Review: Alchemic Muse Perfume Oils

I recently ordered from Alchemic Muse because their scents sound sooo good! I got:

• Nevermore - Mini Body Whip
• Fable - Mini Cream Soap
• Cocoa Bee - Mini Foaming Body Scrub
• Wassail - Mini Foaming Body Scrub
• Figgy Pudding - Mini Cream Soap
• 2 sets of 3 perfume oil samples

Karen tossed in 2 extra perfume samples for me! I'm still waiting to finish my current products before I try out the body products, so I'm only reviewing the perfume oils. I also got another sample, Zombee from a swap, so I'll just include that in the review.

The envelope's for the perfume oils

Customer Service

Karen was really sweet and responds so fast! I felt so bad since I kept messaging her to figure out the most cost effective international shipping, but she was so friendly and helpful the whole time. The TAT's amazing too:

• Ordered: 5 June
• Shipped: 5 June
• Arrived: 24 June (I got the cheapest shipping option and we had several public holidays, that's why the shipping time was a bit longer than the usual 12-14 days)

Perfume Oil Reviews

These are definitely the oils to get if you like gourmands. A lot of their gourmand smells smell like actual food that makes you hungry, instead of artificial "food" smells that they often scent crayons with (kids seem to love those scents though..there has to be a reason why they keep trying to eat those cursed crayons).

Their throw is ok, you definitely have to get to whispering distance to catch a whiff. They stay this way for slightly under 2 hours before getting relatively faint. By 5-6h, all traces of the perfume's are gone from my skin.

Amber Crush

"Precious golden amber resins crushed together with dark patchouli and sweetened with a veil of bourbon vanilla."

I smell a bit of a medicinal smell that could be patchouli. Most perfumers' "amber" notes are usually warm, musky sandalwood and vanilla, but this amber just smells like patchouli and wood resin. It doesn't smell warm and creamy at all, it just smells like very old, hardcover books. After 10 minutes, there's a bit of a powdery vanilla scent to this, but it's hidden in the background. The old books smell is definitely still the most prominent smell. It ends up smelling like sorting through old books in a library with an old, sweet librarian who wore a musky, vanilla perfume the day before. And as time goes on, she walks closer and closer to you until the musky, vanilla perfume scent is pretty prominent, but it's still fighting with the scent of old books.

Looks gorgeous, smells like death.
Image courtesy of nad11a on tumblr (no longer exists), found on weheartit.com

The old books smell personally makes me feel nostalgic, but I know it's not for everyone. It's not exactly a scent I really want to wear out either.

Overview: I don't know why a lot of perfumers like to talk as if they can extract a scent out of a stone. Either way, if you want to smell like an old library, this scent is it.

Blackstrap

"Caramelized brown sugar, sweet blackstrap molasses and creamy coconut milk dripping over ripe Moroccan figs floating on a base of vanilla beans and soft white musk."

It smells kinda like medicinal vanilla berries at first, and eventually, a powdery, musky smell enters. It ends up smelling like musky, vanilla sunblock with something that smells almost medicinal. As time goes on, it gets heavier and sweeter until it feels like you're wrapped up in a heavy blanket of sweetness and ants may start crawling all over you any moment.

Overview: After reading the description, I think I can smell a bit of the figs underneath the medicinal smell. I guess the coconut note they use is the type that starts smelling a bit like sunblock, so this might be something to watch out for.

Deadwood

"Wild bergamot, clover honey, and a light dusting of spice leading to a heart of warm amber and barley grass grounded in a rich base of black vanilla, musk, teak, and worn brown leather."

This initially smells like woody mushrooms, which freaked me out. But it quickly turned into a musky, baby powder scent. A leather bitterness makes an appearance a few minutes in, but mostly disappeared after another few minutes. The smell ends up bring a slightly spiked, musky baby powder. Kinda like someone from Hells Angels trying to babysit and ending up with baby powder exploding all over him.

Your kids would love this dude!
Image courtesy of ntnews.com.au

Overview: I would expect something deep, dark and masculine from that descriptoon, but this smells very feminine. I tried this on my brother and it smells like musky leather. Slightly less sweet on him, but still very musky and powdery. 

Honey Balsam

"Fresh honey with sparkling notes of bergamot and sweet orange accented by a layer of buttery toffee in a foundation of resinous frankincense."

At first, this scent reminded me a lot of Wild Hybrid's The Beekeeper. It smells like honey lemon, only kinda soapy and lotion-y. As time goes on, the lemon smells more like a floral orange. The soapy smell kept getting stronger until it starts smelling like a fancy dishwashing soap. Fancy. But still dishwashing soap. This dries down to a floral honey-orange soapy lotion.

Overview: I definitely can't smell any toffee in this. I had to smell The Beekeeper again just to check the difference. Now that I'm sniffing them side by side, they're definitely different. The honey in The Beekeeper is sharply sweet, while Honey Balsam is a more rounded, mellow sort of sweetness. There's also more of a soapy lotion smell to Honey Balsam, while The Beekeeper's lotion smell is more of an industrial lotion smell. The drydowns are obviously different. Beekeeper smells like honeyed wood..absolutely amazing.

Mystique

"Succulent Japanese yuzu fruit and red mandarin grounded in a sensual, earthy base of dark patchouli."

This one I'm not a fan of. The smell bounces from smelling like a lemon & tutti frutti bubble bath or a lemon & tutti frutti dishwashing soap. The lemon smell gets old and powdery towards the end.

