Masque Milano Love Kills is a punk rock name for an operatic fragrance. In this case, the music has to do with roses.
Perfumer Caroline Dumur developed Love Kills. Its notes include Turkish rose, geranium, ambrette, patchouli, cedarwood, musk and ambergris. (I’m not going to quote the fragrance’s description in Masque Milano’s press materials, because, frankly, I don’t understand it. It tosses around literary and musical references with vague observations about “a rose by any other name” and how fleeting life is.)
What I do understand is this: Love Kills is a Birgit Nilsson of a rose soliflore. It’s a rich scarlet rose — maybe an old rose that clings to stone walls and blooms only once a summer. When it flowers, it’s like a full moon. Bees become town drunks, and afternoons in the garden should carry warnings against operating heavy machinery. Girls shut themselves in their rooms and cry, and grown women eye the pool boy with startling interest. Cakes won’t rise. Sinners repair to the confessional, but the priest is unexpectedly away.
Love Kills is a soliflore. It’s not a rose “with” some other note, such as rose and patchouli (L’Artisan Parfumeur Voleur de Roses is one of many) or rose and incense (Frédéric Malle Portrait of a Lady) or rose and stone fruit (Guerlain Nahéma) or a rose chypre (I don’t even know where to start, there are so many) or so, so many more. This doesn’t mean Love Kills contains only rose, but that it portrays only rose.
Tracy at Fumerie recommended the fragrance to me. “I love it,” she said. “It captures the full life cycle of a rose, from the blossom to when it dies.”
As Love Kills unfurls, it begins with rose (of course) touched with green. Soon, its sweet, juicy scent has turned to a young Bordeaux with a hint of the wine cellar’s dirt floor clinging to it, but it’s still rose. Here, Love Kills is rich and heady and nicely balanced with lots of body and a bare tingle up top for structure.
After an hour or so, Love Kills sweetens a tiny bit and gradually contracts into a dustier — but still undeniably rosy — fragrance of dried petals and earth. It has noticeable sillage and lasts until dinner, no problem.
The two grand roses I thought of right away to compare to Love Kills are Serge Lutens Sa Majesté la Rose and Frédéric Malle Une Rose. I didn’t have Une Rose handy, but my sample of Sa Majesté la Rose, which I’d always considered a rosy whopper, smelled surprisingly namby-pamby next to Love Kills. Sa Majesté is pinker and gives off more steam iron and potpourri.
I’m not in the market for a rose soliflore right now — when I want rose, I shift between Nahéma and Ann Gérard Rose Cut, depending on my mood — but if I were, Love Kills would be it.
Masque Milano Love Kills Eau de Parfum is $158 for 35 ml. For information on where to buy it, see Masque Milano under Perfume Houses.
Note: top image is ~ROSES ~climbing up the wall... [cropped] by Julie anne Johnson at flickr; some rights reserved.
Masque Milano does not stint on the quality, so I always like to smell it even if it is not my cup of tea, which rose generally isn’t.
Too bad about the By Killian-type “Oh, this was the title of a pop song?” naming…
I’m not usually one to make a run for rose soliflores, either, but if you want to sniff one, this is it, in my opinion.
I haven’t read the Masque description, but I looove yours! Up until about last Spring, I would’ve been all over this. Rose was my first perfume note love, but the rose quest has lost some of its steam lately.
I also thought of Sa Majeste when reading this since it’s a more naturalistic rose. I find the Malle to be a huge red rose, but there’s something freakishly unnatural about it. In a good way 😊
Isn’t it amazing how many faces rose can take? It’s a thrilling note, and it’s easy to simply say, “Oh, rose” and dismiss it, but it deserves some in-depth appreciation.
I actually wrote Une Rose on my skin for the first time today. I was… Ahem… Purchasing a bottle of Bigarade Concentrée…. Anyway, it’s lovely stuff. This I’ve sounds like it has much more in common with Une Rose; I’ve always thought Sa Majesté was a very ordinary tea rose to be coming from Serge.
My ideal rose might be La Fille de Berlin, honestly, though I have a soft for Diva and Montana, those wild roses. And Nahema.
All that to say, this sounds lovely but I probably won’t seek it out. If I saw a tester, though….
I know what you mean! One perfume cabinet can only hold so many roses….Now I’m very curious about smelling Une Rose again, too.
I will try this perfume sooner or later (I love some roses and can’t stand others), but I must say that I LOVED your description. I hope you never write perfume ads for living – or we all will be damned.
And you know what? I will probably buy a sample (which I rarely do these days) just to have a chance to cite your “bees become town drunks” on my blog.
So true, what a beautiful & evocative description.
Drunken bees! I didn’t think I’d like this one but you have opened my mind. I am curious, I don’t own a rose soliflore.
I don’t own a proper rose soliflore, either, come to think of it! The other roses I listed have another “partner” note to them. I’m going to try to resist this one….
You are so nice! Thank you. If you do try it, I’ll be eager to see what you think!
This sounds deeply enticing to me. I’ll have to seek out a sample.
Excellent review as always, Angela. You have a lovely way with words!