The New York Dolls with groupies, c. 1970s

Bebe. Anita. Pamela. Sable. Teens with innocent eyes, knowing smiles, tumbling hair and hotpants, and a rock star on either arm. These are the groupies, the lovers, the trendsetters, the muses, the hands that rocked and rolled the cradle of downtown LA. This is the 70s, baby, sex is the drug, and these girls are the queens of the glam rock kingdom. Room 1015 Hollyrose pays them tribute in their new rose-and-leather fragrance.

Yeah, well I’m not such a sweet thing
I wanna do everything
What a beautiful feeling
Crimson and clover over and over— Crimson and Clover (Tommy James and Peter Lucia, version by Joan Jett)

Room 1015 Michael Partouche at Esxence 2015 March 27, 2015 Photo: Michelyn

There are goth roses, butch roses, girlish roses, granny roses, femme fatale roses, but Room 1015 Hollyrose is the first glam rock rose I’ve come across: equal parts over-the-top femme flower and rough roadie leather. Room 1015 founder and creative director Dr. Mike, a pharmacist-cum rocker, describes Hollyrose as “a black leather rose,” and, in its first stage, the fragrance is just that.

Sable Starr and Stiv Bators of The Dead Boys

 Fewer perfumers know how to dirty up a flower with gorgeous results better than Jerome Epinette who composed this fragrance in 2017. Room 1015 Hollyrose starts out as a very female saturated rose, lolling around on a leather jacket from last night’s bar, with remnants of ashtray and hookah smoke. When I first sniffed Hollyrose, I thought it was a big fluffy bunny of a rose, all pillowy, lipstick sweetness. But splashing it on more generously, that badboy leather kicks open the door, grabs Little Miss Rose and pulls her into a dark corner while a New York Dolls lick reverbs from the dance floor speakers.

Lori Maddox and Shray Mecham for Star Magazine©

The leather and rose play off each like a guitar riff, each amping and harmonizing with the other: the rose remains lush and girlish; the leather is louche, smoky, the kind of long-haired badboy your parents warned you about. While these two are making out in the corner, a weird purple note – blackcurrant — adds a deliciously strange touch as it mixes with a spike of black pepper; not quite fruity, not quite sweet, but a little of both plus some booze and licorice. It’s like someone spiked one of those fruity crème de cassis cocktails suburban girls ordered back in the day with a jigger of absinthe.

Bebe Buell with daughter Liv Tyler, photo by Michael Ochs, 1980©

The rose and leather hang start to back a bit as the black pepper-blackcurrant chord loudens. Some dry patchouli sweeps in about now, smudging up the affair with trails of dead smoke and earth, like the wake of a cape. In a few moments, everyone is on the dance floor. Rose, leather, pepper and blackcurrant shimmy around each other, each note clearly delineated but grooving with its playmates.

Pamela des Barres with the band GTOS c. 1970s

Drying down, Room 1015 Hollyrose remains a smoky leather/roughed-up rose with a voluptuous heart. It is deliciously, inappropriately lovely, yet with enough restraint to be rocked by bad girls (Sarah Colton, are you writing this down?) and boys alike in polite company. Get your fringe and lamé out, crank up some early Bowie, turn on the black light and dab on some Hollyrose. 1974 is calling.

Notes: Black Pepper, Blackcurrant, Rose Absolute, Orchid, Tuscan Leather, Patchouli

Disclaimer: Sample of Hollyrose kindly provided by Twisted Lily – many thanks. My opinions are my own.

–Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor

Room 1015 Hollyrose

Thanks to the generosity of Amerikas, U.S. distributor for Room 1015, we have a tester unused  bottle of  Room 1015 Hollyrose for one registered reader in the U.S. to be eligible, please leave a comment saying what appealed to you about Hollyrose based on Lauryn’s review, and who your favourite glam rock band is. Draw closes 3/19/2018.

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