Review: 4 Scents from Conjure Oils

I love Conjure Oils, so I was proud that I managed to limit myself to only 4 decants and a full bottle from their Halloween collection! The full bottle I got is Succubus, which I reviewed last year, and the 4 decants are new scents I'll be reviewing in this post. As of today, they're still available.

For my previous Conjure Oils reviews, you can click on the tag on the right or head here.

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Review Notes

As always, reviews are done blind until the TL;DRs are written. If any of the notes surprise me, I write an overview. 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: I like it and 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.

• Ok: It's okay. I like it enough, but may destash for a good price to keep my collection manageable. 

• Destash: Kill it with fire.

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

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Bloody Mary 

"Blood red gulab attar in full bloom, shy English violet, the passion of clove infused with red sandalwood, red blood musk and the innocence of the gift of crocus in the form of saffron threads all anchored in earthy russet patchouli saturated black honey."

Oh gods. This has that cleaning agent sort of chemical smell. Yes, I smell heavy, musky, super sweet candied roses, and hints of sandalwood. Yes, it's that kind of super sweet, candied rose + sandalwood scent that's super popular souvenir shops in India....but it's all overwhelmed by the cleaning chemical smell. It's as if one of the souvenir shops in India created a detergent or bathroom cleaner that would have a cheesy name like "A Whiff of India" or something. I actually like the super sweet, candied rose + sandalwood scent, and would probably buy a detergent in this scent...it's just that the detergent bit smell too strong for me to like as a perfume. It's the way some detergents make your clothes smell amazing, but you have to learn to ignore the detergent smell when you sniff it right out of the bottle.

After about 20 min, the roses do calm down until they smell more like an overly sweetened rose candy dessert, but the industrial cleaner scent is still there.

TL;DR: Souvenir detergent from India.

Final Verdict: Destash

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STELLA, the Celestial Witch 

"Otherworldly and bioluminescent flowers deepened with the blackness of a night sky littered with stars."

Extremely sweet and floral, and blue. It kinda reminds me of a room spray. One of those pink ones with flowers all over and would make people declare that they hate floral scents. As I wear it, I sniff that kind of medicinal, game-y incense scent that NAVA likes to call "red musk", but mingled with the floral and the blue, it just ends up smelling like a dank, wet toilet sprayed with a pink room spray.

TL;DR: Dank, wet toilet sprayed with a pink room spray.

Final Verdict: Destash

Overview: Ok, the scent description is more of a story than actual notes, so I guess deeper otherworldly and bioluminescent flowers smell like a dank, wet toilet sprayed with a pink room spray.

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Vampire Pumpkin

"Sensual chai spiced golden honey folded into pumpkin cream cheese and toasted oak ice cream finished with a dollop of vanilla whipped cream then drizzled with smoked sea salt and lapsong souchong caramel swirl."

Oooh...I love this. It's like a milky, sweet, golden ginger tea. I can only describe the sweetness as "golden". It just makes you think of golden honey or maltose, and it's beautiful.

Anyone else ate maltose frequently as a kid? They seal your mouth shut. Anyone has any idea where I can get these in Indonesia/Singapore? Totally craving them.
Image found on Wikipedia

The ginger isn't that subtle and it's more milky than spicy. Despite the milkiness, it's still a light scent and definitely a scent I'd recommend gourmand lovers who don't want to induce food coma all around them.

I get hints of smoked wood that can smell too burnt at times, but overall, it behaves pretty well and just grounds the scent to keep it from getting cloyingly sweet. As the scent fades, I do get a bit of a clay-like scent, but it's barely there on my skin.

TL;DR: Lightly gourmand, milky, sweet, golden ginger tea.

Final Verdict: Love

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WENDY, the Tempest Witch 

"Breeze-dusted lavender honey, broom straw, silver bells, wind-whipped willow and Mercurial musk."

Lavender marshmallows. This smells exactly like that. Definitely powdery, but not in an old lady way, and so fluffy and delicious. Unfortunately, my skin eats the lavender marshmallow bit up really quickly, and after 10 min, it has morphed into this clean, wet, blue scent. It's the kind of scent you'd expect from blue liquid soaps in fancier bathrooms. I'm really confused. Where did the marshmallows go? At times, I catch a whiff of what was the lavender marshmallows, only they've taken a more camphor-like scent.

This scent fades super fast on my skin, and by 40 min, I'm definitely struggling to sniff it, even when my nose is pressed on my wrist.

TL;DR: Lavender marshmallows disappearing into blue liquid soaps.

