Straight to Heaven, Splash of Lemon
Kilian (2015)

This limited edition called Straight to Heaven, Splash of Lemon by Kilian (2015) doesn't totally suck like the original Straight to Heaven, White Cristal by Kilian (2007), but don't look for it, as it's already long gone and even more stupid expensive in the aftermarket. You'll effectively be paying used beater car money or new UHDTV money for a fragrance that fixes some of the problems that the original iteration had, but then leaves some there, but remixing the sound so it can at least be tolerated to the casual ear. Ironically, this leans even more into its similarities to Terre d'Hermès (2006) than the original "StH" does, thanks to the removal of the creamy sweet bits and rum bits in place of what feels like vodka and obviously lemon to my nose. The hamster cage cedar is replaced with more of the sandalwood the original was supposed to have but really didn't, so you get hints of that pickly vibe in the late stages like our Harvard drop out from my StH review has mingled his Hermès with a bit of Le Labo, but ah well. Overall, I can wear this, but am I going to? Absolutely not, and that's because I'm not tracking this down and paying blood money for it when I still have plenty of Terre d'Hermès and adjacent fragrances like JB by Jack Black (2010) which do the same thing. Sophie Matisse did the art for this bottle, which looks very unlike your normal By Kilian, and Sidonie Lancesseur returned to perfume.

The opening is going to be that "slice of lemon" mixing with a distilled white spirit note that to me feels like vodka. Fruity ionones are missing this time, so no rotted jam, but there is a bit of alpha ionone here alongside an amped-up patchoulol note that has the same clear terpene vibe as Terre d'Hermès patchouli, without the thick chocolately feel that a full patchouli oil presentation like in Givenchy Gentleman (1974) might possess. By this point, Straight to Heaven with the lemon wedge smells even closer to Terre d'Hermès than anything in its original MSRP should, but it also smells way better than the original. Cedar dosed correctly, with sandalwood, rosewood, and no vanilla to get in the way make for a pleasantly masculine affair over that patchouli, Iso E Super, and ambroxan vavoom of the base. Bits of vetiver and white musk seal the deal but performance is still just about meh for me. You can wear this many places I wouldn't dare show up in the original StH, but you'll still smell slightly like you spilled booze on yourself, and maybe a bit of turpentine too. Frat boy bourgeois to laid-off painter, here we come! Definitely worth the cash now, right? Don't answer that, trick question. Maybe this could be an office scent, but the vodka note and stiffness of the peppery woody patchouli bits still scare me off for that context. Best use is spring, summer, and fall to me, as this has no legs in the cold despite containing vodka, haha.

Straight to Heaven, Splash of Lemon, is really just leaner and fresher take on what was otherwise a sloppy gourmand, moving it away from the gourmand category into something that is more or less an aromatic chypre of sorts with a boozy touch up front. As a designer selling for about $100, I could see this being a left-of-center contender in the arena Hermès competes with good old Tee-Dee-Aitch, but it runs up against other niche contenders that smell better and cost less, like L'Artisan Parfumeur Timbuktu (2004), which started this whole genre. Once the the price of your typical By Kilian fragrance kicks in, the limited factor making it even more expensive since you're not buying stock from retailers anymore, and the fact so many better options exist. what you end up with here is another fancy collectors piece you will be too anxious to use if you do happen to have it. Crazy rich fragrance collectors that look down their nose at "common" perfume brands like I don't know, designers and more entry-level niche, are going to put this on a pedestal as a better more-refined alternative to what I mentioned above, if they even make that connection to begin with. As I said in my previous review for the original, I'll lose cool points with them knocking around this series, but they can sod off anyway since my plebeian opinions are beneath them anyway. Not bad, but you can do much better. Neutral

Smells the same as the original – a bland rum-patchouli-musk rendered vague through bottom-shelf materials. The only difference here is that they weakened it, stuck a goofy lemon on top, and made the packaging look more like a Tampax box. New lows for a line that's been scraping the barrel for some time.

I already own the Straight to heaven white cristal, so this was purchased predominantly for my wife, but i love it too.

its got the same ending as StH, but very lemonny at the beginning, which does take a little while to dry down, ending in a very similar aroma to the standard one.
however, its is a little less sugary, and is much lighter, probably better for females or summer/hotter climates.

still a good fragrance, but probably not worth it if you already have StH

"Straight To Heaven - Splash of Lemon" is actually a quite accurate description. Straight To heaven is built on a backbone of Australian sandalwood (the kind that smells like coconut water) and dusty oak. The original throws in hamster-cage cedar and spices, while this new version leaves those out in favor of the splash of lemon.

The end result is basically the smell of freshly-cut plywood soaked in vodka with lemon juice on top. It's quite linear, but somehow it feels vibrant while the original Straight To Heaven often strikes me as a bit dull. I quite like this, but to be fair, it pales in comparison to classic sandalwood citrus chypres like Santal Noble. But still a confident thumbs up, and a note that this is a perfect niche-but-not-too-weird work scent.