BURBERRY
GODDESS PARFUM
2025
raspberry
lavender
vanilla infusion
vanilla caviar
vanilla absolute
leather
Goddess Parfum is a flanker to Goddess (2023) & Goddess Intense (2024).
I remember quite liking the original Goddess (2023), despite this aromatic-vanilla mix not really being my mix of choice. The 2024 Goddess Intense, I’m less familiar with, but smelled okay to me in stores. I’m on the fence for the opening hour(s) of the Parfum, but I do like it’s later hours of the wear the most.
To my nose, there’s less aromatics in this Parfum flanker, but at the same time, it feels like a different vanilla blend to me and I’m not sure which version I prefer as a whole package. Overall though, based on the feedback I’ve read for the Goddess line up until now, I think the Parfum will be a nice upgrade to most. Hear me out.
The original (and the Intense) open with a rather forward lavender, to the dismay of quite a few people, who perhaps expected more of a full-fledged vanilla scent. While that opening is still here, it feels less of its own thing and everything is more intertwined with a more liquid, almost boozy-feeling vanilla from the very first minute in the Parfum. The lavender seems toned down, or at least, it’s overtaken much quicker.
What ensues is a mix that kind of reminds me of a Jean-Paul Gaultier Le Male flanker for a bit and it’s not hard to view Goddess as the women’s marketed counterpart to that. While I prefer that the vanilla takes more of the upperhand here, I don’t love the vanilla itself as much as I remember enjoying in the original Goddess. In my Goddess EDP review, I mentioned the vanilla having a dry green spicy side and a lactonic side; I don’t really get either here (it would be good to compare them side by side again though, it’s been a while since I’ve smelled the original). It still has a clear booziness to my nose, but this time around, it feels like more of a generic designer blend, with tinges of bubblegum and your average Sephora-isle-essence.
Where Goddess Parfums shines is in its late drydown, when most of the aromatics have left the stage and you get no more bubblegum and more of a woody, even at times slightly smoky vanilla. The boozy feeling remains for me, with burnt sugar and liquid vanilla. More vanilla, more sugar, less dry and overall sweeter than I remember the original being. The Parfum’s late drydown wouldn’t feel out of place next to a Kilian Angels’ Share Paradis or Old Fashioned drydown.
It’s like the Parfum has the Goddess DNA drenched in a supersweet vanillic liqueur, taking off the sharper aromatic edges and making it fit the (expected? requested? trending?) gourmand direction more, which could make it a homerun for fans of the line. I’m not entirely sold on loving it, but in my opinion this is a good take on the vanilla-aromatic genre and among the better designers at the moment.