I recently got 2 sets of 5 perfume samplers from Wild and got a blogger sample of one of their soaps.
Ross contacted me to let me know when he shipped my order, so I'm happy with the customer service. The turnaround time's not bad:
Ordered: May 30
Shipped: June 3
Received: July 2
This is my first time ordering anything from New Zealand, so I'm not sure if this is the normal shipping time. If you need your order in a hurry, it may be best to contact Ross to check if there are any expedited shipping options available.
5 ml bottles: $13.50, $15.30, $18, $22.50, $27
Samples:
The throw's pretty good. I can smell it while I'm typing when I put it on my wrist. You can even smell it from chatting-with-the-boyfriend-while-watching-GoT-together distance for about 1-1.5h. I picked GoT since it's the kind of show that puts you off cuddling mood, but you're still sitting close together (maybe even holding hands) for moral support because you know a character you love will die. After that, you have to smell close to your skin, but the smell lingers on your skin for about 9-12h.
Some of these are great, complex blends while some struck me as very synthetic smells. The samples I got are for the cheaper, general catalogue blends, so I have no idea what the limited edition scents would smell like. If anyone knows of any decanting circles for this brand, let me know so I can check out how they smell before I commit to a full purchase. For some reason, I often get a different scent from what I was expecting from the descriptions.
As usual, I didn't check the descriptions until I wrote the overviews. And almost every single time, I had to go for a 2nd sniff since I was going, "Wait, what?"
So yes, I definitely recommend getting samples before committing to a full purchase. Now on to scent reviews!
"Tea-soaked fur, caramel cakes with a thin smear of butter, toast crumbs and pink pepper"
This smells like raisins and wood, with an icy coolness. The icy coolness that smells like a medicinal salve calms down to a cold, wet smell. I'm on the fence about this.
Overview: I got confused and went for a second sniff after reading the description. I guess the wood smell can be the pink pepper, though it mostly just smells like old wood. Maybe the kind of wood in taverns that have soaked up a bit of a wine smell. Taverns that look like this:
I don't get butter, toast or caramel either, though the medicinal smell may have come from the tea. There's definitely a raisin smell which I like, but I'm not sure if that's just caramel going sour on me. I know some caramel notes go sour on me. I like this scent better on the second sniff, but it still sounds different from the description.
"Pear, pearlescent flowers, clean linen and honey"
Sparkling, white wine sangria. And it's one of those that'll be served with flowers and bust a hole through your wallet. I swear you can smell some fizziness in this. The fizziness dies down after 5-10 minutes, and it kinda smells like like a cleaned kitchen. There's that clean, slightly soapy disinfected smell with a fruity scent to it. I didn't like the cleaning soap smell, but that's one of the first notes to disappear as this perfume fades. The perfume fades off to this fruity honey-sweetened wood smell.
Overview: I'm not sure where the fizzy smell comes from. I wonder if the cleaning soap smell comes from the clean linen bit. It smells more like a cleaned floor than cleaned cloth though. I definitely love the dry down!
"Clean linen, fresh cut grass, summer blooming flowers and a touch of soil."
It's a green scent, but there's that bitter freshness you get from crushed plant stalks that makes this more of a realistic scent of greeneries rather than a room-spray sort of scent. The green scent keeps leaning towards becoming overpowering and turning this into a room-spray sort of scent, even thought there's that crushed stalk scent and a bit of a dirty scent grounding it. Towards the end, it's just a full on green perfume that smells very room-spray-ish.
Overview: I got my boyfriend to sniff this, and he describes it as a "generic car perfume" scent. After he mentioned it, I realized he was right. Guess I'm not too crazy about this.
"Night blooming flowers with a touch of campfire smoke and leather."
Ice cold, mountain spring water and leather. This is a more masculine scent but I like it. As it dries down, the slight sweetness in this dies down and it really just smells like wet leather. I like leather, but I know a bunch of people don't like the scent.
Overview: Nope, can't smell any smokiness in this. But then again, I got used to BathSabbath & Darling Clandestine's smoky notes, where you actually smell smoke. Not sure how night blooming flowers smell like, and I actually googled it. Several flowers bloom at night and their fragrances range from "deep and fresh" to "spicy". Not sure which particular flower is picked for this scent, but I guess whatever it is just makes the leather smell wet. I personally like this!
