Ruby
Bruno Acampora (2018)

As if chocolate wasn’t sexy enough, Barry Callebaut decided to develop and patent a naturally pink-colored chocolate in 2014, and I was in Rome when it finally hit the market in 2018-2019. Suddenly pink chocolate (named ‘Ruby’) was everywhere, from flowy fountains of gloopy pink chocolate in Eataly to special edition Japanese KitKats. And in 2019, Bruno Acampora was the first fragrance brand was the first to translate pink chocolate’s unique flavor profile – tart-sweet berries, a yoghurty aftertaste – into perfume form.

God, how I wish they hadn’t. Ruby by Bruno Acampora smells fruity-sour, which would be somewhat bearable had they not tagged on a milk powder element that smells as foul as baby powder or, indeed, how Hershey’s Kisses taste to Europeans. That slightly vomitous aspect, a flavor profile that is nostalgic to American tastes, due to milk powder being subbed in for milk during World War II and never being subbed back out again, is deeply disturbing to me in a perfume. Ruby chocolate itself doesn’t taste that great, but the perfume is infinitely worse.

The extrait opens for me in a blast of sour cherry mocha, but it settles in the ten requisite minutes to pure dark chocolate sans coffee, tonka bean, brown sugar, and bourbon rose. There is a lifting berry vibe, but what berry? Your guess is as good as mine--probably better--but it's this aspect that seems to be driving my pleasure.

There is the slightest dusting of powder for softness. And musk. There is the warm, enveloping, gutteral musk of Acampora fame.

At 45 minutes, the sugar has retreated. The booze? I think it's still here, faintly, and this is the heart. Pretty steady. The sour note seems to swell and retreat repeatedly. Either that, or I get used to it, get distracted, and come back to it with fresh senses.

At 3 hours, I try to analyze where things are. I think it's gone a more floral and I'd believe you if you told me there was orris here, and violet. It is settling closer to my skin.

I'd believe you if said there's some cinnamon here. The vanilla has become an undertone. Cocoa is ever present--and for the first time I think of it as cocoa--dry, without a creamy component. Without sugar.

I can't stay up to see the end of it. 6 hours and it seems firmly in a fluctuating state of perpetual balance, swaying between floral gourmand and gourmand floral. I'm realizing just now that it's not a dirty musk after all, simply not a clean musk.

I must end this review frustrated by my foolishness in putting on a new fragrance for my evening scent. Bed calls me, the sunrise threatens me, but Ruby...she comforts me. I'm happy to curl up with her company, and I look forward to waking.

Edit to add: Be warned. Apply with care.

I'm at 14 hours and this is not quite a skin scent yet. The floral quality has passed, but I still am pleasantly scented with chocolate and fruity musk--I woke up and the dry cocoa phase had passed.

I'm wondering if I've gained weight from it. -_-