Overview: This doesn't smell like yuzu at all! I'm guessing the old and powdery smell comes from the patchoulli.

Nightshade

"Some of the best things happen in the dark… sweet Bulgarian lavender over an intoxicating base of Madagascar vanilla with a most decadent touch of dark chocolate."

Warm, honeyed vanilla lavenders. This is such a relaxing scent. Lavender tends to smell cold and airy to me, but this is a warm, heavier lavender, with the perfect blend of creamy vanilla. As much as I adore BathSabbath, I think this scent captures their Moonchild concept ("a relaxing blend of vanilla, Lavender, Cinnamon and Brown sugar") better. This is gorgeous! This scent makes you feel like you're snuggled into a mountain of soft, goose-feather pillows.

Overview: I decided to go for a second sniff since I can't seem to smell the dark chocolate in this at first. I still can't smell it. Dark chocolate tends to smell like sweet wood on me though, so it may be what's causing the warm sweetness.

Pinapple Milk

"A perfect blend of fresh, tangy pineapple enveloped in rich and creamy milk sweetened with raw sugarcane."

This smells like this chewy Japanese pineapple candy:

Image courtesy of ptotheenguin on Flickr

Well, like a milky pineapple. A tamed down, candy version of a piña colada. And the milk is an actual milk candy taste. It smells delicious and not at all cloying or artificial. I love this!

Overview: Since the name already gives out the notes to expect, I'm not too surprised here.

Sumatra

"Let trade winds sweep you away with an exotic and inviting brew of hot, creamed ginger infused with Sumatra coffee and fresh coconut milk."

Starts of as pure, unsweetened coffee before a cinnamon bread smell enters. I'm really impressed, there's a "baked" smell to this to make it smell like actual baked goods instead of that fake play-doh-ish "cake" scent I often smell. I'd say it smells like cinnamon buns and coffee, only it's not sweet at all, so it's closer to unsweetened cinnamon bread and coffee.

Overview: Huh..that's weird. I don't smell the ginger or coconut, but I wonder if the both those notes mixed together ends up creating that "baked" smell? Either way, this is a delicious gourmand scent and I'm in love!

Zombee

"A thrilling concoction of sickly-sweet honey and warm beeswax over a layer of aged patchouli, crushed clove, and darkened vanilla pods."

This is amazing. It smells like woody honey with a bit of florals. There's also a soap sort of scent to this. Not soapy. It smells like you're smelling the scent off a soap bar. It smells warm, deep and old, yet clean at the same time. Makes you think of how this bed would smell like after someone (presumably a clean woman) slept in it:

I want this room..
Image courtesy of neohl.com

Either way, I'm so in love with this scent! Out of all the scents, this has the furthest throw on me. I can smell it while I'm typing!

Overview: The honey is not "sickly-sweet" at all! It's just the perfect amount of sweetness! And the patchouli is the quiet kind that you can't smell at all, but it must have done something to make this smell so awesome!


So out of 9 scents, I'm in love with 3 (Sumatra, Nightshade, Zombee), hate 3 (Amber Crush, Blackstrap, Mystique), and are ok with 3 (Deadwood, Honey Balsam, Pinapple Milk). Not a bad mix!

Review: Debaucherous Bath & Body

UPDATE 7/12/14: I canNOT recommend this brand at all, after it came to my attention that many of this shops customers experienced problems with their orders. /u/minkishly had a bad experience with them, and I already linked her post about it before. We thought her experience may be an unfortunate one off experience, but it turns out that the terrible customer service (shipping label created without anything being sent, 0 communication, missing items, going way above the stated TAT, etc.) happened to many people. You can read about it on Evolution of a Foodie. 

Another disturbing fact is that this brand used to call themselves Haus of Haunt, basically stealing the name of 2 existing popular brands –Haus of Gloi & Haunt. I really can't recommend this brand at all.

Thanks to the lovely enabler, /u/minkishly, the awesome writer behind the Minkishly blog, I ended up with a bunch of Debaucherous Bath stuff to try out! Since I didn't buy these and got them as gifts, it's best to read Minkishly's post for reviews on the customer service & TAT.

Here's my review for a whipped soap, body lotion, lip balm and some perfume oil samples!

Alice’s Nightmare in Wonderland Whipped Soap

Image courtesy of Debaucherous Bath & Body

"Rotting pumpkin flesh, overripe peaches, drizzled with caramel, touched with liquid black amber, hot butterscotch, wicked spices and soft hay."

Texture-wise, it's a bit hard for a whipped soap and ends up like a regular soap that's been softened by many uses. It ends up having a similar sort of feel as refrigerated butter -takes time to melt and will always turn into that one last freaking sliver that just won't melt.

The scent also disappears fast. Almost immediately after it's rubbed on, actually.

It makes it really hard to identify the scent. Initially, I got some delicious caramel fall cake scent, but before I can identify it further, it just disappears. The strongest smell becomes an old soap smell that even unscented soaps seam to develop. Reading the scent description was definitely a surprise for me.

I finally stopped being stupid and decided to sniff this soap out of the jar since the smell is pretty strong that way. Underneath the caramel smell, there is a peach scent, but overripe peaches is the right description for it. You know that sickly sweet smell rotting peaches get? Smells slightly delicious but with a cloyingness to it to warn you the peach will probably explode into mush if you're lucky, or worm-infested grossness if you're unlucky. It still smells mostly like caramel fall cakes and old soap.

