Is It Fall Yet?

I'm really looking forwards to autumn this year.

I love the beginning of summer, when everything leafs up, I get to start working on my garden, watching my flowers and rosebushes bloom and the smell of fresh cut grass. By August, though, it's usually blast-furnace hot, dead lawns and drowning in my own sweat. Nighttimes are still wonderful, if they're cool enough, and if the mosquitoes aren't too bad. This year they're awful (I'm allergic to chemical bug sprays and especially DEET) and with West Nile Virus being so bad this year (60 reported cases in humans in Ohio this year, with infected mosquitoes being found only a few blocks from where I live), I'm not spending nearly as much time outside after sunset as I might like. They call it the 'dog-days of summer', though my dogs spend this time of year glued to the air conditioner. This summer was an odd one, starting out wet then ending up super-dry and hot. Also the pollen has been bad, so I've been in an anti-histamine induced coma for most of it. I've yet to find an anti-histamine that doesn't turn me into a zombie, even in the smallest doses, but I've really got no choice.

Ah well. The saddest part about super hot, sweaty weather is that so many of my favourite scents are just too heavy for the weather. What smells like heaven on a balmy day can be pretty nauseating when the heat index starts being measured in Kelvin. Even Lassi, a definite go-to scent, can be a bit too clingy on a really hot day. I do have a couple of favourites for summer,though, and I relied heavily on them through most of August.

Solstice Scents Linen and Ivy: Fresh sun-washed linens hanging on the clothesline in the spring breeze meets crisp green top notes of English ivy and a touch of new green spring leaves.
From their spring collection and I'd call their description dead on. It's bright, clean and fresh with just a hint of green. It smells like clean sheets drying on a clothesline on a bright, summer day. 

like this

Solstice Scents Gulf Breeze: Gulf Breeze smells like sand, salt, wind and ocean. It is crisp, clean and refreshing and is a wonderful unisex fragrance. Imagine standing on a dock as a storm is about to roll in...the air is thick with energy and as the sky turns grey you are splashed with salty spray from the gulf. This is the scent of Gulf Breeze. It is a very fresh and oceany fragrance with aslight hint of rain and a dominant note of seaspray.
From the summer line. This is a very wet, beachy smell.* A bit salty, very fresh and very, very wet. It clings to you without being cloying and you can almost feel the wet sand between your toes. Like Linen and Ivy, it smells fresh and clean. It's very similar to Tenebrous Mist, but lighter and sweeter.

Both these smells start out strong then slowly fade into your skin before you have a chance to be overwhelmed by them. Just about the time you forget you're wearing perfume you'll get a sudden whiff and think: "Oh, what's that wonderful smell? -oh, right, it's me!" That's perfect on a hot day when you don't want your fragrance to envelope you.

HoG Madcap Garden: A lively blend, pure black tea chilled with peppermint and the tiniest spike of sweet honey. Very unisex, stimulating, addictive, and bright.
Mint tea and honey. Pretty straightforwards, a nice fresh, invigorating blend that almost makes you forget how much you hate hot weather.** The tea and the honey ground the mint and give it body, while the mint convinces your brain that you're not as sweaty and miserable as you thought you were. Really good when I have to be out of the air conditioning for awhile.

HoG Insalata Nocturna: In the night garden, green Bolivian lemon, rubbed tomato leaf, olive leaf absolute, black fig syrup and basil.
This started out as a summer scent but it was so popular it got added to the regular line. It smells green and gardeny with bright citrus overtones. Like being transported to a greenhouse while sipping a lemonade. It's deliciously leafy and bright without being sweet.

Solstice Scents Summer Garden: Summer Garden is a blend of green and bright scents inspired by plants and vegetables that grow seasonally and year round in our garden. The fragrance is that of rubbed tomato leaf, grass and lettuce with a heavy dose of petitgrain.
New for summer this year, and amazing. If you liked HoG's Insulata Nocturna, you will almost certainly like Summer Garden. It's the same green, herbaceous 'I've been working in the vegetable garden' scent only greener and less citrussy. Breathing this in smells exactly like the smell of tomato leaves and herbs on a summer day. It's rich and evocative, but not too heavy. It's also on sale right now, so I recommend checking it out.

SteamBath Factory Time Traveller: tingly mint and fresh cut thyme whirling through time and space...
This is the part where I confess my shameful love of bad puns and word play. I hope you still respect me. I have this in spray mist, which means I can spray it into my hair and on my clothes and not have to worry about sweating it off.  It's mint and thyme. Nothing fancy but very fresh, bright and invigorating. It's a wonderful counter to that hot asphalt smell of summer. I also have the lotion version so I can layer it, which I rarely do in the summer. This scent is light and fresh enough that I don't get 'nose overload', though. As a bonus "A large portion of SBF handmade bath and body sales provide food, medical care & shelter to homeless cats." So not only do I smell good when I wear it, I feel good, too.

The best part about all these scents is that they are pretty much unisex. None of them are overwhelmingly feminine, and would smell great on just about anybody.



*minus the dead fish that beaches always seem to have.

**If you're me. I understand some people like the heat. Go figure.

As always, all products were purchased by me for my own use. My opinions are my own and always will be. Your mileage may vary.

Quite the surprise

Some while back, Haus of Gloi introduced a scent, "Haus Amber" as part of their Reverie line. The scent was so popular it was eventually moved to their regular catalogue. It is still available as a perfume oil, bubbling scrub, sugar emulsion and pumpkin butter.

As you probably know by now, amber is one of my favourite notes. Gloi describes this scent as "Rich and sultry amber, our own hand blended accord." I nearly died of joy when I read the description, and, much to my delight, an order I had already placed came with a sample of Haus Amber.

I can't tell you how excited I was. Amber, amber and more amber. Mind you, I'm not crazy about the gemstone amber, just the fragrance note. Some of my favourite scents, including most of my favourite Gloi scents have amber notes in them, so this had to be the ultimate 'smell of awesomeness', right?

