Review: Alchimia Apothecary Perfumes (Part 1)

EDIT: I have had a bad customer service experience and so did some of my friends, so I personally will avoid them now. This will probably cause some controversy, but I feel that I need to put this out there.  There's also some owner sketchiness. Here's some public sketchiness, here's some I got privately. I'm also not a fan of her tone with people who give not so great reviews of her brand.

I finally have time to review the Alchimia perfumes I got in more depth! Since the perfumes take so long to review (they stick on your skin for quite some time), I've split my review of the 11 scents into 2 parts.

For all these reviews, I didn't read the scent descriptions until after I'm done reviewing and before writing my overall impressions of the scents. I kept the cold sniff impressions I wrote about previously, when I first opened the bottles.

Perfume Oil Review

The smell wafts around for about an hour and afterwards, you can only smell it faintly for about 4h, though you can smell traces of it for a longgg time. I end up only being able to review 2 scents/day. Some scents take a while to settle on my skin, so I decided to just keep updating until the smell settles.

Freezia

"Water flows all around the tough shards of ice and pears in this blend to break away and reveal the lovely delicate notes of freesia hidden just below the surface."

Cold Sniff Impression: Springtime rain on a flower garden. I want to prance around like a bloody unicorn! 

First application: My skin amped up the clean rain smell and oh my gods it's amazing. Definitely springtime rain in a carefully cultivated garden of mellow, sweet florals. A hint of something fruity in the background? I can't place it. It mellows out the florals and gives a hint of something sweet but tangy.

5 min in: The blue smell is amping up, but it still smells like a floral perfume with a hint of something fruity.

15 min in: The blue smell is much stronger than the floral smell. It's now flowers strewn across a calm, serene lake. 

30 min in: Somehow I smell melons & soap too. 

1h in: The smell mostly stays constant after this, but I'm picking up the slightly tangy fruit scent in the background again. I picked up that scent on the first application, but it got overpowered by the blue smells for a while. I'm trying to figure out what it is. Still smells of mostly melons & soap. It's definitely a very sweet scent and a but too sweet for me. 

Overall Impression: Oh wow, this is an awesome smell before it gets too sweet. May toss it into my swap pile. I don't know how I got melons & soap from freesia & pear. I'm trying to sniff out the pear, and I'm sure it's there since that must be the reason for the tangy scent in the background, but I mostly smell melons & soap. 

Gimme S'more

"Toasted marshmallows, graham crackers, raw cocoa and mouth watering black ambrosia surround the molten sparks of a smokey campfire."

Cold Sniff Impression: I was expecting s'mores but somehow got Indonesian coffee. As in coffee the way the locals drink it -drowned in sugar. We're famous globally for our coffee but we prefer drinking them in the form of milky-brown coloured sugared water with a coffee smell. On the fence.

First application: I smell the graham crackers now, though the chocolate smell doesn't seem to agree with me and ends up smelling bitter.

5 min in: The bitter smell is now overpowering. The bitter smell actually smells a bit like a chemical oil leak. This is weird. Hiding behind that smell is a delicious sweet graham cracker smell though.

15 min in: The oil spill smell is getting stronger. Why skin, whyyyy??? The smell sort of reminds me when I opened a bottle of vanilla essence that has gone slightly rancid -very sweet with a hint of something delicious, but all buried under the smell of rancid oil.

1 h in: Oh wow. The rancid oil smell finally disappears leaving a sweet, smoky wood sort of smell. It's actually delicious now. It's a very sharp type of sweet scent, instead of the creamy sweet scent I was expecting. Definitely a surprise. Unfortunately, the scent is too faint by now.

Overall review: I love how this scent turns out -sharp, sweet, smokey wood with a hint of delicousness -but I definitely need to remember that this takes an hour before it smells amazing and sultry on me, and by that time, it's pretty faint. 

Image Courtesy of Alchimia Apothecary

Native

"Sweet grass lies at the heart of this blend with the sharp notes of apples and cranberries hinting around the outskirts of your senses. Combined with bold, rich tobacco leaves and just a touch of wildflowers, this is truly a unique and wonderful fragrance."

*Note: The rollerball jammed for this bottle so I had a hard time getting the oils out. I may have "crushed" the scent.

