Reviews of parfums*PARFUMS Series 2 Red: Harissa (2001)
by Comme des Garçons

Light peppers and woods. I'm not a fan of this because it lacks depth, longevity and everything else that makes me like a fragrance.

Harissa falls squarely into my "pleasant surprise" category. Coming from a house like Comme des Garcons, and with a name alluding to a mouth-searing North African condiment, I was expecting a harsh and unwearable capsicum concoction along the lines of L'Arisan Parfumeur's Piment Brulant. Sometimes it's wonderful to be proven wrong!

The bitter, abrasive scent of green pepper is indeed present at the start, but it's folded into a cool and semi-sweet mélange of clove and citrus. Harissa warms up very quickly as the crisp top notes are joined by a mellow spice and incense accord, made edgy by the presence of black (not chili) pepper. All of this rests atop a cushion of sweet, rounded vanillic notes and nutmeg that makes Harissa's heart distinctly oriental in style.

Harissa's spicy-sweet, peppered heart vaguely recalls Lorenzo Villoresi's controversial Piper Nigrum - enough that I feel safe recommending Harissa to anyone who enjoys the Villoresi but wants a lighter, more refreshing fragrance. Given its composition Harissa is a surprisingly bright and transparent scent, perhaps because of a lingering crisp tomato leaf note that punctuates the main spicy accord.

As Harissa ages on the skin it grows progressively more mellow and diaphanous, while exposing a firm woody base that's warmed by just a hint of very clean musk. While it's not a weak scent, Harissa hangs close to the skin and does not trail clouds of sillage in its wake. Longevity is more than acceptable though, as the drydown progresses over the course of six hours or more. My lasting impression of Harissa is of a crisp, clear, yet exotic fragrance that would be great summer alternative to the traditional citrus and aquatic scents. My thanks to the kind Basenoter who sent me the sample - I would not have made this lovely find on my own!

Because the company list of notes contains both chilli pepper and tomato, I expected this to smell like a Bloody Mary spiked with Tobasco. To my surprise and delight, it turned out to smell like chilli pepper soda. The scent is bright and effervescent, even fizzy, with a slight sweetness. The tomato appears only in the dry-down, where it is light and not Bloody Mary-like at all. Weird and wonderful

This perfume embraced me in a slightly sweaty and humid way. Surprising and spicy at first; not bad. When applied in smaller amounts I found it to be sweeter. The problem is that it always dried down to a menthol smell. Puzzling. I don't want it.

My father used to make Harissa for Jewish New Year when I was a little kid.
It involves stewing peppers and chilis and other red things for about 24 hours.

It tastes well on rice, but it does not smell like something you'd ever want on your body.
CDG Harissa is basically the same thing, though it is quite unlike the hot-sauce stew I've been eating all these years.

Oh my god I love this! Delicious!!

I tested this for the first time few years ago, and I immedietaly liked it.
However, it took few years actually to get me a full bottle, mainly because of the lousy money situation.
Anyway, I got it now and I am so happy! I love it, love love love it!!!

I am a huge fan of tomato : I reach for anything which has this wonderful, my all time favourite vegetable. I love chili too - a lot!!!

But you know what? To me this doesn`s smell like tomato or chili, as much as I would have liked it to be that way.

No. Harissa smells quite exactly like English wine gum candies, which I have always loved - have loved them for number of years.
Okey, there`s a bit of that tomato smell too, but mainly this is all about those English wine gum candies. Those red ones that are sweet and bitter.

Harissa smells red, juicy, fresh and aromatic. I feel so damn healthy evytime I wear this fragrance. I feel alive, powerful and quite much ready for anything that destiny brings ahead.

Harissa makes me smile, but do notice, it also has some gloomy, mysterious corners.

Harissa, one of my all time favourites.

Harissa opens with a fairly dominant clove note, which soon becomes an earthy spicy citrus which lasts maybe 40 mins before drying down into a vegetal musk (the angelica root and cardamom perhaps?). Being an EDT it doesn't have great staying power (3-4 hours) but it is very pleasant while it lasts and wears well in warmer weather. This could very well become my go to summer scent.

I really wanted to like Harissa after reading that it had a strong blood orange note. I adore orange scents, in fact Frederic Malle's Bigarade Concentree is one of my all time favorites. So, it was with much disappointment that I did not detect any orange note at all in Harissa. I vaguely got a smoky, spicy smell with a touch of saffron from putting it on but the whole thing died on my skin after 10 minutes and so I really don't know what else to say. I tried it twice and both times got the same results. In contrast, CdG's Jaisalmer lasted about 3-4 hours on my skin so I guess Harissa was just not meant for me.

Here are Harissa's notes, per The Perfumed Court: blood orange, red chili pepper, angelica, saffron, nutmeg, cardamom and tomato.

Sounded great in theory but this scent is so subtle that you'd smell just as good if you weren't wearing it.

God-awful. Likely just my body chemistry (the other scents in the series work for me; ALL of the incense series are phenomenal), but all I get is tomato. Spicy, pungent tomato. All the other notes fade quickly into the background as if the tomato had beaten them into submission. I've heard rumors that this works exceedingly well on others, but personally, I'd rather not smell like four-alarm spaghetti sauce.

gosh awful. the drydown is sort of harmless, sort of cedary, but what you have to get through to get to it. ..

much better course to go direct with sequoia or the amazing palisander

Intriguing spicy / orange opening. Exotic, hot, and strong with highlights of tomato—one whiff and I know that, if the rest of the fragrance is equal to this, I’m going to love the stuff……(doesn’t happen). This is a quite exotic accord—and the opening is very compelling to me because of my love of North African cuisine. It’s one of those scents that I wish were linear so it will keep providing the same wonderful emanation. But the orange and the hotter spices gradually exit, leaving a nutmeg dominated accord. This middle is as nicely executed as are the top notes, and the mid notes would really be quite elegant if it weren’t for the persistent tomato. The tomato, which was so wonderful in the top notes, becomes an anomaly in the mid and base notes where it is matched with the nutmeg and cardamom. Although the fragrance lasts on my skin about two to three hours, the dry down leaves me with a ‘is that all there is?’ feeling.

Squeeze yourself a fresh glass of orange juice - it must be blood oranges, as they're much different from regular old orange juice oranges, much sweeter and more honeyed and rounded in flavor. Add a shot of the most incendiary hot sauce you can find, preferably something of the habanero family. Add one or grates of fresh nutmeg, inhale deeply of the resulting concoction and - voila - you've emulated the heart of CdG Harissa, which smells almost realistically edible in its pairing of sweet and hot. The tomato, while not an obvious note, keeps the honeyish fruitiness of the scent going long after the blood orange - a famously fleeting note - has split for the hills. There is a trace of the masculine in this scent, and it's hard to pin down where that comes from - the combination of saffron and angelica, perhaps? But it's nonetheless easily wearable for both women and men; my husband has been known to sneak a shot or two of my Harissa when I'm not looking! Downside - staying power on this is fair to middling, not great.