Price:

• Full size (5.5 oz): $10 for most, going up to $12 for certain scents
• Samples (1.5 oz): $3.75 or $4.50 (only available for select scents)

Red Queen's Rage Body Lotion

Image courtesy of Debaucherous Bath & Body

"Red Damask Roses, tempestuous clove, followed by smoky vanilla, frankincense and ylang ylang."

It smells like water and roses! Such a gorgeous scent! There's a bit of a sunblock smell mixed into it too, but I didn't mind it that much. Initially, the scent is strong and hits you as soon as you open the tub. After you rub it into the skin, the throw disappears fast, but you can still smell it from inches away. The smell is surprisingly light and fresh, which is the opposite of what I was expecting based on the scent description.

Texture-wise, it's a very thin, slightly runny lotion that spreads easily on your skin. It leaves a thin, oily layer that only takes 8-10 min to absorb.

Price:

• Full size (5.5 oz): $10 for most, with some scent going up to $14
• Sample size (1.5 oz): $3.75 (only available for select scents)

Caramel Embrace Lip Balm

Image courtesy of Debaucherous Bath & Body

"Rich Caramel swirled in with Dark Chocolate and a dusting of Cinnamon"

This comes in slimline tubes, which I love because they make application neater. I hate the feel of lip balm going outside my lips so I'm all for this.

Unfortunately, the caramel flavour lasts only a second. I swear. It disappears almost immediately upon application and I had to look out for it to notice it. It just leaves behind this weird, waxy taste. It's sweetened but I'm not sure what it's sweetened with. I'm assuming stevia. This is what it says on their product page:

Screenshot taken on July 15, 2014

I can't taste the dark chocolate or cinnamon. I tried sniffing this instead and got the sour smell of a caramel note going sour. It's still moisturizing though!

Texture-wise, it's slightly stiff but melts into a consistency that's similar to frozen vaseline, with the same vaseline-like "stickiness".

Price: $3.50 for a 0.07oz tub

Perfume Oils General Review

Image courtesy of Debaucherous Bath & Body

Price:

• 5 ml: $15 for most, with some scents going up to $26
• Samples: $3.50 (yikes!) for most, with some scents going up to $6.50 (O_O)

I like the concept of these perfumes and they're extremely delicious gourmand scents that manage to avoid smelling horribly artificial. I honestly fell in love with all the scents I tried out. Unfortunately, the throw is weak, and my nose has to be an inch or two away from my skin to smell it even right after application. If I apply it on my wrist, I can't smell it when I sniff the back of my hand. This is even with my nose pressed against the back of my hand. By 10 minutes, I have to smell it close to the skin and by 1 1/2 hours, it's very faint. Faint traces linger on your skin for over 9 hours though.

I'm so sad about the sillage or longevity since I like these scents a lot! If they're better, I would definitely get a bunch of scents in full sizes.

Candyman

"Caramelized sugar, cocoa butter, cotton candy, white florals, oakmoss, precious woods, dark amber and raw honey."

This smells like blue, salted caramels. There's that watery blue scent that I always associate with masculine colognes that I like but the salted caramel smell is strong as well. Almost overwhelmingly sweet at moments, and keeps threatening to overpower the blue scents. My brain ends up confused...this scent definitely makes me feel in lust, but I'm not sure if I'm lusting over food or a guy. What do I want??? Towards the end, I get a slightly powdery, white floral smell...can't seem to identify what kind of florals though.

Overview: "White florals". Well that's helpful.

This smells more feminine to me, but Minkishly mentions that this may smell great on a guy. So obviously, I had to smear it on my little brother...

Less than a month into his summer break and many, many perfume tests later, my awesome brother has resigned to his fate and barely complained even though he hated the smell of this. The blue notes are less prominent on him, and the caramel doesn't go too sweet or lean towards going sour. He ends up smelling like delicious salted caramel. I don't know why he's complaining. When it dries down, he got the same metallic smell I often get and the scent smells like metallic caramels.

Mau Loa

"Oahu night sky consisting of sweet plumeria, orchid lei, mai tai’s [sic] and salty ocean air."

First, it smells like a floral, soapy cantaloupe, with a fizzy lemon sitting in the background. The fizzy lemon balances precariously on the edge of smelling like dishwashing soap, but luckily, the sweet floral cantaloupe smell overpowers it most of the time.

Overview: I swear I smell a cantaloupe-ish scent somewhere in here. Not sure where that came from. Maybe it's the plumeria mixed with mai tais. I had to check out the recipe of mai tais because this doesn't smell like the mai tais I've tried. Yeah, no cantaloupe either. I like this scent, but it's definitely different from what I'd expect from the description.

Sweetheart

"Black forest cake, a raspberry rose filling, chocolate liqueor, European black chocolate dusted with French cocao."

It starts of as cherry liqueur chocolate truffle, but the cherry starts to blossom and become slightly floral.  By 10 minutes, that metallic smell I often get from gourmand smells appeared and now the scent smells like metallic, floral cherry candies. A bit of a weird, old butter smell starts appearing in the background and slightly ruins this scent for me, but it's strong enough for me to totally hate this scent. Unfortunately, that old butter smell mixed with plastic cherries is what dries down on my skin after 1 1/2 hours.

Overview: Despite all the chocolates they threw into the notes, the chocolate notes disappeared fastest on me. I guess the cherry and raspberry rose bit was stronger. The floral is very light and airy, and not like what you'd expect from a  rose note.