Cold Sniff Impression: Springtime, soap and a hint of sweet fruits. The smell strongly reminds me of Midsummer Dreams Apothecary's Rapunzel, only this has something sweet in it. I love it.

First application: Oh, definitely reminds me of Rapunzel from Midsummer Dreams Apothecary. I wonder if that scent is sweet grass? While Rapunzel has a clean soap scent, this is a bit different. More wild and sweet on me.

5 min in: There's a hint of a Baygon entering (popular Indonesian brand of insecticide, similar scent to Alkemia's Prairie 66) and also something like a sweet wood scent.

15 min in: Thank goodness the Baygon scent didn't get stronger. There's a smell that's not exactly bitter. It's a scent that somehow makes me think of fire and cinders. I like this overall scent. It smells like dry grasslands before a forest fire. Fresh, wild, with a hint of danger. The scent pretty much stayed steady like this, though the "fiery" scent is the first to go as the perfume wears on.

Overall impression: I wonder if that "fiery" smell came from the tobacco. Overall, this definitely a unique scent. I'm not sure how else I can describe it except for "dry grasslands before a forest fire".

Image Courtesy of Alchimia Apothecary

Juju Monster

"This fragrance is packed with a monster amount of fruit and berries. Sharp and bold scents of black current weave around the juicy trickles of mulberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, and rich, wonderful cherries. This is a must in the fragrance collection of any fruit lover."

**EDIT 08/11/14:** I got this in full size and it smells very different. It smells highly artificial and headache inducing. It's significantly different from the  sample I got. Very disappointed and sad.

Cold Sniff Impression: A candy store with old school candies -the colourful gum drops, pixie sticks, jawbreakers, etc. I'm very impressed with this smell. A lot of candy smells end up having that hollow, cheap and artificial smell, but this smells like an actual candy store. The smell's so delicious!

First application: It smells like cherry candies. I've tried a cherry scent that ended up smelling like Nyquil before, so I was so impressed by how delicious this stayed. It doesn't have that hollow, artificial scent most candy smells have.

5 min in: Oh wow, an amazing sweet, sugary scent bloomed. It's smells like cotton candy, yet at the same time still smells rich and deep, instead of artificial and hollow. I don't know how Alchimia does it.

15 min in: The sugary scent mellowed and I think I smell a hint of apples? And something tart. Berries?

30 min in: It smells like an icy apple candy. Not minty. The kind of apple candy that smells deliciously of apples but you know will be icy in your mouth. And it still doesn't smell artificial. I'm just so impressed!

1h in: Aww..the apple took a backseat and now the icy sugar scent is stronger. It's still an amazing scent though. My mind is blown and I need to get this in a full size. Why did I only get a sample of this?

Overall Impression: Oh wow..no idea how this became a candy smell when it's supposed to be fruity. Maybe that's why it's such an amazing "candy" smell and doesn't smell artificial at all. This is so delicious, I'm buying in full size! I'm not even checking my budget. I can starve. It's fine.

Dangerous Dreams

"This is filled with juicy peaches, creamy tres les cake, brown sugar, and crunchy cinnamon filled crumbles."

Cold Sniff Impression: A box of fresh donuts in a brand new office. This scent makes me nostalgic and I can't figure out why. It definitely smells like an brand new office but I can't place what place or moment in time this reminds me of. Yes, I love the smell of brand new offices. No idea why.

First Application: Oh, it just smells like donuts on me! Yum!

5 min in: Oh gods...there's a grape jelly scent coming in. Nononononooo.

10 min in: Yes. It smells like jelly donuts. Which may smell good to some people, but jelly donuts make me sick. When I was a kid, I got bad food poisoning from jelly donuts and ended up puking all over my Pillow. Yes, I capitalized that. I called her Bantal (Indonesian for "pillow") and I had her ever since I could remember. I freaking love her and made my family bring her along whenever we travelled. I thought we'd be together forever and planned to grow old together with her, taking her with me to whichever nursing home/asylum I ended up in. After I puked all over her, my mom deemed Bantal a biohazard and threw her away. And this is why I hate jelly donuts. /endrant

I can't do this guys. After 30 min of smelling jelly donuts only, I scrubbed it off. I can't. I just can't. I'm giving this to one of my friends.

Overall Impression: SCREW YOU JELLY DONUTS!!!



UPDATE: I removed Myriad since I was told I may have received the wrong scent. Erin is popping a new bottle into my order