Roja Dove — Bisous Bisous
Essence
A 2025 cherry-lavandin-amber parfum from Roja’s Pierre de Velay collection, exclusive to the Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie at the Burlington Arcade and to Harrods. It is one of three entries in the Pierre de Velay “Love Trilogy,” alongside Amour and Chou, and the brand classifies it as a fruity, aromatic amber built around cherry, lavandin, and amber under the tagline “Radiant & Rebellious: A Kiss Returned.” What makes it stand out in the Roja lineup is that it is a genuine cherry-amber gourmand rather than the house’s usual opulent-vintage floral or oud: a cherry-blackcurrant-lavandin opening floating over a candyfloss-vanilla-mossy-amber base.
Scent Profile
The opening is bright and aromatic-fruity. Lavandin - the cultivated lavender hybrid, cleaner and less herbal-medicinal than English lavender - leads, paired with bergamot, lemon, mandarin, and clary sage. That clary-sage-and-lavandin chord reads almost masculine for the first few minutes before the cherry arrives within ten to fifteen minutes and changes the whole picture. The cherry is the most distinctive material here: not the maraschino-medicinal cherry of Tom Ford Lost Cherry, nor the artificial syrup of designer flankers, but a rounder, more powdered, almondy cherry with a faint benzaldehyde-marzipan facet. The heart, roughly one to three hours in, is the cherry-blackcurrant-geranium phase with the lavandin still audible underneath. Blackcurrant adds a tart, leafy edge that keeps the cherry from turning syrupy, while geranium lends a rosy-green lift. The signature accord - almondy cherry over candyfloss and lavandin - settles in as the fragrance’s defining character. The cotton-candy note is unusually restrained for a Roja gourmand, sweet but never cloying, closer to a Parisian-patisserie sugar thread than an American carnival treat. The drydown, from about three hours on, resolves into a dry-woody-amber chord of cedar, sandalwood, dry woods, moss, and amber. The cherry persists faintly but turns into a powdered-fruit-amber memory, and the vanilla reads creamy rather than custardy. After six hours or so it sits close to the skin as a clean amber-musk with a fruity-floral shimmer. This is one of the more visibly evolving Roja gourmands, with low linearity and a clear arc from aromatic opening to patisserie heart to dry amber base.
Performance
Projection is light to moderate, and that is the main thing wearers wish were stronger. Sillage is arms-length for the first two to three hours and intimate after that. Longevity runs roughly six to eight hours on skin before it fades to a skin scent, but it holds noticeably longer on clothing, where reports stretch to nine or ten hours. It behaves better in cool, dry weather than in humid heat, and the candyfloss-amber base takes body warmth well without turning sticky. This is a fragrance that rewards generous application: five to six sprays across several spots is the strategy enthusiasts repeatedly recommend.
Wearing Context
Best in autumn, winter, and early spring; the cherry-lavandin-amber chord is too warm for true summer heat. It leans toward late afternoon and evening, where the cherry-candyfloss reads more sophisticated in low light than in daylight. It shines at date-night, dinner, cocktail hour, and intimate evening gatherings, and falls flat in athletic or bright daytime settings, in summer heat, and in formal-business contexts where it is simply too fragrance-forward. It skews unisex with a feminine tilt: the brand markets it for women, but the lavandin-clary-sage opening gives it masculine ballast, and male wearers report wearing it comfortably. It reads young to mid-adult, sweet without being juvenile.
Comparisons & DNA
Within Roja, the natural reference points are Chou, the earlier 2025 cherry-gourmand precursor in the same Love Trilogy, and Amour, the trilogy’s third member; Bisous sits between the two in sweetness. Across Roja’s broader gourmand catalog, Lost in Paris (2024) shares the candyfloss-vanilla sensibility over a very different orange-crepe-suzette fruit, Aoud Extraordinaire (2024) is sweeter, fruitier, and less aromatic, and Sweetie Aoud (2015) is smokier, denser, and far more intense as a gourmand. The most-named external comparison is Tom Ford Lost Cherry, which is heavier and more maraschino-forward - Bisous is the more refined, lavandin-led cousin of that same fruit. Kilian Love Don’t Be Shy is sweeter with an orange-blossom emphasis, and Initio Side Effect is denser and more boozy-tobacco-rum. No designer or Middle-Eastern clone has appeared yet, a reflection of the release’s recency and limited boutique exclusivity. Its lineage traces to the early Pierre de Velay collection - vintage-formula reinterpretations Roja drew from a perfumery-formula notebook discovered in a South of France market - but it is oriented toward modern gourmand rather than retro floral.
Reception
Reception is early and split. The enthusiastic camp praises the cherry treatment as unusually beautiful and rounded, singles out the transition from cherry into candyfloss-vanilla, and welcomes a gourmand done with this much confidence from Roja. The critical camp finds the price hard to justify and notes that the performance is not proportional to the cost. As of mid-2026 no major critic has published a dedicated review, and enthusiast-forum discussion remains limited and skews skeptical on value. The practical consensus is that this is a sample-first or test-in-boutique purchase rather than a blind buy, given the pricing and recency.
Versions & Reformulation
A single composition with no known reformulations.
Acquisition Notes
This sits in the niche-luxury tier with a steep boutique premium. The 100ml parfum is £495 at the Roja Dove Perfumery in the Burlington Arcade, with a 10ml atomiser at £75; there is no official EUR or USD price, as the Pierre de Velay collection is exclusive to the Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie. A “Bisous Love Trilogy Set” is also offered at £495. The decant market is minimal given the boutique exclusivity, with only intermittent small-decant listings. Buy directly from the Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie at the Burlington Arcade or via rojadoveperfumery.com; the standard Roja sites do not carry the Pierre de Velay line.
Notable Facts & Lore
- The Pierre de Velay collection grows out of a well-known Roja Dove anecdote: in a market in the South of France he discovered a little book of perfume formulae inscribed with the name Pierre de Velay, and used them as the inspiration for a collection now coveted by fragrance lovers worldwide.
- The collection has run since 2013, and Bisous is among its most recent additions and the first to depart sharply from the original vintage-formula mandate.
- The name - French for “kisses,” the customary double-cheek greeting - was chosen because cherries, the fragrance’s central note, always come in pairs.
- The Love Trilogy framing of Bisous, Chou, and Amour was introduced in 2025 as a way to sell the three either individually or as a set.
- Enthusiasts also noted a quiet downgrade: the wooden presentation box used for earlier Pierre de Velay releases was replaced with an elaborate cardboard one for this release, though the hand-signed Roja Dove signature on each bottle remains.