What is a fragrance good for? Is it a portal into dreamland? A sensory amplifier that makes us feel more attuned to the world? Do we get to be here and simultaneously elsewhere?

I live in Berlin, where wearing black is always en vogue. I too prefer to cloak myself in a neutral darkness, to recede into the cobblestoned background of any occasion. I like the shade as a uniform; indeed, it feels like me. But at times it can also feel self-limiting. At a certain point, the cloak becomes a cuff.

On the U-Bahn in the mornings, I often smell Le Labo’s ambroxan-heavy Another 13 and the peppery-soapiness of Orphéon by Diptyque wafting through the train. These have become perfumes of acceptability, of conformity. Living in uber-hip Neukölln seems to demand an air of effortless cool, even in fragrance. Bold gourmands – sugared orange blossoms or caramelised apples – feel almost taboo. And yet Berlin is a city where I feel the most free. So why do I spritz to fall in line, worrying that I’m being perceived as un-serious? What if perfume was pure joy – and nothing else?

 

I want to wear perfume to try on different hats: to be taller, louder, bolder. I want to take up more space, to stretch across bygone eras and remote time zones and lush landscapes. Perfume has the power to satisfy an impossibility: that I can be anchored and adrift, all at once.

That’s what Delta of Venus by Eris Parfums (2023, Antoine Lie) provides for me. It gives me the feverish impression of being consumed by the neon colour of the world. 

 

Indeed, Delta of Venus is delicious — and very different — than I thought it would be. Because isn’t it always? A perfume review is never going to really tell you how a perfume smells, what it will mean to you. One must temper expectations. One must get off Perfume Tok and back into the world.

 

So what does Delta of Venus smell like? Well, it’s an extravagant, steamy shot of tropical fruit. There’s a distinct fleshy creaminess of guava and the body. At the same time, the perfume’s persistent tutti-fruitiness exudes something innocent: bubble-gum from the corner store and the fish-shaped L’Oréal shampoos of my youth. It’s both a kaleidoscopic Frank Stella canvas and cotton candy at the fall fair.

This impression goes on and on, everything in the composition offering itself up to the guava. It’s almost too much, near cloying, but never headache-inducing. This sophisticated guava is luminous and high-pitched like glass bonbons in a pewter bowl. Later in the dry down, I’m left only with grapefruit – a citrus facet that almost never emerges at the end of a perfume’s journey on the skin. This ripe underbelly rises to the surface: something bitter, sweaty, unnerving.

I wake up the next morning with Delta of Venus still lingering on my wrists.

Francesca Schulz-Bianco is a Canadian journalist and poet based in Berlin. She writes about perfume on The Scented Stanza. Her other works for various magazines can be found here.