astarinel

Strawberry. It reminds me of the strawberry note in Strawberry Moon '09, tinged with green. The vanilla and tonka give it a sweet, creamy feel. This reminds me a little bit of Kitty, one of my absolute favorite scents, but not as nice, unfortunately. Kitty has the same vanilla + strawberry + bergamot combination of notes, but the strawberry note in that one is different, rounder and a little juicier. I found the throw on this very light, and the spot I tested faded to vague sweetness fairly quickly. It's soft and springy, but for me it suffers a bit because it reminds me of a similar scent that I like significantly better.

Wet, lavender and carnation are the most prominent notes. The carnation comes across mostly as soft spice, and the two together give me a garden/outdoorsy vibe. Behind this is a sweet fruityness; I'm not sure I'd necessarily say strawberry (and I love strawberry). The lavender is a touch sharp, especially while wet, but I generally find it a little edged for my taste. One of the few lavender-heavy scents I can tolerate is TKO. The carnation and lavender fade a bit as it dries. I definitely agree with the reviews that referred to this as being sort of an outdoors scent, without specific notes really dominating the blend. Something about the carnation's spice + the lavender's herbal edge gives me the idea of fresh air. It gets a little sweeter as it dries. Overall it's nice, but I don't love it -- I have scents that I prefer in all of the categories this ticks for me. I'm glad I tried it, and it was nice to be able to tolerate a lavender blast in a perfume for once.

Gorgeous soft vanilla musk. I like foody scents, but I find this to be a more perfumey vanilla and not a sugary dessert vanilla at all. The pale musk and lovely round amber make this a very wearable scent for me, and it has decent throw and lasting power despite being what I'd consider a light, pale gold sort of skin scent. I disliked Ava from OLLA, and this vanilla musk is very different to me from that one. It's sweet, but not cloying, and airy and perfumey in the best kind of way. I might need a bottle of this.

I was hoping for champagne, vanilla, and amber, and got mostly soapy rose + baby powder. In the imp, this smells like a much better balance of notes, although the rose is still prominent. There's a little fizzy crispness from the champagne musk and some soft sweet amber in the background. My skin has a tendency to amp rose scents, but white rose has been okay in the past, so I had hopes that were dashed. No champagne musk, no vanilla amber... just baby powder rose.

This is quite pretty, and also quite different from previous Pink Moons! I have a bottle of Pink Moon 2005, which smells like cotton candy flowers (and High-Strung Daisies reminds me of that one a bit), but the white chocolate makes this one much rounder and creamier. It was very white chocolate in the imp, but on my skin it's much better balanced. Strawberry and sugared florals first, with a round creamy white chocolate vanilla behind. Unlike Pink Moon 2007, which had the spicy edge of carnation, the florals I get here are the more soft and sweet peony and daffodil. A very pink scent, different from other Pink Moons, and I'm glad I tried it!

Apple pie filling! This pie was less strongly crust than most of the other pies, so if you dislike the buttery pastry notes, there's not too much of that in this one. The apple scent is sugary and spiced, reminding me of a hot homemade spiced apple cider sort of scent. Lighter on spices than some of the apple cider scents I've tried (like Fearful Pleasure), this one is very purely apple pie filling.

I wonder if there's some batch variation here, because this is definitely PIE to me, with baked syrupy peaches and a buttery, flaky crust, I actually like my peach scents a little fresh, rather than jammy, so I don't love the peach note here. Fairly strong with good throw and lasting power. I expected to love this more, because I love peach scents, but this peach wasn't working for me.

Dark chocolate chip cookies with marshmallows. This had the best staying power of the pies I tested, and changed the least from wet to long drydown. The chocolate is definitely prominent, and I do get a darker chocolate, but it's still sweet and part of the general baked-goods-ness of the scent. It's chocolate chip cookies, but really really good ones. I love a good marshmallow note and I don't find it to be the stand out note here, but that's fine. It adds some more creamy sweetness, and reminds me more of marshmallow goo -- it lacks that sort of powdery aspect some marshmallow scents have. Really delicious and one of my favorite pies!

A blast of delicious, sweet-tart blueberries. This is the strongest blueberry note I think I've smelled while it's wet. It fades a little into the cream as it dries, and it balances a bit with the buttery pastry crust. I agree that it reminds me of the blueberry note in Bones Trombone, and not the one in Blue Phoenix or Crawdad Dream, which are fresher blueberries. This is definitely a baked goods, sweetened blueberry. It's sweet and tasty with decent staying power, and I'm always happy to see more blueberry perfumes!

Really accurate. I love the scent of lime but strongly citrus scents can be so difficult to find and the citrus tends to hide or fade. The lime here is definitely the star, and it's a juicy, sweet lime scent just like key lime pie. When I first applied it I got a blast of buttery crust, but that's faded and there's now a nice balance between lime, pastry crust, and a sort of soft creamy scent. Decent throw, and the lime lasts relatively well for a citrus note! Basically if you read the description and thought, "Yes, I want to smell like key lime pie, that sounds amazing!" this is the scent you are looking for.

2015. Sweet violets and candy. The candy/violet vibe reminds me a little of Faith, with a little more green/freshness to it. This is a fairly light scent, low throw on me, and I don't know if it's this year's version, but it doesn't really have the caramel/brown sugar/smokiness to it. This smells like straight up violet candy with a touch of woody greenness to it, and I actually like it much better than I expected to for that reason!