Review: Wild Hybrid, 10 scents + Soap!

I recently got 2 sets of 5 perfume samplers from Wild  and got a blogger sample of one of their soaps.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

____________________________

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.

Review & Recommendation: Darling Clandestine

I got my Darling Clandestine order ages ago but procrastinated on reviewing them because they're hard to review. The scents are so complex, I don't know wtf I'm smelling, and the only thing I know is that I like it. While I may not have found too many scents I went crazy over, the qualities of her oils are superb and there are definitely some of the most creative and unexpected (in a good way) scents I've ever encountered.

If you're considering getting purchasing these oils, my tip is not to be worried if you see a note you think you won't like, because Evonne somehow makes them work. Give it a try! Her store just reopened!

When I first apply this I could smell it two-strangers-in-an-elevator distance away. The sillage then calms down to passing-a-message-to-your-boss-during-a-meeting distance. This usually lasts for about 1.5-2.5h. The scent lingers on your skin for about 12h though!

So on to scent reviews for these ten scents I got:

• Blue Valentine
• Circassian
• Falchion
• Gram Negative
• Harpy
• Pyrotechnik
• Serpentina
• Step Right Up
• Supernova Sway
• Tapadero

As usual, I wrote the review blind and only checked the  scent description for the overview.

Blue Valentine

"A moody bouquet of hyacinth and violet and poppies and figs, washed down with shots of real whiskey and bitters and delicate musks and mint. Very potent, very heady."

I think I smell roses and violets in this, I'm not too sure. This is such a sweet, velvety floral scent thank makes me think of soft, silky smooth flower petals. There's also a honey sweetness to it that makes me think of candied flowers.  While most warm, heavy floral smells make me think of old ladies, this is a smell that a young woman would wear. Not a young girl, a young woman. A sweet, demure young woman who's no longer an awkward teenager and growing up to be graceful young woman, but still blushes easily like a girl. 

It's a scent I imagine Aurora would wear in Maleficent.
Image courtesy of: smcinema.com

Overview: Huh..this scent does not strike me as heady at all. Yes, the florals are heavy, but somehow, Evonne keeps it light and young. I don't smell any bitterness in the scent, but maybe that's what's stopping this scent from becoming an explosion of florals. I definitely love this scent!

Circassian

"Circassian is a warm chocolaty fragrance with intriguing notes of black coffee and amber and blossoms."

Initially, all I got was a sour chocolate smell. I'm not too worried since chocolate usually morphs into this beautiful sweet wood scent on me after about an hour. Looking forward to it, actually!  Sure enough in just 15 min, the sweet wood smell emerges. The thing that makes this scent unique is that it's a more cool sort of scent. Usually, chocolate scents becomes very warm, sensual sweet wood scents, which makes me think of being inside a traditional Indonesian wood cabin lit by a flickering candlelight. This makes me think of being outside the wood cabin with the Indonesian greenery around me and the faint scent of tropical flowers blowing in the breeze.

This is part of the Green Village in Bali. If you guys ever go to Bali, check it out. The woman behind it, Elora Hardy, is  really sweet and so passionate about sustainable architecture. I highly recommend it.
Image courtesy of: karmatrendz.files.wordpress.com

There's something that's somehow reminiscent of moss and dirt in this scent.  I got the faintest hint of that metallic scent I get from gourmands, but it's carefully hidden in the background. It's definitely a unique scent that's so wearable!

I got my sister to sniff it and she immediately went, "It smells like Christmas! In Bali!"

Apparently the sweet wood makes her think of how you imagine Santa's traditional workshop (none of the modern stuff they have now in Christmas movies) would smell like -tons of wood resin and a cup of hot chocolate. There's also a hint of floral that reminds her of the essential oils we used to buy in Bali. On her, the sweet wood scent is less pronounced and we agreed it smells like musky, floral chocolate.

Overview: The smell is less gourmand than what you'd expect from the description. The smell is close to Falchion but less smoky and more floral. I love this!

Falchion

"A deep, sultry, intense, earthy unisex fragrance with a hint of dark chocolate. There’s a smack of cinammony, dusky, almost fruity spice out of the bottle, but roll it onto the skin and give it a minute—the drydown is superbly sexy."

This smells like chocolate patchouli to me at first, then got spicier until it smells like chocolate with chilli flakes (there's such thing and they're delicious!). Oh gods it smells so amazing! I love, love it. Then I start smelling something that smells like gunpowder. I swear. There's that burnt smell you get leftover after the fireworks explode. After about 15 minutes, there's a soft, cotton-ish smell that enters. It starts smelling like spiked candy -sweet, soft and cotton-ish, spiked with sexy spiciness, coffee and smoke. At the expense of sounding really creepy, this just smells like corrupted innocence. Any picture I post here will just be creepy so nope, no pics for this.

Overview: I definitely agree it's a very sexy scent. The smokiness got a bit too much for me towards the end and somehow there's a bit of dark chocolate sourness, but it smells so incredible in the beginning! Definitely worth trying out.

Since this is unisex, I made my guy friend wear it. His skin amps up the gunpowder smell and he didn't like it. I smell something sweet in the background, but it's mostly just smells like the remnants of 4th of July fireworks.

Gram Negative

"Gram-Negative is deep, damp, earthy essential moss; sticky green leaf resin; a whisper of black tea; and a rare, rich, mellow, buttery orchid essential oil that is just divine. It's incredibly smooth, unisex, and one of my new personal favorites."