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| Very secure packaging! No leakage at all! |
Customer Service
Ross contacted me to let me know when he shipped my order, so I'm happy with the customer service. The turnaround time's not bad:
Ordered: May 30
Shipped: June 3
Received: July 2
This is my first time ordering anything from New Zealand, so I'm not sure if this is the normal shipping time. If you need your order in a hurry, it may be best to contact Ross to check if there are any expedited shipping options available.
Prices:
5 ml bottles: $13.50, $15.30, $18, $22.50, $27
Samples:
- $10.80 for 5 general catalogue scents ($2.16 each)
- $24.30 for 9 themed scents ($2.70 each)
- None available for limited edition scents
Perfume Oil General Review
The throw's pretty good. I can smell it while I'm typing when I put it on my wrist. You can even smell it from chatting-with-the-boyfriend-while-watching-GoT-together distance for about 1-1.5h. I picked GoT since it's the kind of show that puts you off cuddling mood, but you're still sitting close together (maybe even holding hands) for moral support because you know a character you love will die. After that, you have to smell close to your skin, but the smell lingers on your skin for about 9-12h.
Some of these are great, complex blends while some struck me as very synthetic smells. The samples I got are for the cheaper, general catalogue blends, so I have no idea what the limited edition scents would smell like. If anyone knows of any decanting circles for this brand, let me know so I can check out how they smell before I commit to a full purchase. For some reason, I often get a different scent from what I was expecting from the descriptions.
As usual, I didn't check the descriptions until I wrote the overviews. And almost every single time, I had to go for a 2nd sniff since I was going, "Wait, what?"
So yes, I definitely recommend getting samples before committing to a full purchase. Now on to scent reviews!
Doormouse
"Tea-soaked fur, caramel cakes with a thin smear of butter, toast crumbs and pink pepper"
This smells like raisins and wood, with an icy coolness. The icy coolness that smells like a medicinal salve calms down to a cold, wet smell. I'm on the fence about this.
Overview: I got confused and went for a second sniff after reading the description. I guess the wood smell can be the pink pepper, though it mostly just smells like old wood. Maybe the kind of wood in taverns that have soaked up a bit of a wine smell. Taverns that look like this:
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| Obviously, I found this pic on a D&D blog Image courtesy of: dungeonsmaster.com/ |
I don't get butter, toast or caramel either, though the medicinal smell may have come from the tea. There's definitely a raisin smell which I like, but I'm not sure if that's just caramel going sour on me. I know some caramel notes go sour on me. I like this scent better on the second sniff, but it still sounds different from the description.
Florimel
"Pear, pearlescent flowers, clean linen and honey"
Sparkling, white wine sangria. And it's one of those that'll be served with flowers and bust a hole through your wallet. I swear you can smell some fizziness in this. The fizziness dies down after 5-10 minutes, and it kinda smells like like a cleaned kitchen. There's that clean, slightly soapy disinfected smell with a fruity scent to it. I didn't like the cleaning soap smell, but that's one of the first notes to disappear as this perfume fades. The perfume fades off to this fruity honey-sweetened wood smell.
Overview: I'm not sure where the fizzy smell comes from. I wonder if the cleaning soap smell comes from the clean linen bit. It smells more like a cleaned floor than cleaned cloth though. I definitely love the dry down!
Languor
"Clean linen, fresh cut grass, summer blooming flowers and a touch of soil."
It's a green scent, but there's that bitter freshness you get from crushed plant stalks that makes this more of a realistic scent of greeneries rather than a room-spray sort of scent. The green scent keeps leaning towards becoming overpowering and turning this into a room-spray sort of scent, even thought there's that crushed stalk scent and a bit of a dirty scent grounding it. Towards the end, it's just a full on green perfume that smells very room-spray-ish.
Overview: I got my boyfriend to sniff this, and he describes it as a "generic car perfume" scent. After he mentioned it, I realized he was right. Guess I'm not too crazy about this.
Lothario
"Night blooming flowers with a touch of campfire smoke and leather."
Ice cold, mountain spring water and leather. This is a more masculine scent but I like it. As it dries down, the slight sweetness in this dies down and it really just smells like wet leather. I like leather, but I know a bunch of people don't like the scent.
Overview: Nope, can't smell any smokiness in this. But then again, I got used to BathSabbath & Darling Clandestine's smoky notes, where you actually smell smoke. Not sure how night blooming flowers smell like, and I actually googled it. Several flowers bloom at night and their fragrances range from "deep and fresh" to "spicy". Not sure which particular flower is picked for this scent, but I guess whatever it is just makes the leather smell wet. I personally like this!
