Carolina Herrera
Carolina Herrera
107 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The absinth arrives immediately with herbal snap and anise-tinged spice, a bracing counterpoint to the sweetness lurking beneath. Within minutes, this green harshness softens considerably, and you're left with a rather startling juxtaposition—that medicinal bite clashing against emerging vanilla warmth.
By the second hour, leather and lavender have emerged to create something unexpectedly sophisticated. The lavender prevents the vanilla from cloying; the leather grounds the sweetness with a subtle dryness. There's a creamy, almost ambered quality here—the synthetic accord becomes more noticeable, lending a slightly artificial polish that feels intentional rather than accidental.
The fragrance settles into a straightforward sweet-leather-musk base as the opening's complexity fades. It becomes softer, creamier, with the vanilla and musk dominating. The leather persists as a dry undertone, but it's considerably quieter. What remains is essentially a pleasant, unremarkable sweetness—nothing objectionable, but notably less interesting than what preceded it.
VIP Black is a fragrance caught between two identities, and that tension is precisely what makes it worthwhile. Carlos Benaïm has constructed something that feels deliberately contradictory—the absinth opening suggests a sharp, herbal edge, yet the composition quickly pivots toward creamy sweetness, with lavender and leather acting as reluctant mediators between these opposing forces.
This is not a fragrance about subtlety. The accords data reads almost aggressively sweet (100%), and you'll feel that immediately. But there's a hardened quality beneath the vanilla base, courtesy of that leather note refusing to soften entirely. It's rather like smelling an expensive leather jacket infused with honeyed herbs and something faintly medicinal—the absinth lingers as a spectral presence, preventing this from becoming merely gourmand.
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Milton-Lloyd / Jean Yves Cosmetics
4.0/5 (103)