Today’s entry was written by my good friend, AngelWearsPrada.

She’s passionate about high-end, exclusive fragrances and sent a lengthy email to me describing a brand that I knew nothing about, By Kilian.  I’m no perfume aficionado, and I thought it would be a nice change to have another voice on this blog, so I’ll let her explain why By Kilian has captured her heart.

In the following entry, all text inside square brackets [  ] are my comments.  The rest are AngelWearsPrada’s!

By Kilian is the brainchild of Kilian Hennessy.  The heir to the Hennessey of the LVMH Moët Hennessy • Louis Vuitton S.A. fame.  A snippet of his bio reads:

His childhood haunts included the family cellars in Cognac. Before graduating from CELSA (School of Higher Studies in the Information and Communication Sciences at the Sorbonne) he wrote a thesis on the semantics of odors in search of a language common to gods and mortals. In search of the “angels share”, he encountered the world of perfumery.

Full Kilian Hennessey bio here [warning, the site has loud music that autoplays – click the volume symbol at the lower right corner of the site to mute]

A sampling of By Kilian scents – I have denoted an asterisk beside the ones for which I have samples of:
L’Oevre Noir Collection
♦  Prelude to Love*
♦  Love, Don’t be Shy*
♦  Love and Tears, Surrender
♦  A Taste of Heaven
♦  Straight to Heaven – This is the one I own and what I wore on Friday night that you all commented on! [our girls’ night]
♦  Back to Black* – I hate this one
♦  Dangerous Liaisons, Typical Me – My husband wears this.  I love it too.  I wore it once and a coworker accosted me – told me I smelled expensive.
♦  Cruel Intentions, Tempt Me
♦  Sweet Redemption

You can see that all the names are decidedly seductive!
Note: I bought the “Travel” set for myself (cheaper) and the “Refill” set for my husband (also much cheaper and he doesn’t care for all the fancy packaging – it’s wasted on him anyway).  So I did NOT spend the $270 CDN + taxes = $300-ish that Holt’s is charging. And overall – it was cheaper to buy in France, not here [Canada].

There are also a few other collections of note:
v  Asian Tales Collection – generally not a fan of any of the scents in this collection, but I do have lots of samples of these.
v  In the Garden of Good and Evil Collection – this is where the “Good Girl Gone Bad” scent is from. That was my runner up scent. It was between Good: “Straight to Heaven” and Evil: “Good Girl Gone Bad” and GOOD won out!  [AngelWearsPrada gave me a sample of “Good Girl Gone Bad” which I tested and decided it smelled too “sensual” on me]

There are 4 scents from this collection:
♦  Good Girl Gone Bad*
♦  In the City of Sin
♦  Forbidden Games*
♦  Playing with the Devil

By Kilian also launched a collection of “Vodka” and “Brandy” scents which are part of the “Boutique Exclusives” collection. These were awesome, if you don’t mind smelling like a drink. Honestly though, when these perfumes settle, for the most part, they are truly unique.  I have one sample each of these.

Part of the allure of the brand is the shopping experience, here are the By Kilian shops that I have visited:

London (at Harrod’s – 5th/top floor – it was a whole “fragrance mall” of perfume boutiques – quite the experience!)

Paris

Overall my experience with the brand has been quite lovely. I do enjoy the decadence of it. The boutiques are lovely in London/Paris. In Canada, it is exclusive to Holt’s but they don’t do it any justice here – it is merely a “counter” like any other fragrance. But the packaging is beautiful and there is a decided air of “sophistication” with this brand. Also, not many people are familiar with it so I can walk around and know that no one else will smell like me! LOVE that!

They also have a boutique in NYC – and its on my list to visit this year:

[For a listing of all By Kilian’s fragrances and detailed scent notes and reviews, please visit the By Kilian page on fragrantica.com. I just went through to see what I may like to try from By Kilian and “Beyond Love” with its Tuberose, Coconut, and Jasmine scents might be up my alley. Thanks AngelWearsPrada, for introducing me to this brand!]