Clara - Twyla Perfumes

Details: 
Clara
Literary Ingenues - Spring Collection 2013
Twyla Perfumes

Notes: 
Clara - from the Nutcracker ballet. She inspired the little aspiring ballerina in me to many hours of practicing arabesques in the basement - leaving me with visions of flowers, dolls and sugar plum fairies dancing in my head! This lovely perfume is deeply sweet, wistful and dreamy, laden with sugared plums, a faint breath of Christmas roses and the sweet scent of sandalwood. Plummy, fruity and smooth - like the Christmas dessert wine I was allowed a little glass as a child - with just a touch of sparkle and spice. 
Plum accord, gardenia, sandalwood, bourbon vanilla, apricot, grapefruit, rose absolute, pink pepper and a teensy drop of sweet patchouli. 

In the vial this is indeed a rich, fruity sweet wine - it makes me think of a particularly boozy Christmas fruit cake. Despite the fact that none of us liked fruit cake, my mum would still make one every year at Christmas, and this is what it smelled like while it was cooking. On my skin though, something very weird happened - I get a slightly orange-scented liquorice. I had not looked at the notes before testing (I rarely do, as I'm the highly suggestible type and I want to see what I can smell before being led down the path), and I just assumed there would be anise and orange in there, so I was pretty surprised to find they weren't listed. I was so confused I wrote to Twyla and asked her if they were there but not listed; she said there was a natural isolate with hawthorne that can be anise-ish, but was largely blackcurrant. Apparently not on me! Not complaining, because I love the smell of liquorice, and had I looked at the notes before trying I would have expected some sweet fruity concoction I probably wouldn't like.

The dry down is still pretty much liquorice on me for quite a long time - it never goes away, but it does retreat to the background eventually and then I mostly get the boozy vanilla and plum with a touch of the florals. There is a spicy note as well that I assume is the pepper. The patchouli is in the background, but very slight. It doesn't dominate at all and really just serves to add some depth to the base.

The sillage on Clara is medium, and lasting power is excellent (yay for the new strength blend!) - I could still smell it at the end of the day, though on a non-testing day I'd have reapplied in the middle of the day just to zing it up.

Rating: 
4/5 I don't know if the anise would come out on anyone else but it's something to be aware of if you're interested in this perfume but really hate that note, as many do. I'm undecided about whether to get a full bottle of this - I'm really tempted and it's only around for another week or two (until May 1**), but I'm trying to be restrained. *sigh*

Day 106!

**I'm going to review all the Twyla Spring perfumes consecutively as there are only 4 of them and they're not around for much longer. However, if any grab your attention and you try a sample and like it, she does have some dealio where you can buy a bottle up to a month (I think) after it comes down. You'd have to ask her for the actual details as I can't recall, but she's lovely and very approachable.