Review: Violette Market's Victorian Magic 1897 Autumn 2014 Collection (all 10 scents)

I got a sample set of all 10 scents from Violette Market's Victorian Magic 1897 Autumn 2014 Collection! The presentation is gorgeous as always:

I'm kinda sad I found a bunch of scents I like because most of these scents are now a bit too steep for me. They're at $28/6 ml bottle and that's a bit of a splurge for me since my perfume collection is already too large.

For my previous Violette Market reviews, you can click here or on the tags on the right. As always, reviews are done blind until the TL;DRs are written. Overviews are written if anything surprises me after the reveal.

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Bat Wing Fire Eaters 

"With notes of Maraschino cherry, pink rose cream, tonka bean, Bavarian black cherry, salty musk, orris powder, and violet water in a base of Organic jojoba oil."

I got bubblegum mostly at first, which freaked me out. Eventually, there's some floral powderiness that makes me think of the scent of powders that'll be perfectly at home on a table decorated like this:

So girly and I should be cringing...but I like it.
Image courtesy of summersatthecottage.com

It's a hyper-feminine, powdery, flouncy and cute scent –with hints of artificial bubblegum in the background. Yes, the bubblegum is very artificial, but blended in with the powdery bits that usually seems "old", the scent somehow works. Though it's definitely very, very girly. Not little girl, girly. It's a scent that makes me think of a woman in her mid 20s having a quarter life crisis and wanting to dress up in extreme lace and flounce.

I, er...surprisingly like this scent. This scent is like a pop song you secretly like but will never admit to. Yes, it's cheesy, but somehow it's catchy. I don't think I'll be getting it in full size or wearing it in public, but every now and then, when I want to wear extreme frills, I'll wear this privately and belt out the latest cheesy pop song.

TL;DR: Hyper-feminine, powdery, flouncy and cute scent –with hints of artificial bubblegum in the background.

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Gypsy Threads

"With notes of Black husk vanilla, red amber intertwined with blood red musk, West Indian vanilla in dusty apothecary jars, tincture-aged Patchouli absolute, warm coconut, vanilla sugar, and wispy threads of gold and copper with tiny iron bells at the ends in a base of Organic jojoba oil."

This smells the way I'd imagine a gypsy fortune teller's tent would smell like. There's incense, an old scent that may be coming from patchouli, a soapy scent, hints of wood and something grassy (the kind you can smoke), and something else that makes me think of layers and layers of old, colourful cloth. The colourful cloth part reminds me of the smell of perfumed cloth in the markets in India, but that's probably because that's what I'm familiar with. If I've gone to a gypsy market, I may say it smells more like cloth in a gypsy market.

After about 10 min, it became less heady and almost kind of fresh and watery. It's like VM distilled the essence of a gypsy fortune teller's tent into a fresh, watery form. It's a cleaner, more modern version of a gypsy fortune teller's tent. If I'm picking an ad for this scent, it'll be this picture:

I kind of wonder if her head is hurting from all that cloth.
Gorgeous photography by Andrew Lobzov

As it dries down, there's something bitter at the base that's revealed. While the bitter bit never became a big problem on me, I can see this being a problem on some skin chemistries.

TL;DR: Gypsy fortune teller's tent distilled into a fresh, watery form. 

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Mechanical Dove

"With notes of aged cedar wood, warm vanilla bean, white amber and sugared smoke, coated in warm brass machinery oil"

There's that suede-like musk similar to VM's past scent, Mexico City, and a searing, spritzy sweet scent. The suede-like musk is leaning towards masculine since it has this slight bitterness, but it's still too musky to be completely masculine or even unisex. It makes me think of a guy in an old school, wood-paneled covered office drinking a lemon spritz, after getting a hug from his overly perfumed mom. And yes, she'll be the type of woman who'll tell all his friends what a good boy he is.

TL;DR: Guy in an old school, wood-paneled covered office drinking a lemon spritz, after getting a hug from his overly perfumed mom.

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Orion Facing the Charge of Taurus

"With notes of Indian sandalwood, West Indian vanilla bean, white amber, Mysore sandalwood, incense smoke, bergamot peel, cardamom seed, clove, and roasted cinnamon bark."