Final Verdict: Age it

Review: Mixtape September: The Death of Summer Tracklist + Fall in Loveby Conjure Oils

At first, I wasn't going to review my Conjure Oils' Mixtape September: The Death of Summer Tracklist,  since the collection was sold out by the time my decants got to me (I waited too long to send my decants back, not Ajevie's fault). However, when Vajra mentioned in a Facebook post that the scents are all still available until the end of the year and can be bought if you email her, I decided to go ahead and review these scents in case anyone's thinking of getting them.

This is my 3rd Conjure Oils review and for my previous reviews, you can click on the Conjure Oils tag on the side or here.

For this review, I'm reviewing all 10 scents from The Death of Summer collection, as well as Fall in Love, a standalone limited edition scent. All the scents from The Death of Summer collection are named after a song, so I've linked the song in the titles of each scent review. As usual, reviews are done blind until the TL;DR's written. If anything in the notes surprise me, I write an overview.

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A Day - Clan of Xymox

"Tonka bean, Indian patchouli, cinnamon, orange blossom, black currant and wildflower honey."

This is a gorgeous honey scent! It's on of those honey notes that would be on a high key if it's a music note. It's not piercing though, though that part can be subjective. There's definitely citrus in this, but the citrus is more like a candied clementines sort of sweet, mellowed citrus. It's not the fresh, zing-y citrus. This floral-citrus honey scent makes me think of one of those gourmet honeys that are flavoured with all sorts of fruits/herbs/flowers/spices to the point where it can be a standalone dessert. There's also a slight creamy nut scent mixed into it, which sometimes smells a bit waxy. Not sure if the waxy part is deliberate.

Definitely a scent that makes you feel like prancing in fields with a picnic basket packed by a Michelin star café. I was kinda surprised when I heard the song since if I'm picking a song for this, it'll be an uplifting, happy country music sort of song. First song that came to my mind was Kacey Musgraves' Follow Your Arrow, which is awesome song you should check out if you haven't. Oh, and the photo to accompany this has to be this:

We can blame the dog for the waxy smell.
Gorgeous photography by Celine Bissat

TL;DR: Floral-citrus honey.

Overview: Oh wow, I would never have guessed there's patchouli in this because it's so quiet. If you hate patchouli, don't worry, it's not a loud note you can sniff out.

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Charlotte Sometimes - The Cure

"The recollection of a fading dream: vanilla cream, Mirabella plum, Parma violet, ruby pomegranate, clove and a drop of ginger."

A scary savoury sour broth smell erupted as soon as I opened the bottle, which freaked me out. I tried it on my skin anyway and well...you know how something can smell crap in the bottle but smell great on your skin? That's what I thought would happen when I got the initial burst of violets on my skin, but this sour chilli scent took over literally seconds later.

I smell a soapy, waxy sort of violet floating up, but the star player in this scent is that sour chilli pepper that makes me think of Tom Yum instant noodles.

TL;DR: Thai instant noodles with a spicy-sour broth + soapy, waxy violets.

Overview: Another one of Conjure Oils' scents, Slasher Chic, also turned into this Tom Yum instant noodles scent too. Unfortunately, Slasher Chic's notes is completely useless for figuring out which note's to blame:

"The waters of Camp Crystal Lake, the steamy hiss of a boiler room and a dark Halloween night of crisp leaves and doom."

Maybe it's the ginger?

Update Sep 30, 2015: The scent is less savoury now. Once the scent settles after about 5 min, it's a much better version of the scent 9 months ago. It's still definitely really peppery, but it's a more wearable sort of peppery scent. It smells like gorgeous, soapy violets with a green pepper spice. It's really clean and poised, and I can see this scent on a sharp woman who's flying up the career leather dressed in tailored pant suits. It's still not for me, but I can see women who prefer more masculine scents liking this.

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Die Interimsliebenden - Einstürzende Neubauten

"Delicate hummingbird attracting blossoms, honey incense, amber cream, spiced myrrh and white tea."

On the bottle, I got that game-y incense note NAVA loves to use but on my skin...woww. It's a clean, salty & spicy sort of scent. The spicy part initially tingles your nose the way pure chilli powder does but that bit calms down after a few minutes. It's also not mixed with any of the sourness that often comes with spicy notes. This scent has this really unique heavier, almost musky sort of cottony baby oil and honey scent that I just love.

The cottony baby oil and honey part makes me think of serene, elegant new mothers, but the salty and spicy part of the scent just gives this scent an edginess that makes me think of an elegant young mom with a lot of steel. She'll be the type who puts the baby to sleep in between international conference calls from her very efficiently run home office. The type of woman who'll casually close a hostile takeover bid with an elegant smile before anyone finishes underestimating her.

