Lilac No.4

I looooove this! I immediately was smelling a lilac bush, and the pavement's still wet from rain. Not overtly so, but this scent can definitely be sexy. I love to spray this in my hair:) edit: in astronomy we make use of "averted vision". Sometimes you can see stars more clearly if you look at them in your periphery, off center, rather than straight on. The vast majority of the time I wear this I smell all lovely lilac, but occasionally- particularly on a hot humid day like today- I'll catch this faint glimmer where all the petals are gone and that headiness gets.. intimate. Almost like body odor, this urine/sweat dimension which doesn't smell unnatural, because funkiness resides in the plant kingdom too, but is just never something I find when I smell it directly. I don't really find it offensive, it's there one second and gone the next, but just something I've noticed. Personally, I haven't found that cumin spiciness that others mention. All lilac bush heavy with blooms: purple, green, and rich brown earth. The flowers are in focus, but the ground is not

not the sweet and soft lilac that would accompany the storybook mood-board dream of vintage lace ribbon, picnic blankets, and freshly picked strawberries. This lilac is steadfastly of-this-world. It's that of the lilac bush in the public park in brooklyn. There's crushed leaves, dogs off leash, trash wafting from down the street, you brought your book but you forgot to bring a blanket to sit on and you're starting to feel the damp grass through your basketball shorts. It's a wonderful humid fragrance that shows you don't need to fantasize about something in order to find the romance in it.

Glistening and feral. Your crush just stole a kiss from you in a private garden in the rain. You’re not really allowed to be there because you live in a flat down the road and not in one of the £4.3m houses around it, but it’s pretty and the gate was open. You amble home and the sky goes from moody and overcast to clear and pink-tinged. Street lamps turn on and concrete shimmers under your feet. The smell of wet lilacs lining your road mingles with the scent of your crush, still lingering on you. The 63 to KX station zooms past. Smells stunning and lasts forever!!!!!!

As others have said, this is the most photorealistic lilac scent I've smelled outside of directly sticking my face in a blooming, wet lilac bush. It's walking along a sidewalk in a residential neighbourhood on a hot May or June day after it rained, catching a heady whiff of lilac floating over from someone's yard. Green, earthy, humid lilacs that are maybe a day past their peak and about to wilt in a couple days. This lasts forever on me, my clothes, and my bedsheets. It instantly cheers me up whenever I wear it and makes me feel so pretty. It is perfection.

Know I’m writing this about a Lucky Scent perfume sample but I couldn’t help myself— this is a prime specimen of a horny floral, which I consider my specialty... I would swallow this perfume sample whole like a pill just to feel it beyond smell (if it wouldn’t send me into a hypochondriac spiral). I have absolutely nothing to say about longevity or sillage or performance really at all, I’m just spiritually enamored with the realism of the singular lilac note. This is a fresh flower dripping wet then maybe smashed and rubbed all over you (my dream)

This is childhood exploration in the patch of trees next to your elementary school where you break twigs and pick flowers that you bring home to lay in between the pages of your books, to me this is innocence in its purest form, my first memory of the patches of lilacs in the parks of where I grew up. Great longevity and sillage.

Green, purple, realistic lilac w/ hints of dirt and broken branch. This goes a tad powdery on my skin but remains a strong purple floral. Very much looking forward to ushering in the spring with this one. I layered this with Philosykos and about fell out of my seat. Potentially my favorite layering combination of all time.

A perfectly realistic lilac tree, including the sticky-sweet crushed petals littering the ground beneath. Linear and lasting. I'm obsessed. Thinking of buying another bottle because I'm scared about "limited/seasonal." But I guess a real lilac tree doesn't bloom year-round either.

I love this lilac scent--very realistic extremely well balanced between floral, green, and wet soil. It's not really sweet or powdery/pollinated--and it's also on the lighter side. Edit: worn this a couple times and am just now picking up on the cumin note others have commented on

True lilac. Soft, voluptuous, fresh - at once virginal and libidinous, beastly but tender. A deeply romantic stench. Divine

This is the tangible representation of burying your face into a lilac tree in the spring.

Extremely green lilac!! Actually to diebfor if you want a green wet lilacs. Love her.

Cold, stemmy lilacs on a spring morning walk. Creamy-indole tuberose in the back.