There's wood and dry citrus, but it's not the typical acrid dry wood that's often a black tea note. There's way more depth in this and a richness to the wood that just drives me wild. It's a sweet, rich wood that's leaning on masculine. Mixed into the scent is the scent of actual chai from India. Just the tea, without the milk. The dry citrus bit is also not exactly citrus, but more of acrid spices that reminds me of walking through spice stores in India.

The effect is like sipping chai next to a really, really hot dude in India. I'll just leave a picture of Vivek Oberoi to give you an idea of how this perfume makes me feel...

I found out about this dude after watching the movie Saathiya. The movie is terribly cheesy but he was hot, so I stayed and watched all 138 min of it. Yup. At one point, the producers must have known that hot people were the only reason people are still watching the damn movie, so they featured about 5 min of this dude on a scooter with his hair flying in the win. In all seriousness, check out the soundtrack of the movie, it's really gorgeous!
Image courtesy of bollywoodcelebslist.com

Unfortunately, after 30 min, the spiced part of the scent that I think is cardamom started getting really amped up and it starts smelling like an overly hot chai, with all the other scents in the background.

TL;DR: Sipping chai while walking through a spice market in India, next to a really, really hot dude. Preferably Vivek Oberoi (when he was younger..I saw more recent pics and got sad).

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Parlor Tricks 

"Antique table laces yellow with age, Bourbon vanilla bean, fossilized Baltic amber, Ceylon cinnamon, nicotina leaf, and bergamot peel in a base of Organic jojoba oil."

This starts of really scary on me, turning into that strongly sour note that some vanillas morph into. Luckily the scent behaved and calmed down on me. The scent that's most prominent in this is that high, sharp but not piercing sweetness that makes you think of flossed sugar. There's also hints of something citrus-y. At the base of it all, there's a roasted peanut scent. As the scent wears on, the roasted peanut bit smells more like warm, caramelized butter.

I'd consider this a risky buy since this seems like a scent that can morph drastically depending on skin chemistry. Throughout the entire time I'm using it, the scent keeps wavering between sour and vanilla, play-doh and peanut, old lady and amber. I tested this scent out twice during different times of the month and even that changed the scent pretty drastically. Unlike the second time, the first time I tried it, the peanut was more prominent and close to the roasted peanut scent in Darling Clandestine's Carny Wedding. I didn't get anything clay or play-doh like or pick up hints of citrus, and I got a bit of a yellowed parchment sort of old smell.

Somehow this scent has a surprisingly low throw on me, and I have to get to kissing distance to catch a whiff. 

TL;DR: Perfume roulette time! Either caramelized roasted peanuts with hints of yellowed parchement or flossed sugar and play-doh peanuts with a high end citrus perfume.

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Rabbit from a Hat

"With notes of ivory clouds of spun sugar, pink carnation, coconut flecks, clove, and bourbon vanilla bean hiding among velvety vanilla absolute, warm amber resin, white cedar, red saffron, cinnamon bark, dried autumn leaves and blonde tobacco."

There's this sweet, pink florals in this scent, but at the base of this, there's a lipstick scent to it. The lipstick smell disappeared on me after about 5 min, but that may just be my skin chemistry. The scent starts becoming pretty heavy and starts leaning towards a more mature woman. There's still something light and sugary trying to keep the scent young, but this heavy floral base just keeps dragging it towards going old lady.

My skin loves amping up sweet, sugary scents, so this scent stays relatively young on me. Unfortunately, if your skin likes amping up heavier scents like amber & musk, there's a high chance this is heading straight for old lady on you.

TL;DR: Light, pink, sugary florals over a heavy, husky base.

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Romani Ravens 

"With notes of bergamot, meyer lemon, black pepper, juniper berry, other-world incense, black pine needles, powdery orris root, golden amber, copper-distilled vanilla bean, and dry white sandalwood gathering in intensity high above the stage and then transforming into a raven with long glossy black wings, like arms on a woman."

There's a tea-like sweetness to this, with powderiness that just clashes for me. There's also cloying hints of artificial purple berries coming up every now and then. About 5-10 min into the scent, you'll start identifying hints of incense and wood in it too.

It kinda makes me think of purple soda that has gone flat mixed with a powdery perfume, spilled all over a furniture store that tries to seem more "exotic" by burning incense....

What they think it smells like...
Amer Fort in Jaipur, India, photography by me

.....which actually makes it smell like a furniture store run by an old dude in singlets/wife-beaters most people who live in Asia (this actual continent, which includes India...not the American definition of Asia, which often only includes Korea, China & Japan).

