DKNY Delicious Night is the latest from Donna Karan, and it takes its apple-shaped bottle design from her popular Be Delicious (2004) and Red Delicious (2006) fragrances. Those of you who share my almost rabid dislike of apple-based perfumes will be happy to hear that despite the bottle, this one isn't about apple; the rest of you will presumably be disappointed.
There is still plenty of fruit, though. Delicious Night is a floriental "inspired by the sexy buzz of New York City at night", and it has the notes to match: frozen pomelo, crushed ginger, chilled blackberry martini accord, purple freesia, night-blooming orchids, satin jasmine petals, purple iris, molten amber, incense, myrrh extract, patchouli and velvet vetiver. The opening is a jolt of citrus and blackberry; it is strong, diffusive, extremely sweet, and as promised, ice cold. The crushed ginger makes a brief appearance, and helps to cut all the sugar, but it's almost gone by the time we get to the floral notes and they are very nearly as sweet as the opening. As is the recent fashion, the whole thing is draped over a darker, drier, but resolutely clean and smooth base (neither the patchouli nor the vetiver are particularly earthy), enlivened here by a smidgen of incense. Still, a good deal of the sweetness lingers on through the dry down.
If you adore sweet blackberry, Delicious Night might be perfect for you. I don't adore sweet blackberry, and there are an awful lot of sweet blackberry fragrances on the market already. I'd take Delicious Night over Be Delicious or Red Delicious just because they left out the apple, but I'd drop it in a minute for Donna Karan's Black Cashmere or Gold. But now I'm intrigued by the idea of a blackberry martini scent, very dry, with tons of fizzy ginger, something along the lines of what Apothia's Velvet Rope did for a vanilla martini. And this time, leave the rough edges on the patchouli and vetiver, please.
Donna Karan DKNY Delicious Night is available in 50 and 100 ml Eau de Parfum, Body Lotion, Shower Gel and Lip Gloss. It is exclusive to Bloomingdales for the rest of the year.
er, as a former resident of that fair city, that ingredient list does not read like New York at night.
The could be a wonderful fragrance made out of the smell of that city on a sultry summer evening or a sparkly winter night.
This ain't it.
LOL — you've got me there. I suppose you've got to give them some creative license, most of us don't want to smell like the buzz of NYC at night 😉
Attention fragrance marketers: the day Robin demands to please leave the rough edges on *patchouli* is when you should start reconsidering the bland teen-trend you're pushing. Relentlessly.
Seriously though, out of the progeny of Be Delicous scents I only really liked the original men's, not sharing the consensus opinion on Basenotes. What'd you make of it, that is, if you remember the smell?
For a truly lovely blackberry-themed floriental I'd suggest Alchimie by Rochas. Num!
Well you know, nothing smells sexy these days — it's all so CLEAN. You need a few rough edges to be sexy, no?
I know I smelled Red Delicious for men and liked it better than the women's, but don't think I smelled the original men's. And I've never smelled Alchimie!
There was an advertisement for this fragrance on the back of my MetroCard (for any non-New Yorkers, that's the card you use to pay subway/bus fare) a few months ago. I have never seen such a thing before!
I haven't tried Delicious Night, but that was weird – though hardly surprising in our plaster-every-remaining-space-with-ads society.
D, I'm with you on the original Be Delicious for Men. It was my secret shame, I thought I was the only one who liked it, but I should have known you'd be with me! Gotta check out that Alchimie….
And R, hear hear for rough edges 🙂
Hee! You are my FT fer sure. I'd proudly wear BD if a bottle were to fall from the sky (and would split it w/ you :)). As further reassurance, you'll be happy to know that Victoria of BdJ likes BD too. Alchimie is well worth a sniff so do try it. If you don't happen to find a tester, let me know 😉
Was just reading something about the increase of advertising on supermarket carts today — it really is incredible. But since I don't run an ad-free website, I can't complain, can I?
I knew I wasn't going to be happy when I saw “velvet vetiver” in the notes. If things keep on like this, the only sexy stuff left will be in the “naturals” genre.
Hey, you're in for a big wet slap of sex *naturals*, that's for sure. 😉
Love Rochas too. Had four fragrances by Rochas but not Alchimie. To me DKNY can not (yet) measure up to Rochas' originality.
Marianne, I heartily recommend trying Alchimie, which is in a similar vein as Tocade. Femme is beautiful too but my favorite women's Rochas is Absolu, hands down.
I remember you asking Erin about men's scents that women can share. Rochas Lui is a wonderful orange blossom/coumarin/cedar blend that may appear at first sniff to be a classical masculine barbershop number, but just give it time to bloom on skin 😉
LOL — but aren't we talking Wet? That must be synthetic???
