Love in Black Creed for women

I had a sample of this and alas, I am so disappointed with it. On my skin, it's starts out beautiful enough, but it dries to an expensive soap smell. That's it. It smells like soap on my skin; nothing very complex or intriguing at all, which sucks because it's pricey. I will say the longevity was very good with it, but I can't justify spending the cash on this when all I get is a soapy aroma. Oh well...on to the next!

Love in Black is meant to be a mirror image of Love in White (2006), with the emphasis firmly on seduction rather than innocence.

Love in Black is a lush floral oriental with an intense dark and musky heart built around Violets, Iris, Blackcurrant and Rose.

Top notes: White violets, jasmine
Heart notes: Florentine Iris, cloves, musk
Base notes: Bourgogne Blackcurrant, Rose, violets

Another very unique Creed creation this time with powdery-floral scent. Any season, however for sophisticated ladies rather than younger girls, in my opinion. Silage is heavy & longevity is long lasting.

I'm not a big fan of Creed because in my country one bottle costs more than $300. However, I fell in love with Love in Black lately. I tried it and the lasting power was so gooooooood. It starts up with warm spicy florals and then dries down to sweet fruity florals. This one is a def buy for me.

p.s. it lasted more than 6 hours.

I received a sample of this and I would have loved it, except, alas, the musk. After those intoxicating top notes it overpowers everthing else and I can't abide it. Perhaps that's for the best as it saved me some significant $$. Still looking for a sophisticated violet.

Being a fan of the house, this is the only Creed I feel eligible to be put on my 'hate' list so far. It instantly reminds me of Insolence edp (another scent I really dislike). Poor Love in Black...at least Insolence has got a pretty bottle, and is more wearable. Loads of decades old violet, iris and wood preserved in cough syrup. Rough, incredibly short of depth, flat as a pie. If anything comes close, I can only imagine Serge Lutens at its worst!

Creed seems to get a bad wrap here.
Maybe because the price??

this is expense aside viewpoint

I was thinking it would be pretty linear and simple
and it somewhat is

But i also happen to love all of the notes

A really nice berry violet musk with hints of rose

a little sweet and little floral a little woodsy


I think there must be some special 'creed water' accord
or something that brings this to a slightly different level than other violet roses

maybe its the black current or the woods that bring this together for me

very pretty.

Mimi I am glad that you chose this scent. Is splendid and soft. Will be well to you accompany :)

I bought this based on recommendations of fellow Fragrantica members, as I was asking for violet and iris heavy scents.

Yowza!!! I could smell this as soon as I opened the package. Upon initial application though, I was terrified, as it was a huge play-dough mess on my skin. I agree with some of the other posters who said the initial scent fades and there is more a "feeling" of the violet than actually smelling it at this point. It is like I can feel the violets tickling at the back of my throat --- very odd indeed.

I swallowed my panic, and figured I should at least leave it sit for the day and see what happens.

... And by about 1 hour in, the delicate, powdery, dry violet and iris notes pop out. I emit an internal squeal of delight. I do get a wee bit of cedar and a lovely blending of musk. I must admit on me the basenotes are non-existent (which is just fine with me).

The sillage on this is quite polite. I think you have to be in my personal space to really smell it well. On the other hand, it has great staying power. The sweater I threw on at work to keep warm still smells faintly of it two days later.

I love SL Bois de Violette as well, which is in the same vein, but with more cedar. For me, the perfect concoction is a 50/50 mix of this and the SL --- this very well may become my signature. I get the longer lasting and more powerful violet from the Creed, and a bit more cedar for the drydown from the SL.

Expensive, yes, but a little goes a long way. As with many delicate fragrances, I greatly prefer application with a splash/flacon as opposed to an atomizer, particularly because this changes so much with my body heat/chemistry (so I apply directly to pulse points to hurry up the transformation).

Yuck! I ordered this as a sample when I got another perfume. Immediately I was ill. Without knowing what the notes were, I immediately smelled peaches! Then swore it was honeydew or lilly of the valley. Funny, since none of those notes are listed. But that's what I got. I get no cedar, no musk, no powder. An hour later, I scrubbed it off.

Save all that big money and just sprinkle yourself with Carpet Fresh.

I’ve never read another review of Love in Black, so I’m sorry if I’m repeating what others have said. I saw a bottle of this in a shop and just had to try. The bottle is that matte black that people spend thousands of dollars on to paint their AMG Mercedes a sort of urban camo so that they won’t be seen wasting their 500+ horsepower in gridlock in LA traffic. This color on expensive cars is an example of the strained symbolism of contemporary demonstrations of wealth that reads like an overbred poodle. It’s so particular, so focused, so self-conscious. The desired message (“I’m hip/fashion forward/a trendsetter…”) gets lost in the actual communication (“I’m so effete that if you could see inside these blacked-out windows you’d see me fussing with my pocket square and cuff links.”)

