Love and Tears

Love and Tears opens with a sharp, green slap of galbanum and petitgrain, the citrus of bergamot barely cutting through a medicinal lavender that feels almost bitter. This is not a soft floral. Calice Becker throws jasmine and water jasmine at you like handfuls of wet petals, their indolic sweetness wrestling with narcissus and a waxy orange blossom that refuses to relent. Lily-of-the-valley keeps the whole thing from tipping into tropical chaos, but barely. The drydown is where the name makes sense, oakmoss and cedar dragging the composition into a mossy, resinous grief, styrax adding a faint smoky ache. The overall character is a rain-soaked bouquet left on a marble counter overnight, petals bruised, water pooled, the scent of green stems and wilting blooms mingling with cold stone. It feels natural in its complexities, but there’s a synthetic edge to the water jasmine that keeps it from being truly organic, a niche construction that tries to straddle the line between airy and heavy. With a 3.71 rating and longevity just above average, it fades faster than you’d expect from such a dense heart, sillage hovering close to the skin after two hours. This is for someone who wants their florals melancholic, not cheerful, best worn on a damp spring afternoon or a summer evening when the air is heavy with impending rain. Skip it if you need a bright, simple white floral or anything that projects confidently past arm’s length. Could a fragrance smell like regret dressed in white? This one comes close.

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