Latest User Reviews

I am a huge Ex Nihilo fan and this one is among my favorites. It starts off with a blend of mandarin orange, powdery pepper and slight hints of Mimosa. Ylang Ylang is always in the background, and gives this scent depth and warmth from start until the end. The vanilla comes through a bit later and provides the sweetness. Vesper Glitz is an elegant scent, almost too chic to wear casually. It is great to wear for a special occassion or on a date, it surely works for night outs as well. Very good scent with nice lasting power, would be happy to have this in my collection one day.

A beautiful warm spicy fragrance.

The apple and orange paired with the cinnamon make it almost festive, but the herbal lavender and timid floral notes balances that out a bit.

In behind this fruity cinnamon, I was almost immediately reminded of Angel ~ Mugler. It must be the sandalwood, patchouli, and vanilla rolling about.

I really don't see how you could dislike this. There's nothing wild or crazy, it's just warm, spicy and woody, with a drier spice of pepper becoming more apparent in the dry down.

Through the tiny gabled window of a dollhouse attic, a secret scene unfolds: a miniature lace shawl lies draped across a trunk, its delicate stitches dusted with what could be petit four crumbs, could be breakfast cereal marshmallows - fairy-sized sweets scattered by some forgotten child's hand. Beside it, pearly mothballs like strange sugar drops rest among cobwebby linens that exhale their milky-musky-powderiness. From a diminutive crystal perfume bottle in the corner, phantom florals and delicate vanilla mingle with dust motes in the afternoon sunlight, the whole tiny world held in perfect, timeless suspension.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s Snake Oil is a luxuriant molasses-y, musky deeply sugared vanilla incense, blended with dark spices more sacred than culinary. This is a scent that lends to a sense of danger and power, and not for the faint of heart–but rather for a heart-pricked thrice under a full moon right before you take a big dripping bite of it to seal the spell in flesh and blood and death. You’re the dangerous, powerful creature in this scenario and you gotta commit if you’re going to wear this gorgeously potent thing.

Imagine a little picnic with your beloved stuffed bunny, the threadbare and shabby old thing with the missing eye and the unraveling stitches and the patch on its little belly where the stuffing has begun to leak through, the one you’ve loved so much and for so long that there is no doubt in your mind that it is the very realest rabbit. And picture the most realistic mud pie you ever made, so true to life in fact that when you took a crumbling bite of it, it actually tasted a bit like a lightly spiced tea loaf, gently sweetened, with a soft, tender crumb– maybe a seasonal apple or zucchini bread, but minus the actual fruit or vegetation. As a matter of fact, there’s little to no greenery in this scent at all, even the clover and the hay is more honeyed sweetness than grassy or botanical, and I do think that verdancy, that sense of green growing things, is what’s missing for me. This fragrance is less Peter Rabbit and more Velveteen Rabbit, right down to the well-worn cozy, cuddly fuzzy, snuggly skin musk of it– and as a matter of here’s a fleeting there-and-gone curious note that seems to be aiming for milky and creamy, but briefly veers a touch sour and unwell almost like a hint of baby spit-up. Like your beloved stuffed bunny that served as a faithful childhood repository for various ailments and was never quite fully sanitized. Despite its peculiarities and what it’s missing, it truly feels like a love letter to something sweet and cherished, and so far back in time you can never reach it again–and I think that’s ultimately what makes it so evocative – it’s the memory, how you felt in that garden and that friendship with your soft, sweet companion, filtered through the lens of childhood wonder and a love so fierce it transcends reality.

This fragrance is quite an exercise in restraint. It is the olfactory equivalent of hushed whispers, fading echoes, and pale shadows further muted by weak sunlight. The champagne is a warmed, still echo in its glass, the effervescence long gone. A delicate tension simmers between the dripping sweetness of peach and ambrette’s intimate, powdery musk, all set against an understated backdrop of cool, elusive floral notes and the gentle, woody humidity of oakmoss. Maggie the Cat isn’t at all the piercing shrieking experience that I expected but offers an introspective, understated moment instead

While I do love the scent of a heavily wooded hinterland or an ominous evergreen Mirkwood Forest midnight–basically, a syrupy resinous coniferous balsamic dirge of a scent (think Norne from Slumberhouse or Dasein Winter Nights) this is…not that. Or, well, it’s sort of that, but remove all those associations with darkness and shadows and the macabre. Rather than the Huntsman chasing a terrified Snow White into the gloomy woods, this is instead the contentment of Snow White in a sun-dappled forest glade, surrounded by woodland creatures, a soft trembling faun on her lap, and a little bluebird perched on her finger. It’s the scent of weathered branches and leaves fluttering in the breeze, sticky sap and damp creeping moss, the faint sweetness of wildflowers crushed under your feet, the rosy golden musk of a sunbeam on your skin; it’s all of that, but it’s not overly sentimental or twee. Its the sheer, gauzy summer halo of a winter haunted forest emerging from a deep sleeping curse.

