Les Soeurs de Noe
Red Berries Elixir

2024

PERFUMER
Jerome Epinette

redcurrant
PINK PEPPER
STRAWBERRY
CHERRY
BARBERRY
STRAWBERRY SYRUP
TONKA BEAN
AMBROXAN
MERINGUE

Les Soeurs De Noe changes colors for the first time for their 2024 duo. I believe that Forbidden Nectar is a cherry and this Red Berries Elixir is a sweet fruity number.

I can get straight to the point with my feelings towards Red Berries Elixir. Quality-wise, this is up there with the rest of Les Soeurs De Noe (if not better) and it wears very nicely. It remains its integrity throughout better than most others in this style. Scent-wise, I can’t say it’s one of my favorites from the house, because it’s a bit too… Youthful?

Mostly, I like the fruity aspects in this, which are surprisingly bright, tart and acidic. Most people seem to get a strong strawberry in here; I get some of it. Cherry as well and different berries. However, I find everything to be high in sourness, even a bit sharp; like a candy, lemonade, bubblegum direction.

This candied feeling is amplified by the sweetness, which is where Red Berries Elixir deviates from what I would enjoy wearing. I won’t go as far as comparing it to Baccarat Rouge, but straight from the opening, I find it a bit cloying. It’s like the powder in those satellite wafer candies. From my memory, this is in the broad direction of Atelier des Ors Pink Me Up, but perhaps even a tad more playful and more candied than that. In the drydown it gets a little creamier and softer though.

Which is not to say that I couldn’t enjoy the scent, but only for a while. The way Red Berries Elixir lingers in this lane and the unwavering sweetness, with some musky, ozonic projection, makes it too ‘not me’, to want to wear it regularly.

Red Berries Elixir is a great option if this is the style of fragrance that you’re looking for. And brands would be crazy not to capitalize on it, but I have to say that this mass-appealing, would-fit-in-the-‘for her’-isles-at-Sephora’ trend in niche brand releases does little to excite me.