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Friday, January 30, 2015

Review & Recommendation: 8 Possets Winter 2014 Scents (Part 3 of 3)

This is part 3 of my review of the 26 decants of Possets' Winter 2014 scents I got. Part 1 is here and part 2 is here.  For my previous Possets reviews, you can click here or on the Possets tag on the right. Hurry and grab these scent if you like them! They're gone by Jan 31!

As always, all scent reviews are done blind until the TL;DR part's written. Overviews are written if the notes surprise me. 

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Pachebel's Canon


"Vanilla, orange, and sandalwood are the three main ingredients in this perfume."

It starts off with lemon butter cookies! Only while some lemon butter cookie scent get too hot, heavy and cloying on me, this stays light and delicious. The lemon bit also has more of a zing in this. Not a bubbly, spritzy sort of zing, but more of a sharp, clean, citrus burst. 

The sweet lemon bit takes the centre of attention on me after about 5-10 min, so I end up with less cookies. I don't mind it though, because this is a gorgeous lemon scent. I tend to associate lemons with cleaning products but this is the lemon of a light, luxurious gourmet lemon candy. The homemade gourmet ones you may get at the end of your meal at a Michelin star restaurant. The kind where the chef will create a 1 paragraph description for it and will get offended if you call it, "Just a lemon candy."

After 20-30 min, I think I smell wood. It's the light, sharp scent of freshly cut wood that some people may find "dusty". I think this was what was keeping the scent so clean, light & unique. 

TL;DR: Luxurious, gourmet lemon candy with hints of cookies & wood.

Overview: It's so easy to get your citruses mixed up when it's in candy/cookie form. I guess now that I know it's orange, it does smell more like oranges in the beginning. It starts getting more lemon-ish when the sandalwood muddles with it though.


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Ride of the Valkyries (Wagner)


"MUSK! Wild, strong, mad, berserk! Like a quick trip with the girls themselves. Crystaline musk thunders with a musk I blend myself (very strong and heavy sharp stuff, like crystal musk but more aggressive), a faux ambergris (no whales were harmed or even annoyed to make this), and a shot of witchhazel."

This is a gorgeous clean green scent! The green is the green of thick, succulent plant stalks. It's mixed with this cottony scent that's heavier than the usual cottony, baby oil sort of scent. If the usual baby oil sort of cottony scents are small, fluffy balls of cotton, this is soft thick blankets of cotton.

The plant stalks bit was the first to go and started fading into the background by about 10 min, sadly. I still smell hints of it, but the cotton blanket bit went to the forefront. It also started become a more musky perfume for an older lady. Not exactly old –it's more of a late 30s sort of scent. I think this is a perfect picture to explain this scent:

I want an excuse to wear puffy ballgowns.
Gorgeous photography by Margarita Kareva

Florid and grandiose, yet clean, with green plant stalks at the base.

TL;DR: A cottony, musky scent for someone in her late 30s.

Overview: Whoa, I would expect something much heavier from that scent description. Possets did a great job!


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Silver Orange


"The tart kind of orange which benefits from association with the sweetness of the silver base."

I'm excited to try this after trying Silver Coconut, well, I'm not exactly a fan, unfortunately. The orange in this is more of that artificial orange cream candy sort of smell. The silver bit is less metallic but way more water. Not a sweet, blue note, just water. The resulting scent is a clinical, clean room (I'm leaning towards the waiting room of dentists or plastic surgeons...all the clean, expensive, more cosmetic than medical stuff), with a creamy orange room scent.
This is where you sit before some person judges you and tells you you need botox at 25. And maybe toss in a boob job while we're at it.
Image courtesy of amydelucainteriors.com

It's nice enough, and I can see some people going crazy over this, but I'm not a fan of creamy oranges. I really, really love the silver bit though. It's so gorgeous. I think I'm going to order a bottle of Possets' Silver Vanilla blind.

TL;DR: A dentist's/plastic surgeon's waiting room.

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Spanish Dance from the Nutcracker (Tchaikovsky)


"Bitter and sweet, unsweetened liquor of chocolate. The whole is so very very rich there is even a suggestion of wood to it."

