Cancer 2016

[Jenjin]

Cardinal water: moonlight dancing on the dark waters of a brooding, fertile river. This blend refines your intuition, sharpens your wit (perhaps too sharply?), and expands your emotional breadth. It is a scent of tenacity and eloquence, wry humor, and profound loyalty.

Spring violets, white sandalwood, star jasmine, and cucumber with drops of lemon balm and mugwort.

Blind Bottle Purchase from the lab. I'm a moon child Cancer and had to have it.

IN THE BOTTLE:
Water, cucumbers and unidentified flowers, but they "smell" bluish-light-purple.
WET:
Bitter floral. I'm not liking the wet. It reminds me of the water from a week old Tuberose vase. Pretty sure this is the Mugwort. Oh-no.
DRY:
After 15 minutes, the bitterness completely fades and Cancer turns into a breathtaking, watery floral. The blend of the floral with the cucumber squirt keeps it dewy with it's aquatic magic. I can also detect the smooth woodiness of the Sandalwood, giving it sweetness and depth.
NOTES:
While wearing this I am transported. Just now I was back in a bright, rocky northeastern shore. Walking along the crashing surf looking for shells. Starsign Cancer, represented by the Yin-Yang cannot exist without a balance of light and dark; goodness and sorrow. The harsh beginning of Beth's Cancer is a bitter blast of the beauty that is to come: after wearing this for a short time, it turns into the most beautiful, silver-blue jewel. I'm not sure if anyone but a water baby would understand the story this Starstruck fragrance tells, but it's definitely worth including in my collection-forever. It is a rare silver blossom floating in a crystal-blue-green sea.

"Little Green", a song about a child born under the star sign Cancer always makes me cry a little when I hear it.

 

"Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
​Like the nights when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there'll be sorrow."
Joni Mitchell - Little Green

Edited June 28, 2016 by Jenjin

[Lycanthrope]

Ok, Mugwort. Let's do this.

Remember me from when I tried The Waters of The Well of Wisdom? That was mugwort, all the time, sharpened by aquatics and thyme and all the glorious muddy posterior? Hours of a slightly muddled, green-gray swirling aura of a mysterious slightly chewy, but stanky herbiness?

 

Thankfully that is NOT what Cancer 2016 does on my skin. It definitely starts off heavy on the mugwort, where I'm thinking 'oh, gods, what have I done.'

 

That does fade to a very nice, Faeu-Boulanger like misty violet. It's not really as swampy as that scent but the overall drydown is a light to medium strength pulpy wet violet. I think the sandalwood is a whisper, likely a backup supporter. Like an unobtrusive support column. The cucumber is not terribly green. It lends a bit of a fleshier wetness to the scent without resorting to Lightning or Tempest like wet/marine or ozone notes.

 

Confederate jasmine does not go exotic like the true Indian Jasmines - so it's not amping in that way at all. It's a very serene, smooth blend, on me once the mugwort burns off in like 15 minutes.

 

I like.

 

Got backups.

[suslee]

I'm not sure if my skin chemistry is wonky --just on the day before shark week begins for me and sadly, I don't know which specific day it will start. Thus I'll update my review after re-testing Cancer 2016 a few days later.

 

Wet: Violet, sandalwood, and star jasmine. Oh and here's the mugwort and cucumber! This smells just like mugwort, which I recognize since my mom had occasionally burned dried mugwort for the smoke to help heal a wound or something? I can't remember what she was trying to alleviate but the smell has definitely stuck in my mind and this is exactly it without the smokiness of course.

 

Dry: Sadly I'm no longer getting the mugwort, not even the cucumber (an hour later). It's all violet, a little bit of star jasmine and a hint of sandalwood. Violet is not my thing, so I'm hoping this is due to my skin chemistry being wonky and it's just eating the other notes cause I want all the notes listed!

 

Overall, this is def a scent for all the violet fans!

Edited July 5, 2016 by suslee

[zankoku_zen]

Violets, jasmine, and white sandalwood. Cucumber adds a coolness to the violet-jasmine combo. But it's really violets-jasmines on a bed of citrusy sandalwood. Medium throw, medium wear length.

[Little Bird]

I like violet when it's a sweet, violet candy type of violet, but this is more of a bright, wet, sharp spring floral on my skin. The jasmine adds a touch of sourness. The cucumber is watery. Sandalwood makes the drydown slightly powdery. Clean, watery, sharp spring floral. Not my favorite type of fragrance.

