Monster Bait: Closet

[WidgetAlley]

Bourbon blackberry buttercream over red velvet cake.

I received a tiny tester of this in a swap some time ago, and never tried it! Foody scents rarely work on me unless they're tempered by a lot of spice (like in Eat Me and Thirteen Feb. 2009), but I'll give it a whirl.

Imp: Cake-y! How does Beth do that? It's not just the scent of cake, but almost the feel as well-- spongy and crumbly and covered in perfect velvety frosting. The berries and just a tiny bite of beautiful gold bourbon are underneath it. I want sweets now!

Wet: Cake and a hint of chocolate, along with sweet cream cheese and berry. Amazingly, this doesn't go playdough on me like many foody scents do, although I do wish I could smell a bit more of that delicious booze. You see, this is why I don't wear food-smells-- now I am insanely, ridiculously, ravenously hungry for cake. I am now, officially, a Cake Zombie.

Dry: Totally the same. Blackberry cream cheese frosting and moist delicious cake. I'm so pleased this worked on me-- gives me hope for foody scents everywhere!-- but I'm not compelled to seek out more, thank goodness. One CAKE ATTACK! is enough.

[lohengrin]

This is a review of an aged bottle.

 

In the bottle: Cake and berries, but it's actually not very sweet, somehow.

 

On skin, wet: The blackberry pops right out, and the cake has kind of gone poof. No trace of bourbon, buttercream or chocolate.

 

On skin, dry: The cake comes back out to play, and it's much like it was in the bottle again, if a bit more tart.

 

After an hour: The cake is definitely in the background, the blackberries in the foreground, and a tiny bit of sharpness that could be bourbon is in there now, too.

[bpalscentsual]

I started off wearing Anne Beany today, but through reorganizing my getting-out-of-control collection, I found this one leaky imp with a smudged label and barely any oil inside that was getting scent all over my fingertips while I was handling it. And it smelled damn good, so of course I had to know what it was. MB: Closet, the label read, so I gave it a new label and a little tape and then gave it a test.

 

Dear Lord, I can see why this was so popular. For some reason, the bourbon/rum note of the Lab comes off sort of buttery-hazelnutty on my skin anyway, so there's the nutty buttercream, then the sweet and decadent nature of the red velvet cake, and on top there's definitely some sort of fruit trying to be here too. Not overwhelmingly fruit, just mostly cake with a hint of topping lurking in the background, and definitely cooking bourbon, not like you're drinking it. For me, this is also very sugary.

 

Hnghghngnghhhh. If I wasn't already sold on the Lab's cake notes, I am now. And the butter in the buttercream is even behaving instead of turning sour or plasticky on my skin! Hooray! I cannot take my nose away from the patch on my arm that's testing this. It's also interesting comparing this to Anne Beany, because this is less nutty and more sugary. The cakes are definitely different.

[cherrycherry]

I've yet to meet a Monsterbait I don't love and this one is making me very happy so far. I love gourmand scents and the sweeter the better. I get more blackberry than bourbon and that works so well with the red velvet cake. Closet is a win for me

[Missy_killer]

To my nose: This is a dark, moist, sponge cake. Must be made of chocolate. And then I smell the most accurate, realistic, mouth-watering smell of some cake-filling-cream-thing and berry jam that's ever been made. Holy hell this smells so edible!

 

On: Since I'm slightly terrified of cake-scents after my horrible Eat Me-experience I only put a little drop of this on me, ready to wash it off if needed. But when the drop landed on my skin..mmmh... It's that gorgeous cake filling-cream & jam just as before, with just a thin frame of chocolate-y cake to round it all up. Actually the cake itself popped out for a few seconds just to make itself more known but later went back to serve as a lovely frame again.

 

Closet has a few moments where it threatens to start smelling like vanilla-scented lipbalm, which makes me scared every time. It must like to play jokes on me, because as soon as I get scared it returns to that lovely first stage again.