But who cares about the bottle? It’s clearly an iris perfume, but there’s something off-kilter about the angles of iris that are emphasized. The papery and bread-like aspects of iris root are there, but they smell stale and sour. The fascinating bit isn’t the notes, though. It’s the progression. After 10 minutes of topnotes, I couldn’t smell a thing. It’s as if I could ‘feel’ with my nose that the perfume was still on my skin, but I literally couldn’t smell it. Did I go nose-tired that quickly, or is it the composition? I thought this was the briefest perfume in history, then oddly, another 30 minutes later, I sniffed again and found a lingering but noticeable sweet scent like inky bubblegum.

Stale bread wrapped in moist paper. Then silent running. Then bubble gum. Was this commissioned by Etat Libre? Not my thing, but pretty god damned clever.

When I recognized Love In black ,I felt violets and were similar to Annick Goutal Violette. I put away the paper. The morrow ... dazzle, What the beautiful scent .So he changed .So straight off I gave on the skin .Is splendid , beautiful balm,freesia, violet, musk on end I feel fruit with the sugar. Wonderful...
Try give chance :)

Tried this today. Very tough perfume, I must say. The first 2 hours it smells like mouldy bread or sweaty, wet socks that has been hung up to dry. After those 2 hours of this none sexy scent, the blackberries comes alive and it smells good and sweet, but it is a sweetness that so many others smells like. Now, after around 4 hours or so, the common sweet scent is gone and now it smells like that candy with violet taste. Candy sweet. This scent isn't some that I have smelled on others. It's rather unique, despite its candy sweetness. I love that violet candy and the way it smells. But the question is, do I want to wait 4 hours for a perfume to smell this way? Do I want to endure 2 hours of sweaty, wet socks before it even starts to smell good? Then an hour of common scent? I really like this scent that I'm smelling right now, after 4 hours, the violet candy sweetness, but I think I'll pass. I ain't got time to wait 4 hours on a perfume to give its best on me.

wonderfull for evening ;)

1) Smelled the perfume from the bottle. Thought it smelled violets in a lovely candied way (yet not sweet)

2) Sprayed it on my skin. The opening was frightful! Not at all what I expected. To my nose, it smelled leathery, smoked, very "concentrated".

3) When the scent had settled a while later, it was a LOT better. Soft candy violets. Keep smelling my arm hours after :)

Would love to have it because of the violets, but I don't know if I dare buying it though, because of my negative reaction to the initial smell.

I ordered a sample of this and was looking forward to it. Does it remind anyone else of the old vials of "orange blossom water" that one could buy once passing the state line in Florida in the late 60s and early 70s. You know, the little huts with a lady who would pour paper cups of fresh o.j.?

I didn't see orange blossom water in the ingredients, or, at least, it didn't jump out at me. But it does remind me of the 60s and 70s and those little glass vials. Lavender Water, Orange Water, Rose Water, Violet Water.

On me, it didn't do so well. It sat on top of my skin like violet water and other than smelling "retro" and reminding me of my grandmother's butter yellow Cadillac it didn't strike me as sophisticated. Not on me, that is. It seemed like a cheap essence of something. And I love Jackie O. I wonder if she would like this? Or, since she was OF the 60s and early 70s, would she have thought it smelled like something from an orange juice hut off I-95?

It disappointed me. Very artificial on my skin - opening like candies, and after 10 minutes, it turns into cough syrup. It's violets, sweet and warm, though. I was surprised it comes from Creed - usually they don't make things so synthetic/artificial, lack of their amazing natural tone.

Umpf!
I considered myself a loser that I haven't smelt it before. This is just what a lady should wear; a real men killer! Something that needs an expert olfactory to be understood.
It starts a little harsh but quickly settles in a royal delicious capricious naughtiness with a bold balmy soapy natural youth mainstream.
The total composition is floral but as other mentioned, it smells near to body chemical. But I think it because of violet. The difference between Creed and so many indies that copy the scents or produce similar themes is the quality of elements. The elements in Creed perfumery are obviously high level; it's clear from the power of scent.
The middle phase is so luxurious; floral, powdery and first class. This is the scent I follow if one wear it.
The base is violet and slight play of other elements but here it's so routine in the scent and so powerful in presentation, still.
Its longevity is jaw drawing but its sillage is really odd. You barely can find a scent display like this. From a paper tester, after 20 hours, it fills whole my room and living room! Do you believe? I can't!

