Carolina Herrera’s Iconic Bad Boy Strikes Again
Carolina Herrera x SHARP
Carolina Herrera’s storied history has, in large part, been built upon its reputation for crafting some of the finest and most intricate leatherwork in the world. The house’s selection of the materials is second to none, from mocán to sequoia, napa to nogal, each hide is expertly inspected before being cut, hand-stitched, and stamped with the House of Herrera seal.
As such, leather’s influence strikes elsewhere in the Carolina Herrera collection. While its tactility may be celebrated through accessories, its aroma — sensual, almost earthy — can be found bottled in the latest edition of the brand’s overwhelmingly popular Bad Boy scent series. Carolina Herrera Bad Boy Elixir is an olfactory ode to the brand’s leatherworking legacy. The cologne (technically a “fougère,” as it belongs to a perfume family of “green” scents) has a complex heart of refined leather, a tapestry of the same rich, smoky notes that surely swirl about the brand’s Galician workshop.
“The leatherwork in Carolina Herrera is refined and elegant and reflects the extraordinary craftsmanship of our workshops in Spain, that preserve and promote a very relevant material tradition,” explains Carolina A. Herrera, daughter of the eponymous brand founder and the company’s current beauty creative director. “Bad Boy Elixir is the most elegant and elevated fragrance of the family, and the link to our leatherwork workshops is encapsulated in an amazing leather accord with a warm and sexy facet. It makes a strong first impression, just like our bags, and then it evolves in a very comfortable way, melts on the skin creating a luxurious halo of contemporary masculinity.”
The leather scent is also bolstered by a suite of supporting notes including nutty tonka bean and dark, fragrant cocoa. Perfumers Quentin Bisch and Louise Turner also added both a musky top note of sage and a firm, balsamic base of cedar wood to further elevate the essence of leather.
“Creating this fragrance that reinvents the myth of the rebel.”
Carolina Herrera on Bad Boy Elixir.
Of course, Elixir is underpinned by touches of the original Bad Boy fragrance. Launched in 2019, the Bad Boy collection has become an iconic part of the Carolina Herrera brand (in 2022, Bad Boy Cobalt introduced a lighter, more floral twist on the scent with notes of geranium and vetiver). This time, however, the zest of tangy green bergamot, a central note in the original Bad Boy, is back for Elixir — paired with the sugar and spice of mandarin and hot black pepper. Each spritz signs off with a twist of calming, delicate lavandin (a hybrid cousin of lavender) and an intense hit of incense.
“Creating this fragrance that reinvents the myth of the rebel, we’ve revamped the whole idea of fougère, the olfactory backbone of masculine perfumery,” says Herrera. “It’s classic and cutting-edge all at once.”
Together, these notes deliver a fragrance as mysterious as it is powerful. It certainly has a softer, more seductive side — similar to Carolina Herrera’s newly launched women’s fragrance, Very Good Girl Elixir — but Bad Boy Elixir always manages to maintain its masculinity, evoking both the brand’s history of leatherworking and the warm wake of a thunderous Galician storm.
It’s fitting, then, that the bottle also continues Bad Boy’s lightning strike streak. This latest bottle (the bold bolt design has previously been coloured blue, purple, and gleaming gold) is also influenced by leather, featuring cross-fading shades of amber and deep brown. The gravity-defying design has always been a feat of sculptural ingenuity, but this is perhaps the most sophisticated it has ever looked, with dark angular edges and an understated gold stand. A burnished bottle for the strongest, smoothest Bad Boy yet.
The post Carolina Herrera’s Iconic Bad Boy Strikes Again appeared first on Sharp Magazine.
