Perfume Review: SP Parfums Liquorice Vetiver (Sven Pritzkoleit) 2016 + Childhood Déjà Vu Draw

Sven Pritzkoleit of SP Parfums

One of the many intriguing perfumes to be nominated for an Art and Olfaction Award is Sven Pritzkoleit’s Liquorice Vetiver for his SP Parfums, based in northern Germany.

Home is where the perfume is. That deja-vu of our childhood scents, memories and the deepest parts of our dreams, instincts and soul. It is my hope that since everyone has scent-memory triggers, and ultimately wishes to re-discover happy memories, that my new scents will bring back those memories. Since my early childhood years I have been obsessed by the senses of taste and smell. I studied and became a pharmacist in the family owned apothecary, and for the past 20 years I’ve also studied perfumery by myself, beginning with the raw materials- naturals and synthetics, and reading books by Edmond Roudnitska, Jean-Claude Ellena, Mandy Aftel, and many more. Impressed by the combination of traditional and modern/experimental perfumery, in 2006 I created my first real perfume composition, Pink Patchouli. In the years that followed, I created many other formulas, searching for my own personal signature, always with the focus on the characteristic themes of my scent and science-driven memory. These perfumes ultimately became my “Essential Collection”. Each of my Essential Collection SP Parfums is composed and manufactured by myself with high quality raw materials.” -Sven Pritzkoleit, Perfumer (Transliterated for clarity purposes-RH)

Annie Leibovitz  Hansl & Gretl

Sven describes Liquorice Vetiver as “Shades of sunlight reflecting through a lovely forest in autumn”. It definitely has that shadowy and cool vibe, but the shade provided by a large gnarled oak tree at the very edge of a height-of-summer August dry hayfield, you can see and feel the heat shimmering off the newly harvested earth. Smoke and wood and a vetiver that is bone-dry, all sweetened by a photo-realistic licorice accord with a hint of chocolate, as if a small child is running through the newly-baled silage in bare feet. The ground cover crackles under the child’s feet, and in a hidden pocket is a piece of black licorice softened by the heat and made sweet by an unwrapped square of chocolate now semi-melted. The licorice and chocolate mingle to create something, at times bitter or sour but also sweet, deep and complex".

Hansel and Gretl Annie Leibovitz

Together with the dry-as-sin hay bales, and the musty scent of the oak tree in the very near distance, Liquorice Vetiver creates a scent-memory that is nothing short of a wonder to behold. Perhaps the child ends the journey by skipping into an old house shuttered against the heat, and empties the pocket into a highly polished and reflective teak platter in the middle of a kitchen table, the chocolate-licorice amalgam blending with the sleek oiled teakwood of the platter, before running upstairs to wash before lunch and a well needed soporific nap in the August heat. Contemporary vernacular would describe it as “small-child-summer-realness”. Absolutely one of the most interesting perfumes I’ve worn in a very long time. Sillage and longevity are off the charts. If you are a vetiver-lover like me, I suspect you will love Liquorice Vetiver. 

Writer’s Note: The SP Parfum website is primarily in German with some English, and so can be challenging to navigate.

Notes: Patchouli, nagarmotha (papyrus), cistrose (rockrose), vetiver, moss, amber, liquorice, green citrus and ylang-ylang accord,  skin-solaire accord: (Ylang ylang, benzoin/styrax, tonka bean extract, musks.)

Disclosure: Many thanks to SP Parfums, Sven Pritzkoleit, and indiescents for supplying the sample. The opinions are my own.

Robert Herrmann, Sr. Contributor

-Art Direction: Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief

Thanks to SP Parfums, Sven Pritzkoleit, and indiescents.com, we have a 30 ml. bottle of Liquorice Vetiver for one registered reader in the US, EU and Canada.  Please be sure to register if you have not done so. To be eligible please leave a comment on what appealed to you about Liquorice Vetiver based on Robert’s review, where you live and a childhood memory of either a favorite candy or autumn. Draw closes 5/8/2017

We announce the winners only on site and on our Facebook page, so like  Cafleurebon and use our RSS feed…or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume.