What it really smells like.
Image courtesy of mooiness.com

TL;DR: Purple soda that has gone flat mixed with a powdery perfume, spilled all over a furniture store that tries to seem more "exotic" by burning incense

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Summoning Canis Major and Canis Minor

"Through a veil of black amber, red amber, incense smoke, offerings of red patchouli, and dry white wood carved into the heads’ of canines."

This scent really reminds me of NAVA. There's that same incense note NAVA uses, with a woody sweetness. There's also an old wood  scent in this. This is a less intense version of NAVA's old wood & incense though. It's like a room that used to be filled with old coffins, incense and woody honey after being aired out —everything's milder, more rounded, less pungent & less piercing. 

This could be a good or bad thing, depending on your desire to smell like old coffins & incense. 

TL;DR: Milder version of NAVA's old wood, incense & sweet, woody honey.

I had a derp moment. When I read the bit that says, "dry white wood carved into the heads’ of canines," my first thought was, "Wait, your carving what into dogs' heads? That's pretty macabre and cruel to animals!"

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The Lepus Illusion

"With notes of warm vanilla bean, dry sandalwood, golden amber, carrot seed, coriander, and pimento berry."

There's a scent that smells like a light, elegant high end perfume but at the base, there's the scent of milk powder ruining it. The milk powder smells like that almost cloying milk scent you get when you sniff baby formula, just without the sweetness. The high end perfume bit is just gorgeous. It smells like one of those complex light floral and green blends. Gah! Why must that cloying milk powder bit be there?? Fortunately, it's the high end perfume bit that wafts up. 

TL;DR: Light, elegant, high end floral and green blend sprayed over baby formula. 

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The Magician 

"With notes of Vanilla, Mexican lime, Sicilian cedrat, oak wood, coriander, jasmine absolute, Spanish white tree moss, vanilla orchid, and white amber shrouded in a cloak of aged black vetiver in a base of Organic jojoba oil."

Woody, cool, blue citrus. This scent's a great unisex scent, though leaning on masculine on me. It smells like a typical high end blue & citrus men's cologne, with a bit more wood. As this dries down, the scent turns into a feminine, almost mango-like sweet, florals. I think this is a scent that'll be very dependent on your skin chemistry and may go more masculine or more feminine depending on it. I personally love both stages of this scent, but I can see how this would not be ideal for some people.

TL;DR: Masculine, cool woody blue that slowly shifts to feminine, almost mango-like sweet, florals.

Review: Violette Market State Fair 2014 (7 scents)

Finally finished sniffing the rest of my stash and writing up the reviews! Here's the previous VM State Fair 2014 review. Here's the link to Violette Market's State Fair 2014.

So one thing to remember is that some bottles do not come with a roller ball. I got used to the roller balls the penny candies had, that I absentmindedly tipped over my Smoking Plum Taffy Pull perfume and lost it. T.T

But this is the amazing thing...

So it poured all over my cardigan and skirt, and since I'm at work, I can't strip my clothes off. As much as working in finance makes me feel like I'm whoring myself out sometimes, I'm not planning to make it literal. I ended up spending about 11h marinated in the perfume oil.

Guess how long the perfume oil lasted on my skin? Over 17h. It could be longer, but I needed my morning shower.

Despite the awesome longevity, I don't recommend this method of perfuming yourself though. As I mentioned before, VM's perfume oils are VERY strong sillage-wise. I spent the entire day nauseated and apologizing to everyone because of how strong the smell got. I met up with my boyfriend and his friend straight after work, and they commented on how I smelled like someone sprayed air freshener into their faces. (I'm sorry! ._.)

If you want to know how long the perfume oil will last on your clothes, I decided to not wash my cardigan until the smell disappears. Well, it's been over 2 weeks since that incident and I kinda need my cardigan back, so I gave up and washed it. That's how long it'll last. Oh, and I tried putting it on for about 2-3 min and the smell is still pretty strong...and ended up all over my arms. No perfume testing for that day.

So on to scent reviews. My overall impression is that VM is a great perfume brand, just not good at creating gourmands. Their gourmands end up smelling like great high end floral/wood blends that would normally be amazing blends, but not when you're expecting a gourmand scent.