Maybe it was too much of a good thing, but I hated it.  Imagine that. I absolutely hated it - which I totally did not see coming. Before I go any further, let me assure you it is not a badly made perfume. Haus Amber is every bit as expertly crafted and blended as all of Britton's fragrances. Clearly I'm in a tiny minority here, since Haus Amber was so popular, it made it into the general catalogue. But, I confess, it was nothing like I thought it would be. To me, amber is a creamy, spicy, warm scent, golden-brown and velvety. This scent was sharp, thick and brackish to my nose. Usually amber smells like it should pour like liquid caramel, whereas this blend should ooze like pitch. Have you ever seen pitch? It's weird stuff, not quite solid, it has give and it's viscous. It's a deep dark black-brown colour and sticky as hell. It smells terrible - nothing like Haus Amber, but the smell of Haus Amber reminds me of the colour and consistency of pitch. If you could fossilize molasses, that would be pretty close to pitch.*

from wikipedia

 Turns out 'amber' as a fragrance accord, usually means a blend including, but not limited to vanilla, Dammara resin, labdanum, benzoin resin, and/or copal, most of which are tree resin products. Naturally derived scents will obviously vary in much the same way honeys and maple syrups vary by year and location of origin. So, obviously, though I never really thought about it, amber, as a fragrance note is as variable as, say, honey as a flavour. I'm guessing this blend is heavy on labdanum, since that note is described by wikipedia and other sites as thick and sticky, 'plastic but not pourable', with a strong, musky scent. Which is what I was trying to describe with the whole 'pitch' analogy.

Haus Amber is also a very masculine scent to me. Again, I'm in the minority here, since it is a fragrance well loved by many women, but I think 'manly' when I smell it. Manly like, 18th c. manly. Tweed, old leather and cracked wood manly. Antlers in all of your decorating manly. This a Teddy Roosevelt climbing Mt. Everest barefoot and fighting off yeti with a salad fork kind of manly. This could be an Annie Oakley scent, or Calamity Jane, but not for me. Regardless of gender, it has a strong air of daguerrotype and antiquity and wild frontier to it. I can imagine Teddy wearing it while posing in one of those impossibly testosterone laden old photos full of large wild animals he's taken down with his bare hands. 

case in point

This scent is not delicate, not floral and not sweet. It's strong, thick and enveloping. If you're looking for a creamy, exotic amber that whispers of sin and silken pillows, try the amber notes in Depravity. For amber dripping with ripe berries, wild brambles and summer sunshine, try The Brier Path. Prefer something lush and sweet with a hint of autumn air? - wait for Hex to come back for Samhain. But, If you like your coffee black and double strong, your chocolate dark and your stilettos steel-tipped, you might want to give Haus Amber a try.

*Take a minute to read about the 'pitch experiment' in Queensland. It's pretty interesting.

As always, all products were purchased by me for my own use. My opinions are my own and always will be. Your mileage may vary.

Lassi Come Home

I can't tell you how much I've been looking forwards to using that line.


Anyway, Lassi is one of the spring scents from Haus of Gloi that went live today. This is Lassi's third year in the shop and I'm very excited to see it back. My relationship with Lassi has been a bit odd. I didn't always love her, you see. It's kind of like one of those movies where the hero chases after the high maintainence love interest and then, in the end finally really sees the less flashy one who's been there all along and falls for her.

photo courtesy Haus of Gloi

Lassi debuted originally with Maedwe (no longer available) and Seeress (renamed Selkie) both of which I adored. Lassi was okay but it didn't send me into paroxysms of rapture the way the other two did. Both of them are damp, earthy, wet grass and dandelions smells, the sort of thing that vividly invokes the first fresh, green days of spring. I bought both in every format available. I bought samples of Lassi, because I liked it, but my focus was on her two elegant, dewy sisters.


And yet...both of those smells are so very specific in what they conjure up for me. Selkie is the wetter of the two, "The break of waves, gurgling sea foam, kelp, rain tinged air, sand smoothed driftwood and wild sage" it has an oceanic tinge to it and always makes me think of "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,"* where the driftwood marker with Anna's name on it is shown aging to illustrate the passage of time, the ending of winter and the birth of spring, cycling by year after year. Maedwe, on the other hand, was "Pesky dandelions, red clover patches, creeping sweetpea blooms and the dense afternoon haze of blossoming fruit trees." It was the greener scent, a grassy wet spring rain fragrance, like that first day the dandelions start popping up in the grass. Britton only offered it the one year, but elements of the perfume went into both Ploughman and Milkmaid, which she is offering again this year.


And then there's Lassi. "Cool, fresh mango cream, Tunisian orange blossom absolute, black ginger to ground, splash of green tea and a soft squeeze of lime juice." Inspired by that tasty Indian beverage, it smells like an extra-fruity version of exactly that. In the jar, the sugar scrub has the sweetest smell, like a lime SweetTart. Both the lotion and the perfume format have the richest version of the scent, a burst of lime followed by the underlying green tea and creamy ginger scents with just a whiff of mango and orange. It doesn't smell like anything other than what it is, a sweet, delicious, fruity, beverage inspired scent. But somehow, it's turned into my go-to scent.

stock image from somewhere.

It's impossible to feel unhappy when you're wearing Lassi. It's like wearing laughter. It's bright, it's bubbly and it goes with everything. The longer you wear it, the more it grows on you. When I can't decide what to wear, when I'm not looking for anything specific, or when I just want to smell happy, I reach for Lassi. The second year it was available, I bought a large size in everything it came in, scrubs, lotion, perfume, the lot. It's one of the few products I've used up and need to replace, I wear it so often. Much as I like lime and other citrus-scents, I never would have expected this to become the olfactory equivalent of a best friend, and I find myself reaching for it, over and over again. It's not terribly exotic or heady, it doesn't transport me to some far-off place or inspire romantic visions, it just makes me happy. What more could you want from a bottle of perfume?




*The 1947 movie. Go watch it, it's great.

Snow! Sorta. Maybe a little. Or not.

I've heard a lot of people talk about Demeter Fragrances. Apparently they are one of the better midrange commercial perfumes. They're one of those companies I think I'd like to try every now and then, but tend to forget they exist when I'm actually perfume shopping. However, I just happened to see a display of Demeter holiday scents when I was in Rite-Aid picking up Pepsi the other day, and my little brain went "Hey - don't you want to smell that?" Since one of the bottles was 'Snow', which is on my must-try list, and it was only 5 bucks, I tossed one in the cart.