 

And then it smells like icecream and berries for the rest of the night. Awesome, just, awesome.

 

Warning: this scent really makes you crave sweets. At least me. Omnomnom.

 

Oh, and btw, I have no idea what this cake filling-cream really is. It's something my mind made up.

Edited October 20, 2013 by Missy_killer

[MiasmaResonance]

I can't believe this doesn't work for me! The blackberry turns really sour and cringe worhy on me. Like grape medicine, but with a blackberry twist. It's really sad too, because I can smell the delicious cake underneath, and it's the cake that actually works on me (unlike that of Cake Smash).

[Ava Lux]

One of the best vanilla ever!Very sophisticated, no plastic notes, well balanced in its sweetness, not overhelming ...just a perfect vanilla 's scent

[LizziesLuck]

I LOVE this. I almost sold it by accident because I had forgotten! I need to be more careful...lol. Red Velvet is my favourite cake. I don't get a lot of Red Velvet out of this, but I do get some cake, and lots of bourbon and blackberry and sweet sweet goodness!!

[celestia]

♔ Monster Bait: Closet

 

In the Bottle: Cakey berry buttercream

 

I'm always searching for my perfect black raspberry, blackberry, and boysenberry scents. I love these kinds of notes so much! This particular blackberry note is by far my favourite dark berry from the lab so far. It's still gone undefeated all these years.

 

Wet: I get sweet blackberry buttercream frosting with a cakey note. There is also a light spice that reminds me of cardamom. While I'm not much of a foodie anymore, it appears I still evidently have a sweet tooth, because I still love this scent. I love that this showcases the blackberry more than the cake. The cake-iness is dense, but lightly spiced. I can tell it is cake and not some crisp, flaky pastry, but even as a bakery note, it’s disappearing fast. However, the blackberry note is amping stronger, sweeter, and I find myself actually loving it even more. I can’t believe all this is morphing during the wet stage, it’s just getting better on me!

 

Drydown: In Blackberry Jam and Scones, I got all scone with no blackberry, but with MB: Closet, the sugary blackberry is prominent during the wet phase, and alllllll blackberry jam by drydown. It's so sugary, juicy and jammy...thick, syrupy...detectable and luscious, I even get a tang of fresh dark berries from this.

 

By final drydown I get, perhaps, my favourite stage. I honestly wish it carried through right from application because the note goes from a sugary blackberry jam, into a delicious sugar spun blackberry. Yup! This is pretty much all rich, sugared blackberry cotton candy on me. Fucking delicious! Thank you chemistry!

 

TL;DR: Sweet, sugared, lightly cardamom spiced, blackberry cotton candy

[doomsday_disco]

Monster Bait: Closet is a sophisticated cupcake scent. The bourbon blackberry buttercream is the most prominent aspect of the scent on me, and I think it is the bourbon that gives it that touch of sophistication. Behind that, I do get the red velvet cake, which smells realistic to me, crumbs and all.

 

I like it, but I don't love it (because of the prominence of the blackberry -- it's rare for me to love something with a prominent berry note), and that's a good thing, because I feel like I just dodged a rare bullet.

[Lucchesa]

Tested blind, my first thought was blackberries and cream. Then I realized they were all enrobed in chocolate. I was thinking the berry version of a chocolate covered cherry, and there’s booze in those, right? So maybe I did smell the bourbon after all. But that’s my impression. Chocolate covered blackberry cream. Berry notes always go too sweet on me, but if berry and chocolate are notes that work on you, and you like the thought of them side by side, you should seek this out.

[PumpkinGuts]

I don't get buttercream, or anything creamy for that matter, from Monster Bait: Closet. Rather, the red velvet cake is studded with blackberries. Both notes are in roughly equal measure, with the cake coming out to party a bit more on the drydown. I could also swear this has some sort of spice, but my skin is basically a dowsing machine for spice notes.