AMAZING!! This scent takes you through a journey of celestial notes. At first spray, the violets and jasmine make a dramatic entrance which are accompanied by the romantic and smokey cedar. Then, the spices come in to the picure which are caressed by the musk and cloves. The black currant and the rose finish of this masterpiece by softly combining all the notes together.

Sadly, after 30 minutes the sent was very faint on my skin. Not at all what I thought the final dry down would be. I'm terribly dissapointed. For me it's not worth the high price.

I think that this is actually a cologne for sure. Its staying power is magnificent and it smells terriffic. Lasts for the ages. I might own this before 2012 is out.Well done...Brravo!

The violet is overpowering everything for the first 20 minutes, you can smell spices too which were actually that strong to tickle my nose! Then it cools down and turns into something wonderful and complex!
Really good perfume in complex, but I wouldn't pay that much money for it since the opening is a real olfactive bomb!

I tried LiB very briefly last night and all I could smell after the opening notes were gone is fine rich soft leather... Will update after another test, but this appears to have absolutely nothing in common with LiW (not that it really has to).

How many times we wondered why mosquitoes should exist? And, what about rats?...going on an higher scale, what about pain? Our conclusion is always that everything is necessary. Mosquitoes are part of the food chain, pain works as a necessary alarm and bad perfumes serve as a counterpart to good ones to establish the parameters to evaluate them.

Love in Black is a bad one. A really bad one. Violet and iris that rapidly turns into rosey/violet and nothing else.

As a wise old man used to say "you need to touch nettle to properly appreciate silk".

Rating: 3/10

I can smell something Dove-like soap/creamy or something like a leather conditioning product. This may sound bad, but it is not a bad scent. I actually love it. It's very different. I can see guys wearing this as well.

Since its release, every time, passing by the Creed's shelves, I was testing this perfume, and for me Love in Black is not just the violets...This is a queens worthy fragrance! The first seconds - a tender, slightly sweetish roasted nuts aroma. For some reason I think of roasted pistachios. But, sadly, this is quite a short pleasure the opening - later on just a tiny shade of this delicious "nuttiness" wafts from time to time somewhere on the background... and then it is all about the finest leather gloves, scented with a luxury floral essence: an iris (of course!) and the violets... This perfume makes me thinking of the gantier-parfumeurs and Catherine de Medici, a Queen of France and an amazing woman, born in Florence. I'm sure, she would be fond of this perfume!

Another try with Creed and again I found it disappointing. Yes, the violet and iris come out strongly, but there are many scents like that out there that do not cost a fortune. Also I found this one very unpleasant and even stinky. So did my friend.

A smell which can be easily sterotyped; and so once you place it in society, it looses its uniqueness and mystique..

Powerful, perhaps disgusting to begin with. This is a designer stench. The longer and less intense it becomes, the better..

EDT would be better

Ouch, how much? No thanks

I wonder if I have tried the same perfume as the other reviewers. I was looking forward to trying this perfume very much, I even felt a little "ooh" of delight when I saw it in a shop for the first time ever today. I tried it without hesitation. Wouw. Not to be forgotten. I like violet, I love violet, but I do not like the smell of putrefying socks and rotting fruit. This had a powerful, overwhelming negative effect on me. I can not recognise any of the notes others have spoken of, just rotting leaves, fruit and something rubbery a bit like the inside of a brand new car, with something unpleasant lurking under the seat. I must have a skin chemistry issue!

Unreal, its just unreal fragrance. One of a few, which is worth its price. So warm, so sensual. Even my MAN wants it for HIM !!! LOL

I know it's wrong to compare Love In White and Love in Black, but Love In Black is the warmer fragrance by far, possibly as a result of the violet top note. This is a sweet, elegant scent with moderate sillage and longevity. It's definitely on my wishlist.

An in-your-face iris, probably crafted using Ambroxan and god knows what else, blasts from the atomizer of Love in Black. The doughy accord holds for the better part of an hour before transitioning into a sweet violet, rose, and cedar heart. This evolution is a pleasant surprise, and it holds for another hour before a brief and sugary interlude of cotton candy-esque proportions. This saccharine moment is hard to account for. Perhaps it is meant to brighten and enliven the composition? In less than fifteen minutes, the sweetness fades back into a lighter floral musk.

