WEEK 41

* Gobo
Described as “tangerine, lemon peel, sugared pink grapefruit, and vanilla cream.” As orange creamsicle perfumes go, this is an unobjectionable one; it’s less sickly than others I’ve encountered, and it’s very stable, not changing much over time. However . . . orange creamsicle.

* Green Tea and Lemon Peel
This might make a nice lotion, especially once it mellows a bit, but as a perfume, it’s a little too astringent and tannic.

* Comfort
No description I could find for this one. This has some hints of lavender and mint early on, but after that it mostly hits as white chocolate, which, meh.

* The Sun Rising
Described as “three shades of tawny amber radiating with orange blossom, Italian yellow bergamot, saffron, and mandarin.” In the bottle, a floral saffron with a slight zest tinge, the latter stepping up more on application. It mellows to a floral amber, which is not really what I’m looking for.

* Voyance (Alkemia)
Described as “a wreath of meadowsweet, elderflower, cornflower, verbena, waterlily, and other summer solstice flowers gently floating on seven ethereal waves of clean water musk.” Greenly floral at the outset, but it heads pretty rapidly to soap.

* Vanilla and Orange (Haus of Gloi)
Basically as described. Not much to say about this except that it’s the best of the orange creamsicles.

* Hēdonē (Hexennacht)
Described as “spiced honey, date sugar, tonka bean, red musk.” This is another one that presents pretty steadily; unfortunately, what it presents is basically burnt sugar. Which I find off-putting.

* Strawberry Ice Cream (Haus of Gloi)
Yep, what it sounds like: a nice, smooth strawberry. It’s probably not for me, but what the hell, I’ll try it again.

WEEK 42

* Ocean Alchemy (Alkemia)
Described as “sea breeze, cotton, kelp, sand, freesia, juniper.” Pretty much anything from this general ballpark is almost guaranteed to go soapy. I’d gladly wash my hands with it, as I like the evergreen tinge, but it’s a no for a perfume.

* Hathor (Possets)
Described as “a simple confection of pink rose petals, simple syrup saturated with a sophisticated but delicate vanilla, and a wisp of [something I will never know because it’s no longer on their site this is all the Google preview for the page showed].” Since I really only got a slightly cloying vanilla from it, whatever the wisp was, it never came through.

* Blackberry Marshmallow (Haus of Gloi)
The blackberry actually manages to hang on here, which isn’t always the case with fruity perfumes. The marshmallow softens it without nerfing it, so hey, why not, I’ll try it again.

* Sweet Myrrh and Green Fig
In the bottle and late in the drydown, mostly myrrh. There’s a bit of green fruitness while it’s wet, but that doesn’t last. Inoffensive, but but uninteresting.

* Cotton Candy (Arcana Wildcraft)
Couldn’t find a description for this one, either. In the bottle, it smells like cherry-flavored things — which is not the same as smelling like cherries. On me, it was about halfway between Twizzlers and Red Vines before turning into a fruity sugar cookie. I don’t like the foodie perfumes enough to want that.

* Pink Saltwater Taffy (Arcana Wildcraft)
Described as “a candy pink blend of cherry, sugarberry, black and gold raspberry, vanilla fondant, white sugar, and a grounding touch of patchouli.” This one was almost really good: it’s quite tart, almost hitting more as cranberry than as raspberry. Unfortunately it picked up that chemical tinge that some of these perfumes get, and then the patchouli mingled with the fruit into something less engaging.

* Osculum Infame
Described as “crystalized sap, candied red fruits, raw wildflower honey, black amber, and sweet red labdanum.” Mostly hits as resin and honey, quite heavy at first, smoothing out later, but never becoming my kind of thing.

* Lady and a Baby Unicorn (Possets)
The description says “vetiver (that sultry, earthy, wild, and dominant part) becomes positively docile, sweet, and innocent…almost fruity in the presence of three vanillas (dry, fat, and sweet).” They’re not kidding about the fruitiness: it really did register as some kind of red fruit, basically a Twizzler on application. I have no idea how they managed to do that with vetiver, which elsewhere I shorthanded as “dental green.” Later the vetiver starts to become more recognizable, transforming this to more of an earthy vanilla, before it winds up basically at vanilla sandalwood (though I have no idea if there’s any actual sandalwood in here). Meh.