This is a picture I took of  a family friend. As you can see, she's a gorgeous, stunning woman even though she's in her 40s in this photo. She's also the CEO of a multi-million dollar company she started on her own. Anyway, she clearly doesn't realize how beautiful she is because once, a guy about half her age stopped her and told her, "I've been following you. I think you're sooooo beautiful! Can we be friends?"

Instead of realizing that she is probably the first woman that socially awkward guy ever attempted to pick up, her first thought was, "Ohmygod he must be trying to ROB me!"

She ran for it. 

TL;DR: Your typical Indonesian female CEO.

Overview: Oh wow...I thought myrrh is a death-note for me, but apparently not!

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Grace - Jeff Buckley

"Black patchouli, pink pepper, Indian jasmine, deep sandalwood and a sultry drop of ylang ylang."

There's a dry, sour woodiness in it, and a scent that really makes me think of Indonesia. Maybe there's dragon's blood in this. It smells like going into one of those high end spas in Bali that try their best to look "traditional" by building luxurious, air-conditioned wooden huts. This is the kind of scent they'll use –woody, warm oils infused with Balinese florals (usually some combination of jasmines, ylang ylang, champaka), and of course, a faux ancient smell that's most probably from patchouli. As if scent can convince people that an air-conditioned hut is totally traditionally Indonesian and bursting with local mystic wisdom.

The dry down is that extremely dry and sour wood scent that some perfumers use as their black tea note. I don't think it's a black tea note though, since I had successes with Conjure's black tea note before. My boyfriend asked me to scrub it off since he described it at "vomit-y".

TL;DR: Faux traditional wooden massage hut in Indonesia.

Overview: I think it's the pink pepper causing the sourness. Patchouli, sandalwood & jasmine are often scents used for dragon's blood, so no surprises there.

Update Sep 30, 2015: The sourness is gone! It's definitely the most beautiful, complex ylang ylang scent I've ever tried and I like it a LOT.

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I Can't Hardly Stand It - The Cramps 

"Sorrowful notes of King mandarin, bergamot, juicy peach, black tea and Moroccan myrrh."

Wow, this scent is a trip. At first, I was so sure I got orange candy, then it became a bit more like a Japanese/Korean peach tea drink. Right as I started typing it up, it turned into sweet earl grey tea, with a bit of dustiness. I still smell whiffs of peaches every now and then, but it mostly blended into the tea sweetness. It makes me think of an Asian earl grey mint (which, like a lot of Asian mints, is more cool than minty), that comes with some fruity flavouring.

TL;DR: Asian fruity earl grey mint.

Overview: While I'm waffling on getting this in full-size, I have to say that this black tea note is one of my favourite tea notes.

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I Melt With You - Modern English 

"Dark chocolate, woodsmoke, toasted marshmallow and aged vanilla extract."

Omg, this is so delicious! Actual chocolate and marshmallows! That doesn't smell artificial or plasticky! Omg, LOVE. Unfortunately, I raved too soon. As the scent wears on, there's times when the scent is on the verge of developing a plasticky oil (think sunblock left out for too long) scent. My skin behaved though, so it stayed mostly smelling of s'mores, with just a hint of plasticky oil. I'm definitely nervous about getting this in full-size though. I had another s'mores scent, Alchimia Apothecary's Gimme S'more, and that did NOT age well at all. After a few months, it became straight up plastic and old oils, with hints of woodiness. I had to swap it. I'm definitely worried this would age badly as well.

TL;DR: S'mores with a hint of plasticky oil.

Update Sep 30, 2015: After 9 months of aging, the plasticky part is gone! It's now delicious marshmallows and chocolates, with just hints of graham crackers that could be from the woodsmoke. I love it!

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Pink Moon - Nick Drake

"Pink grapefruit, delphinium, pink calla lily and crimson dragon's blood."

I smell cool, elegant florals like lillies or gardenia. There's a bit of woodiness in this too, but it's very, very subtle and blends really well with the florals. The scent has a bit of a powderiness to it, but it's more of a clean, light and cool sort of powderiness. If I'm picking an ad for it, it's definitely this one:

There's something about this scent that makes me think of a grey, white and blue colour palette. And definitely something high fashion.
Gorgeous photography by Katherline Lydia

It's a scent that's florid yet tastefully elegant as well, it's just so high fashion.

TL;DR: High fashion cool, florals with hints of powder and wood.

Overview: I definitely could not have guessed those notes since pink grapefruit isn't something I expect in a scent so elegant. Dragon's blood often has wood in the blend, so that's probably causing the woody scent.

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Stella Was A Diver And She Was Always Down - Interpol

"Serpentine blue musk, salty sea air, bioluminescent blossoms and sapphire amber."