There's definitely tobacco in this. There's also that heavy, musky, floral smell that reminds me of old ladies, but somehow this doesn't smell old lady-ish at all. It smells more like an expensive mistress than an old lady. I also smell a bit of leather somewhere. This scent makes me think of a suave, older gentleman enjoying a smoke in his leather chair after a...hug...from his mistress. And it's a mistress that looks like this:

Monica Bellucci is the hottest woman ever. I swear.
Image courtesy of: embelezzia.com/

Overview: I guess there's no tobacco in it, but there's definitely a burnt, bitter smell. Maybe it's the tea. I'm not sure if the bitterness came from the orchid too. I always found orchids bitter smelling. I'm not sure if this scent is unisex though. There's definitely a masculine scent, but I think the musky floral smell on guys would make them smell like they just had..fun..with a mistress.

And unisex, you say? I guess my little brother has to wear this!

On him, it smells very, very smoky and he hated it. The heavy, musky, floral scent also became a bit lighter and more powdery, and it struck both of us as a tad too feminine for him.

Harpy

"Harpy is a sailor's delight, with notes of sea salt and dark bay rum, milk and coconut and a twist of lime."

It smells like milky ginger candies but then got way more complex. It's all cottony and soft, but there's a bit of a wet (not blue, wet), metallic smell to it. As crazy as this sounds, it smells like fluffy, yellow lightning clouds. I told my friend this and she was going "wat.", until she sniffed it. She then went, "Oh yeah, I know what you mean."

The metallic smell is what gets left behind on my skin. Definitely a scent I'm thinking of getting in full size!

This is another example of why it's so hard to describe DC scents!

Overview: I wonder if it's the sea salt that makes this scent smell so extraordinary! A mix of rum, milk, coconut and lime notes are fairly common, and nothing has ever smelled like this before. This is just so amazing!

Pyrotechnik

"Pyrotechnik is a sangria-spicy concoction with bold notes of cantaloupe and raw sandalwood darkened with earth."

Melons! I'm not sure if I got the wrong scent since I'm expecting something incense-y and smoky from the name. This smells mostly of melons –it's the melon candy sort of melons that you either love or hate, and I personally love it. Sure, there's a bit of spicy smoked wood scent at first, but that disappeared and mixed into the melon smell to produce absolute deliciousness. There's other tart fruits in this to make this smell more complex, but they're so well-blended, I can't figure out what they are.  This sweet scent is more creamy and rounded than sharp and sweet. There's also a dirty smell grounding it to stop it from smelling like a candy. Oh gods, it smells so good, I need more of this. This is a grown up melon that smells so delicious yet sophisticated at the same time! The wood resin smell is what's left behind when this scent dries down.

Overview: Oh it is supposed to smell like cantaloupes! I always mix melons and cantaloupes up. This is a scent I'm so in love with! I need it in full size!

Serpentina

"A crisp, green, ethereal tea fragrance with a little opium bite. More than a dozen different scent elements and several days of methodical alchemy make Serpentina no ordinary scented oil mix—it's a truly inimitable fragrance. Just for tart little kicks, this batch is laced with tiny beads of blood-red wine."

There's a sweet greenness and wood resin to it, but at the same time, it also has a  bitterness that just makes the scent more dangerous. A tartness enters this scent as it dries down, but it's slight enough that this doesn't turn fruity. This scent makes me think of a romanticized,  opulent "Middle Eastern" harem, filled with perfumed smoke, beautiful, enticing women, and an air of treason and intrigue.

It's how I imagine this scene would smell like.
Harem Dancers by Fabio Fabi, image courtesy of: artilim.com

Overview: This was the hardest scent for me to describe. I tried it so many times to figure out what I like about it. From the description, you'll expect this to smell more green, but I found this more of a light yet heady, seductive and slightly incense-ish scent instead. 

Step Right Up

"Step Right Up is a clean, oceanic, very unisex fragrance with notes of vanilla and tea and wood and spice."


I don't understand why I don't hate this smell. It has that minty, "old" herbal smell that makes me think of musty rooms and muscle salves, but there's a clean, sweet, powdery scent that brings all this together and make it actually work. It smells more like your grandparents' room, cleaned up after a long vacation. It smells clean, but their scent still lingers. And it lingers so faintly so all you get is that smell that makes you miss them, but not enough to make you want to choke on all the medicated balms smell. It also makes me feel like I'm working in a traditional apothecary with their own herb garden. Maybe in one of those cute stone cottages that look like this:

This is actually a dollhouse! Check out the process behind making this gorgeous creation here, and the Etsy store here.

Overview: This scent is definitely hard to imagine from the description. It's definitely a clean scent, but there's still a bit of that medicated herbal smell that I'm guessing comes from the tea and spices.

Supernova sway

"Dark and bright and dark and bright again, deep musks streaked with mint, black resins with subtle flashes of orchid and buttery honeysuckle."

On initial application, it smells like vanilla toothpaste. It's not just the mintiness, there's that toothpaste scent that all toothpastes, even unflavoured ones, seem to have. After about a minute, I smell a floral musk smell. An anise/absinthe sort of smell enters and now it smells like vanilla liquorice. I know vanilla liquorice doesn't sound particularly great, and I would've balked if I just read that description, but this really works. It's like a grown-up, wearable vanilla scent .