Aw, my feeble attempt at a pun failed! What I meant to say was that the sex(y), wet aspect is done in quite a naturalistic way. 🙂
I've seen the pad samples of this in magazines. I don't like it, not my taste. Strange on my skin, and it smells alot like the b&bw blackberry amber scent. I love D.K. gold more than her other scents.
Thank you Dusan, I will try Rochas Lui and I am in for more recommendations of men's for women!
(My brother had Trussardi and Etienne Aigner Silver in the '80s and sometimes I spritzed some on myself) 😉
Does crushed ginger smell different from cut or rasped ginger?
Purple freesia smells just as yellow or white, I'm pretty sure. And “purple” iris…? “Molten” amber? Night blooming orchids? Maybe, but I guess it means the night flowering stock species (botanical name Matthiola), sometimes referred to as “Orchids of the little man”.
Your Mister Know-it-all 😉 Sorry, but these marketing descriptions really annoy me.
Can someone explain to me what this “frozen” and “chilled” means in relation to fruit and scent? I read it so often. It makes me think of a mentholated note.
Oh, and for how long will this purple phase (in fragrance advertising) continue?!? (See Givenchy, Armani, Mugler…)
I have seen it compared to the BBW several times, but I've never smelled the BBW version. Gold is great stuff 🙂
You know, sometimes I take all that stuff out, but here it seemed more apt to leave it in for some reason. There is definitely that airy cold note in the opening — not mentholated, exactly, but something like cold air. Don't know enough about synthetics to know what it is, but if you smell it, you'll know it. It really does work as a “martini” scent in the opening.
LOL — don't know, although black seems to be making a comeback to. It's all better than pink!
Gotcha, sorry I'm so dense!
This doesn't really remind me of NYC but it does smell good. To me at least =]
Glad a fan has showed up to defend Delicious Night!
I must say I really like Delicious NIght as well – nearly as must as I detest the sickening scent of Be/Red Delicious I must be subjected to at my counter all day long.
On a sad note, Gold has been discontinued from my store 🙁
Seriously, Gold is gone already??? That is not good news.
I don't know if this means gone forever everywhere, but it certainly does not bode well. IIt sold very, very poorly at this location. Yet Paris Hilton Can Can and Baby Phat are sold out. Sigh…
If you could hear the crunching here, it would be the sound of my heart breaking…
I understood that it wasn't a big hit. It is a shame, I think it's the nicest thing DK has released on a long time.
I like it, but it's certainly not ground breaking (then again, I didn't expect it to be!). Seems to be in keeping with the target demographic for the others in the series. It has a lighthearted, “fun” vibe – would be a good scent for a young-ish woman to wear on a night out with the girls drinking martinis. I could picture my 21 year old daughter enjoying this.
Agree with all of that!
I have yet to try but eager to sample. Although I detest the fruity florals since they're so pervasive these days I do wear be delicious on a regular basis. I don't see how people can compare be delicious and red delicious. I've received at least ten compliments on the green one. Red smells like regurgitated raspberries and green emits a pleasant floral and fresh apple scent. Anyhow, looking forward to a good evening perfume. I love Body by VS. I wish RL continued selling Glamorous.
They both smell mostly like apple to me — and I hate apple 🙂
My boyfriend really liked this one. I felt that I could have achieved a similar effect by pouring cough syrup on my wrist. It did have alarmingly long staying power though.
Cough syrup would be cheaper 😉
I am new to this site. (my first comment.) Here's my take on Delicious Night.
I love this perfume. It is great for winter when you want something a little heavyer than a “light” spring perfume. It has a hint of deep “incense” to it, but not too much. (Actually, the body lotion is fabulous.)
I wore Euphoria all last winter and this is a great change up. (Same family to me, a little deeper and less flowery than CK's Euphoria.)
Only draw back on this sent; it doesn't stay on my skin long enough.
Hi and welcome! Glad you love the Delicious Night 🙂
Paris Hilton Cancan sold out……… ARGHHHH. Is this the end of the world ?! :))
I agree cough syrup is cheaper.
That was a nice review btw…… I dont like apples and was hopeful that the fruity scent would have become wildly inviting and provocative in the black version. But sadly no……….
Ah well, plenty of other fish in the sea 🙂
I remember this coming out around the same time as Dior’s Midnight Poison- and I remember thinking how similar they were. I couldn’t find a bottle of DKNY Delicious Night anywhere, but there was a new big bottle of it on Amazon for a mere 20$, so I decided to add it to my collection remembering that it was so similar to the much more expensive Midnight Poison. The initial sweetness is a bit extreme, but on me it fades quickly to a less sugary vetiver/freesia type combo, and I like that. Not nearly the staying power of Dior though, perhaps the reason it’s no longer in stores.
I liked the Midnight Poison much better myself…