I'm switching it up a bit and writing a TL;DR to summarize the scent review, and only writing and overview if needed. Reviews are done blind until I'm done with the review and the TL;DR.

Caramel Sugar Kettle Corn

"Sweet popped corn covered in a thick layer of dark caramel with subtle hints of vanilla, pecan clusters, white sugar cane, and machinery smoke."

First, I got salted buttered popcorn, which was slightly confusing since I was expecting something sweeter. It's very heavy on the butter side, so that's something worth noting if you hate that oily smell. I personally love it since I'm a huge pig. Eventually, I smell a sourness coming out. I know caramel notes turn sour on me sometimes, only this isn't the usual curdled milk sourness -it's a tart, fruity sort of sourness. So a good sort of sourness. After about 10 minutes, this smells like sugared plums with buttered popcorn, which sounds like a weird but delicious snack I really need right now. I like it, but it's definitely not what I was expecting, so I can see some people being disappointed with this.

TL;DR: Sugared plums and buttered popcorn.

Overview: I'm surprised I don't smell any smoke though, since a lot of VM's smoke notes get amped up on me. I'm also not sure what created the sour fruit sort of tartness, was it the sugar cane or vanilla going sour?

Ceylon Cinnamon Sugared Donuts

"Sweet Ceylon cinnamon-sugared donuts with hints of Bourbon vanilla, vanilla cream, and powdered sugar."

Another perfume that has a great initial smell that I wish would stay. It starts of as the most delicious cinnamon sugared donuts smell. It smells so realistic, you'll want to eat yourself. Then, after 10 minutes, it becomes a creamy, cinnamon sandalwood smell. This is one of the best sandalwood smells I've ever encountered, and I swear you can smell even smell the woody dryness of the sandalwood...but it's not exactly what I was expecting even though I'm in love with this scent.

You can smell the spicy wood resin in this, I swear.
Photo by Russell Berg

TL;DR: Cinnamon cream on a freshly cut wood.

Granny Smith Cotton Candy

"Clouds of pale green cotton candy infused with tart Granny Smith apple accord, white sugar cane, floral musk, and vanilla cream."

This is such an awesome green apple scent. It smells like a more fragrant granny smith apple. It actually smells like the skin of the apple. It takes about 5-10 min before the sugary cotton candy smell emerges. And it smells like actual spun sugar with even that slightly burnt smell to it. The cotton candy gets stronger until it's fighting the apple, and by around the 20 minute mark, this smells like an overly sweet green apple soap. There's also a bit of a chemical smell I can't place. Kinda like that sharpness that pierces your nose when you have room spray sprayed too close to you. It eventually dries down to smell like sugary cotton candy.

TL;DR: Attack of green apple chemicals.

Mexico City

Notes of chocolate, cardamom, cinnamon and sweet cakes (since this scent has been discontinued, I relied on this article for the notes)


This one shifts a lot on me. It smells medicinal in the bottle, which worried me at first, but once I put it on, it smells like floral, fruity gummy chocolate. The fruity gummy smell started getting cloying and nauseating, and the chocolate eventually gets drowned out. Suddenly, it becomes a high end musky mango smell. Then it morphs again and well, it smells like a brand new ostrich Birkin, suede, a very subtle sweetness that's almost musky, and the slightest whisper of chocolate in the background, which keeps threatening to disappear. This all happened in 15 minutes. The smell stayed constant like this afterwards.

If I have to pick a picture that describes this perfume, it'll be this:

Another one of my favourite photographers, Petrova Julian

It's powdery, smooth, suede & leather-like, luxurious and yet slightly childish and flouncy to the point where it's just short of being gaudy.

TL;DR: Musky candy, suede boots, and a brand new ostrich Birkin.

Pirate's Cove

"Dark rum, cannon smoke, coconut flower, worn leather, Trade Wind spices, the salty spray of the Caribbean and cotton candy from the fair grounds mingling with pirate laughter and stories of plundering this side of the Midwest."

This starts as a sharply sweet floral, with a blue scent mingled in. Now this is the surprising part...I actually smell sea salt in it. There's that salty smell of the ocean. I may not like this scent, but I'm still impressed since I rarely smell an actual "sea salt" note. Unfortunately, the sea salt doesn't last long and disappears after about 5-10 min. Now there's a spiciness to it that can either smell like peppercorns, fresh chilli or wood resin. It smells like a chest full of perfumed sheets, sprayed by the sea and a lot of peppercorns and chilli. It's old women's perfumed sheets though, since the smell is a bit of a musky, sharply sweet floral. The sandalwood gets stronger as time goes on, fortunately, and after about an hour, it's the most dominant smell after the sweet chilli and musk. If you've smelled Haus of Gloi's Picaroon, this smells like that, but with fresh chilli and a sweet, heavy muskiness that's a bit old woman-ish.