Since this seems more of a masculine scent, I tried it on my guy. On him, it smells more like wet leather, devoid of any sweetness. I like it, but he doesn't.
"Lavender, jasmine, lime, tomato leaf, moonflower and a dribble of cinnamon"
This is such a relaxing scent! It smells like drinking jasmine tea with a slice of lemon, while sitting in a blooming garden after a springtime rain. Unfortunately, the scent starts smelling a bit like lemon soap before the cinnamon becomes the most prominent note. Eventually it smells more like drinking a sweetened cinnamon drink with powdery lemons. Not too bad.
Overview: This is one of the scents where the cinnamon just takes over. I'm not sure where that powdery lemon smell comes from, and I even sniffed this twice to make sure I wasn't imagining things. Nope..powdery, dusty lemons.
"A luxurious dessert of juicy boysenberries, blueberries and passionfruit in a vanilla cream base."
Grape flavoured syrup water. The artificial, synthetic grape smell is strong. I'm not a fan of this.
Overview: Nope, can't smell all that. Just an artificial grape scent. It smells like grape sodas, but there's no fizziness to it, so it smells like grape soda that has gone flat, leaving behind a grape flavoured syrup water.
"Cinnamon, butterscotch, almond and spiced musk."
The initial smell is scary, but this ends up great, I promise. Initially, this unfortunately smells like vanilla-flavoured cough syrup. Or Nyquil mixed with vanilla essence. It's sharply sweet at first but calms down to have the most perfect pound cake scent, only it's hidden behind the cough syrup smell. Eventually, the cough syrup completely and this turns into the most heavenly gourmand scent. I have a hard time deciding if this smells of cinnamon spiced milk drizzled in caramel or cinnamon spiced pound cake drizzled in caramel. There's a faintly pound cake scent (actual pound cake, not the artificial kind), but it often loses out to the strong cinnamon smell. As it dries down, the cinammon overpowers the other notes.
Overview: I was getting worried I got the wrong scent at first since I didn't expect something named "Satyr" to be gourmand. I was expecting something more green and earthy, I guess. From the notes, I don't know where that pound cake smell comes from, but I wish it'll stay longer! This scent is still great, even when it goes though!
"Fresh cut grass, cinnamon cookie, strawberry, rose and honeysuckle"
Mnemosyne
"Lavender, jasmine, lime, tomato leaf, moonflower and a dribble of cinnamon"
This is such a relaxing scent! It smells like drinking jasmine tea with a slice of lemon, while sitting in a blooming garden after a springtime rain. Unfortunately, the scent starts smelling a bit like lemon soap before the cinnamon becomes the most prominent note. Eventually it smells more like drinking a sweetened cinnamon drink with powdery lemons. Not too bad.
Overview: This is one of the scents where the cinnamon just takes over. I'm not sure where that powdery lemon smell comes from, and I even sniffed this twice to make sure I wasn't imagining things. Nope..powdery, dusty lemons.
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| Imagine how this smells when it's powdered.. Image courtesy of everydaylife.globalpost.com |
Purple Cream
"A luxurious dessert of juicy boysenberries, blueberries and passionfruit in a vanilla cream base."
Grape flavoured syrup water. The artificial, synthetic grape smell is strong. I'm not a fan of this.
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| It smells like how I imagine this would smell Image courtesy of kegworks.com |
Overview: Nope, can't smell all that. Just an artificial grape scent. It smells like grape sodas, but there's no fizziness to it, so it smells like grape soda that has gone flat, leaving behind a grape flavoured syrup water.
Satyr
"Cinnamon, butterscotch, almond and spiced musk."
The initial smell is scary, but this ends up great, I promise. Initially, this unfortunately smells like vanilla-flavoured cough syrup. Or Nyquil mixed with vanilla essence. It's sharply sweet at first but calms down to have the most perfect pound cake scent, only it's hidden behind the cough syrup smell. Eventually, the cough syrup completely and this turns into the most heavenly gourmand scent. I have a hard time deciding if this smells of cinnamon spiced milk drizzled in caramel or cinnamon spiced pound cake drizzled in caramel. There's a faintly pound cake scent (actual pound cake, not the artificial kind), but it often loses out to the strong cinnamon smell. As it dries down, the cinammon overpowers the other notes.
