The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Necco Sweethearts Call Me arrived in 2008 as part of a collaboration between Demeter Fragrance Library and Necco, the confectionery company behind those tiny pastel candy hearts stamped with messages like "Be Mine" and "Call Me." Demeter had become known for its wide catalog of novelty scents, a library that cataloged all manner of smells into wearable form. The Necco partnership was a natural fit: take a nostalgic candy and turn its flavor into something you could spray. Call Me was one of several scents in the Necco Sweethearts lineup, a collection that translated the look and flavor of the candy hearts into fragrance. The idea wasn't complicated. Take a confection people already had associations with, isolate its sweetness, and bottle it.
What's interesting about the composition is how Demeter built sweetness without leaning on the usual gourmand heavyweights. The candy impression comes from lemon zest layered with honeysuckle and white rose, giving it a floral-fruity brightness rather than a baked-goods warmth. The lemon zest does the heavy lifting up top, sharp and sugary in a way that mimics the citric tang of a chalky candy. Beneath that, the honeysuckle brings a warm, almost ambered sweetness that feels more flower than frosting.
The evolution
Call Me opens with a bright hit of lemon zest that reads almost tart, like biting into a piece of citrus candy before the sugar kicks in. The honeysuckle pushes forward, warm and honeyed, and the white rose and jasmine step in to soften everything into a creamy white-floral cloud. The lotus keeps a cool current underneath, preventing it from turning cloying. The citrus fades as the floral-gourmand core takes over, and the whole thing drifts into a sweet, powdery, slightly soapy register that it holds onto for hours. The lotus remains present throughout the wear, that aquatic thread keeping the heavier florals from collapsing into something too dense. On fabric the sweetness tends to linger, faint but still recognizable well after application. On skin the drydown is quieter, a soft floral trace that sits close rather than projecting outward.
Cultural impact
Call Me sits within Demeter's playful catalog of concept scents, a brand that treats fragrance as novelty and nostalgia rather than luxury. One user compared its sticky sweetness to Serge Lutens' Daim Blond, a stretch that says more about the sugar level than the craftsmanship. The Necco Sweethearts collaboration licensed a piece of American candy history into a wearable format, and the fragrance doesn't take itself seriously, and that's the point. There's no pretense here. No oud hidden under the sweetness, no base note waiting to complicate the picture. Just lemon and lotus and rose, arranged to smell like the candy it's named after.