My boyfriend sniffed this and hated the initial smell. He says I smell like "a bunch of scents in a soap shop mixed up and the combination smells bad". Once it gets to the more sandalwood bit, he goes, "Christmas market and sour fruit" (he calls Picaroon "Christmas market" too).

TL;DR:  A wooden treasure chest washed ashore, containing sheets from an old gypsy lady and tons of chilli.

It's called "Parrots of the Caribbean" by Matt West. This is too good to not use...

The person opening that treasure chest would be so bloody disappointed.

Smoking Plum Taffy Pull

"An array of colorful taffy swirling through the taffy pull in the sweet flavor of: Smoky Lapsang Souchong black tea, sweet Mount Wuyi black plum, raw vanilla pods, and a hint of cedar and redwood with hints of Bourbon vanilla, vanilla cream, pink sugar cane, lemon blossom, orange cream, raspberry truffle, blueberry, and caramel."

It's mostly a burning smell that made me cough for the first 5 minutes. There's a sweetness trying to come out, but it's stuck. I can't identify anything under all the sweetness thanks to the burning smell. It's definitely a sour kind of sweetness, but the smoked smell is way too strong. Not a fan. The sweetness gets stronger and stronger until it's an overwhelming combination of sugar and smoke. I get a headache from it, so this isn't for me.

TL;DR:  Don't call the fire department! Nothing's on fire, I swear.

The Gingerbread House

"Dark and rich gingerbread, sweet cinnamon leaf, nutmeg, maple sugar, Madagascar clove, jewel-toned candies, vanilla frosting, chimney smoke, newly fallen snow, and the sinister darkness of the nearby black forest."

(not part of the State Fair 2014 collection)

It smells like smoke for a long time, and whatever smell is under the smoke was drowned out. I finally identified a mint tea smell and something bread-ish only after 20-40 minutes. By about an hour, the smoke calmed down enough for me to smell the scent properly. It smells like an unsweetened cinammon/nutmeg/general fall spices bread that is slightly leaning towards a doughy artificial smell, with a mint tea, in a room that just survived a fire. It's like the Gingerbread Man got set on fire while he's just trying to enjoy a cup of mint tea.

We don't like mint tea drinkers here..
Image courtesy of lawrenalba.blogspot

As time goes on (ie. around 1 1/2h), the artificial smell and the smoke dies out though. Now it's a delicious, baked gingerbread with a creamy milkiness mixed with mint tea. I love it


TL;DR: Getting comforted with vanilla gingerbread, mint tea and spiced milk after your house burns down.

French Lime Blossom botanical perfume solid

I feel kinda bad adding this here since there's only 5 of these in the world. This smells amazing! It smells like a high end white floral perfume that's always advertised by an elegant lady in white.

"French Lime Blossom Botanical Perfume Solid...by Violette Market"...you gotta read that in a British accent
Awesome pic by another awesome photographer: Margarita Kareva

There's a bit of a dirty waxy smell to it too, which I personally love since it makes the scent less boring and more intriguing. One thing I like about the solid perfumes is that the throw calms down a LOT. It's now the "normal" throw for a lot of perfume brands - within whispering distance for about 1-2h.

TL;DR: High end white floral perfume with dirty wax.

Review: Violette Market Penny Candies (8 scents)

I recently got a bunch of Violette Market's penny candies during their penny candy sale. I also got some samples from Ajevie's decant circle.

I need to make a quick rave about Ajevie's decants. Check out how the little decants arrive!

It's so neat and makes finding the notes so convenient! Angi of Ajevie is also extremely fast when it comes to responding and really friendly. I'm definitely joining in on more decant circles.

