Mirage Daydream Oriflame 2013

Quizduell forms.
Thanks to this app, which has captivated over 18 million smartphone users in this country, Sweden is no longer just inextricably linked to Ikea and Knut, with blue and yellow flags and a German-born queen, with Köttbullar and Smörrebröd - thanks to Quizduell, I now also know that the Swedes lead the world in per capita candy consumption.
At least that's what a question writer claims, and question writers are always right, at least for now.
I had guessed the Americans, eyed the Swiss chocolate, but wrong, all wrong - the Sweden rectangle glowed green and tossed another prejudice overboard.

So the Swedes love sweets.
Lots of sweets.
And even more sweets.
That makes them fundamentally likable to me - but it also makes me cautious about a fragrance that has Sweden as its country of origin and lists whipped cream, vanilla, and cocoa in its ingredients.
And chestnuts, of course - chestnuts that I buy hot, sweet, and sticky from the little round woman at the local Christmas market, year after year, and whose scent I had longed for just as eagerly as I had searched in "Marron Chic" in vain.
Here, perhaps, I would find what I was looking for, in this fragrance from Sweden, the land of unlimited sweets.
I was excited.
And I was afraid.
Of diabetes, cavities, sugar shock, of wrinkled noses and fading senses, of evil looks and the stamp "Public Nuisance!" because I was so bold as to unleash such an obviously wintry gourmand bomb on humanity in July - in July!
And yet - how could I not?
How can a perfumist who takes themselves seriously ever not...?

To make a long story short: I’m still alive.
I have neither been tarred nor feathered, I have not been banished from the city, and no one has approached me solely with a gas mask.
My partner is still my partner, no one has ended their friendship with me - and no one has to fear becoming a case for the emergency room by using "Mirage Daydream."
Not even for the dentist.

For four days, "Mirage Daydream" accompanied me, for four days we experienced highly different weather conditions together, for four days "Mirage Daydream" showed me various facets of its personality.
Test day 1 brought me temperatures near the 30°C mark, high humidity, and a "daydream" that, after a sweet-scratchy opening of nutty roasted aromas, soon developed a continuously intensifying hairspray note, the origin of which I cannot quite identify, as the otherwise easily identifiable culprit, white musk, does not seem to be present here.
The fragrance, however, is not bothered - after about an hour, all nutty-chestnut elements have disappeared under a dense veil of hairspray that lets nothing else through and has completely dissipated after a maximum of five hours.
And leaves me a bit disillusioned.
That was not what I had expected - I almost wanted to think of a spoiled sample, as the laboratory container from the Franfans Wanderpaket 2.0 had already traveled a long way before it arrived at my place and was initially put on hold.
But the next day brought a surprise: Pouring rain and an outside temperature of 15°C allowed a beautiful, caramel-tinged chestnut accord to waft from my skin, moderately sweet and not sticky at all, just a bit scratchy and so close to the skin that not only can no one feel disturbed, but the man by my side also has to move significantly closer to catch a whiff of the scent.
Very fine, very delicious - and I don’t even want to know where the hairspray from the previous day has gone.
The fragrance could have stayed with me all day and night, but alas: It not only remained very close to me, but also proved to be a bit commitment-phobic that day.
Curious about which olfactory daydreams were still waiting to be discovered, I decided to extend the testing phase, so that on the third day, dressed in a knitted sweater and leather jacket, trudging through the autumnal downpour, I carried a delicately dense aura of delicious creamy chocolate-nut aromas around me, which no one but myself perceives, yet remains throughout the long day into the night.
And today, on the fourth day?
It’s warm outside, very warm, the humidity of two rainy days hangs in the air, thunderstorms are forecasted - and on my skin hangs a hint of hairspray.
Just hairspray.
No chestnuts, no roasted aromas, no cream, and no sweetness.
Another day, another daydream.

As different as my impressions may be over the four consecutive days, they seem to indicate that "Mirage Daydream" is a fragrance for cooler days - not because of its intensity, but because this fragrance seems to develop only at lower temperatures as it apparently is intended to.
Muggy, summery temperatures strip the fragrance of its gourmand character, which seems to unfold more distinctly only well below the 20°C mark.
This fascinates me, as I have previously known it to be the opposite - and I begin to wonder if the actual bomb, the real sillage monster only reveals itself around freezing point and then holds and holds and holds...