NurPixie

You know when you notice a scent and it brings back a memory?
I have that very often. To my disappointment, I can usually but also not narrow down what exactly it reminds me. There's just this vague thought of "you know that from somewhere". Then again, there are days when I immediately know where I've smelled this scent before and "relive" the moment. Sometimes also with a certain nostalgia.

Today I received a bottling of the new Santal Pao Rosa. Under the fragrance notes I could imagine so nothing and from the rating I also did not want to be influenced. So sleeves up and carefully spray - and poof find me ten years thrown back at the dining table of my mother again. Not because my mother was wearing a distant Santal Pao Rosa relative. No. I see myself at the dinner table, with my brothers, with my mother and my stepfather, who was still living with us at the time. We're eating gourmet fish with dill sauce and floury potatoes. My stepfather babbles something about movies he wants to see in the original sound. My mother rolls her eyes in boredom. I hand my brother the cucumber salad with herb dill dressing. Dill.

At the risk of repeating myself: DILL.

Because that's all I perceived when I sniffed my arm. This perfume first just smells like dill. Slightly sweet, herbaceous and pungent at the same time.
So. Nothing against dill, I like dill! I like to throw it on my veggies, roasted chicken breast fillet and such. But as a perfume it really doesn't have to be and so Santal Pao Rosa unfortunately doesn't join the ranks of my Guerlain favourites. Too bad. Because the bottle and the beautiful red of the perfume say me very much.
In the later course, something woody comes more forward for my amateur nose, but the dill note remains. Unfortunately, woody is also not mine, it seems.
Hazelnut and fig I can not even guess, unfortunately.

Too bad. I would have liked you so much, Santal Pao Rosa. Grateful for this memory, but I am still and maybe I call my mother again and ask if we four do not want to get together again and eat gourmet fish with floury potato, dill sauce and cucumber salad

In the course of a hiking package I was able to get a sample of "Red Vanilla | Zara" a few months ago and was quite taken by this simple fragrance despite the rather moderate rating here. Vanilla and berries are my favorite combination. So ever since I got this little sample, I've been lurking in and around the Zara online store, ogling the Red Vanilla offerings. And if I'm going to order anyway, it makes sense to blind test a few other scents. Doesn't it? So I kept filling my shopping cart with different Zara fragrances. Only to then not complete the purchase process.

Well. This time it was different. This time I packed me the small filling of Red Vanilla in the shopping cart and also opted for a 100ml Flanker of Ruby Berries, because here too: red berries and vanilla. Bought.
The (current) Parfumobewertung of 6.4 I perceived, but still wanted to try it.

What is positive is the shipping time. Sunday ordered, Tuesday there. But that is (besides the fortunately non-existent shelf life of the fragrance) also the only thing that is positive.
Ruby Berries smells so not at all like vanilla berries, as I imagined. In fact, I don't smell berries, or peach, or vanilla. It just smells... just one-dimensional, pungent, and artificial, with no scent progression at all. Headache. Sure, at that price you don't really need to expect anything else.

I remain - as far as Zara is concerned - so be Red Vanilla, which unlike Ruby Berries keeps its promise

I hate my doorbell.
It's a horrible, shrill, way too loud screech. It scares me every time. But I can't turn it down either. Or even choose a different "ringtone". I hate that damn bell. I don't seem to be the only one in the house whose bell is deafeningly loud and shrill, though. I hear the other bells, too. Funny, I live in the basement, but I can tell exactly when it's ringing "for upstairs", on the third floor. Oh yeah, did I ever mention that I hate my doorbell?

But no sooner is the shock overcome than anticipation comes to the fore: ringing promises mail. I love getting mail. Okay, it is then probably but rather a love-hate relationship.

Today dpd rang and brought me Amethyst. Finally!
So, strictly speaking, he didn't need me the perfume. Actually, the dpd messenger just threw the cute little Notino package into the hallway. HE. THROW. IT. Arghs. I was already on the landing, all he had to do was wait 5 seconds longer. What is wrong with you?! Hopefully the bottle stayed intact....
Quickly grabbed the package, back to the apartment, open the package, free the bottle from the packaging. Everything intact, luck had.

Amethyst was a blind purchase.
I like Meliora by Parfums de Marly and Amethyst should smell so similar. The many berries in the top note and the vanilla in the base note appealed to me anyway totally.
But are the two fragrances comparable?
I find both fragrances very beautiful. On me, Amethyst smells more berry and less sweet; Meliora flatters vanilla-sweet-fruity, and I feel like Meliora has the better longevity.
I couldn't say which scent is the better one now, though.
Yes, some similarity is there if you want to smell it, however I wouldn't say that one scent is a dupe of the other.
The bottle contest is definitely won by Meliora.

Amethyst. The currant is for me in the foreground. From the strawberry I perceive unfortunately nothing; also the mulberry hides from me. Instead, the rose slowly joins the currant and nestles gently against it. Is it stupid that I now truly imagine this very image? How a rose lays its beautiful rose head on the shoulder of a currant?
I have to say, there's something dreamy about Amethyst to me somehow. It's not loud. Not intrusive. It flatters and flirts quietly.
I like the berry, but at the same time not too sweet feeling.

For me, this perfume is definitely a successful blind buy and I highly recommend it.

I received one of my perfume orders today and received a sample of "Deep Moon" this way, which I initially interpreted as a twist of fate, because I recently learned about Novellista in the first place and "Deep Moon" immediately caught my eye - but not because of the fragrance notes. No, completely superficially: I liked and still like the name. Could that be a coincidence? I hope(t)e not!

Instead of my actual order to sniff I dedicate myself so first this Pröbchen.
The first impression is... well. Disappointing, but at the same time surprisingly sexy? Is that possible at all at the same time? Apparently yes.
I was expecting the fruity notes of grapefruit and orange blossom. In fact, for whatever reason, I almost naturally assumed I'd get both literally slapped in my face. Bam, grapefruit.
Smelled I have other and that was the pure surprise. A woody, dark men's aftershave? Pooh, I admit it, would a freshly showered man, with only a towel around the hips and this scent dressed join me.... I would be VERY taken. ;-)
But at the same time, that's the disappointment: for me, this is in no way a feminine and therefore not a unisex scent!
Well, admittedly, I am also a little plagued by hay fever. Not nice. Maybe I'm missing something?
Between the lines, I kept sniffing cautiously at "Deep Moon". For a brief moment, there was something different, more feminine. Before I could even think about what I was perceiving now, it was already gone. Too bad. Slowly the vanilla spreads, but it doesn't overpower the aftershave. That makes it even more attractive (as a men's scent). "Deep Moon" reminds me of another vanilla aftershave scent.... I just can't put my finger on it. I must dig times in my men's fragrances.

Apart from a brief phase in my youth, I have never actually worn perfumes. On the one hand, I didn't have the money for it myself, on the other hand, my dear fellow men destroyed my desire for it; mostly I got a headache much too quickly when someone near me wore too much perfume and I got stuck in this cloud of perfume.
Recently I was recommended "The Only One" EdP and after I was allowed to sniff it (and no headache was coming up) somehow the first step was taken to deal more with the beautiful scents. Actually I bought this perfume directly.
It smells elegant and seductive, floral and vanilla. The fact that I received multiple praise the very next working day was of course more than just pleasant. :-)