Chocolate. Actual, rich chocolate. In the beginning, I got hints of boozy liquorice that I found cloying (I HATE liquorice), but by about 5-8 min, it's mostly gone. Instead, I got hints of wood, and it's the kind of wood that's been dried and weathered in a bone-dry desert for a while. There's also a curry bitterness to it.

It kinda makes me think of curry powder sprinkled over dark chocolate, served on a wooden platter. That may sound gross to some people, but I actually like it. Have you guys tried raisins or grapes in curry? Or a curry ice cream? They taste delicious.

By the way, the curry isn't the mellowed out curry you get in most countries where curry isn't native. This is the strong, pungent type of curry you get in India and the Middle East. If you've been to India and found the food too pungent or strong for you, you'll hate this.

TL;DR: Curry powder sprinkled over dark chocolate, served on a wooden platter


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The Lullaby from Hansel and Gretel (Humperdink)


"The very gingerbread house from the famous scene, filled with cream and red currents. So very soperific that you will feel like dreaming the minute you put it on."

What the hell is going on with this scent? There's this sour, wet Chinese pickled fruit smell that's very familiar, but I can't put my finger on what fruit it is. Oh, and there's a salty, metallic tinge to it. It's salty, sour & sweet at the same time. For Indonesians, the combination reminds me of Nano Nano candy...except there's that Chinese preserved smell.

The scent gets me hungry since pickled fruits & vegetables are often served as appetizers in Chinese restaurants, but I don't really want to smell this way. What is going on? I kind of imagined gingerbread houses and candy for this scent.

TL;DR: Chinese pickled fruits.

Overview: That's it. Possets' ginger & cream combo hate me (see review of Wassail).


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Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker (Tchaikovsky)


"Tuberose and gardenia dance merrily with Black Coconut and a bit of lime, and lemon zest."

You know that pink bubblegum scent? Now imagine it powdery and cool. It surprisingly makes an amazing perfume. It's a scent that's playful and light, yet grown up and boudoir at the same time. It's hard to describe how great this scent is, so I'll just pick this one picture that really captures the spirit of this scent:

I realize most of the fashion & erotic photography I've added to my favourites list are coincidentally by female photographers. I think women tend to know how to appeal to women better.
Another gorgeous photograph by Mascha Seitz..I love her!


I get hints of an old oil sort of smell that often comes from Possets coconut, but so far it's behaving and staying very faint. It may be a problem for certain skin chemistries though. 

TL;DR: Cool, powdery pink bubblegum

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Wassail! Wassail! (Traditional)


"Cream, ginger, coriander, and lots of booze!"

This smells like a Japanese pineapple chewy candy, and very, very strong on the sour pineapple part. I wonder if there's something going wrong on me. I know sometimes Possets' coconut smells like Japanese chewy candies, so I wonder if there's coconut in this?

There's something fresh and clean (in the freshly cut herbs sort of way) trying to get out, but it's drowned out by the Japanese pineapple chewy candy scent.

TL;DR: Japanese pineapple chewy candy that's stronger on the pineapple.

Overview: I guess the ginger and booze mixed up turned into pineapples? The chewy candy bit could be the cream part, and I'm pretty sure the coriander's the fresh and clean herb bit that's trying to get out.


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Winter (Vivaldi)


"Peppermint (a favorite winter scent), brown musk, a drop of dill, and sassafrass."


I smell peppermint and some grassy herbs sort of scent. It's not a fresh sort of grassy herb scent though, it's more of an old, dried herbs sort of scent, that's almost a bit bitter. The resulting scent smells makes me think of old people, but it's not the musty, sort of old. It's a clean scent that makes you think of one of those old ladies or gentlemen who seem to easily fit into any nurturing, care-taking roles, and are always ready to clean your scraped knees, bring you something warm and soupy while you're sick in bed and offer peppermint candy to soothe your tears.

It's a kind of scent that triggers a nostalgic feeling in me, which is really weird because most of the old people I was exposed to as a kid were Asian old people who smell like various herbal remedies from their respective countries, and this is definitely a more European/American herbal remedies sort of scent. Add peppermint to it and it's definitely not an Asian old person.

TL;DR: A nurturing old person.

Overview: I had to look up what sassafrass is. Apparently it's often used in teas and root beer, and kinda smells like root beer. 

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