Overview: Orchid usually just smells like fertilizers, or bitter and kinda sour-ish, to me so I'm glad I didn't smell that scent. This scent definitely morphs around a bit before it settles, and it chose to settle on grown up vanilla on my skin.

Tapadero

"A sharp, clean fragrance bright with roses and sage, with a sweet smoky leather finish."

I smell that same "sweet grass" scent I've associated with Midsummer Dreams' Apothecary's Rapunzel, only this one has smokey mint in it. I'm pretty sure they have honeysuckle & rose in here because it's the such a similar scent. While every scent with this "sweet grass" scent tend to remind me of spas, fresh sheets & clean hotel rooms, the mintiness and hint of smokey bitterness in this makes me think more of those classy 50's movie stars who smokes like a chimney since they haven't figured out how bad smoking is back then, sipping a cocktail in a resort in Baden Baden. The best description I can think of is that this is how I picture Audrey Tautou's signature scent while she's portraying a rich woman from the French countryside in Thérèse:

I can't find a nice picture of her lounging in a resort in Baden Baden, but she actually does that in the movie.
Image courtesy of scenecreek.com/

This is kinda weird, but there's a bit of a fried seaweed smell when this dries down. I still love this scent, I just thought it's weird.

Overview: I love this scent! I'm surprised there's no honeysuckle in this, since it smells so similar to two other scents I have, and the one thing both those scents have in common is rose & honeysuckle. The smokiness is pretty strong in this, so watch out for that. My friends were asking if I picked up smoking or got stuck in a smoky café.

Review: 7 More Scents from Lou Lou's Soaps, Scrubs, & Scents

I finally decided to sniff the rest of my Lou Lou's perfumes after taking a long break from them. I finally found a couple of scents that work out of the remaining batch, but they still morph like crazy on my skin and end up becoming very, very sweet. I wish I can find more to like since Evelyn's really nice and even messaged me to apologize about the scents not working out on me after reading my reviews.

Evelyn mentioned she's planning to branch out to floral scents, but I've seen a number of reviews where people do like the very sweet gourmand scents. I think carving out a niche as the creator of extremely sweet gourmands can work out for her.

Anyway, here are my reviews for 7 more scents:

Sweet Darkness is left out since it kept toppling the pyramid.

Bunny

"Carrot cake, bakery spices, vanilla bean, buttercream frosting, marshmallow fluff, strawberries, cocoa, amber, and green grass"

Very sweet as usual, and in the beginning, there was an egg yolk smell that freaked me out. The egg yolk scent mellowed out to a sweet egg tart scent that's a bit cloying to me, mixed with something that smells like fruity candy. This dries down to a very sweet fruit candy smell, but there's still hints of that egg smell. 

Post Description: Hmm...no idea which note morphed into an egg yolk scent. Maybe it's the buttercream frosting?

Cake & Cassia

"Cassia (cassia cinnamon essential oil), strawberry, cake, chocolate, sandalwood, patchouli, jasmine, amber, vanilla, and cocoa bean"

Initially, this smells like a very sweet cough syrup (complete with the hint of bitterness buried under a lot of sugar), but a wet flour smells enter. The cough syrup & wet flour smell fortunately gets buried under all the sweetness after this dries down. It becomes a sweet berries smell, mixed with play-doh. The final smell reminds me a bit of a car perfume my parents once used, and I'm not too crazy over it.

Post Description: Is it the patchouli? I swear patchouli always smells medicinal on me. I wonder if it's the cake scents that turn play-doh-ish on me. I know HoG's cake scents smell like play-doh on me too.

Good Morning

"Sugar crusted blueberry muffins with butter, a bowl of maple syrup drizzled oatmeal, sugar cookies, and a warm mug of vanilla bean infused milk"

Very, very sweet breakfast syrup, with what smells like baby cereal. I like the cereal smell, but there's a cloying milkiness that I associate with baby food. Mostly it's just extremely sweet syrup though. There's an oatmeal smell I like in this, but it's definitely buried in the extreme sweetness and cloying milkiness. My nose hurts from the sweetness, so if you're sensitive to sharp, sweet scents, watch out.

Post Description: Oh it does have oatmeal! There may be blueberries somewhere, but it's definitely drowned out by the sharp sweetness.

Green Chamomile

"Chamomile tea infused coconut oil (carrier oil), chamomile tea, Roman chamomile essential oil, green grass, and green amber"

Finally found a scent I like! It starts of with a very sour chilli smell, which really worried me. Luckily, the sour chilli smell disappeared into a green fragrance that has the slight hint of white florals that vaguely smells like jasmines. I can't really smell chamomile in this. I may have caught a brief whiff of it, but it's so brief, I'm not sure if I was imagining it because I expect a chamomile scent. Like a lot of green scents, this smells slightly like a room scent, and it does smell a lot like a diffuser scent I once had. It smells pretty good on me, but I'll definitely prefer this smell on my pillow.

