Dead Leaves And Horchata

[Seajewel]

No additional description.

[deadlyves]

Not what I expected, but still rather good! I was hoping for a strong rice milk and cinnamon, but I can't say I would pick out rice milk here. At first, this smells strongly of the lemony sugar note similar to whats in the March 13 or Wellerman but with some dry spice. The dead leaves aren't as recognizable as past years, but I think they're bringing some of the brightness that is making it seem like that lemon sugar. That fades after a few minutes on the skin and it becomes more about the soft, dry cinnamon and some sort of creamy something, though still wouldn't pick it out as rice milk based on the few times I've tried it. What I assume are the leaves settle in at the base and still bring a gentle touch of  brightness. This is a good blend for a sunnier fall day when the colors are vibrant and changing. It's light, not too sweet, and comfy.

[Casablanca]

The horchata DL is a little odd on me.

 

At the first application, it smelled like dry straw and rice, with a bit of creaminess, all smelling distinct and separate from each other. Then it developed hints of cinnamon and lemon sugar. It seems to have a bit of strange fruitiness, mostly like lemon, but also like a pitcher of sun-brewed lemon tea that's now chilling in the fridge. It's almost Liptony. I can see the Wellerman comparison.

 

The rice and creamy things do eventually blend into something rice-milky, but I'm not sure the blend as a whole is coming together on me at this time. It may need rest.

[MamaMoth]

the horchata spices are most prominent on me, with a non-dairy creaminess that's not particularly rice-like (sad face) and a bit of dead leaves on the back end. it's like... one leaf, maybe two. (i'm lukewarm about dead leaves in general, so this is a nice level for me. if you're here for the leaves, you might be disappointed.)

 

on the one hand, i was hoping for more sweet ricey HORCHATA.  on the other, i'm not hating the spicy-creamy-vaguely-dead-leafy creature that this is.  so fall. very autumn. 

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by MamaMoth

[samanare]

I do not get horchata on me. This scent more smells like dead leaves, fall spices, and orange almost, or at the very least something vaguely citrusy. While the dead leaves note makes it more unique, overall it reminds me of a number of spiced orange scents.

[Tamarinda]

UPDATE 6/5/2023: Just kidding! Seems like my bottle just took a while to catch up to the decant. It no longer smells like my bottle of Samhain and now has the same scent profile as my decant. I guess those things really do age faster than bottles. The dead leaf note from the bottle is a bit sharper and louder than the one from the decant. The bottle has more of the cinnamon than the decant does, but it's not an overpowering cinnamon. My bottle has a slightly toasty smell that I don't get from the decant and my decant still has the pastry smell that is probably the rice. I only get a vague sense of the pastry smell from my bottle. Wear-time for both is a little bit longer now, about 5-6 hours.

 

Original Review: Ok. So I ordered a decant of this and grabbed a bottle on the secondary market because I lack patience. Now that I have my decants, I'm positive that the bottle I purchased is mislabled Samhain since it smells almost exactly like Samhain 2021. I'm not pressed though. I love Samhain and I only didn't buy it from the lab because it sold out early on. Anyway, this review is for the decant, which landed on December 22, 2022 so it's had some time to sit and settle.

 

In the decant: The dead leaf note from Samhain 2021 that reminds me of autumn in LA and not bell peppers. Bright and composty. Lots of cinnamon and something else that I can't identify probably because I'm mildly congested.

 

Wet: Dead leaves and cinnamon.

 

Dry: Dead leaves, cinnamon, and that other stuff I could smell in the decant. It's a baked pastry smell that I can't put my finger on. I don't get anything distinctly rice-y but since I'm gluten-free, I bake with rice flour so maybe that's the pastry smell? I dunno. It's very nice but rather short-lived. Maybe four hours of wear time. Hopefully a bit of age will let out more notes and a longer life-span.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Tamarinda
Update

[Sunny the Wizard]

This one is just absolutely lovely; I get less of a rice milk sort of smell to it than I do the creamy sweetness of like an almond milk? It's bright and sweet and a little bit spicy. It's funny, I didn't get a lemony note until I read other people saying it smelled lemony to them, and now it does smell a bit like a lemon cream biscuit, but then it sort of fades into a more spicy note again the more I smell it. I'm sitting here literally just inhaling my wrist lol. I put it on maybe half an hour ago and it's already fading a little, but that's likely due to the amount I put on and not the scent itself.

[Alaeidrel]

This smells like dead leaves and that lemon fizz champagne note. On the dry down there's more fuzzy rice but I'm not sure I can push through the wet stage to get to it.

[puellacaerulea]

On my skin, this is primarily creamy rice milk and soft cinnamon (more ground cinnamon than aggressive fall candle cinnamon.) I'm having trouble picking out the dead leaves specifically, but there's an oddly bright note that's somewhere between vegetal and lemony under the rice milk that might be the DL accord blending with the rest of the notes in an odd way? Overall, a creamy, spiced blend with something sneakily vegetal hanging out in the background. Definitely not unpleasant, but a departure from the DL blends I'm used to.

[Lucchesa]

Dead Leaves and Horchata is, a year later, still disappointing to me.  I get little dead leaves from it, and not a clear sense of horchata either.  Instead I get lemony cinnamon sugar graham crackers.  Not bad, but not what I was hoping for either.  Pretty good wear length, though.