Fluxit
04.06.2018 - 09:01 AM
12
Top Review
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4
Sillage
7
Longevity
8.5
Scent

Nothing but the truth

"Vera. The real thing.
And beyond that the biological Latin second name of the real lavender.
Can you find this one here?

**Background**
I really don't like Roxana Illuminated as a brand. On the one hand, she caused nothing but trouble for our natural fragrance project through late answers up to complete ignorance. And the website is terribly messy. Links go nowhere, I have to browse five pages to find Vera at all and if I use the search instead, I find two handfuls of products, of which more than half are sold out. Since Roxana studied Communication Arts, I take it all a little personally against her. It doesn't help that her grandfather already produced Neroli Cologne and that she herself has almost twenty years of experience in the perfume business. I think it's good that she has beehives in her garden in California to cover at least part of the ground mass (beeswax + jojoba oil) of her solids locally.

**Fragrance*
Vera lets my grumpy test defiance run away, winged. A lovely start, then fresh green and orange-citric, both steamed in warm smelling beeswax but in a good mood. Lavender in the sunshine. Petitgrain?
It's really nice.
From memory, a loose scent twin to Lush's "What Would Love Do". Retest will be made up.
After two or three hours, a slightly woody, earthy undertone interferes and the fragrance darkens. Smoky, with the same friendliness. Vera is more Annika than Pippi - good instead of wild. But on some days this is just right.

The Sillage is mau. The first time I try it, I attribute it to the economical scoop I poked out of the wax-sealed tin. The more generous retest gives the perfume about 7-8h more durability (= the whole working day, that's ok), but does little to change the low radiance. Well, even a low-sillage perfume can lift me out of a boring telephone conference into olfactory clouds on my wrist. A little more intensive I would have wished for the fragrance but still.

Finally Vera reminds me of two other brands:
- For Strange Women who sell similarly chic jewelry boxes for their solid perfume fabrics. However, their solid perfumes are much harder, which makes them feel less intense, but much more efficient.
- Aftelier, whose solids are of similar soft consistency, smell great and then also dither with Sillage & durability.
Despite initial reluctance, I realize that Roxana is fantastically situated with these brand references.
Even though her three other fragrances I have tested lag far behind this summer fragrance, I like to award Vera with the wish list star. And that's nothing but the truth.
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