I don’t think I know how to talk about Fantosmia from Jorum Studio, , so instead, I am just going to run their list of notes through my internal translator and speak them to you in my language. This is the scent of a leather armor repurposed into a stewing pot into which you stir the sticky sap of a wounded tree, the sour scrapings of the inner rind of a pumpkin, the last few crumbles of Transylvanian honey bread blessed by the holy sisters and studded with spirit-soaked dried plums, and a scant handful of musty seeds and peppery herbs. Stir over stones that haven’t seen sunlight in one hundred years and trap the cookfire’s ghostly smoke in a glass vial for after-dinner divinatory purposes. This scent is a cryptic recipe written in a forgotten tongue; I can almost decipher the symbols, but ultimately it remains a mystery, a riddle that I can’t solve. I can admire it, yet I can’t quite call my own.

As intrigued as I was by the idea of a fragrance inspired by the lore of the phoenix, this is less a solitary mythical firebird and more a gaggle of mean girls cackling at a sick burn. It’s the sort of ambery raspberry-smoky rose that I’m already disinclined to like, because I don’t love fruity florals, but there is something about this one that’s particularly smug and acridly unlikeable. It’s got the structure of a scent that aspires to an aura of power and allure, but it falls flat, it’s just a loud, saccharine veneer in the shape of a void where a personality is meant to be. And sure, you can tell me I need therapy for my high school trauma, but I swear I don’t even think about that stuff until a particularly awful perfume comes across my radar. This is one of those perfumes.

Primal Yell has elements of hot iron, cherry, and bitter almond in addition to patchouli, vetiver, and some other notes, and this is definitely the moodier and broodier of the debut duo from Amphora. I definitely get that red fruit, but it’s swaddled in black velvet and furs, and encased in an ancient iron coffin. As a matter of fact, this is very much a blood popsicle shared between two very old, very chic, and jaded, too-cool-for-school vampire lovers.

With notes of frozen apple, dried rose petals, candied violets, marshmallow, cashmere, and white musk, Sublimate is a disco ball piñata of Pixy Stix dissolving in a vat of liquid nitrogen, exploding into a supernova of candied campy Barbarellas. It is a technicolor cacophony of hyper-fruity absurdity, a celebratory sweetness that leaves your soul awash in glitter and makes you question the very fabric of reality, and truly, I think it is the penultimate recipe for euphoria.

The opening of this is intense.

I don’t mean to sound like a fragrantica twat with a story but this really did evoke a visual reaction so credit to the master Bish.

It’s like standing outside a car factory. There’s metal, there’s rubber, there’s leather, there’s fumes coming at you. It’s not giving BO like a lot of others mention.

But behind you is a field full of roses. Damp, sweet, green, floral roses.

The apple and lychee add sweetness to what could just be described as a jammy rose, but they also add some contrast and tartness.

I do love a rose fragrance. It’s one of my favourite notes. From the name and bottle I wasn’t expecting rose.

The cumin isn’t specific to me right away but it’s likely adding to the powerhouse opening.

The bouquet of chemical at the start does fade quite quickly and what’s left is dark rose oud with the memories of leather and earthy cumin.

A wild ride of an opening That settles into something more dark and familiar.

The quintessence of elegance in a freshly ironed shirt with a twinkle in the eye.

The opening for me is a bright fizzy sweet and spicy and sour aldehydic cirtrus - almost like a fizzy vitamin tablet you dissolve. I'm guessing the ginger has its part to play in that.

The pumpkin note isn't heavy but there's definitely richer sweetness in the back.

The bright opening seems to go quite quickly and I was left with a sweet musky floral.