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26 comments

  • I did enjoy reading the part about the licorice and chocolate combination of this perfume. The licorice note when done right in a fragrance is one of my personal favorites, though I never did care to eat black licorice. As a child I fancied those wax bottles with the colored sugar water quite a lot. US

  • Not too long ago and much to my surprise, I discovered that I like licorice in perfumes. I am curious about Liquorice Vetiver and surprised to find the first listed note as patchouli. I am one of the few people I know that loves black licorice and did even as a kid, but my favorite candy was always Mounds bars – coconut and dark chocolate. Oh ya! Live in the USA.

  • GrandmaGaga says:

    I love this review and before looking over the photographs, I was thinking ‘Hansel & Gretel’! I am a black licorice fiend; I once bought a 12 pound box of black jelly beans ‘for the grandkids’…update: they all love black licorice as much as I do…their parents, not so much. My favorite candy as a child, and until now is ‘Good & Plenty’, pink and white candy-coated black licorice bits. I am in the US.

  • Vetiver is a beautiful material. I was interested in the description of vetiver marries to chocolate, I can’t think of ever experiencing that combination! A childhood autumn scent memory is from a time not that very long ago, when we still had “burning” days when autumn leaves could be burnt in metal containers. It was a bit spooky really, looking back on it but a very vivid memory.
    I’m in Canada, thank you for the draw!

  • Roger Engelhardt says:

    Vetiver is a note that I am absolutely in love with!
    Licorice and chocolate blending with sleek oiled teakwood sounds absolutely inviting. Have been seeing a lot of this line popping up as of late. Would totally love this!
    I am in the USA.
    Thank younfor the draw.

  • fazalcheema says:

    This is intriguing. I learned Sven read works by Roudnitska, Ellena, and Aftel to hone his art. Liquorice Vetiver has teakwood and chocolate notes, too and it is a vetiver creation with quite a longevity and projection. The simiplicity of the bottle reminds me of Parfum D;Empire and some L’Occitane bottles. thanks for the generous draw. I am in the US.

  • In my childhood I really loved to eat licorice. Actually, I still like it. But my favorite candy was the Haribo gummy bears, and I still like it also.
    I enjoyed to read the review. This perfume sounds so interesting, I would very like to try it.
    Thank you for the chance. I live in Europe.

  • I loved and love liquorice. It is a memory of walking home from primary school eating a sherbet fountain via a black and rust coloured liquorice tube. I can easily re-remember the bitter sweet taste that hovers around dark chocolate, fennel seed, or the later flavour from an aniseed sweet.
    Thanks for the review and the chance. UK reader.

  • Liquorice Vetiver seems to be musty and chocolate-liquorice based. If that is the case, then it is for me.
    I don’t have a favourite childhood candy or autumn memory maybe because they were all beautiful, so none popped out.
    I live in Romania.

  • MichelleU says:

    I love liquorice only in fragrances and with vetiver it sounds great! I loved the description of the child in the woods.

    Favorite memory about a candy will always be about cotton candy, it had a mesmorizing scent, tasted great but I hated that is was so sticky.

    I am a reader from the EU! Thank you!

  • I am literary drooling by the description! I love all the notes especially how vetiver is combined with chocolate and licorice. My favorite childhood candies were soft milk caramel chewy candy and the multi flavored O-Mammy caramels by dad used to buy in bulk!
    I am in the UK, thank you for the draw!!

  • what appealed to me about licorice vetiver was all the great notes in fragrance and how described by author.a memory of one my fav candies was gummy bears used to suck on em then throw at car windows and theyd stick .Im in canada,throw me in draw and thnx for giveaway

  • What appealed to me the most is liquorice vetiver sounds like an intriguing take on a green fragrance. I’m a huge gourmand fan and green fragrances are one of my favorites at the moment. A childhood memory was Trick or Treating on Halloween in Autumn. The sound of leaves crunching, the brisk air and eating Halloween Candy is something I cherish dearly. I live in the US. Thank you so much.