Picking blooms off the lilac bush and stuffing them in your panties.

bought a sample of this on my quest for the perfect lilac perfume, and while it's not what *I* want from a lilac (preferring photorealistic scents) this absolutely does for lilacs what Lush's Lust does for jasmine. beautiful fresh, wet flower opening, then almost immediate drydown into something old lady but in a sexy way - a classic warm white floral that's definitely in-your-face indolic but never animalic or barnyard. now after a few hours on the skin it's backing off a little, and im starting to see the listed petrichor note peek through, bringing it full circle back to the cool wet of the opening. really like this one.

Lilac no.4 is an intriguing summer scent. The opening is a very powdery and crisp white floral, almost to the point of being too much, and quite literally evokes a freshly cut lilac. But once it settles onto the skin, it turns into something almost provocative. On my skin it condenses into a lilac syrup, sweet and warm, which I find to be rather intoxicating and a unique floral in my collection of samples. It wears close to the skin and lasts for a couple hours. To me this is definitely meant to be worn on the skin and in the heat of summer, sweat makes it come alive faster.

heady, reclining lilac dreams, traveling in ultraviolet as you climb the upward rickety wooden stairs to the L train. it follows as you stop for a park hot dog in ankle-wrapped sandals; someone just blew a pink animal balloon. edit: i finally acquired this. layered it with my roll-on Demeter thunderstorm oil (on the last unseasonably warm rainy day of the year) and it was heaven. edit may 2025: sadly as my bottle has sat for longer, i'm noticing the cumin-y note that others are mentionin. kinda wishing that my bottle still smelled how it used to, but it's growing on me.

there's something carnal, almost frightening about lilac no.4 — like how I would imagine a venus flytrap to smell. the snapping of bared fangs accompanied by a bitter green note; vicious little purple tongues budding into a fleshy, voluptuous efflorescence. I know lilac is meant to be delicate, innocent even, but in this scent it imposes, like the flat spine of a knife beneath your index finger. a carnivorous sort of floral, it cries bitterly for its freshly broken stems, viscid ichor dripping from its wounds: a bittersweet memory of innocence, when you still had it.

a dirty and fleshy lilac with a visceral bite. opens as soapy and delicate before quickly turning into an animalic and earthy blend. there is something almost lecherous about the way this develops. reminds me of body odor and musk and spices and heat. ive never came across a soliflore this dimensional. this is the evil older sister to the baby faced and wide eyed régime des fleurs’ tears.

this perfume introduced me to a true photorealistic scent. wet flowers in the burgeoning onset of the warm months. this speaks to thee kind of summer that you never have in tropical countries. this summer is the explosion of life after dark frigid months. it is an assertion of fecundity, of the return of vegetal things that are resilient, fruiting.

in terms of corporeal associations, Lilac no. 4 is more akin to hot breath and dried saliva than it is to body odor. that aside, Rafuse crafts a flower that is snapped at the stem and cushioned with fine powder. very dreamy, although some reviews portray a beautiful nightmare.

A realistic lilac scent with undercurrents of chlorine, copper, and a little animalic musk. Wears very close to the body, sillage is minimal, but it does persist on skin for a good six hours.

Very green lilac. Smells wet, dewy, and earthy. I imagine a chiffon dress sticking to your skin as you stand out in the garden while it’s raining.

I’d probably do anything a woman who smells like this told me to.

This is more vegetal than floral to my nose. I'm not sure I would have identified this as a lilac fragrance if not for the name, because the greenery is so powerful. It is a fresh, dewy green, cucumber water, leaves, with a hint of wood and soil underneath. It does take on a powdery note as it dries down, but overall I can't figure out how to interpret this as a lilac scent.

This actually smells more like orange blossom than lilac to me. it’s carnal and a bit screechy; it lacks the soft, ethereal quality of a purple floral. I don’t mean this disparagingly, but this scent objectively reminds me of wet hay. I can’t un-smell it. It’s not bad, but it’s just not my thing.

Not very "lilac" to my nose tbh. It's a hard note to capture.. does smell wet, like wet concrete and maybe another thick floral like a gardenia or hyacinth. Unfortunately not my HG lilac. Amouage lilac love remains on the throne.

Nice on opening - fresh, green and lilac-forward. Dried down into a powdery, air fresher disappointment, unfortunately.

I dislike this one. Too green & artificially scented.

I was really excited about this because I love lilacs but it just does not work on my skin :( indolic in a way that is suffocating, and I don't get any petrichor. Every once in a while I try to sample it again because I want it to work for me lol!

