Iceblocks

I know that 'Amber of Wonders' is literally the name, but seriously, there's something magical about this one - something I just keep coming back to (hello signature fragrance!).

It somehow works with everything - it's as at home in a casual situation as it is at a night out. Dress it up, dress it down, wear it to the office, wear it at the opera - doesn't matter. It is, to me, the very definition of a 'you, but better' fragrance - a transparent and light-filled scent that wraps around you like a scarf. Salty, sparkling, sunlit golden amber - classy and comforting.

It also blooms in the heat. I have a strong memory of wearing this one during the setup of an event - after a solid twenty minutes of hauling heavy items around, I sat down, sniffed the air, and started looking around for where this lovely wafting scent was coming from before realising it was me. Sillage otherwise wears relatively close to the skin, and it's both sheer enough and polite enough that it "disappears" after a while - but then others have commented on it, so while it blends into the background, it definitely reappears from time to time. If I had to pick a single fragrance in my collection to keep forever, it'd be this one. Adore.

It's hard for me to review this one objectively, because every time I spray it, I'm thrown back to a very specific memory:

Orange slices on the beach.

Not a resort beach. Not a beach somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, nor a beach lined with stone under overcast skies. Instead, I'm thrown back to an Australian beach - rugged, a line of sand hugging both the ocean and coastal bushland behind it. The sun is blazing overhead, the sky so blue it's almost blinding - a dry heat, high thirties, the hole in the ozone layer promising trouble to anyone who isn't wearing sun protection. You've walked out of the waves, the salt drying on your skin almost instantly - it has a particular note, does sea-salt-on-hot-skin, and the air around you is filled with the scent of the bush in the sun. You collapse on the sand, and someone offers you a container full of orange slices - kept cool under shade, bright wedges of colour, and when you bring it up to your nose it all comes together.


Salt on skin, bitter orange opening, woods in the background. This one to me is a summer fragrance through and through, but like I said, it's hard for me to separate this one from the memory it's tied with, so eh. Forever a favourite, and definitely unisex.

I normally pay essentially zero attention to a scent's marketing or packaging (we all like a nice bottle, but at the end of the day, it's what's inside that counts). But I do have to give props to this group - when they committed to their retro-80's-aesthetic, they committed hard. Their website is a delightful throwback, the invoice that's sent with the fragrance is "typewritten" on ye olde computer paper, and the scent itself is bundled and presented in a "drugstore" style paper bag with the brand's logo emblazoned across it. It's fun, and makes me vaguely nostalgic for an era I didn't actually live through.

The fragrance itself opens up as eau de "foam banana lollies" and watery pineapple, though that dials down in the first few minutes or so to reveal the creamy, coconutty warm lotion-like white florals that are the true heart of this fragrance. The first hour it does have an almost-vinyl-like edge over the whole thing - almost bitter, a bit plastic-y - but it somehow works, never veering into "unwearable" territory and instead almost approximating the vague scent of chlorine that lingers when you step out of the pool. It's not identical, nor does it have the same humidity, but that's what it recalls.

I was a bit worried that it'd hover in this phase, and if it had, I'd be disappointed. Thankfully, though, past that initial hour or so the bitterness faded and the muted, vaguely fruity, creamy lotion on "warm skin" remained.

It's an easy like. I was hoping for something closer to a photorealistic piña colada, and this isn't that, but it is "summer" in a bottle. It's also definitely not a powerhouse - I was catching trails of it as I moved around, but it's lighter than expected, and longevity is only so-so on skin.

As for comparisons for other scents in this space:

'Beach Walk' by Maison Margiela has none of the fruit and less of the cream, and leans a little more 'yellow floral' than the buttery white florals that are in this. Part of the same family tree, but cousins rather than siblings.

'Soleil Blanc Parfum' by Tom Ford is much more opaque and 'present'. It's more upfront with the white florals, with again none of the fruit and less of the cream, and the top notes are spicier than this - the cardamom really makes a difference, on review, twisting it into something that isn't just a "sunscreen" scent.

Both the above are a little more "elegant" than this, and both lack that weird vinyl-like middle phase that this goes through. This, though, feels a bit more laid-back, fruity and "fun". The others are "beach" appropriate, while this is a plastic-palm-tree-and-outdoor-chlorine-pool scent. Which, to be fair, is exactly what it markets itself as.

It's also a fraction of the price of the two listed above and comes with its own radio station. What more could you want?

This one is such a weirdo to me, because there are absolutely zero situations where I'd want to wear it in public. It's too realistic - it smells quite literally like powdered sherbet (e.g. wizz fizz). It's a scent that would work better as a room spray for a sweets store than as a fragrance for an actual human being.

Despite that, however, I not only own a bottle but have already made a significant dent into it - despite only wearing it to bed.

It's just so cheerful, it somehow makes me smile every time. It's exactly what it says on the tin, no more, no less - lemon sherbet like when you were a kid, with some creamy marshmallow vanilla in the background that it slowly morphs into.

Would I ever recommend it to someone? Probably not. Is it the most complicated, elaborate, or impressive thing I've ever smelled? Also no.

But it's fun, peppy, and nostalgic, and sometimes, that's all you need. "Sweet dreams" has never been so literal :)

This is light, delicate, soft - a clean pale yellow blanket of a fragrance, appropriate for the soaps and other bathroom products that this was originally conceived for. Not a powerhouse by any stretch of the imagination, but an easy reach - non-demanding, unobtrusive enough to be worn at work.

It's an almost-powdery, almost-soapy musk, rounded and toned down by a hint of yellow florals, vanilla, and spice. For all that it's named after ylang-ylang, the flower itself seems content to remain in the background - I wouldn't have named it without the listed notes. It's reasonably well blended and "abstract", hard to pinpoint any one thing in particular. It hums along but doesn't sing.

It's listed as a chypre but there's no darkness in this. Even the musk itself leans more towards clean-skin than animalic. It's also vaguely nostalgic - like a fading memory of the 90's, like a paired-down "big" fragrance that's been left to bleach in the sun.