What a contradictory scent! You spray it on and the rooms fills with a wonderful passion fruit accord. Sparkling, light, fresh, sweet, absolutely perfect. I remember getting my first impression of the scent in a perfumery in town and mentally on the way home, I had more or less confirmed with myself that I would buy the scent during my next trip to the city. Only reason I hadn’t bought it immediately was the price of “Kirke”.
I left the tissue with the perfume in my room and forgot about it till I came back some hours later and thought “uuuhhh, what is this – where does that smell come from?”. I was honestly irritated and unbelievingly checked the tissue. Indeed, there it was. The wonderful light passion fruit accord had changed to something very heavy, dark, frankincense loaded. I didn’t buy it then, but later. My underlying suspicion that maybe something had been wrong with the bottle in the perfumery was not correct – the one I ordered online has exactly the same development.
“Kirke” remains to me the scent that makes the biggest change in fragrance notes. It’s like a 180-degree change. From light to heavy. From day to night, fruity to woody/smokey. The passion fruit fades and dark frankincense oud mixture appears. And that smell stays for days. It has the best sillage a perfume can have. A light fruity summer atmosphere changes to something loaded with a deep dark passion of emotions – we know that can happen in real life. “Kirke” transports that into a scent – true masterclass for storytelling in scents.
“Kirke” is fascinating. No one I know ever ran to the window and opened it when I wore it, like people did when I overdosed on YSL “Opium”. But I have the feeling that I need to open the window, unfortunately. When I wear it, I wear it sparsely dosed and mainly in the evening.
The colours of the scent are a fascinating mixture of bright colours, especially pink, orange and white on a black background. I tried to capture that in the picture with the scent notes.
The company Tiziana Terenzi, on their webpage, names the following fragrance notes:
Top notes: passion fruit, peach & raspberry, pear, cassis, warm sand
Heart notes: lily of the valley
Base notes: heliotrope, musk & patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla
The patchouli and sandalwood together with a stingy lily of the valley must merge into the scent that I smell so frankincense-like. The top notes of passion fruit and pear stay on, but get weaker compared to the darker notes. I smell apple too. Vanilla, sand, musk, heliotrope – they don’t leave a mark for me.
“Kirke” is a milestone scent. Everybody who smells it has an opinion about it and most people like it. Bringing passion fruit to the scent world is a very noble deed in itself. Passion fruit has a wonderful taste and a delectable scent. Personally, I like a few other passion fruit scents more than “Kirke”, but that is my personal preference only. The scent has been interpreted by a few other companies, like ECLAT, and what I like on that one is that is the dark part does not come out as intensely.
The brand Tiziana Terenzi, established by Paolo and Tiziana Terenzi, shows the craftmanship of the third generation of Terenzis. The two are very proud of their ancestry and family history, as can be read on their webpage. Their grandfather and father had founded a wax and candle company, under whose name the various brands, like Tiziana Terenzi, are still marketed. The siblings created a whole group of high-quality perfumes. Although I like the others I own a bit more on myself, it’s clear that the ground breaking scent in the collection is “Kirke”, like no other.
By now Paolo and Tiziana Terenzi do not only create perfume under the brand Tiziana Terenzi, but also under the brand names of V Canto and Giardino Benessere.
There is a creative talent at work that might surprise us from time to time in the future!