Cooling Breeze

[zankoku_zen]

Juniper berries, green tea, white sandalwood, and bamboo shoots.

[starbrow]

What a morpher! In the bottle, I get a cool, sweet green tea with no herbiness. As soon as it hits the skin, juniper hits the stage all decked out in CHRISTMAS TREE pineyness. The berries are more fir-needly than normal, really bright and coniferous. I wasn't expecting the juniper to be such a wild, spiky top note, but I don't mind it at all, I like conifers a lot, and it will be fun wearing this in the middle of summer.

 

BUT THEN. The winds of change, hours later, bring a whole new perspective: the prettiest, coolest green tea and sweet bamboo, backed by pale wafting incense. The juniper has almost completely faded, leaving the soft loveliness of the other notes to shine through. I realized too late that I need a full bottle of this, since I love green tea blends and Cooling Breeze is both unique and delightful. What's so unusual to me, besides the perfection of the bamboo shoots in combo with the other more common notes, is that the sweetness doesn't seem to come from sugar or honey notes but from the herbal plants and woods themselves, the way aloe can sometimes smell sweet. Cooling Breeze won't spike your blood sugar, but it will calm you out, the way A Balmy 26 Degrees can. 

 

Incredibly beautiful. Bottle, bottle, bottle!

[VetchVesper]

This smells aqua! 

 

Yeah... that's a weird description, but it's what pops up in my brain.  This isn't something I normally would have ordered, but it smells really nice.  Very fresh and frothy.  I'm getting the juniper/evergreen vibe, but it's light and sweet, and yes - berryish.  There's a bright fruitiness at play.  There's something that borders on soapy, but never gets there, and just gives this a clean, cool feel.  It actually feels chilly on my skin and would be perfect for summer. 

 

Some people are really going to dig this.  I'm not sure I'd wear it as a perfume, but I would love it as a room scent.  Breezy, refreshing, playful, and not aquatic, as far as I can tell.  Not quiiite a green scent.  - Aqua.   

[Casablanca]

Hopes and dreams: A soothing evergreen spa scent. My well-loved bottle of Balmy 26 Degrees is quickly running dry in these strange times.

 

Wet: Jumping juniper! Some tree berries turn icky on my skin, but this is playing kindly enough. It's really more the evergreen than the berry for me: a little blue-green juniper, a little blue-green sap, and just a hint of woody berry. The mood is remote, cool, and forested.

 

Drying: I feared the green tea might have gotten lost on the way to this woods party, but I start to glimpse it now and then, arm-in-arm with bamboo. Mostly, this is still juniper's event.

 

Dry: Green tea and bamboo wander in and things calm down. Juniper stops singing and puts down its gin on the rocks to sober up. Time to chill and watch clouds or something. 

 

This is a soft and simple blend on me. It doesn't evoke quite the heart-eyed love response that Balmy 26 did, but I'm enjoying it and would use a full bottle gladly.

[puellacaerulea]

In the decant: Cool green tea, bamboo, and a hint of juniper. Cool and fresh.

Once on: The juniper amps up a lot, giving the scent a slight fruitiness. As it dries down, the sandalwood gets more noticeable, adding a little groundedness and complexity to the otherwise cool, green elements of the scent. I'd still call this a primarily green tea scent, though. Super low throw; would be great for warm weather or when you want something subtle. Probably going to need a bottle of this.

[zankoku_zen]

White tea, warm sandalwood and a whiff of juniper. This is mainly a tea-sandalwood blend on me. It smells like nicely polished wooden floors (if said floors were like antique sandalwood) and you're visiting a tea house. Fancy. Medium throw and wear length.

[doomsday_disco]

Me: I don't need to order a decant of this. I have enough green tea scents already.

 

Me, upon seeing first review: ETERNAL REGRET. BOTTLE REQUIRED.

 

If you love green tea scents, you will love Cooling Breeze. The juniper berry adds a sweetness to the scent and is definitely more of the berry than straight-up juniper, so if you are worried about this being too coniferous, fret not. It doesn't have a strong coniferous vibe. It's more spa-like. The sweet juniper berry and green tea are the stars of the show for a long time, with the bamboo and white sandalwood peeking out more with wear. As the juniper berry loses strength, the bamboo and sandalwood become more noticeable, infusing the green tea with a lovely incense. It is similar to Informal Tea HG from last year's Shungas, so if you liked that one, you will like this one, too.

 

I am so glad that I have a bottle of this. It's one of my favorites from this year's Lupercalia update, and a new favorite green tea scent.
 

Edited April 13, 2020 by doomsday_disco

[Rayleigh]

Fresh, pale green sap. Lightly sweet and cool, like rubbing aloe gel between your fingers. The juniper is clean and berry-soft, not crisp or sharp as the non-berry version can be. The sandalwood is pretty subtle on me. Soothing and mellow. Unfortunately, fresh scents like this get eaten alive by my skin chemistry, so it's gone in a flash. I'm glad I tried it, though!

[Jenjin]

Obsessed with finding something similar to Rendezvous at the Bath, my favorite green tea blend. Also, i've been smashing and burning tons of juniper berries lately. They are so sweet and fill the air with sugared sap, so I was hoping this might take me to that same tranquil space. This goes on very similar, clean, spa-like and i'm getting all those fat, plump little berries. Juniper berry is VERY different from straight up Juniper, I think of them as little conifer raisins. The green tea and sandalwood are also there, mingling and giving it a deeper richness. I'm not getting much of the bamboo, which typically goes bitter on me, and here is mostly a 'still-water' note. The drydown becomes even sweeter, almost ladylike, and i'm picturing a Japanese garden with a beautiful geisha sipping sugared green tea.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Jenjin

[Threemoons]

Freshly showered this afternoon, and reached for my new to me bottle of Cooling Breeze--I hadn't tried it yet, and it got buried in my crates! This is a super light, very lovely, almost spa-like scent; my only gripe is that it is so ethereal that it fades fairly quickly and stays very close to the skin. In the bottle: Getting something like fresh cut grass and fresh aloe, even though those aren't listed! On, wet: The juniper pops out very strongly at first, and is almost Christmas-tree like! Also getting tiny pops of something almost minty. Drydown: This settles down fairly quickly on me, and I'm left with dry grass and a sort of dry, faint wood after a few hours. This is one of those that you could slather on yourself in summer and not be overwhelmed.

 

[Llanval]

I managed to pick up a bottle from the wonderful supreme_cOrt and I LOVE this.  Cooling Breeze is like sitting near an artfully maintained pond in the middle of an equally artfully maintained zen garden.  Sweet coniferous juniper berries and green tea with a warm sandalwood that isn't obtrusive at all.  Very much a clean cooling breeze, with enough depth that it isn't JUST a clean, cooling breeze.  I'm really glad I managed to pick this one up - my only complaints are that I wish the throw were a bit more aggressive and that the wear time was a bit longer, but that's what slathering is for, lol.