K de Krizia
Krizia (1981)

The bold and exuberant K de Krizia is a gem from Maurice Roucel's oeuvre, highlighting all that was de rigueur at the time of its release, done to perfection. Dizzying aldehydes? Check. Bitter, mean green florals? Check. Mounds of moss? You got it. And a soupçon of civet? Covered over it all like a decadent fondant. There's even peachy lactones, ripe fruit, and spices. It's a heavenly aroma that's like ambrosia and nectar to my nose.

For some reason I immediately imagined Grace Jones demanding her lover to "wear this! Or ELSE." It's that fierce and ferocious. Make no mistake though, it's absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, it just wasn't made for these times, and this was discontinued after some less than forgiving reformulations. One may find something comparable in the realms of "niche" or "artisan" perfume today, but with someone like Roucel at the helm, it would be difficult to reproduce.

This review is for the edt. "K" is a bitter, spicy floral chypre. I absolutely adore it. When I don't want to whack everyone over the head with my scent but still want to wear something I find interesting, "K" more than does the job. Nobody could be more Midwestern WASP than myself, but "K" makes me feel very Italian and exotic. Love this!

Hail Maurice Roucel for this beauty! To my nose this is a gorgeous floral aldehyde chypre top with a smooth balsamic and resinous base. I've got several backups of this lovely. So much more wearable than some of the powerhouses of the era it was marketed in, too, so smooth and cuddly.

A great and grand floral chypre of the old school variety.

Rich, deep and fragrant - a real perfume.

How anachronistic that it came out of the 1980s. Barbara Herman rightly describes it as "lush."

Top notes: Peach, Hyacinth, Bergamot, Neroli
Heart notes: Jasmine, Narcissus, Tuberose, Rose, Muguet, Orris, Orchid, Carnation
Base notes: Sandalwood, Vetiver, Musk, Amber Moss, Civet, Vanilla, Styrax, Leather

One of the best. First Edit: Louis Scherrer II created five years later is a copy of K, and just as fine. A powdery green floral chypre.

Wow. This is a dark and dramatic masterpiece. I am not good at identifying notes, but this is definitely a chypre of the Rochas Mystere order. My bottle is quite old so I did not smell many floral notes. It went straight to a Wagnerian forest!
This may become a favorite.

Discovering a chypre from the early 1980s that you've never tried is dicey. While it's new to me, it's by no means a new perfume, and has lived, loved and likely been reformulated a number of times, probably fatally. Hand a new fumie a current bottle of Diorella, she'll sniff and then look at you and say, "This is the shit you've all been talking about?" And she'd be right to ask. The current stuff isn't anything to rave about, or really even discuss.

There's a whole generation of fumies for whom the the tragedy of reformulation means that their Miss Dior Chérie (or whatever it's called at this point) has been tampered with and their Badgely Mischka has been unceremoniously discontinued.

IFRA (International Fragrance Association) regulations diminish the perfumer's palette. However you come down on the ethics, evidence and outcomes of their restrictions, the IFRA hinders perfumers and has taken perfumes away from those who relish them.

I can't find information on how to date this particular perfume, but I believe I have a vintish K de Krizia. There's a bit of a dry fruit feeling upfront, and an appropriate amount of Amber in the far dry down, but all the way along this baby is a soaring floral chypre. What seem like aldehydes provide the lift off, but once at altitude it's the cold flowers that give buoyancy. I don't know the ratio of oakmoss to treemoss to [insert mossy analogue], and god only knows what has been done to modulate the other toxic aromachemicals like bergamot, labdanum, but my K de Krizia passes all the functional tests of a chypre. It's dry like a good martini, it's florals are buttery yet sharp in tone. It's like taking a long drag on a cigarette. Now THAT to me is a chypre.

K reminds me a bit of the mid-2000s Miss Dior. God knows how many variations of Miss Dior are out there, but the floral tone to the two is similar. K has less of the patchouli overdose, but in both perfumes the petals aren't so much dried as freeze dried. They bite back a bit when you sniff your wrists. Your gift at the end of the day of a wearing of K is a starched soapy climax that seems as thought it might be hissing at you.