This is a very subtle floral blue. Definitely smells more like a high end perfume rather than a roomspray. Something was threatening to go sour on me at first, but my skin behaved and the scent went amazing. It might be something to watch out for though. This scent makes me think of delicate flowers lying on crystalline clear water.

It's such a clear, elegant scent.
Gorgeous photography by Anastasia Ri, she has so many pretty macro works!

It's not too sweet and really has a clear water quality to it. I think I may have to revisit BathSabbath's Holy Diver because this scent can upstage it to become my favourite blue scent! It's such a clean, elegant & sophisticated blue.

TL;DR: Flowers on crystalline clear water. 

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Under The Milky Way - The Church

"Toasted black tobacco, oud, aged vanilla resin, roasted almonds and kush."

Whoa. The first thing that exploded was caramelized cough syrup, but it soon calmed down. It's definitely a heavy, warm and sweet scent, like caramel popcorn that's overdone and kinda burnt. There's also this sour, smoked woody scent that makes me think of how an old saloon in one of those Wild West films would smell like –wood, chewed tobacco, lingering brash sweetness of cheap perfume. The only thing missing is the scent of spilled booze.

Add a sepia filter to make it look old.
Image courtesy of wallpaperup.com

TL;DR: Western film saloon selling overly burnt popcorn instead of booze during Prohibition.

Overview: I wonder if the slightly bitter, medicinal bit at first is the almonds?

Update Sep 30, 2015: Oh wow. The burnt part is gone, and now it's gorgeous boozy caramel with slightly sour tobacco. The tobacco part lightens the scent and makes it more unique, but I'm still not a fan. I wish it's just the boozy caramel, because it's beautiful!

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Wicked Game - Chris Isaak 

"Delicious passionate torture: Wildberry, anise, cinnamon, orange blossom, Haitian vetiver, sandalwood, blood cedar and vanilla."

Ok, there's a cloying fruity scent that smells like kids' fruity flavoured cough syrup (to all medicine manufacturers out there, you're not fooling anyone! They taste like crap. The only advantage is that it strongly discourages kids from faking illnesses). Luckily the fruity scent disappears after about 3-5 min, and now I'm getting this woody scent that smells almost peanut like. There's still a cinnamon candy (like Red Hots) type of cinnamon scent in it. I like the woody peanut but, but the Red Hots type of cinnamon is my least favourite type of cinnamon, so I'm not sure about this scent.

The scent it leaves lingering on your skin is gorgeous though! It's a creamy cinnamon and fruity sort of scent.

TL;DR: Peanut-like wood with Red Hots cinnamon.

Overview: I'm really not sure what combination is creating that peanut-like scent.

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Fall In Love

"Envelope yourself in the soft and sultry, where the love of fall and the falling of love collide: sugared fig, black amber incense, toasted coconut, crisp autumn leaves and a slathering of oud."

Oh wow this is complicated. There's something peppery that's the first note that hits you, but then there's creamy coconut with some sweet perfumed water sort of scent. The coconut is an actual shaved coconut scent, not sunblock, so I'm really in love with it. I really like this scent. Floating up, you get this sophisticated sort of sweet scent with a hint of something peppery, and underneath, there's that filling scent of coconuts that make your stomach feel happy.

TL;DR: Sophisticated perfume with filling coconuts underneath.

Overview: I should be able to identify fig by now, but somehow, I always identify it as perfumed/sweet water. Nose fail.

Review: 10 Scents from Conjure Oils' The Ghost of Hallows Past: Resurrected 2014 Collection

I'm done reviewing my 2nd batch of Conjure Oils scents! This time, the scents I'm reviewing is from the The Ghost of Hallows Past: Resurrected 2014 collection. This collection isn't as weird as the Dark Cinema collection I reviewed before, which I was slightly sad about since it's so fun getting weird, way-out-there type of scents when you've tried too many perfumes. For my Dark Cinema review, you can head here.


These scents are also decants from Ajevie and I can't recommend her decant circles more. Head here to check it out!

So here's my review, as usual, they're done blind until the TL;DR's written. If anything in the notes surprise me, I write an overview.

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A Gypsy Flame 2014

"Bonfire smoke, spun sugar, warm caramelized popcorn and candy coated apples."

It's a burnt, papery vanilla cake-like scent. I can only describe this scent as "papery" since it has a light dryness that just has this paper-like quality to it. The vanilla bit was threatening to go sour on me for the first 3-5 min, but luckily it stayed vanilla. There's a bitterness to it that can be either coffee or burnt marshmallow.

As the scent wears on, the bitter bit leaned more towards burnt marshmallow on me. Not toasted, burnt and completely inedible. It has that cloying sweet scent burnt marshmallows seem to have too.

