Illamasqua Freak Eau de Parfum Review
Illamasqua Freak Eau de Parfum
Illamasqua Freak Eau de Parfum
Illamasqua Freak Eau de Parfum (£59.00 for 75 ml) is the first developed and launched by Illamasqua. I received a sample (so the bottle pictured above is a lab sample or decant, not representative of the actual packaging). The top notes include Black Davana, Opium Flower, and Belladonna. The heart notes include Poison Hemlock, Datura, and Queen of the Night blossom. The base notes include Frankincense, Oud, and Myrrh.
Initially, it’s woody and floral, with the strength of the floral carrying the scent for the first half hour to hour of wear. The florals sweeten and lighten a little from Queen of the Night blossom after it opens but the general tone of the fragrance is still darker and heavier. It stays sweet and floral for another hour before it transitions into the next stage, where the base notes tend to resonate more. I prefer the scent as it moves into those later stages, because it becomes more resinous with an underlying smokiness. For me, it was still floral but less so but shaped by hints of incense and a toned down sweetness.
It has a fair amount of sillage, leaving a trail of scent behind the wearer; it’s not overwhelming, but there’s a faint hint that follows. If I only spritz on my wrists, the sillage is minimized, but if you do full body sprays, you might want to save this one for nights on rather than for the office. Three hours into wear, it was still at full strength, but it seems faded and subtler by the fifth hour yet still lingering after eight hours of wear.
Freak is set to launch at select Sephora and SpaceNK stores in November, but I don’t have the price point yet.
I had to chuckle a bit reading the ingredients list of this fragrance. It sounds like the ingredients for a witch’s brew! hehe Sounds like it would be a heady fragrance, but interesting. I’ll have to give it a sniff at Sephora sometime when it launches. Great review Christine. So thorough as always. 🙂
Hahahha!! I thought same thing! That made my day!
I’m so excited for this, it’ll be my first ever full size perfume! It’s £59 at the Illamasqua online pre-order page, if that helps ppl estimate the price 🙂
About the sillage – I’m not perfume savvy at all, but if I do a one-spray full body spray, if you get what I mean, do you think it’ll still be too heavy for daytime? Usually, I do either that or spray on a wrist, rub it on the other wrist, and then rub my wrists behind my ears… Does that sound like it’d be ok?
I think you could still wear it on your wrists and the like for day time 🙂
Will sample bottles be available for purchase on their website? I can’t imagine anyone just ordering this without having a sniff first!
I was wondering, (and this is probably a question that could be answered differently depending on the individual), but when you say floral, heavy and kind of sweet, I immediatly think of an older lady’s perfume; please tell me that’s not accurate for this one!
Hi Violet!
I don’t think they’re doing samples, at least not that I know of!
No, definitely not old lady!!
Thanks for the answer!
Sooo interested. I need to smell this next month!
Anything floral, I will try! I can’t wait for this to be released so I can run to Sephora and try it!!
So many fragrances now smell the same – I’d imagine (hope!) they would come up with something new and distinctive.
Can anyone finish this sentence: “You will love ‘Freak’ if you liked scents like……”? I’m very curious, but I live far away from any store (country), that carries Illamasqua.
Thankyou very much for the review! I am excited to try this, hopefully it will arrive on Sephora.com soon. For some sad reason my local Sephora store does’nt care Illamasqua. I have not tried an “Oud” based
perfume. Is it very prominent in this fragrance? Do you like this or Tom Ford’s Oud Wood better? I have been hearing so much about “Oud” I really want to try a fragrance with this component. Does anyone know how I can try Tom Ford’s Oud Wood with out buying a whole bottle?
The price is a little lofty. Thankyou,Beck =o)
Oud Wood is more my style, and I wouldn’t describe this as an oud scent, though there’s a bit there. You can try the Perfume Court 🙂
Still waiting for this to get re-stocked on Sephora.com. I missed the first round they had up on Sephora.com, it sold out so fast! I am really excited to try it as I am getting really bored with my other perfumes. I saw Sephora deleted two negative reviews for Freak on the website. A little bummed that they would do that but I guess it’s bad for business. I think I am going to enjoy it based on most of the feedback.