Winter of 99 Kerosene 2019

this smells like the calm after stressful, hectic, and loud holidays. It feels like curling up in a warm blanket in front of a fireplace as snow falls. There’s warm and smooth molasses, with a spiced nutmeg, and sweet woody vanilla. It’s spicy but comforting, sweet and warm, like a hug. Nothing here is overbearing, there’s a perfect amount of spice, of sweetness, of woodiness, it all blends beautifully.

Let me tell you about my experience of the winter of 1999. I was at boarding school, a budding 14-year-old goth with a penchant for the pagan. Me and three of my equally iconoclastic friends watched The Craft five times in one weekend and... look, we were all teenagers once. This is giving the cheap cinnamon incense oil we used to burn illicitly in our dorms, and also the cinnamon sticks we used to set on fire and... smoke? (Idk man, it was the 90s, don't @ me.) The other relevant story that pertains to this perfume is me and said witchy friends daring each other to drink a "nutmeg milkshake" - industrial quantities of both nutmeg and milk available in the pantry of aforementioned boarding school - though I was the only one that managed to finish mine and I was high for three days straight, including for a surprisingly memorable geography fieldtrip to a coalmine.

Unsettlingly real and nostalgic. 666/13

To my nose this is nothing like any of Kerosene's other compositions. The notes in this work together to create, intentionally or not, a clove accord. If I didn't know anything about the intended notes I would have said it's mainly clove. There's a simplicity and cool to this one that I really enjoy. It is icy and spicy.

It's winter and your friend, who smokes cloves, is wearing a big sweater. Warm enough that they don't even need a jacket. They hug you.

The opening of this is sweet, creamy vanilla with a slightly fruity tone. As it settles into my skin it’s getting a tad smoky as well. At this point, this is a really lovely and wearable vanilla, though nothing particularly remarkable.

3 hours on and while I can still smell a warm vanilla and molasses from up close, the projection has mostly faded. Honestly, this is a pretty basic vanilla—admittedly well done, but nothing about it really stands out. Considering the performance isn’t that great either, I think I’ll pass on this one. As a lifelong vanilla-lover, I already have vanilla fragrances that resonate more with me.

when i was browsing kerosene fragrances, i was a bit hesitant to get a sampler of this at first because i thought it would lean heavily masculine and be overbearingly smoky and woody on me. but upon having sprayed it on me, i was immediately proven wrong. this frag starts off as with a slightly woody, very spicy - but overall, cozily warm - opening. winter of 99 dries down to a smooth, almost vanilla-y amber scent that is so reminiscent of baking gingersnap cookies during the dead of winter for me. someone once described this as being akin to those scented pinecones you find in craft stores mixed with the essence of baking, and this is exactly what you get. this truly resembles the essence of winter, and has become an instant, addictive fave for me.