Kilian Playing With The Devil (Batch 2019)

Perfumer Calice Becker created Kilian Playing With The Devil in 2013 as part of the brand's Garden of Good and Evil chapter, and it remains one of the most openly seductive entries in the By Kilian catalogue. It is an Eau de Parfum built around ripe stone fruit, spiced florals, and a warm oriental base that reads as unapologetically feminine without being soft. Aromatica carries the Kilian Playing With The Devil decant in Bangladesh in all available sizes, so you can test it properly.

Fragrance Notes

Top: Black Currant, White Peach, Litchi, Blood Orange

Heart: Pimento, Pepper, Rose, Jasmine

Base: Vanilla, Sandalwood, Patchouli, Cedar, Benzoin, Tonka Bean

Full note breakdown on Fragrantica.

The Scent

Blood orange arrives first, cutting through with a bright, slightly tart spark, then litchi and white peach rush in and the whole accord turns plush and sweet within seconds. It reads less like individual fruits and more like a single ripe, sunlit impression that feels expensive rather than sugary. Black currant adds a faintly green, jammy undercurrent that keeps the opening from tipping into candy territory. In the first ten minutes, this is genuinely beautiful fruit work, the kind that makes you stop and think about what you are smelling. The fruit notes hold together with a coherence that suggests each ingredient was chosen to reinforce the others rather than compete: the peach softens the tartness of the blood orange, the litchi adds a floral-adjacent sweetness, and the black currant threads a subtle edge through all of it.

The transition into the heart begins subtly, with rose pushing up through the fruit layer rather than replacing it. The rose is jammy and warm, not fresh-cut, which makes sense next to the litchi. Pimento and pepper arrive shortly after, and the spice can read as elegant, sharpening the accord and delivering the edge the name promises, or it can sit a little assertively against the soft fruit top for a few minutes depending on skin. By the forty-minute mark the pepper settles, jasmine opens alongside the rose, and the floral heart becomes the dominant character. The jasmine deepens the sweetness without going indolic, and the two florals together feel lush and rounded. As the fruit notes pull back further, the floral-spice accord reaches its clearest expression: warm, rounded petals laced with a low hum of pepper that no longer fights the sweetness but frames it. The shift from the opening to this mid-stage is one of the more satisfying transitions in this style of perfumery, moving from brightness to depth without any abrupt break. The pepper's role shifts from provocateur to partner, and the jasmine brings out a honeyed quality in the rose that was only hinted at during the fruit-forward opening.

Heading into the dry-down, the fruit notes fade entirely and sandalwood and vanilla move forward. The base is warm, creamy, and genuinely enveloping. Benzoin adds a faint balsamic resin quality that prevents the sweetness from going flat. Tonka bean contributes a soft, slightly almond-like roundness, and patchouli stays quiet, providing depth without earthiness. Cedar appears mostly as structure, giving the base a faint, clean edge beneath the creamier materials. The overall dry-down is smooth and skin-close, a warm oriental character that feels intimate rather than loud. This is a fragrance where the opening wears quite differently from what lands on skin in the later stages, and both phases are worth experiencing on their own terms.

When to Wear

Playing With The Devil is built for autumn and winter evenings, the kind worn to dinner, a date, or a night out when the air is cold and you want something warm and enveloping to follow you around the room. The fruity opening makes it accessible enough for early evening occasions, while the spiced floral heart and vanilla-sandalwood base carry well into the night. Browse the Dates | Nights collection at Aromatica for more fragrances in this register.

Who Is It For

Someone who gravitates toward rich oriental florals with a fruit-forward opening and who wants something with obvious character rather than quiet restraint will find this a natural fit. It is not a background fragrance.

If you enjoy Love, don't be shy, which shares Kilian's signature sweet-floral-oriental DNA, Playing With The Devil is the spicier, fruitier counterpart worth trying side by side. Browse the full Kilian collection at Aromatica.

Available as an authentic decant in Bangladesh at Aromatica in 3ml, 5ml, and 9ml.