Demeter describes this scent as "the essence of snow in a scent; chilling, cool, clean and fresh, with a touch of dust (necessary to form flakes) and earth (upon which to rest). There is literally nothing like it outside of the Demeter Fragrance Library." Apparently it also won several major perfume awards.

from Demeter.com

I'd like to state, for the record, that snow doesn't actually have a smell - unless your pollution levels are beyond imagining. There are scents we associate with snow, but snow itself smells like nothing. Even some waters (especially well water) have more smell than snow. Usually snow smells are represented by something to mimic dampness - a melon or ozone-y scent, something we associate with cold - minty scents - to give you that frozen nostril experience, or moist earthy scents. Snow has a hint of dampness from what I suspect is an ozone note, a light earthiness and an overall aroma of white flowers. It's very, very subtle and light, but I wouldn't have thought  'snow!' If I didn't know that was what it was called. Snowdrops, maybe, but not snow. It's definitely got more of a very early spring/late winter feel than a Christmassy, icy, snow-covered ambiance.

It's  a nice, simple scent - pretty, pleasant and unpretentious, but nothing to write home about (though technically, I'm doing just that). I'm fairly stumped why it got so many awards. It's nice, but  not something that jumps out at me and says - keep smelling me! It's also very weak, I had to layer quite a bit to make out the fragrance on my arm. If I'd paid more than five dollars for it, I'd probably have been annoyed.  It reminds me a bit of Haus of Gloi's "Something Hopeful" from Valentine's 2011.* That was an incredible scent, everything Snow wants to be when it grows up. Light, fresh and an absolutely perfect rendition of the first stirrings of spring; damp earth, melting snow, a few hesitant blossoms and the promise of more to come, even though the sky is still grey and ice still rings the lakes and streams. Sadly, Britton didn't bring that one back this year.

I'm not sure I'd try another Demeter fragrance after this one. Well, if it's cheap enough. It's possible that I just hit a particularly underwhelming scent with Snow. It's not amazing, it's not unique and it's not very snowy. It's just...kinda nice.


*Perhaps the first stirrings of the spring to come. Warm sakura blossom green tea with the tiniest droplet of plum juice, red mandarin and crystallized jasmine essence.

 All products were purchased by me for my own use. My opinions are my own and always will be. Your mileage may vary.

Cherries and Chocolate

So tomorrow is the day before Cheap Chocolate Day, otherwise known as St. Valentine's Day, where we celebrate the torture and murder of some old Roman guy by passing out little heart shaped pieces of paper. Or by shooting mobsters, but only if you live in Chicago.

Winter and Valentine's is probably my least favourite smell season, as I'm not crazy about fir and piney scents, and far too many Valentine scents overdo the rose base. Too much mint, too much pine and too much chocolate rose for my taste. Well, for my sense of smell that is. 

Anyway, I'm hesitant to admit to this, for fear of having my second X chromosome revoked, but I'm not actually that crazy about chocolate. I'm good with a chocolate/other flavour combos, like filled chocolates, or chocolate drizzle on a cheesecake, but as far as eating just plain chocolate, not so much. I prefer white chocolate, which isn't chocolate at all, or caramel, or toffee. I do like the smell of chocolate, though. Like coffee, it's one of those things that I prefer as an aromatic over a flavour. 

Sadly, not too many companies do a decent chocolate fragrance. Most of them smell like cheap chocolate flavouring, as opposed to the scent of genuine cacau products. Solstice Scents is one to the exceptions. Last year, I picked up two of her V-Day fragrances, Violet Truffle and Cherry Vanilla Amberosia.

from Solstice Scents.com

Violet Truffle is, obviously, chocolate based. The official description is: "Dark Chocolate, Violet, Violet Leaf & Vanilla Absolute"  Now, in my book, you can't go wrong with violets. They're my favourite flower and one of my favourite smells. I don't think I would ever have thought of pairing it with chocolate. It works, though. The initial burst is a deep, powdery dark chocolate smell with just a hint of sweet violets. In fact, if I didn't know it was violet, I might not have been able to pick it out, it blends that well.  It stays like that for quite a while then slowly morphs, as the chocolate fades into the background and the warm, creamy vanilla scent picks up, with just the faintest earthy edge of violet leaf. By this time, the violet is clearly identifiable, but muted, so it fits smoothly into the undertones. This particular blend is sweet, but not unbearably so, as the additions of dark chocolate and violet leaf give the mixture a nice, earthy bottom note. It's odd, but quite wonderful in its own way. I've never had an actual violet truffle, that is, a chocolate with a either a candied violet on top or with violet syrup* inside, so I can't say if this is how it would smell, but it is nice, sweet, and feminine, but not in a little girl way. Something like a box of expensive Petit Fours, or a really high-end chocolate candy, the kind served on a silver tray with a real lace doily. You might like this scent even if you don't care for violet, but you definitely need to like the smell of chocolate. If you love the smell of chocolate, you should absolutely check out this perfume. Solstice Scents is one of the few parfumiers that can truly capture the scent of chocolate in all it's complexity.

from chocolate.com

The second fragrance I got was Cherry Vanilla Amberosia and it is, indeed, very ambrosial. "Sweet Cherries, Rich Vanilla, Amber & Mandarin Orange Slices".  The vanilla and ambers make up the base of the scent, like a rich, creamy custard, while the maraschino and black cherry add a tangy punch to the mix. The scent maintains itself for quite a while, just until you think you've gotten everything it has to offer, then the orange sneaks in for a last minute twist. It's a warm, buttery-luscious scent with a dark, sexy fruit edge to it, like a puddle of golden velvet dripping with pearls and sprinkled with rubies. It's intense and exotic and sweet and not at all child-like. It's sexy and dangerous and delectable all at once. It smells delicious without smelling like a candy shop or a dessert tray. Wearing this on a frosty-cold night out would be amazing. Wear a dark red dress with it.

from SolsticeScents.com

Both of these fragrances are wonderfully indulgent and rich, just the thing for when February has you curled up in the fetal position begging for something not covered in snow. Currently, Violet Truffle is available in rollerball perfume and 4 oz. body ganache, and Cherry Vanilla Amberosia is available as rollerball, 4 oz. burnishing glace and 4 oz. body ganache. Both scents are available as perfumes in the general catalogue, but were originally released for Valentine's Day last year, so they are listed along with the other Valentine's releases this year.

*chocolate.com sells them, but I'm not that adventurous.