Post Description: I'm not sure how green amber is supposed to smell like, but this scent is definitely not warm and heavy like what I expect from amber smells. By the way, while trying to look up what "green amber" is supposed to be, I stumbled on this interesting article from a blog called Sorcery of Scent about what perfumers are talking about when they list "amber" as a note:

Contrary to popular belief, however, amber - when used in perfumery - is not of this vegetal variety. It is considered almost impossible to extract a scented oil from this ancient resource, and attempts at doing so are highly destructive and yield minimal results. It would be much like trying to extract the odour of a stone. So, why do so many perfume houses reference amber as a key component of a new scent? Well, basically, the term 'amber' is loosely used to describe a quality in perfume that is warm, rich and honeylike, and also somewhat powdery, oriental and earthy. In perfume, synthetic ambers are often created and patented by the large manufacturing houses to emulate the opulent golden warmth of the fossil. Otherwise, oils taken from modern resins and tree gums such as benzoin and labdanum are obtained for their warm spicy qualities, and are often cut with other oils such as vanilla, clove or patchouli to further enhance their aroma. Fragrance companies that claim they have created a "true amber" perfume are simply writing a poem to lull and entice the consumer.

Princesses and Playtime

"This is a fruity, feminine blend of fresh raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, pomegranate, mandarin, grapefruit, lime, and fresh cut green grass with a touch of bamboo over a base of vanilla musk."

Extremely sweet as usual. I got a fleeting smell of something that I can only describe as play-doh-ish, but fortunately, it disappeared fast. There's definitely a vaguely berry & floral smell, but it's extremely sweet. The scent sort of reminds me of a febreze spray I once had. It's a pretty pleasant smell, but works better in my room than on my skin. Like all Lou Lou's scents, this is very strong, so if you sniff it too close, your nose gets overwhelmed and hurts the same way it does when you stand too close to someone spraying room spray.

Post Description: Oh wow, that's a lot of fruits. I honestly can't smell any pomegranate or the citruses. I wonder if the berries are just stronger. I can smell a bit of green scent that may be "bamboo", but it's the "bamboo" scent that I get from "bamboo"-scented bath products -a scent that I can only interprest as very green with a bit of yellow. Actual bamboo smells a bit like dirt & wet grass to me, and I definitely can't smell it in here either.

Spiced Pear Cake

"Anjou pear, warm vanilla bean, nutmeg, clove, apple, amber, and musk"

This one finally has a cake smell that doesn't turn play-doh-ish on me! I'm trying to sniff out a pear scent, but I just get a sweet room spray-ish scent that smells a tad more floral than fruity. Unfortunately, that sweet room spray-ish scent is giving me a bit of a headache, but the cake smell smells like a freshly baked cinnamon cupcake! For me, this scent is more of a freshly baked cinnamon cupcake in a newly cleaned kitchen after someone went berserk with the room spray.

About 10 min in, the room spray scent finally disappeared, but so did the delicious cake scent. It now just smells like very sweet Fall spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves). When most of the notes has gone, this scent leaves a lingering metallic smell that I get from HoG products. I wonder if they use the same cake scents.


Post Description: I wish the cinnamon cupcake scent stayed a bit longer! The sweet spices scent is nice enough, but it's very ordinary.

Sweet Darkness

"Black leather, dark mahogany, black licorice, burnt caramel, black coconut, black musk, blackberries, black currants, black raspberry"

This initially smells of a very, very sweet liquorice. The sweetness disappears to become a very bitter, Chinese traditional medicine mixed with dry instant noodles smell on me. This, unfortunately, is a very strong scent, and you can smell it from a formal job interview distance.

Post Description: What turned into the dry instant noodles smell? I'm guessing all the black notes is what makes this so bitter.

Princess & Playtime Solid Perfume Review

First of all, I have to say, the free sample size is extremely generous. Here it is with a HoG mini & a tub of eyeshadow for scale:

The eyeshadow's a Dawn Eyes' customized colour! Will post swatches soon, but definitely check out the amazing thing Dawn is doing for her sister here.

These melt easily on your skin, but is oily as it melts. One thing I like about the solid perfumes is that it takes of the sharp, straight to your head feeling you get when you sniff the perfume oils. It definitely has less throw (you need to smell close to your skin), but it's worth it for me. The sugary scent is also less sharp and intense, but it still smells too much like a room spray to me. I guess this isn't for me.

Review: Black Violet

UPDATE: I unfortunately cannot recommend this company anymore. It has come to my attention that Black Violet uses stock bases for their body lotion and several scents may be stock scents.  Leilani has come forward to state that she does not use any stock scents, but I still have my suspicions since Red Lotus smells exactly like Orange Thyme's Lychee & Red Tea, as well as Rainbow Honey's Sakura Matsuri cuticle balm. As a nail polish company, I expect Rainbow Honey to scent their balms with stock scents. Here is a list of her questionable scents. 

I've seen Black Violet before and have been drawn to them because, well, their site is gorgeous! So when Leilani posted on Reddit with a discount code, I obviously had to buy from her. I have to say, I'm blown away. First, check out how my stuff arrived:

Pretty packaging!

I thought it was a clutch! I was so confused since I was pretty sure I never ordered a handbag despite my many late night shopping sprees. I can't have gotten that sleep deprived. Then I saw it was from Black Violet and realized that it was just her wrapping. Wow.

Here's what I got:

• Red Lotus mini perfume oil
• Pattiserie mini perfume oil 
• Sugar Clouds perfume oil sample (free)
• Yuzu Cookie perfume balm
• Lilikoi Creme Soap
• Affogato Hydra Conditioner
• Sample size of Steel Petals Body Butter (free)

Leilani truly has an eye for design and she knows how to pay attention to the smallest details to create a really beautiful experience. Opening her package is like opening a Christmas gift, and gives you the same amount of excitement.