Smells awesome, definitely shouldn't be eaten.
Cool photography by Kyle Dreier. 

I tried this out on my friend to test out if the bitter burnt marshmallow/coffee part was just my skin chemistry. He got the same scent bitter scent, but it leans more towards over-roasted coffee on him. The vanilla is a bit more cloying on him too, and the "papery" part smells more like perfumed paper.

TL;DR: Burnt vanilla-marshmallow cake.

Overview: Tried this again and still can't get the apple, it could be the sour part in the beginning. The cloying cake-like smell is the most prominent, and I guess it's made up of the spun sugar & caramelized popcorn notes.

Update Sep 30, 2015: After a year of aging, this is GORGEOUS! The burnt bit has gone and it smells more like cotton candy and moist, green apple cake with melted marshmallows on top. It's sooo beautiful! The cotton candy is actual cotton candy too, not the crazy searing Aquolina's Pink Sugar type of sugar note. As the scent wears on, the marshmallows smell more toasted and starts to dominate. Definitely age this!

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Hell Broth 2014

"Black coconut, almond blossom, toasted patchouli, nutmeg, beeswax and bubbling green sugar cane syrup."

Ok, there's patchouli in here but I'm not sure what else. It ends up smelling like a thick Asian dessert broth, with patchouli. There's also something off in the background -the closest description I can give is waxy concrete. Either way, if they're aiming to create the scent of a broth that'll probably punch a hole through your stomach, they've succeeded.

TL;DR: A heavy Asian dessert broth with extra inedible ingredients added in by a crazed chef.

Overview: Not sure how almond blossoms smell like, but almonds, coconut & sugar cane can definitely be found in a lot of Asian desserts. I'm actually impressed they got the waxy scent in, since I'd imagine it's a pretty hard scent to capture. I have no idea what's causing the concrete part. 

Update Sep 30, 2015: Oh wow, now it smells less gourmand and more of a wearable perfume! The scent has definitely gotten lighter and I'm getting clean, light rich coconut. There's almost a floral sweetness to it. It's so beautiful and definitely a scent you need to age.

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Killer Klown 2014

"Spun sugar, vanilla-white greasepaint, molten marshmallow and cherry-syrup blood."

Artificial cherries. There's some vanilla in it so it smells more like kids' plastic toys scented with a cherry scent, rather than Nyquil. At first it smelled exactly like the the cherry "baby food" that came with the Baby All Gone doll I used to have:

Is it just me, or does that doll look creepier than I remembered?

Image courtesy of yeahflashback.com

Then the plastic part got stronger and stronger until it smells like how I imagine a fake, made in China knock off of that toy would smell like. Well, gotta give it to them, it smells like a toy that'll send your kid to the hospital if s/he's dumb enough to chew on it. Killer Klown is an apt name for that toy.

TL;DR: Plastic cherries.

Update Sep 30, 2015: The plastic bit is gone, and now it's this pretty, powdery artificial cherries. If you love that artificial cherries note, you'd love this.

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Mara 2014

"Bo tree bark, Indian sandalwood, thousand-petaled sacred lotus blossoms, warmed honey and pure vanilla absolute."

This starts of smelling like a floral bar soap and then a fizziness enters. It's one of those thick, lotiony, clean florals that always makes me think of serene, elegant socialite moms –light enough to be youthful without being young, deep enough to be elegant and complex without going heavy. The type of florals in this makes the fizziness smell more lighthearted instead of childish.

Unfortunately, after 20-30 min it got heavy. It's still gorgeous –sensual, heady, musky florals –but definitely an older scent. It's like the socialite just aged 20 years.

TL;DR: Heavy, heady, musky florals.

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Murder of Crows 2014

"The softest touch of black leather feathers, oak splinters, acorn, crumbled leaves and baked apples drizzled in brandy all illuminated by creamy vanilla moonlight"

Leather, ink, wood and a blue note. Makes me think of an old writing desk that looks like this:

You just know it comes with a leather seat, and a quill & bottle of ink will not look out of place there.
Image courtesy of wayfair.com

I tried this out on my friend and he and his girlfriend fell in love with this scent. Here's their quick descriptions of the scent:

Him: Wow, I like this. This really goes with enjoying really good whiskey. It smells like a really good whiskey bar –those old school ones. You know what I'm talking about –the ones with antique books. (he's referring to the ones that are usually dimly lit, has leather seats, wood panels, antique books for decoration, and makes you want to show up wearing an ascot)

Her: This is what I want my library to smell like!

TL;DR: The perfect library/study/whiskey bar.

Overview: I suspect the apples blending with the brandy and vanilla is what's causing the ink smell. 

