What Larks! - Arcana Soap

Details:
What Larks! 
Great Expectations
Arcana Soaps (bought from The Rhinestone Housewife)

Notes: 
A happy blend of English strawberries and salted milk caramels strewn across polished wood. 

Hmmm. The thing about caramel with me is that it often treads dangerously close to vomit. This perfume really teeters on the edge of that for quite some time. And maybe that's just me, because I know a lot of people love caramel scents and they are really popular in things like candles. The beginning is super sweet caramel and I never really did get a distinct note of either strawberries or wood.

It did mellow after a while, but never really changed all that much - the dry down was more of a sticky date pudding kind of caramel than the lolly kind. Perhaps that was the wood after all, warming it a little. The sillage is quite high, and I was pretty careful about only applying a smidge because it smelled so strong in the bottle. It lasts a really long time - it was still quite strong on me at the end of the day, and I could smell traces of it the following morning before I had a shower. I think I'm going to put this one away for a while and see if the sweetness mellows out a bit.

Rating: 
3/5 

Day 223!

The Baker's Boy - Sarawen Perfumes

Details: 
The Baker's Boy
The Hunger Games
Sarawen Perfumes

Notes:
Spend a day frosting and decorating cakes with Peeta. A luscious, gourmand fragrance bursting with ripe strawberries (from Katniss of course!) and delicious yellow cake. Underneath the delicious-ness drifts soft vetiver, leather, and golden amber. This perfume is a unisex blend that borders towards feminine.

In the vial, and when I first applied this, I thought I smelled hay. Looking at the notes now I realise it's vetiver. At first this is a fairly masculine scent - the vetiver and leather dominating. The dry down however, is when all the sweet foodiness comes out, and I find that really interesting as it's generally the other way around. The strawberries are almost floral-smelling rather than fruity, and the amber is sweet and mellow and not overwhelming. The longer I wore this the more I liked it. Sillage is lowish - it sits reasonably close to the skin but I imagine if you lashed it about you'd make yourself known. The longevity is medium - I reapplied after about 5 hours as it was beginning to smell more faint by then.

Rating: 
4/5

Day 160!

Rose Mallow Cream - Solstice Scents

Details: 
Rose Mallow Cream
Valentine's Collection (2013)
Solstice Scents

Notes: 
Moroccan Rose absolute, Bulgarian Rose absolute, Marshmallow Fluff, Strawberry Nectar, White Chocolate, Vanilla, White Musk.

Years ago my favourite perfume was MOR Marshmallow. I ploughed through a 100ml bottle of the stuff in a few months, then went and bought another bottle. I was about one third of the way through it, and suddenly decided I could not stand it anymore. I gave the rest of it to Noodles, and she still has it several years later. Every now and then when she and I are talking perfumes I smell it again, and I still can't stand it. It seems so cloying and sickly to me now, and yet there was a time when it was the one I would have immediately chosen if I were stranded on a desert island and could only have one perfume with me.

Rose Mallow Cream to me is a far less sickly, far more palatable version of MOR Marshmallow. It's not exactly the same, but it's similar enough that as soon as I smelled it, that's the first thing I thought of. In the bottle and when first applied it's a sweet, candy-like rose. The description on Solstice Scents' site mentions that the sillage is low, but on me it was quite high and I didn't apply all that much. Maybe it's just amping on me because of the rose. The middle is marshmallow vanilla, with the rose still there, but the strawberry makes it more foody than floral. The dry down is vanilla and white musk, very pretty and feminine. It lasted a fair while on me - at least 5 hours. If you're interested in more detailed reviews of Rose Mallow Cream, check out Liber Vix and More Tea, Wesley? for their opinions.

Rating: 
4/5

Day 73!