Rubia

Friday, 11 PM, chaotic girl’s room:
Nicki and I are eating sour gummy candies and locking our teenage dreams in place with hairspray. She lends me her vanilla deodorant with CFCs, I lend her my lipstick.
Then our buddy Andi, the one with the driver’s license, rings the doorbell. We climb into his Opel Kadett and off we go to the disco!
Oops, Nicki burned a hole in the faux leather seat with her cigarette. Andi is grumpy until she presses herself against him in her synthetic dress on the rain-soaked parking lot - and Andi sinks into an aura of rubber eraser and vanilla.
I seem to be unnecessary, so I slip away through the November night towards the entrance line.

A scent like a weekend kickoff in the 90s. Dance, ecstasy, and dry ice fog are still missing, but the expectations are high. Anything can still happen.

The fragrance takes a few twists and turns, but somehow I manage to keep it all together. Unlike other "varied" scents, it doesn’t fall apart into fragments for me. It might be because a few notes hit my memory buttons and thus set a central theme.

Hmm. Upon the first spray, there is only a faint scent. I’m already wondering if I’m dealing with a "body mist," and I spray generously.
The fragrance reminds me of straw flowers - or rather: of a meadow after a long heatwave, its aroma wafting from afar. It’s just before haymaking, and the meadow flowers and herbs are exuding a slightly spicy-resinous scent. The overall impression leans towards organic cosmetics.

In my imagination, I am in a healing and massage practice. In the communal kitchen, someone has brewed chamomile tea, and the meadow scent flows in through the tilted window. Everything is very unobtrusive. I relax on my treatment table.
Just as the masseuse closes the window and mentions that she only buys Wala products now, another scent in the room grows stronger and stronger.
"Strange," I say, "I could swear I smell Nivea from the blue jar."
"Oh," the masseuse replies, blushing, "yes - I just can’t get away from it."
I feel: Where Nivea is a guilty pleasure, nothing bad can happen. I hand my child to women wearing Angel's Trumpet and share my worries with them, as gentle understanding awaits me.

After four hours, the scent on my skin has quietly said goodbye after a final Nivea resurgence; it still lingers in my wool sweater and has gained a slightly soapy quality. Overall, it’s a nice scent. While I don’t particularly want to wear it myself, I enjoy encountering it from time to time.

(Edit: I now know that my sample of the perfume was probably no longer intact. Comparison photos show that the color has darkened significantly. As a novice, I have also learned that the sample in the plastic spray bottle from 10/2013, which reached me last September, is not an optimal testing basis. Therefore, my comments below should definitely be understood in this context - as a note on how this scent can be perceived differently over time. The helpful insight for me: I will not hoard my samples but enjoy them. And I am now aware that scent quality depends on many factors. I might also have a curious nose. Ah, perfume: a vast field and a long journey - let’s enjoy the view.
A big thank you to Seerose for the helpful, relevant exchange.)

I tested it without looking at the pyramid and put my impressions down on paper. If anyone is looking for me: I'm in the olfactory self-help group.

Right at the beginning, there's a clear cedar note. And following the cedar, there's something I believe to be a sparingly used oud, recognized through the wisdom of two oud fragrances.
The next strong impression is: warmth. This might come from the sweetness that now sets in, along with a spicy note. Clove? Cinnamon? Allspice? Something like that.
Overall, it feels elegant to me, rather understated and harmoniously balanced. Occasionally, I think it gets a bit human (cumin?), but that fades away again. I also wonder if there's an atypical vanilla blended into the wood, as there’s a subtly dessert-like and delicious background. Or is it high-percentage chocolate?
Otherwise, the Woody Moods for me are Cedar Moods; I can't recognize other trees due to a lack of notes vocabulary. Additionally, the overall impression is less forest-like (meaning trees, moss, grasses, etc.), but rather that of furniture wood and wooden floors.

I find this scent beautiful, rounded, and not boring. It felt quite masculine to me when I first wore it, and I wanted to give it as a gift - but no: I’m definitely not parting with it.
If the scent were a dating profile, it would be in my imagination:
Lukas, 44, architect. Has a minimalist apartment that doesn’t feel cold due to the natural materials. Somewhere there’s an Eames lounge chair. He likes cinema, trekking, melancholic guitar music, and enjoys explaining the grinder of his espresso machine or a Shimano gear system. And if Lukas doesn’t find anyone, I would be very surprised.

So - I don't have any more clichés.

I find the opening of Spicebomb borderline sweet, but I’m not really into offensive sweetness. The scent seems familiar to me. Did my first boyfriend back then have a fragrance with a similarly sweet top note (Joop?), or is this just a direction I know from testing in airport perfumeries? To me, the smell initially doesn’t seem particularly unusual; it positions itself very much in the familiar.

The nice thing is that the sweetness soon becomes more pleasant; better integrated into notes that are now coming into play. Is that the tickling spice of cinnamon? Or pepper? I also clearly smell something Tonka-Coumarin-like, and perhaps saffron is responsible for me perceiving the scent as more noble and deeper now. In the background, a faint hint of cumin makes itself known, for which "Fàra" is my reference, and I’m happy to recognize it here. Unfortunately, the cumin is quite overpowered by the Tonka.

As it develops, I like the scent more and more. From rejection, it turns into "Yeah, you can definitely wear it in the right mood." I find H&S okay, but not amazing. I also think the name "Spicebomb Extreme" is exaggerated for this spicy-cuddly scent - but probably "Nice Janine Obermüller is trying to cook Indian rice pudding for the first time" isn’t a good marketing alternative. Besides, I tend to throw spices into my food more by the spoonful than by the pinch. Perhaps I’ve become desensitized and will be apprehended by the spice police after the lockdown for unauthorized blocking of airspace with my "Spicebomb" aura.

At the very beginning, there is a sour, metallic freshness. As if I were rushing up a freshly cleaned stairwell, gripping a steel railing with one hand and smelling my palm at the top.
The nighttime stairwell is cold, but my date opens the door to his apartment, where it is cozy. He brews coffee in the kitchen and places a tin of Danish Butter Cookies on the table. "Are you cold?" he asks kindly, turning up the heating.
My nervousness fades away, and I sink into the comfort of a soft armchair, feeling at ease. We talk, share memories, and I know: if nothing more comes of us, I want us to be friends. Because I feel good, because nothing is exhausting. It’s two o'clock when I say goodbye to the night with a hug, and his warmth envelops me one last time. "Cedar," I think - and: "I will come back."

In plain words:
I like the intense rhubarb burst and the grapefruit peel. It quickly becomes warm, slightly sweet, and cozy: I sense coffee, and Tonka and/or vanilla is more pronounced. The scent splits into two parts, both of which I really like, and the transition from one part to the other on my skin is almost forward. It ends all too quickly with a warm leathery cedar quality. I would love to rewind or re-spray immediately.
I can't pick out the other notes (nutmeg? Where?), or I don't know them (What does blackcurrant bud smell like?).
I will definitely wear Nuit Rouge often; I find it pleasant. However, preferably on fabric and moisturized skin, so it doesn't disappear too quickly.