I thoroughly enjoy the smell of lilac in full bloom as it travels down the street with me during my walks on a sunny summer day. However, this smells like dill pickles to me. You know that meme where the guy is ripping off some flimsy headphones in disgust? That's me despite wanting to like it and ASSuming it'd be like the association in my mind. Thankfully, it was just a sample. No biggie.

I became interested in lilac notes after smelling En Passant during a recent trip to Paris. This fragrance is like the abrasive dirty gross brother to the gentle ethereal beautiful sister En Passant. Stemmy, green, unripe lilac mixed with mulch and the THICK dark green skin of an English cucumber. Only perfume I’ve felt the need to scrub off.

A raw take on lilac. The opening is sharply green and fresh with bergamot, figgy greens, and slight aldehydic bite, instantly giving a cool retro chypre impression. The lilac blooms dense and humid, wrapped in narcissus, rose, and a subtle honeyed/peach mimosa fruitiness and powderiness that adds body without sweetness. As it settles, a beautiful tension appears between mossy woods, patchouli and a restrained animalic core of civet, indole. The effect is earthy, slightly witchy, like natural undergrowth after rain — floral but shadowed, elegant but alive. I dont actually know if it is as chypre as I perceive it, whether it actually contains these chypre elements, but what I do know, is that it is not afraid of pushing the terpineol alpha. Usually modern lilac notes are made using a lot of floral muguet notes, an airy rose, and then just a touch of terpineol alpha. In this case the perfumer opted to be more true to life with a big dollop of the material which on one hand brings realism, but on the other hand looses delicate finesse. You get the harsh piney, almost cleaner like elements of the material, that create a chypre impression. Not a pretty lilac but that's what makes it special.

This one is a bit of an odd duck for me. Sprayed on a tester, it's true to form - all lilac. But when sprayed on my skin, the opening is loud and almost... spicy? Like cumin spicy. I've tried other wet earth/petrichor florals and they've always come across as expected. After 10-20 minutes, this "spicy" stage passes and I'm left with a humid lilac. There's something vaguely waxy and crayon-like about it. It is lovely, just strange. I look forward to trying this on a rainy day, I think this is a very weather-dependent fragrance. Courtney is an excellent perfumer with a unique vision, so I look forward to exploring this fragrance more!

Wearing this today and I have to say, it's perfect for a crisp spring day. True-to-life lilac flower. Milky, petal vibes all the way through with a touch of humidity and sweat. It might seem light going on but don't be fooled, this one lasts quite a while and builds in strength as it mixes with your skin chemistry, so keep that in mind when spraying. But if you want to smell like a vase full of fresh cut lilacs—indole and all—you should look into this. Elegant yet slightly naughty.

fwuity is right, this is a vicious lilac that bites and growls at you. I imagine falling face flat into a lilac bush, the branches and twigs snapping underneath you. As you’re picking yourself up, you become confused by the fact that the bush is growing from concrete rather than earth. strong aggressive cumin smell with wet, somehow thorny lilac branches.

yummy juicy, green, and wet scented lilac perfume, like sniffing the dirt at the base of a flower bush a few minutes after a downpour. smells like a sexy lady to me. unfortunately on my skin it turned into more of a basic floral lilac scent and lost some of the intrigue, but still a really nice perfume

Soapy lilac. To me it's also a bit grassy and fresh, sort of sexy. Some kind of figgishness right after the dry down. Definitely vintage-profiled. As it dries down-- Super fresh, subtle, clean, formal enough for work.

Beautiful and dreamy and perfectly encapsulates the smell of rubbing your face into a lilac bush. I just really wish the petrichor came through stronger but I’m still obsessed and heartbroken it’s limited edition.

I totally agree with the reviewer that says this starts to go dill pickle on them. Unfortunately it does the same to me, and this stuff is potent and going strong on my skin 6+ hours after spraying.

Wilting, cut lilacs and mouse poo. I want to love it, but I don’t think it is wearing well on my skin. Waldoseye captures it perfectly. I think on someone else this could smell amazing.

stridently green and slightly damp, photorealistic lilac crushed in your palms after the storm. i smell broken green stems and soft, powdery flower.

unfortunately this smells like body odor on me but I appreciate how green and soil-y it is. no sweetness whatsoever.

Realistic lilac soliflore, a bit indolic too. Very pretty. Green.