Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Cafe Noir was created in 1997 and has been a perennial favorite for years. Inspired by a dark, late Paris night, a late concert, smoke-filled rooms, coffee and jazz. It contains 99% botanical ingredients. Notes of bergamot, black pepper, Bulgarian rose otto, cinnamon bark, coffee absolute, jasmine, pimento berry, tolu and vanilla. It is an eau de parfum, edp. This scent lands in the amber spicy category of fragrances.
From EauMG - "It has smoky incense like copal rich sweetness with grounding notes of vanilla, labdanum, and balsam. It is like being in a room where incense was once burning. It is slightly smoky but mostly you get the sweetness of the smoke floating through the air. I can not imagine my perfume collection without Cafe Noir in it."
From Take One Thing Off - "it ends up being a more relaxed, easier perfume to wear. The use of tolu balsam, a favorite ingredient of Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, is especially clever because this is a spicy, warm-toned balsam with clear cinnamon-like facets that shades in the areas underneath the coffee topnote, leaving you with the impression of coffee sprinkled with spice."
Fragrantica: "It's a work of art. The first wave of fragrance is boozy, rich, and sharp. It's a fantastic hit of spice, specifically cinnamon, which is lovely and warm. The coffee is freshly brewed. That immediately dissipates and morphs into something a bit darker. The smokiness is delectable. It simmers and simmers down further into your skin. This is the smell of leather rubbed hard by booze stained hands, collecting the fallen ashes of a lit cigar. The hot dry tobacco leaves mingle with smoke, resin and "amber". There is the faint memory of coffee, what it feels to smell coffee and not to smell it directly."
Fragrantica: "I’d recommend this outstanding perfume to fans of coffee fragrances in particular who dig a somewhat spicy, slightly floral but still sweet/creamy/resinous take. "