Customer Service

Leilani is amazing and replies to messages almost immediately. I actually got a bit worried once when she replied to my message until past midnight her time! As soon as we settled all the messiness with international shipping, she sent me my order within a day so the TAT is awesome.

Now I'm used to waiting for long international delivery, so I learnt never to keep checking the mail tracking since you'll just get worried when there's no news on your order. She was the one who constantly updated me on the delivery. I'm so impressed by her customer service and she's genuinely warm and sweet. She's awesome!

I still have to finish my current bath products, so I've only tried out the perfumes for now. As usual, reviews are done blind, and I only check the description before writing my overall impression.

Perfume Oil General Review

The sillage is amazing. I can smell it wafting all over my cubicle as I type. The sillage for Red Lotus is definitely the strongest out of the scents I tried. Longevity-wise, you can smell them wafting around for about 1 1/2h and last about 6 hours on your skin. I definitely like the quality!

Sugar Clouds

"Playful and sweet~ sugar crystals, dreams of candy floss, vanilla and musk. (Valentine's Day stock fragrance request)"

Initially, this was the perfect sugar cookies scent. Only the sugar got stronger and sweeter until it's a super sweet and sharp sugary vanilla scent. The sweetness toned down after about 30 min, but the scent stayed at a sugary, musky vanila.

Overall impression: This scent smells pretty plain to me, and I wonder if it's because it's a stock scent.

Red Lotus

UPDATE Dec 8, 2014: I've recently sniffed this same exact scent in 2 other products –Rainbow Honey's cuticle balm in Sakura Matsuri & Orange Thyme's Lychee & Red Tea. I'm now a bit suspicious about whether or not this is a stock scent.

"With vermillion red beauty & hairlike spines, rambutans are unforgettable fruits from Southeast Asia which bring a tart aroma. Exotic lychee radiates a sweet note thru red rooibos tea. Red Lotus is complete with floating lilies and wild geranium. (limited edition)"

This is amazing! It's like floral lychee (sorry, this is how I was taught to spell it where I grew up, and I'm sticking to it). There's a fresh, watery coolness to this scent that keeps this scent from going too sweet with the lychee or too heavy with the florals. I'm trying to place the florals but it's buried by the strong, lychee smell. This sounds weird, but it smells like one of those flowers with very thick petals that has a slight green-ness to their scent. There's definitely tea in this. This smell makes me think of a very pretty, lychee tea mocktail, that'll be decorated by flower petals. This scent is amazing as a perfume!

Post description review: Woww....the description is spot on. I guess I get lychee and rambutan mixed up, whoops! I'm so getting this in full size.

Pattiserie

"Petit fours of eclairs covered in powdered sugar filled with vanilla custard, lemon meringue tarts in a buttery short dough shell brimming with lemon curd, a swirl of baked meringue & finished in a light dusting of confectioners sugar."

This smells like creamy shortcake crossed with lemon cakes initially, but the lemon got stronger to the point where it's just lemon cakes. Towards the end, the lemon mellowed down and I'm left with a cake smell that smells delicious enough, but still a tad artificial. I think this may be awesome in body butter form though, so I plan on grabbing some body butters in this scent.

Post description review: The scent is more creamy and milky than buttery. The description makes this sound like it's going to be insanely sweet, but it's not. Even on my skin that loves amping up sweet smells! This is a great scent, but I just wish the smell doesn't morph into a slightly artificial cake scent at the end. To be fair, it's not a cloying, play-doh type of artificial and still smells delicious, so I'm still impressed.

Yuzu Cookies Solid Perfume

"For hundreds of years, yuzu has been placed in Japanese baths, releasing a grapefruit and mandarin orange-like aroma. The citrus fruit is found in many exquisite dishes & drinks. Enjoy it paired with butter cookies!"

The freshness of yuzu mixed with the creamy, buttery scent of cookies produce a heavenly smell of...cheesecake. It's really weird. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, really, since cookies usually smell heavy and buttery, while yuzu smells fresh, light and tart. Guess cheesecake's what you get. The yuzu disappears faster than the cookies smell, abd you'll be left with the lingering scent of absolutely divine cake. This is more of a beautifully decorated, heavily frosted white cake displayed in a cake shop rather than a freshly baked cake smell. It's delicious for sure and I'm definitely interested in getting more of this!  

As for how the perfume balm is, this has a great throw for a solid perfume! You can smell it from an intimate whisper away, which is the throw I've gotten from some perfume oils, so I'm impressed. 

Longevity-wise, the smell wafts for slightly under an hour and you can smell it for up to 3h. Not too bad for a solid perfume. 

This has an oily, melty texture that's similar to Notoriously Morbid's lip balms. It takes a while for your skin to absorb the oil if you just let it sit there, so you end up with a scary oil patch like this for a while:

It sits like that for a long time so you just have to rub it in

It doesn't bother me much though, since I love everything else about this.

By the way, I just did something really stupid. I'll start by putting this picture here:

You can guess what happened...

Yes. I accidentally mixed it up with my Coffin Kissers lip balm. In case you're wondering, it tastes and feels exactly like lip balm. No bitterness or weird texture or anything. Pretty sure it's not lip-safe, but I really couldn't tell the difference between the two balms if it weren't for the different scents. I didn't even realize my mistake for the first few seconds before the scent registered, and when it finally did, I looked down and realized the balm I was holding was yellow instead of white. After that, it was a frantic rush to the bathroom to rinse it off my lips. I'm carrying these two items separately from now on.