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Ol'Scratch 2014

"Thick slices of oven-fresh pumpkin bread slathered with butter and served with fresh cream and a drizzle of treacle"

Initially, there was the smell of vanilla/caramel/cream going sour on me but that disappeared in about 3 minutes. The scent I'm left with is a creamy, buttery gourmand. If you want a straightforward, creamy, buttery gourmand scent, this is it. No fall spices or anything else muddling it. Just straight up creamy, butteriness. I get hints of wet, soggy pumpkin here and there, but it never really took over on my skin. If your skin amps up that soggy pumpkin smell, it may be something to watch out for.

Around 40 min, I smell traces of fall spices but it's too faint for me to really notice.

TL;DR: Creamy, buttery gourmand.

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Succubus 2014

"African violet, sugar soaked vanilla, benzoin, coconut milk, triple cream, Egyptian sandalwood musk and red currant."

That's it. I need this in full size. It smells like sweet, candied blue florals (most likely violets, from experience).

Not sure if you've tried this candy, but all the candied blue florals scent smells exactly like this.

I always love the candied blue florals scent, only what makes this unique is that this is just sweet, without the powdery bit. It's a small difference and hardly matters, but I'm finding excuses to get this because I love candied florals.

.....aaaaand right after I typed that, the powdery bit came in. (about 20-30 min into the scent)

Ok, it's too much like Possets' Bouquet a la Marechale, which I already own a full size in. I sniffed them side by side and Succubus is heavier on the candied part, while Bouquet a la Marechale is a bit heavier on the cool floral bit. They're slightly different, but close enough to each other that I can't justify buying a bottle of Succubus when I already own Bouquet a la Marechale. The candied bit makes Succubus seem like a "younger" scent than Bouquet a la Marechale too. If you tell me to pick a favourite between the two, I really can't. I love them both equally. Must. Resist. Buying.

TL;DR: Candied blue florals.

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Vortex Tunnel 2014 

"Sweet funnel cakes defiled by chaotic swirls of vanilla ice cream, topped with corrupt caramel syrup and washed down with hootch."

Perfumed caramel. This ends up smelling like an ice cream parlour at first, where you can smell one of those clean, clinical-looking room scent with the scent of ice cream cones and burnt caramel. The clean room scent is the most overpowering though, and there's also a sunblock smell. Definitely an ice cream parlour by the beach, filled with people slathered in sunblock. And it'll look clean and clinical like this:

It'll definitely have that clean, almost office-like smell.
Image courtesy of gourmetgoro.blogspot

I'm not sure why this is a fall scent since it just reminds me so much of summer. Or at least fall in LA, where it's still warm enough to go to the beach and walk around in your swimsuit (as long as you're not from a tropical country like me, and prone to freezing).

TL;DR: Clinical looking ice cream parlour by the beach, during summer.

Overview: Hootch apparently smells like sunblock.

Update Sep 30, 2015: Oooh...now it does smell like an ice cream parlour. It smells like caramel ice cream over freshly baked waffle cones. There's this hint of a clean, cheery cherry sort of scent that makes me think of ice cream parlours and it's just gorgeous! I love it!

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Witching Hour 2014

"Spiced pumpkin, falling leaves, a black velvet cloak to pull close for warmth and a frankincense candle offering for the spirits residing in the nearby cemetery."

My first impression was: peppers in the wind. There's also a baked goods or baked pumpkin sort of scent in the background. The peppers is that slightly tangy sort of peppers and threatened to go full sour on me every now and then. Eventually, the tanginess does die down and this just becomes an extra sharp and spicy sort of fall spices on some Thanksgiving dessert. 

TL;DR: Extra sharp & spicy fall spices exploding in the kitchen, with Thanksgiving desserts in the background.

Overview: I'm really not sure what's going sour on me. Maybe it's part of the spiced pumpkin going wrong.

Update Sep 30, 2015: Yup. It's still savoury and sour on me. I feel like it's a perfumed version of a bell peppers salad. Not for me.

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Yuki-Onna 2014

"Wind whipped sugared vanilla snow, black orchid, ginger tea and ume blossom."

Artificially sugared florals. The artificial sugared bit is that artificial sugar note that I personally find a bit searing (sixteen92's Black Sugar & Black Violet's Sugar Clouds has this too). The florals are a mellow sort of florals that temper the searing part of the sugar note, but I hate that particular artificial sugar note too much to like the scent.

TL;DR: Artificial sugared florals.

Review: 9 Scents from Conjure Oils' Dark Cinema: Hallows 2014 Collection

I got a bunch of Conjure Oils decants from Ajevie again!