Overview: I was getting worried I got the wrong scent at first since I didn't expect something named "Satyr" to be gourmand. I was expecting something more green and earthy, I guess. From the notes, I don't know where that pound cake smell comes from, but I wish it'll stay longer! This scent is still great, even when it goes though!
Summer Garden Party
"Fresh cut grass, cinnamon cookie, strawberry, rose and honeysuckle"
Initially, it's a tart, dirty green smell that I didn't enjoy. Eventually, the dirty smell fades off and this becomes a delicious smell of sweet pomegranate and basil iced tea. This gets very sweet on me though.
Overview: I did a second sniff since I can't smell any cinnamon in this, which is weird since the cinnamon note Wild Hybrid uses tend to overpower everything else on my skin. I guess the mixture of everything ends up smelling like pomegranate tea. A rose and honeysuckle combination usually produces a distinct smell that I often recognize and associate with Midsummer Dreams Apothecary's Rapunzel. I don't smell it here since the sweet, fruit smell and the green smell are strong in this scent.
"Honey, pipe tobacco and blackberry"
Just pure honey with hints of lemon. Smells exactly like L'Occitane's Honey & Lemon line, with a slight lotion smell to it.
Overview: I honestly can't smell any tobacco in this, so I went for a second sniff. I notice there's a bit of a Baygon (popular Indonesian insecticide, smells like Alkemia's Prairie 66) smell in the background. It's faint enough that I still like this. The lemon smell may have been the blackberry, but the honey is so strong that I only smell a tartness to it. On the second sniff, the lotion smell is stronger than I remembered and got me a bit iffy on this, but the dry down is absolutely gorgeous -honeyed wood!
"A wild and verdant garden of flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables surrounding an ancient wooden cottage."
This initially smelled like what I imagined HoG's Strawberry Patchouli would smell like -strawberries with just faint traces of patchouli for that quiet, herbal clean smell. It smells sooo good! Unfortunately, the patchouli went away pretty fast on me, and this just smells like a plain berry smell.
Overview: This scent is more green and fruity than the description makes it out to be. It's a very sweet smell.
Like most soap bars, I find it drying and my hands end up with that dry, sticky feeling afterwards. Scent-wise, the scent smells more of a peach scent that leans towards smelling artificial, but still smells great. While the scent's pretty strong for the bar soap, it disappears fast as soon as you use it.
Overview: I did a second sniff since I can't smell any cinnamon in this, which is weird since the cinnamon note Wild Hybrid uses tend to overpower everything else on my skin. I guess the mixture of everything ends up smelling like pomegranate tea. A rose and honeysuckle combination usually produces a distinct smell that I often recognize and associate with Midsummer Dreams Apothecary's Rapunzel. I don't smell it here since the sweet, fruit smell and the green smell are strong in this scent.
The Beekeeper
"Honey, pipe tobacco and blackberry"
Just pure honey with hints of lemon. Smells exactly like L'Occitane's Honey & Lemon line, with a slight lotion smell to it.
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| This is my favourite L'Occitane scent line so I'm happy! Image courtesy of fragrantica.com |
Overview: I honestly can't smell any tobacco in this, so I went for a second sniff. I notice there's a bit of a Baygon (popular Indonesian insecticide, smells like Alkemia's Prairie 66) smell in the background. It's faint enough that I still like this. The lemon smell may have been the blackberry, but the honey is so strong that I only smell a tartness to it. On the second sniff, the lotion smell is stronger than I remembered and got me a bit iffy on this, but the dry down is absolutely gorgeous -honeyed wood!
Witches Cottage
"A wild and verdant garden of flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables surrounding an ancient wooden cottage."
This initially smelled like what I imagined HoG's Strawberry Patchouli would smell like -strawberries with just faint traces of patchouli for that quiet, herbal clean smell. It smells sooo good! Unfortunately, the patchouli went away pretty fast on me, and this just smells like a plain berry smell.
Overview: This scent is more green and fruity than the description makes it out to be. It's a very sweet smell.
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Brain Matter Bar Soap Review
"Vanilla syrup and white peach flesh"Like most soap bars, I find it drying and my hands end up with that dry, sticky feeling afterwards. Scent-wise, the scent smells more of a peach scent that leans towards smelling artificial, but still smells great. While the scent's pretty strong for the bar soap, it disappears fast as soon as you use it.
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