Love in Black is a very enjoyable perfume. It is strong, and it is brash, but in a good way. I guess it's a shame that it isn't more highly regarded. This is the sort of thing I really want to smell on young women these days. Then again, I wouldn't mind wearing it myself. If you have a penchant for violets, LiB is a no brainer.

when i smelled it for the first time, the really first time, i was unaware, that this odor would somehow chase me until i buy it ! and i still havent, because of the price of course !
but honestly !! i believe that this is the key to my happiness !!! the violet just enfolds me, like a warm dressing gown on a winter's evening !
it lasts very long on my skin, what is great because most of the violet fragrances just fade away very quickly !

it's something different about this perfume ! it seems to have a secret, a mysterious secret, that only the chosen ones can find out !!!

i love it and recommend it to everyone who loves violets !

Love in Black is wearable, in comparison with the toilet-horror Love in Wite. However, what I can smell is so different from the notes listed here.

It starts with a lot of rice cake kinda comfy and sensual notes plus a lot of spicy woody rose.

Then it gets more floral and sweet in a nice and clean way, which reminds me a lot of Femme by Bvgari, plus some 80s big powdery floral effect.

The dry down is actually quite nice and less 'edge-y'. Again, it reminds me quite a lot of Bvgari Femme, but in a less welcoming way.

Love in Black should be nice, logically. However, emotionally, I just find this one strange in a weird sense. Not my cup of tea.

i enjoy this perfume, the violet smell to me definately stands out and is very long lasting to wear.to be honest though i probably wouldnt buy it myself as quite expensive but was lucky enough to have it bought as a gift from a bloke that also seems to like wearing it!!!hmmm :)

I love the opening of LOVE IN BLACK every bit as much as I love the drydown of LOVE IN WHITE! Hmmm... there may be a Creed-induced insolvency in my future...

The cedar-violet combo is rich and beautiful--so much so that I literally could not refrain from draining my entire large (carded) sample vial over the course of the past twenty-four hours. Now the last drop has evaporated to merge with the cosmos in infinite and eternal anonymity, and LOVE IN BLACK is on my wish list. Yum! Splendid! Delightful!

My only regret is that the intense wonderfulness of the opening does actually fade quite a bit after several minutes, and the drydown is a somewhat milder version of the same.

WOW i received my decant today and I love it! It is a very unusual scent to my nose...my 1st words were ooo I smell wood! I can definitely smell the cedar and musk & I am over the moon for it. :-) Nothing in my vast collection smells like this.

this looks like it smells good! I love the love in white. FYI, the perfumed court offered decants for both..they even have a duo set. i am going to order one

If you enjoy the violet note in this fragrance then I would suggest Insolence from Guerlain. Love in Black is a similar scent to me yet it has poor longevity and silliage. For the price of this stuff I am very unimpressed.

I like this! Violet and this is not a "wet" one. Its more a "dry" perfume. Must say a VERY dry one. Original and Beautiful!


8,5/10

Remember the sweet licorice violet that you buy at fairs? Here .... Love in Black are these candies, it makes me remember the happy children running back and forth to the banquet with balloons tied to the hand while parents try to keep up. is a fragrance for women but not ok I'm sorry to hear it and wear it at all .... I believe that the odors do not have sex and I do not care what people may think feeling wipe with a scent of violets. My grandmother adored Parma Violet .... a tribute to her (the child I was happy)

If you like violet, then this is a must have! I have a lot of fragrances that contain violet but this one stays that long and is that intense!It contains musk and cedar , what makes it even more pleasent to wear. But it's all about the violet. This is one for all ages, it's to complex to say that "Love in Black" would only be for a certain age. Creed really succeeded to create something very special and it really the opposite of Love in White. I even mixed them a few times (parcimoni). Waaauw, that was great!

I would like to try this. I am looking for a signature perfume.

Does it smell good? The eternal question. Imagine you are on an airplane. I always pray I sit next to someone that does not smell bad!

I read a tip for flying on an airplane or bus or car: If something or someone smells bad put some tea tree oil in your nose.

A carnal violet iris. From sweet flowers in the opening, it changes to a doughy disturbing iris-cedar heart, and then back to a flourishing rose and blackcurrant base. The iris and rose notes are fantastic@! Inviting and strange, a Creed success. One of the best modern violet+iris fragrances on the market. A great couterpart to the youthful zesty white flower extravaganza of Love in White.

