1000 Flowers - Reglisse Noire

I am both a chocolate and licorice lover. Usually I´m also a sucker for gourmand fragrances. But, it has shown to be not the easiest to find gourmand scents with notes of chocolate and/or licorice that works on my skin. Licorice usually dissapears on my skin in a few minutes and a lot of chocolate scents ends up being to sticky and kind of soapy. Despite this I still would love to find a perfume with notes of licorice and chocolate, and it looks like I might have found it now...

1000 Flowers is a new indie perfume house started by the Canadian perfumer Jessica September Buchanan. Jessica has a history in aromatherapy, but have also studied at Institute of Perfumery in Grasse, France. You can read more about her, her work and of course about Reglisse Noire here:

http://www.1000flowers.ca/

With notes of mint, white pepper, star anise, licorice, cocoa and vanilla it´s easy to belive that Reglisse Noire is an overly sweet, foody and heavy kind of gourmand, but that sin´t at all the case. From the first seconds, Reglisse Noire manage to capture my interest. It´s soft and airy like a cozy cloud of licorice. In the opening the note of licorice is dominating, still it is as light as licorice steam. I belive the notes of ozon, mint and maybe also white pepper contribute to this nice opening.

Reglisse Noire continues to be a light kind of smell, but after about 20 minutes some stronger notes occurs. The licorice is still present, but now becomes more aromatic, woody and herbal. About now I´m also starting to feel the smell of chocolate, or actually cocoa. This is not that strong, overwhelming and sticky kind of chocolate note, no this is soft, airy and with some discrete bitter elements. The vanilla adds some sweetness and body.

Shortly speaking, I become impressed by Reglisse Noire, I can´t think of any other fragarnces where so heavy notes as chocolate, licorice and vanilla has been used with such delicasy and still without being lost. And, there isn´t any flowers listed among the notes, still there is something in Reglisse Noire giving it a kind of floral base.

Reglisse Noire is a complex scent, and during the heart phase of the scent I can smell to different layers. One is soft, slightly powdery and almost floral, the other layer is deeper and develops from soft notes of cocoa and licorice to more and more woody, dark and mysterious. Now, Reglisse Noire feels like being in a dark and adventurous forrest with licorice trees with chocolate leafs and the ground filled with little white flowers. I belive Reglisse Noire could totally chram most people and at the same time it´s among the most mystic among gourmand scents that I ever tried. (I can´t honestly recall any other mystic gourmand!) It´s also so much more than a gourmand, it is both woody and oriental too.

During basenote the patchouli is quite dominant on me, even though I can sense a papery note also, which is thanks to vetiver I guess. But, also the licorice is still there hanging on from start to end. It´s actually during base this scent really fulfills it name Reglisse Noire (Black Licorice). It´s now it´s really become mystic, dark and exciting, but also warm, sweet and cozy.

Reglisse Noire can be worn by both men and women and everyone fancy a fine gouramnd should give it a try. But, also if you´re not usually in to gourmand scents this could suit you, since it has a nice woody and oriental ffel to it as well. The sillage is discrete without being a skinscent and lasting power could have been a little better in my opinion. To me this is the only letdown of Reglisse Noire, I wish it to last longer and being a little more prominent. But at the same time I think it´s thanks to the softness of those strong notes it´s also so easy to wear and like. And since it ebing an eau de toilette I suspect it´s become a little stronger if sprayed instead of dabbed on.

Do you have any favorite perfumes with notes of chocolate/cocoa or licorice?

Pic: Basset´s licorice all sorts