Red was the second series of fragrances launched by Comme des Garçons, following the now sadly discontinued Leaves series. It debuted in 2001 with 5 fragrances, all revolving around the theme, obviously, of things that are or might be red. The series includes Harissa, Sequoia, Palisander, Carnation and Rose. Harissa and Sequoia are both by perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour (who also created Monday’s Dzongkha and Tuesday’s Méchant Loup) and those are the two under consideration today.
Harissa is named for the North African spice mixture; other fragrance notes include blood orange, red chili pepper, angelica, saffron, nutmeg, cardamon and tomato. The top notes are muy fabuloso: basically lots of orange and lots of hot pepper. As it dries down, other spice notes join in, and while cinnamon is not listed and there probably isn’t any, after 15 minutes or so it reminds me very much of Red Hots melting in fresh orange juice…