Oh My Darling

Recently I got a couple of solid perfumes from Darling Clandestine. I'd been wanting to try them for some time, and earlier I purchased a couple of scents during a referral sale. They were Serpentina and Tapadero and I really liked them. I liked them enough that, during a BOGO sale I ordered solid versions of Inked and Monstre Delicat. I liked Serpentina and Tapadero but I loved, loved LOVED Inked and Monstre Delicat.

stolen from DC's etsy store.

 Serpentina, a crisp, green, ethereal fragrance with a little opium bite, smells like dirt. Not in a dirty way, but in an earthy way. A gardening way. In fact it smells like gardening, like greenness of plants and the loamy scent of turned soil. If you've ever done a bunch of gardening without gloves, this is the smell that's left on your hands, the wonderful, nurturing scent of green growing things and the earth that surrounds them.

Tapadero is another outdoorsy scent. The site calls it a sharp, clean fragrance bright with roses and sage, with a sweet smoky leather finish.  I had a pony as a child* - I usually rode bareback, but always had reins. Tapadero smells like the worn leather scent of a tack shed and a breezy summer day. Sun, sky, an endless stretch of grass, leather and utter freedom.

Nice huh? Very, but those two are nothing compared to the olfactory awesomeness of my second order.  Follow me as I describe where they take me.

Inked (this fragrance throbs with a sting of sea salt and leather and splashes of communion winet) is sexy. Really, really sexy. Sweat and leather, a hint of smoke, a drop of wine. Hell, Inked smells like sex - raunchy, primal slightly tipsy sex - the kind that leaves the bed irreparably disheveled; exhausting, exhilarating and faintly shocking. The first note is suedey, followed by a salty rush of sweaty bodily sweetness rippled through with stale cigarettes and a forgotten bottle of wine spilled on cheap carpet. One sniff and you just want to drown yourself in it, it's like the porno of perfumes.

Monstre Delicat, described as  a clean, blue, rainy fragrance with haunting, moody black notes. It's the kind of half-sleep you get as the sun is coming up after a night of abandon. It's a little sweeter, a little sadder - the wash of pale grey light on a dreary morning, the moistness of dew, of dried sweat. You haven't quite escaped the madness of the night before, but now you're struck by the poignancy of it. The reality of being transient flesh and the fleeting nature of life. It is a blue-grey scent - the scent of a rainy sky with the crackling, spicy undertones of a storm just passed, or yet to come.

Serpentina and Tapadero are complex, rich scents, but they are the sort of thing you could wear to work without feeling out of place. They're evocative and daring, but not dangerous. Monstre Delicat and Inked are very, very dangerous scents. They work very well together and almost make a kind of poetry. They're wild, sexy and out of control. They're the perfume equivalent of realising you've forgotten to re-button your shirt, or tame your hair and fix your lipstick and you know everyone's looking at you thinking "Uh, huh - they just got some."



All products were purchased by me for my own use. My opinions are my own and always will be. Your mileage may vary.



*Don't be jealous. The pony was a little bastard and he hated me. Actually he hated anything that interfered with his master plan of eating until he was as wide as he was tall and only moving when absolutely necessary. His name was Buck. I don't think I need to explain this, except to say that most of my memories of him consist of sitting on the ground watching his fat pony butt heading away from me.

A Good Day to Go to the Mailbox

I got a package in the mail today - 3 solid perfumes from OHWTO.  Besides the regular size perfumes I got two more solid perfumes in clamshell samples, a plastic centipede, candy (yay!) and a purple plastic pumpkin ring (say that 10 times fast.)

The samples were three of the Halloween scents, Sugar Skulls, from last years entries and two new scents, Santa Muerte and the cumbersomely named Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things.  The samples are Homecoming and Sugar Leaf.

As I've said before, I love solid perfume because it's pretty much idiot proof. And I am often an idiot, so it's all to the good.

We'll start with Santa Muerte, which was my least favourite. OHWTO describes this as "This is much "darker" than the usual OHWTO scents, and very complex. A Blessed Bounty of Sacred Offerings- Amber, Cinnamon Pastries, Caramel, Carnation, Tuberose, Spices, Chocolate, Tobacco, Labdanum, Church Incense, Dark Patchouli, Vanilla, Musk, Cognac, Fruits, Black Agar, Cardamom, and Lilies."
When I smelled it in the tube it smelled like maple and I was sad because I can't stand the smell of maple. Once I put it on, the maple smell dissipated and turned into something, as the description says, very dark and very complex. It does have a thick, dark, treacly smell to it, which is probably why I thought of maple at first, but as it sits on the skin it turns into something earthier. 

kind of like this

I'd say it smelled like carmelized Patchouli, except there's no such thing. Honestly, I would expect to ooze out of the tube like sugar in the middle of being worked into a toffee or a dark caramel and look like amber-brown molasses. It doesn't, of course, but if I hadn't seen it first, that's what I'd expect. As it dries down it gets softer and some of the floral scents, particularly the carnation get a word in edgewise, but it remains dark. It's sweet in a sticky way, and just a little bit much for me. I don't see myself wearing this as often as some of the other scents. It's not bad, it's just...intense.


Sugar Skulls I had wanted this last year, but ended up not getting it, so it was first on my list this year. It's described as "You'll smell sweet baked goods, vanilla cookies, anise, and roses- all the scents of a stroll through a Mexican neighborhood at that time of the year. " And yes, that is exactly how it smells. It's not too strong, and the anise isn't overwhelming. This is not an absinthe type anise, but a soft, sweet anise with a rush of vanilla and soft rose petal fragrance. It doesn't smell like food, it smells feminine with a kick of spice. I've never been in a Mexican neighborhood, but I can imagine terracotta plastered walls with brilliant cotton curtains and stark white linens drying on a line. The anise gives it an exotic touch while the vanilla and rose make it warm and comforting. Perhaps a vase of roses on a starched lace doily with the sun pouring in the window. It really is lovely and simple without being ordinary.


Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things*: Acorns, Oak, Vanilla, Apples, Roasted Spiced Pumpkin, a bit of Musk and a mound of freshly-dug Dirt. Sort of disturbing! Not actually disturbing, in fact, I'd call this a work of genius. Why? It's the apple. I hate apple notes in perfumes, because they never actually smell like apples - at best they smell like apple cider, at worst like spoiled apple juice. Apples themselves have a crisp, light fruity scent and this is the first perfume I've ever smelled that captured exactly the scent you get when you bite into an apple. It's perfect, and that's only a small part of this scent - there's the wonderful nuttiness of the acorn, a slight whiff of spices and dirt. I don't get the musk, but, as I've said before, I can't smell most musks. I do detect a warm slight underlayer, though which is probably musk. This smell is exactly like heading out to the backyard late in the afternoon to rake up some leaves, gather up some nuts, maybe mound over your rosebushes or put in a few late mums. Stop to rest with plump juicy apple to munch on and you've got it. It's fresh and outdoorsy, delicious and airy all at the same time. It seems to retain it's character pretty well as it dries down, the flash of apple is strongest in the tube and softens as it wears on the skin, while the nuts and earth come up a bit, but the overall essence doesn't change. Just smelling it makes me want to step outside and revel in the autumness of the day.

The two samples were Homecoming,  "A fall-inspired blend, Homecoming captures many of the scents of autumn in New England. Tart cranberries, dried figs, mulling spices, dried split firewood, fallen leaves and warm 'Hot Toddies'". Becca's going to kill me for this, but the first thing I thought when I smelled it in the tube was "Hamster Litter!" Bear in mind, of course, that I mean fresh, unused hamster litter, which I quite like the smell of. After a moment I realised that the litter I always used when I kept rodents was primarily cedar with a few other woods mixed in, so it was actually wood I was smelling. No rodents were harmed or even inconvenienced in the making of this scent**. 

**as far as I know

Once it's on my skin, I definitely smell the cranberry, it gives the whole thing a tart effervescence. That fades a bit with the drydown and the other scents float to the surface. Is there a such thing as cranberry wine? Because that's what this ends up smelling like to me.


The other sample is Sugar Leaf which is a funny, bright little scent. "Notes of Vanilla Sugar, Sparkling Citron, Apple Peel, Sheer Floral, Sensual Woods, Creamy Musk "  It's fresh, sweet and citrusy with a warm undertone. I don't get any apple here, but that may just be because my nose refused to acknowledge it after the perfect apple tone in CSPWDT. No other apple scent is worthy. It's a nice sugared fruit scent. I would never have picked it on my own, but it is quite pleasant.

If you've never shopped at OHWTO, you've been doing yourself a disservice. Go there, now, and browse, because Becca has a fabulous selection of scents and products and they are all quality stuff. Her Black Magic soaps set the bar for awesomeness. You'll thank me later.
 


P.S. I just looked at my candy and OMG I got a Mango DumDum! Mango! How freakin' cool is that!

photo courtesy Temptation Candies

*When I wear this in public, I really, reeeallly hope someone asks me what I'm wearing.




All products were purchased by me for my own use. My opinions are my own and always will be. Your mileage may vary.

It's not you, it's me.

I had a heartsy voucher for Sweet Anthem, a company I've been meaning to try, and grabbed the pre-order for the Fall sample set. It started shipping at the beginning of October, and mine arrived today.  They arrived packed in a bubble mailer and with a glassine envelope holding little ziplocks of two scents each.

The first thing I noticed was - these are STRONG scents - I could smell them before I opened the envelope and none of them were leaking. And they last, even after thoroughly scrubbing my wrists between scents, I could still get a faint whiff of what I'd used last. The sample sizes are quite generous, 2ml bottles of liquid perfume. Scents and samples are also available in solid scents.

photo courtesy Sweet Anthem Perfumes.

The first one I tried was Nell: A tea fit for any such party: gilded roses, a bouquet of carnations, and a black tea sweetened with milk, spiked with a smattering of cardamom, and a peach slice swimming where a lemon should be. Top Notes: Cardamom, Creamy Milk, Peach • Heart Notes: Damascus Rose • Base Notes: Black Tea(Spice)  Nell started out sophisticated and intriguing. Roses with a hint of spicy bitter citrus. The notes only list peaches but there's a definite air of bitter orange or lime. Sadly, Nell was one of those dates that starts out promising, but ends up disappointing. After about a half hour, the sophisticated, worldy scent dissapated, leaving just a bitter citrus note behind. I didn't get any carnation scent at all, which is a shame, as I love carnation. If she'd kept her initial bloom, I'd have liked Nell, but in the end it smelled less like a fragrance and more like a garnish.

Colin:Thick air of cardamom, incense, and myrrh set the stage for many a-ghostly and storied song, and provides asylum for spice-laden spectors who steal sweet maidens into the dead of night. Top Notes: Benzoin, Cardamom• Heart Notes: Honey • Base Notes: Amber, Frankincense, Myrrh (Incense). Smoky and buttery with a spicy sharp bite to it. The cardamom is quite sharp, as is the myrrh. I liked this one a bit better, I just wish the amber and honey notes had mellowed the bite a bit. Again, after a bit of wearing, this one turns painfully bitter on me. Both Colin and Nell could work as unisex fragrances.

Beatrice:  One of the main players in the late-shift masquerade, Beatrice is a hearty soul full of all sorts of fragrant warmth. What type of pie, indeed. Top Notes: Rhubarb • Heart Notes: Mahogany • Base Notes: Frankincense, Tonka Bean (Incense) This one is sweet and tangy and a little bit resinous. The pairing of rhubarb with spicy, woody undertones is brilliant - the whole thing smells warm, rich and delicious without smelling foody. The rhubarb notes are strong initially, but over time the whole thing mellows into a warm, wonderful outdoorsy smell, a combination of burning leaves and tangy fruityness.The underlying bitterness these scents all seem to have on me is very subtle here. Beatrice would also make a lovely room spray.

Annabelle: Sweltering jasmine flowers cling to a cloud of osmanthus, and the spray of sea air and salty musk will surely keep you oceanside even though the summer respite has left us. Top Notes: Sea Salt • Heart Notes: Jasmine, Osmanthus • Base Notes: White Amber (Marine) Marine notes and amber! Oh I'm in heaven. It's like the waft of a bouquet of flowers while strolling down the beach in the early morning fog. This is a fresh, wet, slightly sweet, salty fragrance, the pervasive bitterness tempered by the saltiness and the richness of the amber. I think this is what a mermaid would smell like.