So this is what I ordered:

From VM:

• Coconut Pomelo Cremes Penny Candy
• Smoked Apple Wood Penny Candy
• Carrot Cremes Penny Candy
• Choco Melon Cremes Penny Candy
• Wood Vanilla Cremes Penny Candy
• Smoked Cherry Blossom Wood Penny Candy
• Caramel Sugar Kettle Corn
• Ceylon Cinnamon Sugar Donuts
• The Gingerbread House
• Mexico City

(Sort of) Extras from VM:

• Smoked Citrus Wood Penny Candy
• Smoked Chocolate Blackberry Honey Penny Candy
• Smoking Plum Taffy Pull
• French Lime Blossom botanical perfume solid

They're not exactly free but they're not exactly paid in full price either..I'll explain below in the Customer Service review section.

From Ajevie, decants of:

• Choco Melon Cremes Penny Candy
• Smoked Apple Wood Penny Candy (I initially wanted to wait to try these out first, but the sale happened)
• Pirate's Cove
• Granny Smith Cotton Candy

Customer Service

I can't comment on the TAT since my order got a bit complicated and I had to send it to my cousin who doesn't take notes of when she gets her mail.

What I can comment on, is how amazing Lori is. Lori was super friendly and helpful during my entire email exchange, even though I had tons of my shipping questions. I ended up shipping to 2 locations, and they're both different from my Paypal address since Paypal doesn't let Indonesian credit cards pick a non-Indonesian shipping address. She managed to keep track of all that during a sale. I'm happy!

Another thing that really wow-ed me. So obviously I ended up with a shipping difference after changing international shipping to domestic. I also originally ordered Sadbh and she accidentally ran out of it.  Annoying, but it happens during big sales.

I've previously mentioned to her that since refunds don't make sense for me due to international transaction charges, I prefer getting refunded in samples or something. I was only expecting her to only toss in a couple of samples and replace Sadbh with a full bottle of something else to refund me, which would be fair. Instead, she gave me all the extras I mentioned above! Here's the list again:

• Smoked Citrus Wood Penny Candy
• Smoked Chocolate Blackberry Honey Penny Candy
• Smoking Plum Taffy Pull
• French Lime Blossom botanical perfume solid

It's beyond generous and I'm definitely happy about it. Now this is amazing customer service. I can't even get upset over not getting Sadbh (even though it sounds heavenly).

Oh, and I feel kinda bad about mentioning the solid perfume, because she only made 5 of it, and I got one of them. Not to gloat but, Lori thinks I'm special!!! YAAAYY!!!

Perfume Oils General Review

These scents are strong. They have the strongest sillage I've ever encountered and I learnt not to sniff certain scents too close to the application point since it'll hurt your nose the way air fresheners & certain car perfumes do. For the first 45 minutes to an hour, I can smell it as I'm typing when I put it on my hand. It eventually calms down to about intimate whispering distance, but doesn't get faint until about 2h. You'll still get traces of perfume on your skin over 8-12h later, though by then, the smell is hardly recognizable and often just a vaguely sweet scent. They're bloody strong.

Quality-wise, I'm a fan even though I have some misses. One thing I noticed is that the penny candies don't seem to agree with me unlike the other VM perfumes. On me, a lot of the penny candies end up having that painfully sharp smell you get from very strong car perfumes or air freshener sprayed too close to you. I'm wondering if it's because the sillage is so strong, since the smell wafting around is often pleasant. It's just for the penny candies though, so I'm not sure if it's the candy note going nuts on me.

I also noticed that while they still smell amazing, a lot of gourmand smells end up smelling non-gourmand on me. It could be my skin chemistry, but it's definitely worth noting since, for people with similar skin chemistry as mine, it may come as a surprise when a scent that's supposed to smell edible smells like fresh linens or something.

Since the perfume names kinda give away what they're supposed to smell like, these aren't done blind so I didn't bother with writing an overview.

Carrot Cremes Penny Candy

Oh man! This starts of so well! It smells like frosted carrot cakes, the kind with rich, delicious vanilla frosting. Then, for about 5-30 minutes or so, you'll have to endure a car perfume kind of smell -strong, sharp and hurts your nose. It smells like a vanilla car perfume. But once you power through that stage, it calms down and smells like tempting vanilla & cinnamon cake, but there's a bit of artificial cake instead of the genuine deliciousness I got in the beginning. It's still a great scent, but after you smell the most perfect cake scent ever in the beginning, you can't help but think it's not good enough. By about an hour, this dries down to a vanilla potpourri smell with that metallic drydown I often get from gourmands.