Coriandre has got the hazy, soft-edged quality of an old Polaroid left too long in the sun. A warm, grassy summer day recalled through the yellowed veil of memory. There's a brittle, bitter dreaminess threaded through it, like dusty butterfly wings pinned to a bed of soft, curling moss. It's dry and woody and musky and I think it smells a bit like a lovely little secret that you might never be ready to share - the kind that quickens your heart and warms your skin just for keeping it.

Imagine the most potent headshop you've ever visited and up the ante with the patchouliest fortune teller you ever met. Imagine this scent driving all your friends and loved ones away. That's OK, you smell marvelous.

Black night forests frozen in time; tarry, resinous pines and greenest firs and crisp midnight air, tiniest pinpoints of starlight. Woodsmoke and loam, lichen and fern, and musty mosses creeping, creeping over fallen logs and worn stone paths. Spiders webs tangling high in the branches, dust settling on the strands. Time has slowed and finally stood still in this forest while the world outside advances and evolves and moves along as is the world’s habit whether one interferes or not. This is a still, solemn, forgotten wood, without any birth or growth, and yet undying

Straight up Bánh mì. It sprays on a promising, yet vaguely astringent oriental, but within seconds it is the various components of a Vietnamese sandwich. Cilantro, daikon, pork belly, chiles, pickled vegetables, right down to the yeasty tang of a crusty baguette. There must be something wrong with me; no one in their right mind would make a fragrance that smells like this. However, sometimes one is just in the mood for a sandwich, and this is certainly complex and delicious.

Safran Troublant by L’Artisan Parfumeur is a wonderfully restorative, heart-warming/heart-opening scent. There’s a comforting sweetness to it, though not at all sugary or syrupy or cloying. A bedtime ritual beginning with custardy spoonfuls of sandalwood pudding and vanilla bean cream, a lukewarm bath infused with a concoction of milky musk and delicate pink rosewater, and a marvelously grounding, magically enveloping hug. You’ll sleep the soundest and deepest of sleeps, and you will be visited by the loveliest midsummer dreams.

It's really lovely ! I'm a sucker for rose anyway!

It's not too sweet, a little metallic. Like green rose stems you've pricked your finger on. Orange brightens it up a little.

A little spice comes later and in the drydown.

Really like it

There’s something about Craft from Andrea Maack that feels sleek and reflective, like the soaring chrome spires of a retrofuturistic sci-fi megastructure and its mechanized cybernetic inhabitants. It’s a cool, bloodless scent, like frost flowers on glass, and wintry chilled metal. I hadn’t read the description prior to writing down these thoughts and now I’m simultaneously pleased and peeved because I picked up on this perfume’s vibe to such an extent I’ve almost quoted the website’s copy about jet packs and robots right back at you. This is one of those instances when it seems the concept and the execution align in an almost preternaturally perfect way... like the android overlords have implanted these ideas directly into my brain!

There’s something about Craft from Andrea Maack that feels sleek and reflective, like the soaring chrome spires of a retrofuturistic sci-fi megastructure and its mechanized cybernetic inhabitants. It’s a cool, bloodless scent, like frost flowers on glass, and wintry chilled metal. I hadn’t read the description prior to writing down these thoughts and now I’m simultaneously pleased and peeved because I picked up on this perfume’s vibe to such an extent I’ve almost quoted the website’s copy about jet packs and robots right back at you. This is one of those instances when it seems the concept and the execution align in an almost preternaturally perfect way... like the android overlords have implanted these ideas directly into my brain!

Targhee Forest from Rogue Perfumery is the earnest, delighted musings of a daydreaming bryologist gnome who writes wistful poems of the pensive creepings of mosses, lichen, and fern. These literary herbariums are the inspiration for their side hustle, where they saponify the loamy greenery and gently mix in an essence of white musk to create charming soaps that smell of moss-covered stone basking in a beam of sunlight.

If you've ever smelled Hermès Ambre Narguille and thought, wow, this stuff is so sweet it's actually going to kill me...I think you might want to give Tartan a try. In reality, I don't know that they're all that alike, other than a rich woody tobacco-y October vibe, but while Ambre Narguille really leans into that syrupy apple compote, Tartan is balanced by acrid leather and an embossed flask of peaty, smoky whiskey. I smell a different aspect of it every time I wear it, but when I close my eyes it conjures wooly earthen moss, the molten gold of autumn, and skeins of snow geese low on the horizon.