Leslie: Old teenage hopes are alive at your door. Citrus notes entwined with smoldering florals concede to a lovely, idyllic foundation of moss, woods, and leather.  Top Notes: Grapefruit, Yuzu • Heart Notes: Lily, Incense • Base Notes: Leather, Sandalwood, Sea Moss. (Musk) Fruity and sharp. This one is also very fresh and bright smelling. This would be a wonderful smell for a teenager who wanted something distinctive and crisp. The yuzu is strong, very strong, on initial application, while the sandalwood and leather notes creep up underneath slowly. This is a wonderful feminine scent without being girly, a tomboy scent, really, very energetic and confident. Grown-ups can wear it too, it just makes me think of a girl with freckles and a baseball cap running out to play after school. The bitter undertone is almost non-existant in this one.

Miranda - We fall, but our souls are flying. A baleful blend of banded peppers and woods, tragically impaled with bloodshot immortelle blossoms. Top Notes: Pink Pepper, White Pepper • Heart Notes: Immortelle • Base Notes: Black Agar, Cocoa, White Agar (Spice) This one is lovely, sweet and haunting. It starts with an odd, mentholy whiff, then graduates to a dark floral, but not too heavy.  The pepper notes make it sharp, while the cocoa gives it a rich, warm bottom note. This is probably the most autumny scent in the bunch, with a hint of spookiness in the undertones. The bitterness here works to the advantage of the blend, giving it a poignancy, like preserved blossoms found between the pages of an old book.

Maureen -  These thousand dreams could wake you; a complicated, seductive "floriental" for any girl child in the dark. • Top Notes: Almond, Fig, Mint • Heart Notes: Moroccan Rose • Base Notes: Chai Tea, Myrrh. (Oriental) Oh, you sexy thing, you! Definitely the most grown up of the bunch, Maureen is luscious, a food blend without being foody - the smell of an exotic Oriental bazaar, spices and incense mixing with bakery scents and a touch of floral as the rose scent, a good deep, old rose scent, wafts up through the blend. The mint brings a final, bright touch. It's sexy, exotic and a little bit risque. I love this one and the bitter undertone is very subtle.

Also included was a sample of Anita: And it's a very special thing -- she makes the people clap and sing. Be happy all the time in this nearly drinkable peppermint mocha perfume. Top Notes: Moroccan Mint, Peppermint • Heart Notes: Coffee • Base Notes: Vanilla.(Gourmand) I love the scent of coffee. Hate the taste, but love the scent. This is less of a minty coffee scent than a coffeish mint. Mint definitely dominates and the coffee and vanilla give it weight and warmth. This would also be a good unisex perfume. It does have that bitterness, which is an odd juxtaposition with the mint but in this case it adds a manly edge to the fragrance.

You'll notice I keep mentioning a bitter undertone. I don't think it's strictly the perfumes. Every scent reacts differently to everybody and every body's chemistry. I think the bitterness is just the way her blends, probably some of the base ingredients, react to my skin. It's not necessarily bad, but with some of the fragrances it was jarring. I doubt it would be as strong on someone else. I have the same problem with Estee Lauder perfumes.  It doesn't matter what the scent is, or how lovely it smells in the bottle or on other people, when it hits my skin it goes from scent to stench. Always and without fail, within half an hour, I can't scrub that stuff off fast enough, it just morphs into something revolting on me. Which is very sad, because some EL scents are wonderful. Just not on me.

Overall I was quite pleased with my Sweet Anthem experience and would recommend them. A nice variety of scents, all well made and well-thought out combinations. I think I might prefer these in a solid scent for daywear, as they are quite potent. Only two of the scents really reached out and grabbed me as something I would want, but that's a matter of preference, not quality. These are excellent perfumes that, in the case of this sampler set, were just mostly not to my taste. Sweet Anthem offers a nice line of perfumes, several of which are still on my 'want to try list', notably Tara and Anastasia. The scents are available in a variety of liquid sizes and formats and in solid.


All products were purchased by me for my own use. My opinions are my own and always will be. Your mileage may vary. Photo from Sweet Anthem's Etsy site.

Haus of Gloi Autumn sampler #2

I got my Gloi autumn sampler today, the #2. I missed getting #3, I'm hoping it will restock, and I already have most of the scents from #1 (which I'll discuss later) as they are all repeats.  #2 Seems to be the foodie selection, as everything in it reminds me of some sort of autumn treat. There's only one scent in this particular batch that's a must have, but they're all quite pleasant. The overall effect is very delicious and childlike, as if I were standing outside a sweet shop smelling all the wonderful treats waiting just inside. Not just any sweet shop, these scents all have a milky richness to them, that reminds me of something old fashioned; a shop in a Dickens' tale, or perhaps Honeydukes. If I close my eyes and sniff the various samples I can imagine a Halloween haul from another generation, before mass-manufactured candies and desserts, before fear, suspicion and crazy neighbors ruined trick or treating for everyone.

This is in New Zealand. Sadly, I am not.

Ghost Puffs - (Buttery popcorn and marshmallow goo orbs, presented on a wooden stick.) I came of age in the 80's and the world of mall shopping. Back then, just about every mall had at least one shop that sold a variety of popcorn treats. Kettle corn, popcorn balls, cheese corn, buttered popcorn, caramel corn, candied popcorn on a stick, anything and everything sweet you could make out of popcorn. The buttery, candy-coated aroma would waft out into the mall, luring you in. Once you'd smelled it you had to buy some. I usually got the caramel corn. A whiff of Ghost Puffs captures the sweet, sticky aroma of walking into that store.

Pumpkin Eater -(Cream, glowing pumpkin, rich vanilla bean and the tiniest touch of nutmeg butter.)
Creamy vanilla and pumpkin. This smells like sweet frosted pumpkin cookies, or perhaps a pumpkin custard. It's got a very strong cream and vanilla overtone, very desserty but not any one particular dessert. Have you ever had Life Savers Creme Savers? They're a blend of fruit and creamy vanilla hard candy. If they made them in pumpkin, this is exactly what they'd smell like. It's a wacky description, I know, but that's what I get, ribbons of sweet pumpkin and creamy vanilla with just the tiniest hint of spice.  Do they make pumpkin milkshakes?- I think a sweet pumpkin shake with a tall head of whipped cream might be another close match for this tricksy little scent.

