Review & Recommendation: Possets' Cocktail Party Collection Review Part 2 (7 scents)

Oops, I really procrastinated on this one. Sorry! >.<

Finally done with the rest of the review for Possets' Cocktail Party collection! There's 7 scents reviewed in this review, and for part 1, you can head here. For my previous Possets review, you can either click here or on the tag on the right.

Reviews are done blind as always until I finish the entire review up to the TL;DR, and an overview if the notes surprise me. I've also started adding a "Final Verdict" section to help me keep track of my perfumes and figure out what to destash, since my perfume collection is starting to get messy. Here are the categories I came up with for my "Final Verdict":

• Love: Most awesome perfume ever. Need endless supplies of it and will swap my first born child for the last drops of it if it's limited edition. 

• Like: Like it, may buy a full size of it, but it's not urgent. 

• Interesting: I don't really like it or I don't think I  can wear it in public, but I appreciate the artistry of the scent. It's like a beautiful but unwearable runway piece you won't buy on your own, but don't mind owning.

• Meh: It's okay. May destash for a good price.

• Destash: Kill it with fire.

• Age it: Maybe it will smell good one day. One day. Just wait.

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Lethal Cocktail

"Topnote of bitter almonds, cucumber and a very woody vanilla go hand and hand with patchouli."

At first, I'm getting one of those almond notes that smells like Chinese almond pudding with maraschino cherries. There's also a plasticky scent that may be a leather note at first, but it morphs into whiteboard markers and a woody sort of chemical smell. Maybe it's myrrh?

After about 7-10 min, I'm getting this powdery, sweet and cloying scent, and the almond note isn't that identifiable anymore. The sweetness is that sweet & savoury sweetness of Indonesian/Malay desserts that are usually flavoured with gula melaka (very fragrant sugar that smells warm and rich in a brown sugar sort of way). I'm talking about these kind of dessert:

This is kolak biji salak and it's soooo good. The balls are chewy like bigger, softer boba balls. This dessert is dangerous though...it's usually served with a savoury coconut sauce that cuts the sweetness, so you don't know just how much sugar you're consuming.
Image courtesy of blogkudinihari.blogspot

It's just the sweetness without the actual dessert though.

TL;DR: Cloying, powdery & sweet in an Indonesian/Malay dessert kind of way.

Final Verdict: Destash

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Persona Non Grata

"A river of sugar syrup to start things off, a giant crust of thick toasted sugar covering a custardy middle surrounded by the most sugar infested sinful shortbread crust which was ever toasted to perfection."

Ok, there's that oily sort of gourmand note that's often described as fried dough/waffles/funnel cake/donuts/etc, and the same note that's prominent in Possets' Cannoli (full review here). It's kinda tempered by a woody, ginger tea scent though. It's actually a gorgeous scent –gourmand and rich, yet light and spicy. If I'm still in the mood for Fall scents, I would probably rave more about how great this is and buy 20ml straight away, but unfortunately, lately I'm more into dark florals so I still found it a bit too heavy for my current mood. It's not this scent's fault though, as it is, I can't use Cannoli anymore since I now find it too heavy, and it used to be one of my favourite scents.

It's definitely a gorgeous scent and one I'd recommend to everyone who love bakery gourmands like Cannoli, and want a lighter, more wearable version.


TL;DR: Possets' Cannoli lightened with woody ginger tea.

Overview: I'd expect a heavier scent from the description, so I'm kind of surprised this is lighter than Cannoli. I'm still waffling on whether or not I should order this just to see if I'll fall in love with it when I'm back in the mood for warm, bakery gourmands.

Final Verdict: Like (may change to Love in a different season)

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Portrait of a Lady

"A combination of lovely cupped old roses and modern florist's roses combined with that unique scent of wet stone for balance."

Wow, there's definitely a strong whiff of sweet roses when you first open the bottle. At first, I got light sweet roses and a delicious sort of cake scent. The sweet roses smell more like a perfume, and the cake part mixed in ends up being confusing to me. It's like someone messed up and put in a rose perfume instead of a rose flavouring into a cupcake. There's also the smell that reminds me of wet concrete, and by extension, wet, dingy carparks. The kind that can either be the setting of a horror movie or one of those inspirational story where juvenile delinquents (or potential ones) learn they can dance. Or sing. Or rap. Btw, if you want to see a funny spoof of dance movie trailers, I recommend CommunityChannel's video right here.

