Hasta la Muerte - The Morbid The Merrier

Details: 
Hasta la Muerte
Valentine's Day 2011
The Morbid The Merrier

Notes:
The innocence of lily and carnation, sweetened with vanilla absolute, smashed and marred by an undercurrent of heartless black spice.

This is one of the few perfumes I have left from The Morbid The Merrier, and it's never been a favourite. When I first bought it, I found it just okay, but nothing about it kept me going back. After a couple of years, this has aged quite well (interestingly, because the other TMTM scent I reviewed for this blog was the opposite). In the bottle, it's a sweet, very faintly spicy floral, mostly the lily with a dab of vanilla evident. Once applied though, the spice comes out and I get the carnation as well. It's so different from bottle to skin - almost like an entirely different perfume. This is what I'd call a unisex floral - you can definitely smell the flowers, but it's not girly. The spice makes it more deep and masculine.

I'm glad I pulled this one out - I really like a lot this time around. The vanilla stays in the background, just adding a slightly warm, sweet base as it dries down, but the carnation is the most definite note, there all the way through. Sillage is medium - like many carnation scents, it would be easy to go overboard with this, but subtly applied it's not too out there. Longevity is pretty good - I could still smell it 6 hours later.

Rating: 
4/5 A forgotten gem.

Day 70!

The Saw is Family - The Morbid The Merrier

Details:
The Saw Is Family
Halloween 2010
The Morbid The Merrier (now defunct)

Notes:  
A murderously beautiful blend of 5 musks, 3 sandalwoods, a tiny hint of Texas earth, the bite of a steel blade, and a ribbon of cold, hard fear binding them all tightly together.

When I bought this two years ago, I loved it. I meant to get a full bottle and was kicking myself when I realised I hadn't and it was gone. So I've been stingily hanging on to my meagre little vial, barely daring to use it. In hindsight, I should have, because it's changed. A lot.

Here's what I said about it back then:

On me, this is a gorgeous sandalwood musk saved from being too hippyish by a sharp metallic note. I really, really love it.

And now? In the vial it smells musky, but a rather uninteresting musk. A musk I'd expect to smell in one of those $15 perfumes near the front counter of Chemist Warehouse. A pleasant enough smell, but ordinary. There's a tiny hint of something shiny and metallic, an icy steel note that has all but faded away. It's so fleeting and hard to catch, sadly.

When applied, the metallic note is undetectable. Just the musk is there. Once it dries down, it's soapy. Again - something I'd find in a cheap chemist. Just... eh. How disappointing.

Rating:
2/5. I don't out-and-out hate it, but it really didn't age well, and it's very ordinary and unspecial. Probably just as well I never did get that full bottle.

Day 2!