[animalcules]

This is the only aquatic AND only jasmine scent I have liked enough to keep. It's smooth, juicy, green, delicately floral without smelling like soap to me (a miracle!) I think that I really like mugwort? I know I love sandalwood, and I get more and more of it after drydown.

 

I prefer this 100% to Fleurette's Purple Snails (though I think the sugar note in that was to blame).

[VetchVesper]

I was a bit cautious of the lemon balm in this one, and I'm not really familiar with mugwort, but I am a cancer, and all the other notes listed are lovely on me.

 

This primarily ends up being a cool, creamy violet on my skin, but it's end is very different from it's beginning. In the bottle I get lots of nice jasmine and bracing mint. I'm not sure what is giving that impression, I guess the mugwort, but I get loads of strong peppermintiness when I inhaled deeply. When I put it on, the violet quickly peeks out and the minty impression fades after a bit. There is a soapy phase, but it only lasts a few minutes. I never get anything lemony, which for me is a plus. I think the cucumber adds a bit of creaminess and the sandalwood just grounds things a bit. I don't register it as an obvious note.

 

I read that mugwort can be used for lucid dreaming and astral travel. I might have to try this as a sleep blend. It does have a nice calming sort of vibe. I think it will also be lovely in the spring.

 

ETA: This does make a nice sleep blend for me and lasts through the entire night and through the morning on me. Also, hours after wearing it, I get a murky, herbal green quality that must be the mugwort resurfacing. I like it though, very different from other things I've smelled. This blend makes me think of a dark, still green pond with lilies and algea and water weeds everywhere.

Edited October 24, 2016 by VetchVesper

[lizabelle]

In the bottle: Bright, spicy, herbal, with a touch of flowers. I think I'm mostly getting the lemon balm and mugwort, which is not at all a bad combo.

 

On skin, wet: The jasmine is starting to amp, unsurprisingly. Still a bit lemony/spicy, but calming down into a cool herbal floral.

 

On skin, dry: This is so atmospheric. It makes me think of walking barefoot in a field of flowers under the moon, possibly with some fireflies around. Maybe because of the cucumber or mixing with the jasmine, the violets come across more like sweet pea--this is a lovely cool floral, sort of a lavender color in my mind. It has a gentle throw, maybe about six inches, and it's the first jasmine scent I've ever tried (and I have tried MANY) that I would consider wearing on a summer night. May actually try it when the time comes.

 

Overall: This is so beautiful I'm actually kind of emotional over it. I rarely feel connected to my sign but this is pretty darn close to what might happen if I asked someone to make a perfume for me. It's a very breezy kind of floral despite being based around jasmine, and kind of smells like moonlight. I'm guarding this one jealously.

[patina]

Starts out heavy on the mugwort but almost instantly transforms into all floral all the time (plus a tiny bit of cucumber). The star jasmine smells like the confederate jasmine I have to remove from my yard. Heavy and pollen-y. The violet backs it up and does a little of the powdery thing violets do. Or is that the sandalwood? If the Star Jasmine was a person, it would be flouncing and vamping and waving its arms around.

 

Definitely spring in a bottle. It has the same cheering effect on me that Virgo had, except that one was more grounded. I like it despite the over the top diva florals. The cool, tender elements (cucumber, violet) help balance that.

Edited March 10, 2017 by patina

[torikitty]

I'm surprised at how few reviews.

 

This is interesting. Same as a lot of others, not sure about mugwort, but a lot of other notes appeal to me.

 

Wet: sweet, light florals from violet and jasmine. An herbyness from the lemonbalm, perhaps the mugwort, too. Cucumber in the background, cooling things out. It ends up smelling comforting, but cool. Like a house that you like to hang out at.

 

Drydown: a bit of mint, slightly powdery cucumbers, and a pleasant jasmine floralness. Still a comforting smell with low throw. I would definitely recommend trying this.

 

Dry: On me, this ends up as sweet, floral jasmine with a hint of herby. Still a low throw.

Edited June 7, 2017 by Carrie

[Zorra]

I once camped in the wild in a field of  some unknown herb on a height in the north of Spain. I think this smells like that herb on me, though it's many years ago. It reminds me  of it, for sure, which makes me feel very happy when I smell it. Obviously a very good scent for a Cancer person. Oddly, I don't get violets or star jasmine or even a clear lemon balm, which are all scents that are usually very  obvious on me. Maybe it's age, or maybe it's just that I need to smell the herb which I can only imagine to be mugwort - I need to smell other  scents with mugwort to be certain.