Pixie Sorceror - (They look cute, but beware! Deceptive pomegranate candy floss, beneath that a spiteful blend of coffee co2, vetiver and myrrh.) For the record, this scent is driving me mad. It smells like...just like...almost...and then it's gone. Something, something I remember from years ago, but I don't know what and I don't know when. It's absolutely infuriating - every time I take a whiff the memory dances in to view and then out again, like a shadow in the mirror that I can't quite catch. I'm thinking it must be the vetiver, but I've no idea what I remember that has vetiver in it. Some sort of salve or cream that my grandmother had, maybe. That frustrated memory makes it hard for me to judge this. It smells brown to me, warm antique brown, like a piece of victorian furniture or an an old trunk in the attic. It's a good smell, slightly resinous, and very haunting. I'd like it even without the thread of memory tangled in it, but that association takes this from a good smell to a must have. Even if I never remember why, this fragrance gives me a powerful sense of goodness and old pleasures forgotten, but not quite lost.

Old Cider Haus - (Old oak, sweet drying hay fields, crushed apple pulp and vanilla bean husks.) Butterscotch. For some reason, Old Cider Haus smells like butterscotch to me. I wasn't sure I'd like this one, as I'm not generally fond of apple scents.  I love apples, but apple-scented things almost never capture that crisp scent you get when you bite into a ripe apple. Instead it's usually the smell of apple juice or cider, or worse, that fermenty scent of overripe apples, none of which I like. Fortunately, the oak, the hay and the vanilla are blended in enough that the apple gives a just warm, slightly spicy note to the mix. The whole thing, overall, is buttery and creamy smooth. If you like Pumpkin Queen, you'll probably like this, it's the same sort of  warm, goldeny sweet kind of scent, like autumn sunshine on a field of haybales.

I'm liking this particular sampler, although most of the scents are things I'd want in room fragrances or bath salt, which, sadly, are not options. They're generally a little too sweet to my taste for daily perfume wear. Pixie Sorcerer, however, will be finding its way into my shopping basket, and hopefully one day I'll remember what it smells like.



All products were purchased by me for my own use. My opinions are my own and always will be. Your mileage may vary. The candy shop is in Oamaru New Zealand. Image courtesy the same.

Solstice Scents Autumn sampler

I got my autumn sample set from Solstice Scents today. I've been very excited about this set as it seems to vary from the traditional pumpkin and spices melange usually offered this time of year. Not that I don't love all that, I do, passionately, but it's fun to sample some of the other fragrances this time of year has to offer, like drying herbs, the last fruits of the year or a few faded flowers.

Thornwood Thicket -(Sugared Blackberries, Black Agarwood, Aloeswood, Sweet and Smokey Guaiacwood & Amber) the last harvest of summer. Robust ripe berries and fruits and a glass of mulled autumn wine. Deep, rich and dark, this one is delicious, like a bowl of black grapes, blackberries and a smoky wine and cheese sideboard. Imagine a Dutch still life distilled into an essence - this is it. Wine, fruit; it smells like wet purple silk, or a plate of juicy damson plums. I'd almost call this a late summer perfume - somewhere between the dregs of summer and the creep of autumn, the last few gatherings from the garden while the golden light of summer's afternoon fades into fall.

Frans Snyder 1616

Foxcroft - (Ozone, Rustling Leaves, Rich Black Soil, Chimney Smoke & Woods) Pumpkin guts. And I mean that in the best possible way. This one smells like walking through a pumpkin patch on a damp, chilly autumn day. There's the scent of earth, the promise of frost in the air and the green and spice scent of melons, the ones waiting to ripen and the overripe ones, that have spilled their entrails on the ground for next year's harvest. That smell, unique to the inside of a pumpkin, whether hollowed out for a jack-o-lantern, or split into the damp, leafy ground. This one really captures the essence of an autumn day in the country, more than anything I've ever smelled.


Witch's Cottage. (Warm Baked Goods, Dried Herbs, Sweet Annie, Soft Woods & Fragrant Hearth Smoke) The faded green scent of drying herbs with an undercurrent of spice and smoke. Stand outside the kitchen window on a warm autumn day. Breathe in the scent of the last of the garden, the herbs and a few diligent vegetables waiting to be gathered in for one last harvest. Through the open window you can smell something rich and savory in the oven. The more this dries down, the spicier it gets as if you were moving from outdoors to in. I hope she makes this one in a room spray. This is what I want my house to smell like all the time. The perfect blend of garden, kitchen and hearth.

Devil's Tongue - (Chypre, Brown Leather, Warm Tobacco, Woods & More) A brackish stream winding through the woods to a forest grove. There's green in this one too, but the deep shaded green of a well-worn path through the woods. The brightness of the bergamot and the creamy amber are like dappled light along the road. A mossy dampness lies underneath it all. This is a masculine scent, a woodcutter or huntsman in an ancient forest. I smell Robin Hood or Wayland Smith in this, but a Maid Marion could wear it as well, with a tomboy's grace and nonchalance. Devil's Tongue is a variety of Arum, also called Corpse Flower, Voodoo Lily, Snake Palm. They like shade and wet, loamy soil.

Manor - (Woody-Vanilla Musk, Vanilla Accord, Glorious Black Agarwood & Exquisite Aloeswood) Resinous. Almost sweet, like incense way. This one surprised me. It is rich and dark, like an old, wood-paneled room, but there's a creeping sweetness mixed in. The site describes this one as an abandoned manor house. I'd call it an abandoned plantation, an old southern home just on the edge of the bayou. Old and forgotten, with burnt down candles, dust-covered, warping furniture and the gardens turned dark and wild. It's a skeleton of wooden walls and silken drapery, silently waiting for the swamp to reclaim it. This is the most haunting scent of the collection, full of echoes of things that once were and will never be again.

Gehenna - (Red Musk, Dragon's Blood Resin, Burning Wood, Somalian Myrrh & Egyptian Musk) This one has musk in it, red and egyptian, at least one of which is triggering a migraine for me, so I'll only give it the briefest sniff.  It's sweet in a musky, incens-y way. Similar to Manor but with more the feel of an exotic oil or sticky resin. It's a good smell, but it doesn't seem autumnish to me. I'd put this in a Christmas set, as a "We Three Kings" type aroma. Probably the myrrh that brings that to mind. It's  like a warm, costly golden perfumed oil, glistening in the shade of an oasis. Shame about the musk - I'd like it otherwise. Gehenna is a place just outside of Jerusalem where the pagans sacrificed their children to the god Moloch. I didn't know that until I just now looked it up, but it's an apt name for something that smells like the desert and anointing oils and resins.

