Candy Eau de Parfum

Prada Candy was, when it launched in 2011, a genuine risk. Gourmand perfumery at the time meant fruit and sugar; Prada's answer was to build a fragrance almost entirely from three heavy, unfashionable materials and let them do all the work. Daniela Roche-Andrier, the perfumer Prada credits by name and who has shaped most of the house's fragrance identity, composed it around caramel, benzoin and musk, and then used them at concentrations that made the result feel closer to a niche experiment than a mainstream launch.

Prada's own listing describes the structure simply: silky white musk at the top, rich benzoin resin at the heart, and a sweet caramel accord with vanilla in the base. That description undersells how unusual the balance is. The musk is powdery and enveloping rather than clean, so the fragrance opens soft instead of sharp. Benzoin is the pivot, a balsamic resin with a natural vanilla and cinnamon warmth that gives Candy its faintly medicinal, almost church-like undertone and stops it collapsing into dessert. The caramel is burnt rather than buttery, closer to toffee left slightly too long than to icing, and it fuses with the vanilla into a base that lasts most of a day. Prada classifies it in the amber vanilla family rather than as a fruity gourmand, and that is the honest description.

It is a cold-weather fragrance in the main. On a Highveld winter evening it is at its best, the resin reading warm against cold air, while in humid coastal summer it turns heavy quickly. It reads young in the advertising and considerably less young on skin, and plenty of people who dislike sweet fragrances on principle make an exception for this one.

Performance is very good. Eight to ten hours on skin is typical. The opening pair of hours push a strong cloud, and a close warm caramel and benzoin drydown follows. It also holds on fabric for days. Prada has built several relatives around it over the years, so make sure you are testing the original eau de parfum rather than one of its lighter siblings, because they are not interchangeable.