Freebie-Man: DNKY Be Delicious Kisses Review

Apprentice candidate Alex Wotherspoon lost this years competition for one simple reason. His product was fantastic (a two part container where you could clip off a small sample and carry it around with you). It was even labelled by an industry expert as the most innovative product he had seen in his whole career. But the simple fact was he was told it would cost too much to produce and the cheap nasty bottle of his rivals won the day.

Now hang on a second. Isn’t the perfume industry entirely dominated by fantastic designs? Kenzo, Dior, and let’s not forget the great man/woman bottles of Jean Paul Gauttier. All fantastic diffusers, all good sellers, all stand out due to their bottles. This website even shows antiques dating back centuries so this is nothing new.

DKNY know this too, and their ‘Be Delicious’ apple shaped bottle has been doing the rounds now for a couple of years, never really needing changing because of it’s unique shape. This season DKNY have launched a new Kisses version of the iconic design. For those unacquainted with the design it features a silver finish on top and an apple tone colour on the bottom, for this limited edition that’s a gala redish pink. They’ve even gone to the trouble of adding a sticker on top, just to create the air of apple-esque branding.

The downside of new bottles (and don’t worry I’ll get to the smell in a minute) is that they often contain unique firing mechanisms in order to allow you to apply the perfume in their containers. A friend of mine broke an entire bottle of Issey Miyake trying to faff around with the applicator, so these things do matter. I too have been down the curved bottle route once before with Hugo Boss, Boss in Motion and found it to be a confusing fumble on every application.

Boss in Motion’s downfall, was really because they placed the application button on the bottom of the bottle. So whenever you fancied a spray you were in effect pushing the bottle away from you (this was quite a stiff button too) and at the same time holding it down. DKNY have seen sense by placing their button on the top, mere centimetres away from the spray itself. So a quick press (on a light, easy to push button) does make it very easy to apply the perfume.

So they’ve got the design, and the mechanism but it’s not quite perfect. Rather than a nice diffused spray because of the force required inside the bottle you can be left with a single thick spray. The amount that comes out is pretty consistent each time as well, so you can’t freestyle a little bit here, a lot there etc. Not really a deal breaker but something to think of for the next redesign.

It may seem odd that I’ve rambled on about the bottle so long, but the reality of it is, this is a great design and it needs to be fully explored. Often the practical applications of these things are overlooked and for the most part DKNY Be Delicious is right on the money. The smell itself almost seem redundant to these things but it’s no afterthought either. Like the best perfumes it varies from application, to the start of the evening and almost embodies something else by the end.

It starts off as a rich apple, grape and cucumber scent, like a sweet delicious smoothie ready for the drinking. Over time that only develops further and you can pluck smells of flowers out of the air, DKNY tells us these are Rose, Violet and White Muget but you don’t need a press release to tell you this rose would smell just as sweet had you not even known it were there.

All of this combines to bring together a superb scent of summer. You truly can’t appreciate it sniffing at a 8 x 2 card in a perfume shop, so go out, get a good spray and take it for a road test. It’s the perfect perfume to use for a holiday, knowing that every time you smell it again you’ll be taken back to those moments, reminded of summer. Even smelling it now I feel a little care free, almost ready to drift off to sleep in some exotic massage parlour.

I can still smell it now. Making we want to sleep. Making me want to take in all the smells and just re..l….a….x..…….
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