This actually is a filming location. Here's the description: "This underground car park offers a dark and dingy environment, with concrete pillars, grafitti and exposed pipes."
Image courtesy of towerhamlets.filmoffice.co.uk

By about 25 min, the rose is pretty much taking over the scent on me. Now it smells mostly like a very sweet, kinda powdery rose with hints of something edible and something bitter, but it's mostly sweet rose.


TL;DR: Rose cupcake that was accidentally flavoured with actual rose perfume instead of a rose flavouring, that has been dropped in a wet carpark.

Final Verdict: Destash

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Romanee-Conti 

"The finest of burgundy, hints of pomegranate with a background of vanilla and oak, a drift of black pepper, with overtones of black currant."

My first thought was that this was artificial grapes made great. There's a watery sort of scent that's often a leather note morphing, and something slightly icy mixed into this, so it smells like an Asian grape mint candy. I'm actually thinking of mostly Japanese grape mint candies, but I've encountered some Indonesian grape mint candies that also smell like this, so I'll go with Asian to cover the entire continent. It's definitely a candy scent, because I've worn this out twice and both times, my brother and my boyfriend asked if I could share my candy. Usually, candy scents are too artificial for me, but if you've tried Asian grape candies, you'll know they smell so freaking fragrant, complex, and delicious.

It's still a younger sort of scent, and I'm not sure if it's work appropriate though.

TL;DR: Asian grape mint candies.

Overview: Huh...I guess I'm not that surprised there's no grapes in this. I'm not really a fan of Possets' non-citrus fruit notes since they tend to smell really artificial, so I was surprised this ended up smelling so great. I guess everything combined ended up giving the scent the complexity in the candy scent.

Final Verdict: Like

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Sterling Swizzle Stick

"A bitter amber plays the champagne role along with a tot of vanilla of the more dry variety, muhuhu adds a definite metallic tang and it's all finished off with the pink in pink champagne (the lees of the grapes)."

This smells like a vanilla note going sour on me, but I know Possets’ vanilla so this can’t be the case. I’m guessing this is a vanilla note mixed with some sour fruit.There's also a dry, wood resin sort of sharpness in this.  The fruit bit smells kinda spritzy and room spray-ish, and during certain times of the month, it smells like starfruits. Unfortunately, when the fruit bit smells like starfruits, the scent smells fairly medicinal.

TL;DR: Either vanilla going sour or medicinal vanilla starfruits, with wood resin.

Final Verdict: Destash

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The Seductive Jesuit

"Turkish coffee, caramel cream, lavender, a strong and sweet amber."

Slight tangent here, but I love the name. I went to a Jesuit college and met a LOT of hot Jesuit priests, so I totally know what Fabienne's talking about.

Ok...back on topic. On certain times of the month, this smells like plasticky coffee with red spices added in. In other times of the month, it's just confusing –there's coffee mixed with a soap and a cottony musk that I personally find a bit cloying. The soap part makes me think of those "fresh white linens" sort of soap scent. Meanwhile, the cottony musk is heavy and makes me think of old lady perfumes. It's like you just got a white shirt fresh out of the wash, and someone proceeds to spill old lady perfume & coffee all over it. It's very sweet, kinda heavy and hits the back of my throat.

TL;DR: Old lady perfume & coffee spilled on a freshly washed white shirt.

Overview: Ok, now I remember why I wanted to try this scent so much –the notes sounded so good! Maybe this just needs aging to smell great?

Final Verdict: Age it

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Van Gogh Desecrated for Charity

"Honey, and plenty of it, on top of vanilla (in the gooiest of all manifestations, the Mexican persuasion) and a spot of an amazing amazing sugar musk."

When I first put it on, I get this burst of a light, watery blue scent, but it was quickly taken over by this musky, kind of clay-like vanilla or amber sort of scent. Depending on the time of the month for me, the clay-like part either gets amplified or tempered down, but there's no escaping it. Either way, it's a powdery and heavier sort of scent, that makes me think of old lady powder rooms. My boyfriend, on the other hand, insisted it smells like old men barbershops. He insists this is the smell of the products used in barbershops that typically caters to old men. We finally decided to compromise and agree that it's a "unisex old people scent".

So either this:

Ok, she doesn't look that old, but the vanity's exactly how I imagine this scent to look like.
Image courtesy of fabgabblog.com

Or this:

I just typed in "old man barbershop"
Image courtesy of tampabay.com

TL;DR: Powdery, musky, unisex perfume for old people.

Overview: Oh dang, the notes sound so good! I think I'll try aging this.

Final Verdict: Age it