So here's the review for 9 scents from the Dark Cinema: Hallows 2014 collection. As usual, all reviews are done blind until I'm done writing the TL;DR, Overviews are written if anything surprises me. 

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Perfume Oil General Review

These perfumes definitely specialise in...weird. I guess it's because it's a Halloween collection. The throw's great and is somewhere between intimate to faux whispering distance for the first 1-1.5h –about half the length of an iPhone 5, to be exact. Then it goes down to intimate whispering distance. It doesn't get faint until about 2h after initial application.

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Dracula

"Corrupted incense, blood musk, clove, Tunisian myrrh and blood red pomegranate."

There's that game-y scent that many perfumers like to describe as opium or incense, and NAVA likes to describe as Kashmir. There's also the scent of some slightly artificial red fruit I can't really identify over all the game-y scent. About 45 min after I first applied it, it finally starts smelling like a fruity version of my grandma's altar -full of joss sticks and that prayer paper. If you're not a fan of Chinese incense, you may not like this scent. 

TL;DR: Fruity game-y "incense" note turning into Chinese joss sticks.

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Far East Frightfest

"Japanese musk, juniper, green tea and osmanthus. Pale, haunting and terrifying."

The scent is like a watery and papery sort of floral scent. There's just something about this scent that makes you think of delicate paper flowers. Unfortunately, there's something at the base of this scent that I find a bit cloying -it's the artificial grape sort of cloying. It doesn't have the grape scent, but has the cloying part, if that makes any sense. That cloying part reminds me of chewable calcium supplements and that paste some dentists use when they're deep-cleaning your teeth. I guess this part makes it unique, but I kinda wished it stayed boring at the watery, papery florals bit.

TL;DR: Slightly cloying watery, papery florals.

Overview: I had to check out the scent of osmanthus & juniper to figure out what's causing that cloying smell. I think it's the juniper. According to How Stuff Works:

"The fragrance is pungent, herbaceous, peppery, pinelike, and camphorous. The needles produce a turpentinelike scent called juniper tar."

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Grindhouse

"Sleazy booze, cigar smoke, booze, maybe a hint of something green and illegal… and blood. Lots and lots of blood. Did I mention the booze?"

It smells like a wet toilet in a cheap structure, minus the poo & pee. The kind with white tiles, corrugated pipes and a cheap lemon-floral air freshener that sears your nose. 

Think this, but with less shiny pipes.
Image courtesy of 24dash.com

Not for me, but I'm sure it's deliberate and I'm impressed they captured that scent so well. As it dries down, you're left with a floral, fruity citrus scent that smells like the air freshener in slightly nicer toilets, but still a toilet air freshener.

TL;DR: Clean toilet in a cheap structure. 

Overview: Ok, I can see the metallic corrugated pipes scent being the scent of blood from someone who follows a high iron diet. I can't really smell any smoke over the other scents. If I try really hard, I can smell the weed scent, I guess. It's really faint and drowned out by the air freshener scent though. I guess the sweet, wet part of the scent is slightly boozy, but it's more of that sickly sweet smell like last night's booze that was spilled on the couch. Let's be honest though, a lot of cheap, public restrooms often smell slightly like weed and last night's booze. 

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Slasher Chic

"The waters of Camp Crystal Lake, the steamy hiss of a boiler room and a dark Halloween night of crisp leaves and doom."

Oh, a blue note and some kind of pepper. Ok, so this scent is trying its best to be sweet, but it just ends up with this sweet & sour peppery scent, that just reminds me of eating instant Tom Yum flavoured ramen. After about 15-20 min, there's a sweet musky scent that finally overpowers the Tom Yum ramen scent, but unfortunately, I find it too heavy for me. 

The scent it leaves when it dries down is that generic, heavy, sweet, and musky blue scent that could be an old lady's signature perfume.

TL;DR: Tom Yum ramen and old lady perfume.

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Strange Geometries 

"Black and white musk, black currant and white pepper."

It's hard to describe this scent - it's that slightly bitter blue scent that makes me think of men's colognes, at the same time, there's a candied, musky amber scent that reminds me of an older woman. There's also that scent of icy oils for muscle relief (eucalyptus, balsam) but without the icy zing. 

The result is like an absent minded old man who accidentally spritzed on his wife's perfume, then tried to cover it up with his own cologne. Oh, and he's the type of old man who perpetually smells of icy oils, of course. 

The musky amber got amped up on me to the point where it's giving me a headache. 

TL;DR: Old dude accidentally using his wife's perfume.

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The Old Dark House

"Brandy, fading bouquets of calla lilies and cracked leather."