I was so disappointed by Love in White (nostril-piercing dish soap) that Love in Black almost scared me to try it.
When I did I found a pleasant wet-violet note in the start that so much reminds me of Violetta di Parma, only more earthen and not cloying-candy like in L'Insolence (that makes me gag).
Love in black is nice-smelling and very interesting in the beginning, quite promising, then it fades to a nothing special but pleasant mix quality of bitterness that's not totally out of place. It is dark and a little gloomy. I would say it's a feminine scent, only not too romantic or frilly. It's a scent a warrior-like lady would wear. Not my cup of tea. Maybe also a man who likes some feminine notes in his fragrance or someone wearing medieval capes with hook. Give it a try if you fit the type.
As all Creed scents it's quite cold in the smelling, in spite of musk and cloves. All Creed fragrances give me a feeling of coldness. And they are overly expensive for what they are. Don't get me wrong, they are surely refined, high-quality and well-made, but they lack that oomph that could justify crazy price tags.
The bottle is elegant black but not brilliant black like NR. a little bit gloomy for my tastes.

First on, this is a gorgeous flowers-in-rain feeling, like wet violets and iris, green and slightly metallic. Unfortunately, on my skin the fabled 'smoked tea' note comes up as a plasticy fake smoke scent and ruins everything. Then the lovely violets fade away entirely, leaving only the plastic smoke. It's terribly synthetic for something from Creed,whose other scents I've come to respect (and some to love). With an onset as lovely as this had, that makes the ending heartbreakingly tragic.

I read many reviews of this one and i thought it were really bad,i always want to test it and never had the chance.Today i saw it and test it and i'm really surprised in a positive way i really like it, my mother don't like it.Love in Black smells like fresh flowers and dry flowers(i think the cedar and musk make it smell dry) and i smelled fruits the whole time i thought what berries it could be and after one hours i watched at the notes and it's black currant,indeed!It's really fresh and fruity in a deep way.I found a fragrance which is very good for the dry, melancholic fall days and also for the rainy day's i ever searched for such a fragrance and this one match.I loved the Bottle from the first glimpse and the name and the scent match good in my opinion.It's not a fragrance to say wow it's unique and special and i must buy it now,but for collector this looks good in a collection,and when i have the money i also want to buy it.It last a long time and it gives me a good mood,match to the purple picture at the top of this side.

i luv tis perfume.it suit me. because i like rare smell.tis perfume is for powerfull woman :)

Don't buy this one if yo haven't at least tried it!!! I was utterly repulsed by this. It's extremely bitter. Who would wear this except someone who has a major body oder issue. Not romantic at all. I wouldn't take this one for my girl if someone gave it to me.

Anybody looking for this, I ordered it tonight from "abeautifulife.com." I entered discount code "2008" (always check retailmenot for online coupons!) and got 10% plus free shipping. This perfume's really hard to find right now.

The name and bottle of this perfume look fairly dark and seductive but its really just a typical floral. I found it to be very disappointing especially since it was inspired by fashion icon Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (which was also confusing since I don't see how she would inspire such a dark looking perfume).

If you're looking for a day to day floral give it a try and see what you think. It wasn't terrible, it just wasn't remarkable either.

Yes, KJanicki,your comparison to music's high and low tones, perhaps suits better to describe this scent..I was trying to find right words, but couldn't. Perhaps it may sound as exaggeration, but I almost got a feeling of cold sweat comming onto my forehead from those 'highs' and 'lows'.
And I can't really recollect a lot from this smell, but 'fried pistachios' would be the right word to describe this smell, because it's so unusual,there is something what not suppose to be in perfumes, and what even sort of doesn't have smell..something like fried pistacios, even if it is not, good suggestion, Vickalena, I may call a part of unidentifiable smells here -'pistachios'

To PR

I agree, it is bipolar. I get the feeling in my head like music, with a high note (sweet pale purple violet) and a low bass note (dark earthy cedar) at the same time. I put it on again today and I am loving it. Maybe it needed cooler weather.

Just cant get my head around this one. Very warm scent, something strange hapenning here, though warm , it is sort of bipolar to my nose. It rolls and rolls, and by the way rolls somewhere between kitchen table, then some pots with strange flowers like ficus that stand in the corner and doesn't smell, than turns around and rolls again. Some spiciness there, but don't know what it is, slightly unpleasant scent to me. The one is sure I was surprised by some weirdness

Got a sample and have been wearing it. I still get mostly strong cedar but everyone who smells me says it's sweet violet. It's growing on me. I think of it as a walk in the woods in the rain. Sit on a tree stump and smell the damp wood and the wild violets growing around your feet. I think it would be a good spring fragrance.

Tried it on the weekend and was disappointed. All I could smell was violet and strong cedar. Like a sweet closet. I am going to try it again though.

Unlike the sickening creation that was Love in White, this one is actually enjoyable. There is no relation between the two that you can tell. Love in Black first starts out with a strong, almost masculine violet note and settles slowly into a mix of iris, musk and cedar. I would only wear this in wintertime. It is very nice and mysterious.