Smoked Apple Wood Penny Candy

Holy crap smoked is right! I first smell only smoke on first whiff, though it mellows out eventually. I smell the wood, but the apple somehow smells like a sweet vaguely apple liqueur to me. It kinda smells like a cinnamon apple potpourri converted into a very sweet liqueur, with the apple bit being drowned out by the potpourri and sweet liqueur.

Maybe I need my midday snack, because this kinda looks delicious..
Image found on thelostogle.com

Choco Melon Cremes Penny Candy

Aww! Initially, this is one of the best chocolate notes I've ever encountered. Smells genuinely like chocolate, and not the cheap kind. There's a melon smell mixed into this too, but the chocolate's the prominent note. The melon is that artificial melon smell like Midoris, but I like that artificial melon smell. Unfortunately, after a while, it smells like a headache inducing, sweet car perfume. The kind that comes in tins and has this waxy thing inside that dries up to look like shrivelled, wrinkled gremlin skin. The dry down is just vaguely sweet and you can't really identify what it is. I wish this would stay the way it smelled for the first 5-10 minutes!

Coconut Pomelo Cremes Penny Candy

Now this starts smelling like a fruity scented hand wash. I think it's because the coconut note they use smell like like sunblock, so the smell kind of makes you think of drugstore products. Then a roomspray sprayed too close to your nose smell comes in. I say room spray instead of car perfume since this scent smells more like something you'd spray in a room. It's pretty nauseating until the sharpness calms down, unfortunately. When it calms down, it smells like a tropical scented roomspray. It smells more like a room than a gourmand, so that's a bit of a surprise. I smell like the bathroom in a nice Newport Beach home.

We may not have a beachfront location but we will make damn sure we smell the way we think a beachfront location smells like!
Image courtesy of styleathome.com

Smoked Cherry Blossom Wood Penny Candy

It smells like cherry blossom and candies! I don't smell the smoked or wood in this, which works out for me since my skin amps up VM's smoke notes so much. And this Not candied cherry blossoms, like sweet, clean cherry blossoms and candies. The result is a smell that's clean and floral yet muddled with sweet, sticky candy. It gets soapy at times and there's a bit of a cloying car perfume smell that threatens to come out, but overall, it stays amazing.

Smoked Chocolate Blackberry Honey Penny Candy

Ok, the initial smell is a BBQ-ed meat smell that freaked me out. I smell something sweet and honey-ish trying to come out but it's just drowned out by the BBQ smell. After about 25 minutes, the sweet honey smell is strong enough to show up, but it's not enough. It smells like someone tried to make honey-baked chicken, left it in the oven too long, now there's smoke all over the place after the fire's put out, and everyone's sheepishly explaining to the fire department what happened. After an hour, the smokiness calmed down but not enough. I smell like this just happened to me:

RIP Robin Williams. Still one of my favourite scenes of all time.
Image courtesy of blogs.kqed.org

I think this is one I'm going to try to age. I smell some delicious blackberry honey in the background, and I think they may surface more after ageing.

Smoked Citrus Wood Penny Candy

At the beginning this smells like a liqueur that would be sickly sweet and slightly medicinal tasting, even though it smells good. There's a smell of orange blossoms, but it's mostly drowned by the liqueur smell. After 10-15 min, there's that sickeningly sweet, sharp shrivelled car air freshener smell if you sniff too near to where you apply it. BUT, If you stay at around casual conversation distance, you get whiffs of delicious candy. The clean, high end ones with unique floral flavours. I actually love this.

Wood Vanilla Cremes Penny Candy

This starts off as sandalwood vanilla. The sandalwood's the prominent smell, so it ends up smelling like creamy sandalwood. Very clean and powdery kind of smell, slightly airy and sharp but creamy enough to anchor it down...the ad for this will definitely have a woman in a white dress prancing around. Actually, I know the perfect picture for an ad for this perfume:

This photographer is seriously talented. I love his work!
Ballet I by Imantas Boiko

It leans towards going soapy at times, but definitely smells like a perfume rather than a soap. As much as I'm in love with this, I was surprised to get a more powdery, clean smell rather than the gourmand I was expecting. I can imagine some people would be a bit disappointed in that.


BONUS: So Violette Market is very, very strong and all the sniffing does give you a bit of a headache. This is how I clear my nose:

Coffee beans stored in an old HoG tub...re-using saves the environment!