Starlicious Mist Berry Licorice Eau de Toilette

Berry Licorice was released in 2026 with the other two Starlicious, three eaux de toilette that Mugler designed to be worn alone or combined. Of the three, it is the one that departs most from straightforward sweetness: its neighbors stay with pineapple and coconut for one, pistachio and caramel for the other, while this one reaches for licorice.

Licorice in perfumery almost never comes from the root, which smells of earth and cooked sugar more than the black stick chewed as a child. What is recognized under this name owes mainly to anethole, also found in anise and fennel: a cold, slightly bitter smell, with a medicinal edge. Anethole is in fact listed on the label. Placing it in the base under a red fruity accord is an unusual choice, where a vanilla or a musk would usually be set to round things off.

Above it, the strawberry-raspberry duo does most of the work. Strawberry gives volume and roundness, raspberry a sharper acidity that keeps the accord from settling. Freesia sits between the two: a white flower with a peppery, slightly fruity smell, it lightens without weighing down, and here plays the role of a hinge more than an autonomous heart.

The whole is short and openly so: a low-concentration eau de toilette, made to be reapplied through the day rather than worn in one stretch. Licorice is placed in the base, which puts the contrast at the end rather than at the start: the berries attack, the bitterness waits. It is a warm-season fragrance, one that does not seek complexity and does not need it to make its point.