Honeyed Champaca Blossom and Basmati Rice

[abejita]

[No additional description provided.]

 

Fresh from the Lab, this one is overwhelmingly rice in the bottle and on application. And specifically basmati rice. It's a very rich, savory grain smell. On the skin, the champaca comes out, and, to a much lesser degree, the honey. Moments after application, the savory and the floral/sweet are warring with each other, not quite meshing. As time wears on, the honey comes out more, and the rice decides to stop screaming, but that savory note is still there. It seems to be settling into center-stage champaca, with the other notes balancing and supporting. This one has a lot of throw.

 

Beware-- that rice is STRONG at first. 

 

Edit: This is the first scent that my partner has physically recoiled from. The champaca is going very ammonia/urine-like on my skin.

 

Edit 2: In the end, this scent was all heavily buttered popcorn and ammonia on my skin. Traded it away.

Edited March 24, 2019 by abejita

[AirimirOfGondor]

This smells like a lovely rice pudding to me! I'm quite surprised actually, most gourmand scents go way too heavy on me.

 

But on my skin, it's a very thick rice fragrance at first; very rich and almost soft and fluffy. The unique basmati fragrance is exactly like I was expecting (I love to eat basmati rice 😄). The honey is very nice, it is warm, but not overpowering like some honeys.

And the champaca adds a very nice extra layer; it's also sweet, and kind of floral, which blends really, really nicely with the honey.

 

I particularly like it dried in a scent locket - it's a very soft, exotic scent; sweet, a bit chewy, and a bit buttery, and has turned out unexpectedly for me!

Edited March 10, 2019 by AirimirOfGondor

[Casablanca]

I like how different this one is from any other blends I've tried, thanks to this rice.

 

On the wand, this is a strong basmati rice, a nutty and buttery grain. A little honey sweetens it, but this is really all about Queen Basmati.

 

Wet on my skin, I get a little more honey, but it's still just warming and sweetening the dominant rice. The rice is nutty, and a little popcorn-buttery. After a while, it develops something like a curry note on my skin. Champaca is scarcely attending, and is just a hint of its usual self.

 

I'm a little relieved when the honey asserts itself a bit more in drydown. The basmati is good, but it overpowers at first. This seems to be the same honey as in Honey, Hay Absolute and Amber. It's sweet and mild, rather than heavy or sugar-crunchy the way O smells to me.

 

But that curry-like odor also hangs in on me... and it wins out in strength over time.

 

I'm glad I tried this, but it's not a match.

[ellocentipede]

I love this one!  Fragrant, cooked rice and honey—like rice pudding, but with some Champaca incense smoking slowly nearby.  I feel like this should get more love!!  

[zankoku_zen]

Creamy cooked rice pudding (without sugar though), honey and a whiff of incense. Gooey, rice pudding and smoky honey. Very delicious. Good throw and wear length.

[VetchVesper]

Beautiful basmati and mellow champaca.   I've heard basmati rice's aroma compared to pop corn, and true to form, there's some similarity here. Very unique and foody in an unexpected and lovely way.  I definately get the rice pudding comparisons.  This is very comforting and whimsical, and I might need a bottle. 

 

 

[Usagi]

In the Bottle: buttery, savory pastry, with sweet honey and a hint of floral in the wings.

 

wet: Herbal honey floral, almost a nostalgic medicinal, and a hint of buttery grains.

 

dry: powdery honey, a touch resinous, with soft floral, and a dash of grain scent that smells-- for all intents and purposes-- like buttered popcorn.

 

I'm so glad I let this rest before reviewing it.  When it initially arrived from the mail, It smelled like straight up, Buttered Popcorn Jelly Belly jelly beans from bottle to drydown-- until it started to fade, when there was just the merest promise of gorgeous honey and Champaca blossom.

A few days of rest has made all the difference, and the honey is wafting, gracefully, towards center stage with a small bouquet of Champaca, while the basmati (which still smells, strangely, like buttered popcorn jelly beans) claps, good-humoredly, from stage right-- until the very drydown, when he tried to jump down center and go "ta-DAAA!"

[tsentsitivenose]

 

My decant has rested for about a day.   I know the oil needs more time to settle but I caved this morning and applied it.

 

The initial scent is also basmati for me.  For about two hours, my arm smelled like a fresh pot of lightly sweetened and buttered fluffy rice.  After that, the honey came forward enough to complement the buttery rice.  Champaca was ever so faint. Around the 3 hour mark, the rice was eaten; the honey and champaca beautifully melded into one.  After 4 hours, there's the faintest trace of them.  I love the lightly sweetened rice fragrance in this perfume and adore the finish.

 

So this behaved exactly the opposite of what I expected.  Honey goes wild on my skin.  I enjoyed that rice was the star here and honey played a supporting role.  I'm not a butter lover (not even in food), but as long as the butter doesn't grow as this ages, it isn't so strong or long-lasting as to keep me from wearing this.  I think a couple months of aging will deepen the honey and soften the butter note a bit so I'm leaning toward bottling this one. 

 

ETA after 6 weeks, the honey seems to have remained steady and the butter has mellowed in my decant.  

Edited May 24, 2019 by tsentsitivenose
ETA: I guess cut and paste = huge font! I can't change the size because my tablet hides the

[theredkilt]

Fresh, it smells like warm steamed rice and this stage smells so real and authentic. The rice sweetens gradually and the steamed rice note gets drier over time. This is so unusual and mind-boggling. Really enjoying this blend.

[milo]

Definite basmati rice at first. It has a slightly floral fragrance to me. I like it at this point.  After a bit the incensey champaca comes out, and its seems like the rice note has become more of a cream one, the one the Lab uses quite frequently in their 'creamy' blends.  These two notes are not meshing with me and I will be passing this one along.

[RedPersimmon]

I get beautiful, nutty, fresh-from-the-rice-cooker basmati rice when I first apply it, but then the champaca keeps getting stronger and stronger until it just takes over. I think I'd like the basmati rice note paired with something that isn't so strong.

[tinyvulture]

OMG this is heaven. Might go in my Top 10.

 

Basmati rice...dead on. It's rice, but it's also got its own floral, milky, powdery thing going on when you cook it, and that's all here. And then the honeyed champaca...I adore all honeyed florals the lab creates...and I'm saying,this is the best of all of them because champaca is so gorgeous. I just have no more words for this combination. Top 10 ever, yes.