"I never actually intended to make a blind buy in my perfume journey, especially not for scents that have few opinions. It's simply not worth buying a fragrance just to find out you don't like it. It's better to go to a perfume store and smell the scent yourself or buy a small decant/sample."
- Quote: Me, always
But as they say: Exceptions confirm the rule.
Unfortunately, you can't test every fragrance beforehand, either because the scent is simply no longer available or because it's an exclusive blah blah variant of a perfume. In our case here, the second example applies. I found Luminous Night very interesting the first time I saw it; the bottle looks so flawless and clean, and when I saw the fragrance pyramid, I was all fired up. I love sweet-spicy scents, and I love dates; in fact, there was a not-so-short period a few years ago when my daily sugar was dates, so I would say I know how dates should smell and taste. And since Luminous Night is basically known for its date note, my thought was: "I have to smell this! But how?"
Because it turned out to be relatively difficult to test this fragrance, and buying a plane ticket just to test a scent at an airport shop seemed a bit silly to me (though it would be a fun action…). So I thought further: "Just buy it; if I don't like it, I can sell it."
You can imagine I was very curious about how it would smell.
The problem is, the more expectations and excitement you have, the more likely you are to be disappointed, at least that's my reality, but oh how I was amazed when I opened the packaging, took out the bottle (which, by the way, feels like it weighs half a ton), and just smelled the spray head! Wow! I thought: "If it smells like this, then it's a 10/10!"
And then I sprayed it on my hand.
And then I fell in love.
The One Luminous Night starts off as sweet as chewing gum; I haven't smelled anything sweeter in a long time. But you can definitely smell something spicy as well. You should thank the basil and especially the black pepper, and of course the star: the date. I was shocked at how real the date smells here, and I still spray it on my hand just for fun after two months, just to smell that sweet date!
Over time, the geranium comes on stage as a supporting actor, but so unobtrusively that you almost don't notice it; you just realize that the sweet date chewing gum is slowly becoming smoother. The spiciness fades a bit, but that's not a problem at all, because now new actors are coming on stage: amber and frankincense. I'm generally not a fan of frankincense; if I want to smell it, I go to church, but here I found it not disturbing at all! In combination with the smooth amber, the whole scent now has a sweet, slightly spicy-smoky quality, but the smokiness is definitely not off-putting. Everything is just smooth and well-composed. From start to finish, it's absolutely not a complex fragrance, but the quality of the notes is simply wow! Let's not forget we're theoretically talking about a designer scent, but this one has niche quality. A colleague of mine, who knows even more and better about fragrances than I do, even said he would have believed me if I told him it costs three times the actual price.
Every note in this fragrance is just authentic and not out of place at all. Nothing is too weak or too overpowering, which is why I'm so convinced by Luminous Night.
The longevity is really good, nothing earth-shattering; you spray it on in the morning around 9 and can still perceive it a bit after 10 hours, but as I said, nothing earth-shattering. The sillage is very good! You get 2-3 hours of pure action, but after that time, it fades a bit, which is perfectly fine.
However, it should be noted that this is a fragrance you should really test multiple times. If you spray it "wrong," it can and will blind the nose with its sweetness.
The bottle is really beautiful, a very dark blue with golden writing and a massive golden cap. Honestly, the whole thing weighs as much as a brick.
The sprayer releases just the right amount of substance; you can't complain about that.
I would recommend this fragrance more for men and younger people.
In summary, I can only say that this was my first blind buy, and it was completely worth it! A total success.
