YSL Black Opium

YSL's newest fragrance is Black Opium. It's a dark name , true, but the original Opium in 1977 was no shrinking violet .  It was one of those fragrances that we can now truly call iconic.

Now we have Black Opium , a coffee tinged floral that comes  in a bottle that sparkles , all black iridescence and feels like a flask in your hand.

The big note to note  here is coffee accord, and YSL  says that it is used here in the highest concentration yet in a  female fragrance . At the early stages of the scent you get a good whiff of that , not at first but soon after first spritz. It then gets stronger but never espresso strong and mixes with the pepper for spiciness. As the fragrance dries down it becomes more floral and has a tinge of sweetness. The jasmine and orange blossom are very present  making Black Opium more of a floral than you might expect.

As it dries down all the way the patchouli note comes in adding that sweetness with a hint of smoke.

YSL brought in not one or two, but  four stars of the perfume world to create this new scent- Nathalie Lorsen, Olivier Cresp, Maria Salamagne and Honorine Blanc . All bring their own way to the table and focused on a single area , for instance Blanc  looked for light working with the white florals in the composition.

While I think anyone looking for a strong coffee based fragrance may not go for this, I think it's very pretty  and wearable. It has just a little edge  and hey I am for edge in a scent, but pretty with a light edge can work too. It's an EDP   and wear fairly close to the skin. Sillage is medium.

Notes include : coffee extract, pink pepper, orange blossom, jasmine, vanilla, patchouli and cedar.

Prices -
.03 oz $ 25
1.0 oz  $ 67
1.7  oz $ 90
3.0 oz $ 115

YSL Black Opium is exclusive to Sephora , and YSLbeauty.com