  • I love your description, Robert. Especially the melted candies. Your enthusiasm has made me really want to give this one a try. Thanks for the review and draw. USA

  • Liquorice Vetiver sounds really good fragrance. I love this type of vetiver fragrance. The combination of the notes turn it’s very classic. I would love to try it for sure. My favorite memory about a candy will always be my mother making cakes.
    Thanks for the draw. USA 🙂

  • cardinalmind says:

    Vetiver is one of my challenging notes to pull off. As such I’m still looking for the one that will be my staple vetiver scent. ELDO’s Fat Electrician is it right now but hopefully this one can outshine that. A childhood sweets memory of mine is creating chocolate bars from the cocoa themselves with my grandma. Homemade and fresh from the oven, they were fantastic. USA

  • Hikmat Sher Afridi says:

    Wonderful review! These wording are fascinating in the review. Shadowy and cool vibe….Smoke and wood and a vetiver that is bone-dry….licorice and chocolate mingle to create something, at times bitter or sour but also sweet, deep and complex….With the dry-as-sin hay bales, and the musty scent of the oak tree….Sillage and longevity are off the charts.
    Thanks to SP Parfums, Sven Pritzkoleit, & indiescents.com and Cafleurebon for the opportunity to participate in the draw by letting my relative address in US.

  • Although I am not too fond of licorice, vetiver is my favorite note and I’d like to see how this one was created, especially that I’ve seen the chocolate thrown in the mix as well; this should be interesting!
    A childhood memory of a candy would be a kind of sugar drops with cocoa powder on top.
    I live in EU.

  • rodelinda says:

    A perfume that captures the smell of playing in the woods while snacking on candy sounds delightful, even if black liquorice isn’t a candy I ever reach for. As a young child, I stayed with my grandparents while my parents were out of town on a trip. I brought a bag of candy circus peanuts with my for my stay, and I can remember letting myself eat one circus peanut a day until my parents returned, I guess as a way to mark the passage of time. I’d never have that kind of self-control around candy these days. I’m in the US. Thanks!

  • ntabassum92 says:

    What a sweet review. I love chocolate scents, so of course this intrigued me. I also love anything that reminds me of the bliss of childhood, running outdoors and being carefree. I am in the US. One of my favorite candies growing up were warheads – I loved how sour they were! I also loved the relieving sweetness after all the citric acid had been sucked off. Delicious!

  • Iuno Feronia says:

    Thanks for this Review and for the presentation of this perfume. It seems to be a very Special perfume, chocolate and liquorice melting together in the Wood. I love this Picture. In my childhood I remember summer days spent in the Woods and in the cool lakes playing and hidng and bathing all togehter. I love and loved wine gums.
    Thanks for the draw, I live in the EU.

  • Licorice is a childhood memory of disgust. The funny thing is the older I got the more I began to crave this silky black indulgence. Now its something that I cannot live without and with the memory of my grandfather… How wonderful it would be if the perfumer could really capture this sweet dark spiced aroma. Thank You for a chance of winning this Fragrance! I do live in the US…

  • I love all things licorice! Only the black kind thank you, none of that strange red stuff. Chocolate and licorice sound very interesting together and I love vetiver. I’m in the US.

  • Sven world is a world of contrasts, and Liquorice Vetiver promises to continue on that line!
    Liquorice candies were a part of my childhood, expecially the rolled up liquorice strings so common in Italy.
    I live in Italy.

  • RoseMacaroon says:

    Bone-dry hay bales and musty oak, i would love to get a whiff of this combo (obviousky LOVE vetiver and licorice!). Small-child-summer-realness could be the most accurate description of my current spiritual quest…
    Thanks so much for the dratheI’m in yhe US.