Delta of Venus
Eris Parfums (2023)

At least in the first half or so of the perfume's life I see quite a bit in common with the Anais Nin short story of the same name. Antoine Lie's composition for Eris is going to raise eyebrows and push the limits of the socially acceptable. However, like one of the less offensive taboos, it could pique curiosity more than repulsion; the perfume will make you feel the shame that comes from some unintentional voyeurism, but it will be overpowered by the desire to look over your shoulder and out of the corners of your eyes to make sure no one will witness you going in for another look.

The opening instantly suggests sin and the forbidden. Bergamot zapped of all energetic, innocent, citrus zestiness to present dry and bitter rinds, and the equally parched, dry, and sulfuric aspects of grapefruit overlay one of the most green and indolic jasmine notes I have ever smelled. The violet leaf carries a lot of the responsibility for the super dry, green, vegetal notes and textures. For a while I thought I was smelling a bizarre form of orris and galbanum; the starchy, potatoey, earthy, somewhat floral qualities of orris are there, and the hyper-green galbanum textures and notes, reminiscent of No. 19 and Private Collection, are also there. Take your pick of interpretation, but you'll arrive at the roughly the same conclusion: massively strident, massively dry, massively dense, massively green, very pushy and illicit.

These notes don't subside without a fight, but they do eventually give way where the jasmine sheds quite a bit of its green and indolic qualities to take on whiter, gentler, floral aspects, and a "guava" note takes center stage. Perhaps controversially, I've always said that osmanthus's fruity note is far more like guava to my nose than the apricot note that many/most tend to identify. The very fleshy heart of DV is soft, sweet, musky, floral, and very tropically fruity, smelling very close to a lot of "osmanthus" materials I recall over many years, but it has been amped-up to bring a density that tends to be lacking in the typically airy and diffusive osmanthus floral accord materials. The heart of DV is beautiful. Somehow Antoine Lie is able to make the tropical fruit notes and floral notes smell very naturalistic yet the heart doesn't go down the sickly saccharine route like so many perfumes do that attempt a section like this. What certainly helps is the faded but still present green paint stroke hanging on to the floral note of the heart. Compared to the opening that hissed and snapped at you, the heart is tantalizingly inviting - a cool bowl of juicy tropical fruit on a warm summer day. A good amount of time later you've had more than your fill, and you're left with green notes again in the form of a lightly green and more so woody vetiver, and a bright beige and creamy sandalwood that is just as light and playful as it is clean and crisp.

By the end of Delta of Venus I'm not sure I continue to smell the raunchy short story that shares the title, but forbidden fruit guarded by a hissy green snake that ends up being so tasty and revelatory as to be worth the risk? Yes, indeed. Call me Adam. Now, where are my pants?

I love guava: the fresh fruit, in juice form, guava paste, too. I drink GT's Synergy Guava Goddess kombucha regularly. I will spare you all of my purple prose and say this: Delta of Venus has the best guava accord I'd ever smelled in a fragrance, head and shoulders. It seems to be a hard one to pin down by perfumers, and Antoine Lie has perfected it here. Juicy, mouth-watering, luscious—it's all here, down to the distinctive muskiness associated with the ripe fruit.

I could very well be wrong, but I detect what I believe are a material called Paradisamide and Guavanate, the former an aromachem produced by Givaudan that reminds me of passionfruit and guava, and the latter produced by Bedoukian that imparts the woodier, muskier aspects of a pink guava. Otherwise, Lie had his own proprietary trickery in creating this vivid representation.

Aside from some accents that shade in Delta of Venus, to me it's mostly a guava "solinote" and I am all for it. One welcome detour in the dry down that I do want to highlight is a certain waxiness that gives it body and character. It's really just a splendid experience from beginning to end.