StFireflies

Spraying this on feels like the blast of aromatic sticky sweetness you get when first tearing open a bag of high quality chewy black licorice.

It settles into something a little more muted and herbal (unsurprisingly it's quite anisic), underpinned by the faintest of musk. It's short-lived, quickly fading to a skin scent.

I'm sure the other notes fill olfactory gaps, and make this feel more textured and lively, but they aren't notably present. This is an ode to a single note: the way you remember black licorice smelling, boosted by memories of punchy tastes and the blurry halo of nostalgia.

I wear this scent solely for myself: black licorice is so divisive, that even with the mild longevity and projection this feels better kept as a personal pleasure.

This opens a little overly sharp, but once it settles into the skin for a few minutes it softens into a gorgeous gingerbread cookie. Once it settles, it's quite linear, which is entirely appropriate for this sort of scent.

This thankfully isn't an overly sweet gourmand: it's all about the heavy spices and buttery wheat, with a balanced dose of dark sugar. The inclusion of the wheat absolute is brilliant, and grounds the spices and sugar in an almost savory note.

I adored Jo Malone's Ginger Biscuit but couldn't justify it for the price:performance ratio, and Pineward's rendition of gingerbread has excellent performance for a much more reasonable price tag -- especially since Pineward offers small bottle sizes, which I appreciate as someone with a large collection. Alas, no cute stripey bow from Pineward.