewhere on the gentler side while still offering a fun, coffee-led experience. This does not by any means reinvent the wheel but it’s a pleasant, balanced, reasonably-priced experience that’s worth trying if you love coffee in fragrances, and it would be much more remarkable if it were not for the existence of a handful of other great options. Drink Caffe is priced at $175 for 100ml (the current standard pricing for the brand) in EDP concentration and is sold in the US (exclusively, I believe) via Luckyscent, which has long been the only US boutique to consistently carry the line. 8 out of 10

Comparing coffee frags is a difficult one because you have so many subgenres. There's your cardamom-coffee ones, your hazelnuts, your milky latte frags, even coffee-ouds and coffee florals. (Feel free to add other subgenres. I'm sure I missed a few...) I'd file this one under the "true coffee" category, frags concerned mostly with replicating the coffee smell as photorealistically as possible. And to my nose it sits just right. It's a black coffee, not a dark roast (or burnt beyond recognition like in Kerosene's Follow, lol) with just enough cream poured in to change it's color. It's not syrupy or sweet, so those adverse to sucking on Kopikos all day will rejoice. The closest comparison I can think of is it's like a less sweet Akro Awake. If you have that, you might not need this. But if you're a true coffee connoisseur, you'll probably appreciate the subtle differences.

I truly do love this scent. However just like the other review mention, it doesn't last. Truthfully, I have the sample so maybe a few big sprays would last longer. At very first application, while still wet, it does have an artificial smell. But after two minutes or so, it does soften to a creamy cappuccino. I adore the scent, it does give espresso and whipped cream, but doesn't really project. I like wearing this at work even though only i can smell it. It's inoffensive and light, if I were rich I would probably buy the bottle. I love all of her frags so no surprise I loved this one too. Just wish it was more affordable and lasted longer. Worth a sample and I don't regret trying it at all! Much love to Hilde, she puts so much love into her work.

So, I've always liked Hilde Soliani fragrances, with a few I actually love. I put in a sample order from Lucky just a few weeks ago with the interest of Hilde's new scents, and it finally arrived today! Just being so excited, I couldn't wait to test Drink Caffe since I love realistic coffee scents. First few dabs on my wrist and letting it sit for a few minutes, I instantly smell light roast coffee with cream. It was delicious! After just 15 minutes...the scent disappeared, and I became disappointed. In case I didn't dab enough of the perfume, I decided to give it another chance, so I went ahead and dabbed the sample at least 7-8 times on my other wrist. Ahh, there's the delicious coffee scent that I've been craving! However, just after 20 minutes or so, the scent completely disappeared! SO UNFORTUNATE! Oh-well. I still have a bottle of Theodoro Kalotini's Coffee Addict to enjoy, and if you love realistic coffee scents - try Coffee Addict! It's MUCH cheaper, has great projection & sillage and of course, great longevity.

This is a quite delicious coffee, but there is something woody, toasty and kind of chemic that comes with that coffee right before it really settles onto the skin. The fragrance feels weak even though the first minutes seemed pretty promising (and I am saying this even with that chemical twist I smelled initially). Though, this is too sweet and too weak to be that coffee perfume I am constantly looking for, but it is not bad at all. Just a regular black coffee with a lot of sugars and creams, and just enough so you can taste the roasting of the coffee.