Pink Moon: Sugar Crystals and Mandarin

[doomsday_disco]

Sugar Crystals and Mandarin.

Edited May 8 by doomsday_disco

[amoray]

If you were worried about any rind bitterness, you won't find it here! This is wonderful sweet mandarin, like sugar sprinkled orange slices. Perfect for layering. Lovely. Uncomplicated. Summer. 

[splendidissima]

So fun! Sugar crystals + bright orange - it's like summer in a bottle! It actually feels like...if you remember Meigetsu Ya, from the Yules a few years back, this is like the summer version of that winter scent! It's the same bright juicy mandarin, except MY has that touch of the frost note for winter (which is a sweet-ish frost note on me), and this Pink Moon version, instead of that, has extra crystallized sugar sprinkled all over. It's very clearly sugar crystals (heh, almost a good pun!), versus any powdered or brown sugar types.

 

I got a backup bottle of MY back then, and I may have to grab one for this too!

[doomsday_disco]

I agree that there is no bitter pith accompanying this mandarin note, but I am getting an incense-y quality from this that I sometimes get from some orange blends.  So on me it's mandarin backed with an incense-y quality and sweetened with sugar. I like this more than Peach and Sugared Orange Slices, but not as much as Pomelo, Mandarin, and Pink Grapefruit, where the mandarin features the strongest on me, but doesn't have an incense-y backdrop.

 

I'm going to retest this after it has had more time to settle to see if that incense-y aspect is a fluke, since nobody else is getting it. But at the moment, I could not see myself reaching for this duet over that trio.

[Little Bird]

The mandarin is intensely sour, bitter, and dry, and leans harshly soapy on me.  It's like biting into an orange peel and it's somehow nothing but peel.  I don't smell any sugar or anything reminiscent of Pink Moon 2024.  Just unbearably sharp orange peel.

[samanare]

On me, this was close to a mandarin one note. Among the Lab's citrus notes, mandarin has always struck me as arguably the sweetest. And in this scent that's just amped. I was hoping for something a little more nuanced, but it's a pleasant, sweet orange scent.

[dancingchair]

Wet, I get a realistic approximation of the experience of peeling open a mandarin orange. There's even the same halo of bright citrus and bitter orange peel spritz if I smell my wrist up close. As it dries, this smells strongly like that sugared orange gummy candy. The sugar crystal note sometimes veers into powder territory, but never quite gets there. It's more like a sweet cloud of sugar.

 

This is pretty straightforward, but it's what I was hoping for from this duet.

[sea turtle]

Uncannily similar to orange Skittles. Not a super realistic citrus imo, but it hits a certain spot 😊