I like them all, as I expected, and it's hard to put my finger on a favourite. I think Foxcroft and Witch's Cottage are the ones I like the most, but I expect I'll get Manor and Thornwood Thicket in one form or another as well. I'll have to pass on Gehenna, and I'm still up in the air about Devil's Tongue - I like it, but I like some of the others better. It'll come down to time and funds, I expect.




All products were purchased by me for my own use. My opinions are my own and always will be. Your mileage may vary.

What's that smell?

Let's talk about sillage. It's a french word, and it basically means the traces of scent that surround someone and linger after they are gone. If the gods are kind, that scent originates from perfume or cologne. If not, well...I feel your pain. I was stuck behind a fine specimen of cro-magnon in a sweltering hot KFC yesterday and he had some serious 'natural sillage' going on. He also had a bunch of prison tattoos, including one that said "White Pride". Oh, the irony.


Anyway, sillage. A funny word, but the idea of someone wafting about in a cloud of exquisite perfume sounds so romantic in books. It's alluring when you picture, say Lauren Bacall in a film noir, wrapped in satin and pearls redolent of Shalimar or something by Chanel*. You want to scent yourself all over, put on a silk blouse and pretend you're getting ready to meet Philip Marlowe or Frank Chambers.

Sadly, I never get to be around those hedonistically fragrant people. I always get stuck with Ogg- exemplar of the white race. Or some woman who hosed herself down with Eau de Skunk Butt before doing her shopping. In theory, sillage is a wonderful thing. All too often it turns out to be air pollution of the worst kind.

This is a particular problem for people - like me - with severe allergies. I have one friend I make very certain only to wear the lightest of fragrances around - anything else sends her into a swelling, sneezing fit. As for myself, lavender and several musks are both severe allergy and/or migraine triggers. Same with certain artificial pine scents.**

This is why I sympathise with people/places that want to ban perfumes. Much as I adore scent - and I wear it every day - I wear it for me, not for everyone in a fifty foot radius. I think the optimal amount of sillage is something I can detect and people close enough to whisper in my ear, or put their arm around me. Scent should be an intimate murmur, not a bellow.


What are your thoughts?

*Except Chanel #5 which smells like industrial waste.

**I can't actually smell most musks. I don't realize it's there until the throbbing starts in my temples. As far as pine goes - ugh. I survived I don't know how many Christmasses with the family putting up an artificial tree and then my Mom would soak the room with 'pine scented' air freshener; horrible soapy sticky-smelling stuff that made me sick. I still get flashbacks.

Rhymes with door hinge

Orange and amber. Can you really go wrong with this combination? I think not.  I'm quite fond of most citrus fruits, both as a snack and as a fragrance and there are very few I will turn my nose up at (I'm looking at you, grapefruit). Orange and lime happen to be two of my favourite non-exotic citrus scents, and I passionately adore the scent of amber.  I happened to be browsing The Morbid The Merrier's site a while back looking for another perfume and came across this:
"DHANYA
Key notes:
orange blossom, blackened amber, blood orange, whiskey, and a most decadent Indian white amber."

Orange! Amber! Is there a downside to this? I think not! Obviously I snapped it right up. I mean, even the name sounds exotic and heady: Dhanya- like some Hindu goddess. Being a complete geek, I looked it up. Dhanya is a Sanskrit name, which, depending on the source you use, means 'most glorious', 'virtuous', 'thankful', 'blessed'. It may also be a Tamil name for the goddess Lakshmi.

So, anyway, Dhanya is part of TMTM's Odditoria line, which tend to be even darker and more exotic than the standard TMTM fare. A little slice of heaven. I want to try all the scents in that line, but this is the one that caught my eye that day.

Dhanya doesn't smell Indian to me. The first note I catch is a burst of orange - true orange, not orange candy or Bayer Baby Aspirin orange. After a little wear and warming on the skin, the blood orange - which I can only describe as somewhere between orange and tangerine scented - surfaces, cushioned by a rich, creamy layer of amber. You sort of float in this sweet but citrussy mixture for a long time, dreaming of Morrocan orange groves or the gardens of Alhambra, when the wicked whiskey undertones sneak up on you. They're delicate, but at the same time sharp and just a little bit naughty, like a little girl taking a sip of Daddy's gin while he's not looking. There's not enough whiskey to make the scent boozy, just a little bite beneath the juicyness of the richer notes.

I love this scent, it's simple without being simplistic, it's a wonderful layering of like upon like that blends complimentary aromas together without sacrificing their individual virtues. The final touch of whiskey is the perfect contrast to top it off. If you don't care for the main notes, you won't like this perfume, but if you do, you'll be astonished at how breathtaking and intricate such a simple mixture can be. It's so easy to make an orange-scented perfume that's a basic, safe, Florida sunshine smell. Which is fine and has it's place. But add just a few variants and you find yourself a world away, someplace much more exotic and fantastical, with just a hint of hidden danger; a cafe in Casablanca, or strolling down the streets of Granada as the sun sets.

image courtesy of TMTM

Odditoria perfumes come in a 5ml roll-on bottle, which I just love. I'm hella clumsy, so anything I can't accidentally spill is a big plus for me. It's $12 per bottle, which is a great price for so much scent packed into one little container. This scent lasts all day on me, and if I put it on late enough, I still get a hint of it in the morning.

To add to the wonder that is all things TMTM, Lysa has announced the upcoming Fall line and a big sale this Sunday, August 14:
"I am holding a special pre-Halloween sale for Saucy Jack and The Saw is Family. I have a VERY limited supply of fragrance components for both of these, so I will make as many bottles as possible and place them for sale THIS SUNDAY @ 4PM PST - MIDNIGHT in the Etsy shop. I really don't like doing it this way, but Halloween is going to be pretty intense this year, and I wanted to get these out of the way before listing all the seasonal stuff. Should I have any bottles left after the pre-sale, they will return to the vault (aka my perfume cabinet - ha ha) and I will list them with the rest of Halloween until they're gone. I feel very sad, because these will never return, and The Saw is Family is one of my personal favorites EVER. "

I'll be lurking to grab my bottle of the Saw Is Family. See my review of Saucy Jack here. You probably need a bottle of at least one of these. Be there or be square.

All products were purchased by me for my own use. My opinions are my own and always will be. Your mileage may vary.