This is awesome. It's a floral with some fizzy fruitiness in it. The florals is one of those elegant, light florals that smells fresh and ladylike at the same time. I got a burst of what smelled like that plasticky leather note in the beginning, but the other parts of the scent overpowered it. It's still hanging around in the background, but it's faint enough that it smells more like good quality plastic chairs rather than cheap plastic stools that get sticky in hot temperatures. It's a clean, sweet scent -has a bit of that office type of sterile smell, but still toned down with elegant florals to add some life to it. Oh and plastic chairs. There's plastic chairs in this scent.

This scent reminds me of one of the tuition centres I used to go to as a kid. While I'm technically Indonesian, my family's still Chinese, so obviously I've been going for extra tutoring since I was in kindergarten. It's definitely the smell of one of the nicer tuition centres -the kind with carpeted floors, adorable kid-sized chairs, teachers who don't yell so much, and actual play time.

This is a daycare in Vegas and I really want to attend it. Screw work. I want to fingerpaint all day.

Image courtesy of creativekidslearningcenter.com

TL;DR: Really awesome classroom. 

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The Outsiders

"Green musk, bracing lime, Martian flora and a drop of mint."

Ok, I got citrus and that cottony, baby powder-ish scent, only the cottony bit is attached to a rather heavy and powdery musk. It's a bit too heavy for me..almost suffocatingly heavy. I was going to scrub it off but got called to a meeting and ended up stuck with this slightly headache-inducing scent for about an hour. After an hour though, the scent dries down and it's amazing. It smells like clean baby oil. I've encountered a lot of baby oil scents before that don't come with the headache-inducing heaviness, though, so I think I'll pass on this one. 

TL;DR: Citrus and very heavy baby oil. 

Overview: Tried again...the mint probably got drowned out by the heaviness because I can't smell it.

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The Wolf Man

"Gypsy incense, deep forests and soft fur."

Ok, we've got some citrus here and a scent that smells like the taste of soap in your mouth. There's that game-y scent again. The kind perfumers often refer to as opium or incense & NAVA refers to as "Kashmir". The sweetness is a bit too heavy & cloying for me, but my skin does tent to amp up sweet notes. 

After about 20 min, the game-y scent faded enough but it's still there. The scent smells more chemical-ish now, thanks to that soap suds in your mouth scent. The resulting scent is like the scent of shirts in a Southeast Asian market - where you can still smell the ink and goodness knows what else goes into  the manufacturing process. 

TL;DR: Game-y citrus & soap suds, turning into printed t-shirts in a Southeast Asian market.

Overview: Ugh...looks like they also use that game-y incense note. Not getting anything incense from Conjure anymore. 

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Torture Porn

"Dark fear (dark chocolate) collides with singed flesh (bacon)."

Chocolate & singed hair. The chocolate is one of those very well done rich, velvety chocolate notes. As time goes on, the singed hair scent got a bit wetter and it kinda reminds me of burnt victim in a hospital. I guess I'm thinking more of burnt flesh rather than cooked meat since there's this clinicial hospital disinfectant smell, so it smells like being in an ER full of burn victims. If this is their smoke note going wrong on me, I'm avoiding anything with smoke from them. Forever. 

Luckily the burn victim smell is gone by 25 min, and the scent I'm left with is Indonesian "chocolate". In Indonesia, a college graduate often only get $300/month for salary. As you can guess a $1-2 bar of chocolate is like a $10-20 treat for a recent American college grad in the liberal arts fields (ex-Sociology major here..still pretty bitter about the job options). So what a lot of companies, including international companies like Nestlé, would do is that they use a cheaper "chocolate" to make their candies cheaper. The cheaper chocolate tends to be more crumbly and tastes like solidified oil and crumbly, cheap, chocolate powder. Some companies take this to larger extremes and create chocolates that are even cheaper at 5-15¢ for each bar. 

This is a 20¢ chocolate bar. It's actually not bad! The plastic doesn't look like it's toxic and it doesn't taste too artificial! Though the chocolate bit does taste mostly sweet, and more reminiscent of chocolate rather than tasting like actual chocolate. They can make it this cheap without compromising too much on quality, by making it relatively small...there's my driver's license for scale. 

These 5-15¢ chocolates usually has this weird waxy film over them, taste mostly of solidified oil with few sad traces of crumbly, sickly sweet "chocolate" powder, and always, always smell of the cheap plastic wrapping it's in. This is what the scent smells like –oily, powdery cheap chocolate and cheap, plastic wrapping. If you've ever tried extremely cheap chocolate coins from Asian supermarkets, you may know the taste I'm talking about.

TL;DR: Some psycho making chocolate fondue in an ER unit full of burn victims, turning into cheap Indonesian "chocolate". 

Overview: Their bacon does smell like singed flesh. It's creepy.