2015. Dry cocoa and amber. I normally don't like chocolate scents because they just make me want to eat chocolate, but this is probably the most "wearable" chocolate I've tried. Not overly sweet, and the amber is very round and golden. This is a lovely amber note, and I'm definitely going to keep this decant for the rare occasions when I want to smell like chocolate.

Bright sweet orange + anise, with a tiny bit of lavender. This is one that smells like its note list in a great way, with lovely citrus. I would definitely want more if it stays the way it is wet, but as it dries the citrus burns off very quickly and I'm left with a creamy anise candy scent, which is nice, but reminds me of anise-heavy scents that I already have.

Strawberry hard candy + honeyed beeswax. I was worried this would be too similar to Battle Fairy in Training, which I just got a bottle of (and love), but the strawberry note is completely different. I think of that as the soft round strawberry note, but this one is more like the bright slightly-green strawberry note in Strawberry Moon '09. I love beeswax, but that actually isn't the most prominent note to me. It's primarily strawberry, with sort of the honeyed-softening that beeswax can bring to a scent. Lots of throw. I may try to recreate something similar to this by layering Strawberry Moon '09 with The Lights of Men's Lives and see what happens, since I can balance the aspects a little more to my taste.

On wet, it's bread, buttered with marmalade. I definitely get the slightly-fake orange scent people are mentioning. I'd like more bread to this, but the fruit notes are really the most prominent here, and I don't love this orange note. I don't dislike this scent, but as it dries it definitely loses some of the warm baked bread aspect that it had wet. It also has fairly low throw -- when I huff my skin, I get more of a delicious baked goods vibe, but the air throw is mostly the orange note that I'm less enamored with. I like this, but I wish it would stay the way it is close to skin/wet.

Ha, I agree with the comparisons to Boo, the vanilla creamy note is similar, but topped with tons of the slightly-dusty white sugary marshmallow note. As a result, it's a little less rich and buttery than Boo can be, which makes it a little less warm and a little more airy. Basically it's vanilla cream marshmallows. If that sounds as good to you as it does to me, you probably need a bottle of this.

Tropical apples! This is definitely apple + coconut, creamy, a little toasted, almost foody. The crispness of the apple cuts through the sweet coconut. I would definitely drink this, but I'm not sure I want to wear it. A warm, summery scent.

Apple + clove. This is a sweet, red apple, and it's the first of the Apples I've tried that has had apple as the most prominent note! I get a little touch of fruity berry scent, which I guess might be the blackcurrant, but not much vanilla. The clove is dark and a little earthy/smoky.

Crisp apple and chewy tobacco. This leans pretty masculine on me, with a dirty/medicinal undertone from the patchouli. I tend to amp tobacco and I'm getting a lot of that here. This is a dark, smoky apple, not very sweet.

A bit tart and sharp in the bottle, and I put it on and it smells like... cleaner? Air freshener? Something "apple scented" but not really apple. The citrus notes burn off relatively quickly and I'm left with something that smells like apple-scented bubble gum. I don't even know.

Creamy baked red apples. After unexpectedly liking My Baby and a Baby Goat, I thought the goat's milk accord might do nice things, but I don't get much here. It's mostly about the light, sweet red apples. I find this one very soft, low throw.

So every year, despite knowing that pumpkin = hot buttered fail on my skin, I try one pumpkin scent because it sounds SO GOOD that surely maybe it will be the exception and I can find my one true pumpkin scent and ride off happily into the sunset with it. Normally these are epic failures and I vow to not delude myself again next year. This was the one I picked this year. And, surprisingly, it is not terrible! I agree somewhat with the reviews that mention carrot cake, I don't actually get that much pumpkin out of this, more like a carrot cake cupcake with thick cream cheese icing. The cream cheese icing/cheesecake note is definitely reminiscent of the Beaver Moon family, which is a good thing in my book. This is the least fail a pumpkin scent has ever been on me! I'm not in love with it, but it's a nice foody scent. Although I have three versions of Beaver Moon with a similar vibe, I'm definitely keeping the decant.

Tart and fruity when wet, backed by patchouli. This actually reminds me a bit of the old version of Mme Moriarty on my skin, with the red fruit + patchouli. The fruits fade as it dries, leaving mostly patchouli + amber. I don't get much honey, but I also don't get much of the leaves note that tends to go bitter on my skin. I have a feeling this will be a winner for the people who can do the dark red/purple/gold type of scents, but I am not one of those people.

I'm generally terrified of milk/cream notes, as they have a tendency to go a bit off on my skin, but I'm relieved there's none of that here! I'm surprised by how much I like this. It is a sweet, creamy scent, a little heavy and warm/fuzzy. It reminds me a little of Boo and a little of Arcana's Mme Lapin. It's actually something closer to a combination of the two: sweeter and more vanillic than Mme Lapin, but fuzzier and muskier than Boo. I would never have tried this if I hadn't tested all of the Liliths, but I'm glad I did. Don't be afraid of the goat's milk accord, it's a very wearable creamy note. I personally don't find this scent overly sweet, but I love sugar/candy scents so there are very few scents that are too sweet for me! Definitely keeping my decant, maybe seeking out a bit more.

This smells incredibly accurately like pink strawberry bubblegum. It does have a bit of a spicy undertone. I do not smell anything like ozone, which is good because generally it goes straight dryer sheets on me. If you want to smell like bubblegum, this is terrifyingly accurate. I do not want to smell like bubblegum.