Earth Rat

[voodoocatwoman]

A new year's blessing! Peony, China's national flower, with bamboo for flexibility, plum blossom for perseverance, courage, and hope, tangerine for wealth, lychee for strong family relationships and peace in the home, orange for happiness, pine resin for constancy, golden kumquat and quince for prosperity, narcissus and King mandarin for good fortune, coconut for longevity, and candied melon for good health, with a splash of blazing red of dragon's blood... to help you scare away the rampaging Nian.

The Rat is a complex creature. Starts out as pure melon, turns fairly masculine for a short time and then settles to a spicy but fruity blend.

I love it.

[fiddledragon]

I have to admit that much of the reason I wanted to try this one was because of Digger. Though Digger's scent would be musk and stone and dirt and pickax. But I'm a Rat in the Chinese zodiac anyway...

 

In bottle: Spicy melon! This has a not-unpleasant hair-care product smell to it. It's like a really *good* fruity-fresh shampoo with a bit of a kick to it.

 

On me: Melonmelonmelon...really nice melon. Yemaya was a bit too juicy-fruit on me, and too chilled. This is warm sun-ripened cantaloupe. There's a hint of pine resin as well, and the citruses are undoubtedly there somewhere backing up Madame Melon. Dry, the other notes come out. A touch of bitter kumquat, some creaminess from the coconut, a whiff of florals.

 

Verdict: Yum! This is fruitier than I usually want to actually smell, but I'll certainly keep the decant around. It would be a great summer scent. If it wasn't an LE I'd buy five bottles and scent all my bath stuff with it :-)

[damonkitty]

I agree that this smells A LOT like Fire Pig, but I like this a little more. I think I like it more because it is more fruity than floral on me. I get juicy, sweet honeydew melon. It is a lot like Fee too. I actually get a better throw and more staying power than Fee. I think this a a yummy foodie blend

[MonkeysInk]

This smells like nothing but melon and lychee on me - it's a pleasant scent that reminds me of shampoo (in a good way...like something nice that a salon would use). I was hoping to smell more of the peony and bamboo, but I just don't get either of those.

 

I would describe this as juicy and delicious and fresh. It's just not me - there's something about melon that I can only handle in small doses - so it's off to the sale forum for this one.

Edited July 13, 2010 by MonkeysInk

[DifferentDances]

Bottle: Kumquat, quince, and coconut jump to the forefront. There's a hint of candy, and creaminess.

Wet: More of the same. It smells like orange creamsicle candy.

Drydown: The coconut seems to be amping up. It does remind me of the Fire Pig blend, but I much prefer that one to this.

Dry: I'm not liking this. The creaminess is off and the coconut is annoying me.

 

Would I ever wear this? No.

 

My rating: 2/5

[Jangzonrice]

Bought a bottle from a forum member. Wet: melon with a background similar to fire pig, my first CNY blend I owned. Dry: melon with piney woods in the background. It turns masculine eventually with only a faint pine/woods scent left. Throw is good at first in the melon stage. Staying power is only for 3-4 hours, only 2 hours for the melon stage. I like this since it is similar, but yet unique from fire pig. In my experience, the CNY blends seem similar at first, but the dry downs for me are unique. I will continue to collect them each year!

[Soupy Twist]

Juicy honeydew with an occasional dash of pine. Lovely and summery.

[Aveya]

This is my first New Year scent I think I've tried.

 

Right away on skin this is just simply delicious. Juicy and sweet. I don't identify it as honeydew or melon off the bat, it's not that clear-cut to me. This scent is really blended together well; so I'm going to toss all the individual notes and give the vibe.

 

This is gently earthy, sweet-musky predominant, spicey, fruity. This is a really clear scent to me - that is there isn't any floral/amber/soapy/powdery anything happening. It's very deep and rich to me. It reminds me of what I love in Crawdad and other berry scents - a sort of musky fruit that blooms as you wear it.

 

This is startling beautiful. I believe I was frimped this one in a swap; really grateful for that! I'm learning that the lab scents that have a trillion things in them I tend to absolutely ADORE.

 

Love this scent. Love it.

[donkehpoo]

Wet: Sweet, strong, melon! With something... green. It smells like green, juicy fruits.

 

Dry: The melon is still there, but not as strong as the wet stage. Still very "green" smelling, and I think I can pick out bamboo and either orange or tangerine now. Less juicy then the wet stage, but still very nice.

 

Green fruit salad! This is like a "green" version of Fruit Moon on me.

[bambi]

Melon! Initially, that's all I can smell. As a person who loves perfume with fruit notes, this was amazing. It dried down from a screaming melon to a much softer melon with hints of other fruits. Every so often I'd get whiffs of pine and a strong citrus. I never got any of the florals, but perhaps the flowers were what stopped this from screaming FRUIT every chance it got.  Love.

[ShadowEtienne]

I was nervous about this one because melon and I don't historically get along (I'm mildly allergic to raw melons, cooking them fixed the problem, so candied melon doesn't have the same issue association as fresh does).

 

Since this is obviously aged at this point, the decant that I got has had the chance to settle and balance itself, but I think that I've also been lucky in what amped on me.

 

There's a light waft of the candied melon once the scent settles on my skin, but it adds a pleasant tart sweetness that plays well with the rest of the scent. On my skin, coconut, kumquat, and tangerine are the stars. There's definitely that nice balance of the various blossoms adding a floral element as well.

 

Like all of the LNY scents I've gotten to try to date, this has a strong sensory memory for me of the little lacquer trays of dried and candied fruits set out at LNY, and this particular tray has some candied melon on it.

 

I think the soft background resinous notes are holding the whole scent back from diving off the edge into too sweet.