smellitee25

You’re missing home. It been two years since you been near your community. Your kitchen is warm with the scent of your desperation as the smell of sweet dough perfumes the entire room. Your apron is covered in smudges of the honey-vanilla glaze, lotus and mung bean paste, and the buttery dough. You’re exhausted, and you’re sure you didn’t make them right, but the smell alone has provided you with more comfort and warmth than you’ve felt in a long time.

I tested this fragrance right after launch and I got only pure honey and Carmex lip balm. I forgot about it for a few months, only to find it completely transformed into a earthy, sweet, vanilla-centric doughy scent, though still not a scent reminiscent nor representative of a mooncake. Its not too dense, not syrupy sweet, and doesn't have the earthy, nutty qualities of the mung bean and lotus seed pastes listed in the notes. I think it is an objectively nice warm honey fragrance, but it's nothing special or awe-inspiring.

Despite it's decency, the marketing of Mooncake severely overshot the authenticity of the actual product. For a fragrance with an actual dessert as its inspiration, those notes should’ve been much stronger than the doughy, honeyed aspects of the fragrance. One of my personal grips with fragrances is misleading marketing, and this scent is guilty. If you have never tried a mooncake, never smelled or tasted mung bean or lotus seed, and had only experienced the dessert through a screen, this could be a satisfactory representation of a Mooncake for you. Given that the brand's entire gimmick is to represent and share different cultures through scent, this is a major letdown.

It’s still winter, but you’ve decided the begin prepping for the upcoming garden season with tilling the soil. The dry winter has left the soil dry and powdery, so you decided to add perlite and coco coir to prep it for the season. After your prep, you end up covered in the mixture of earthy soil, dusty, powdery mix-ins, and the scent of incoming rain. Before you shower, you sit down to eat a bowl of sliced peaches and plums. The sweet, dense fruit mixes with your earthy smell in odd, but pleasant, way.

I didn’t like this at first, but after smelling Sorce's English Major, I found myself really enjoying the earthiness of this fragrance! The orris is very prominent, and, and the sandalwood adds a slight creaminess that makes the fragrance a bit smoother and a more pleasant skin scent. There is very little, if any, perceived 'added' sweetness to this fragrance. The small amount I do pick up adds a natural, muted sweetness redolent of the stone fruit family. This is another easy-reach, year-round fragrance. It's a very interesting release from a mainstream fragrance house, and a very welcome addition to that sect of perfumery.

This scent took me for a LOOP. I thought I’d hate it, and honestly only got the sample to prove myself right. I did end up hating the first spray, which smelled like rotten cheese and the worst case of diarrhea you’ve ever had. I almost threw it away after that.

I tried it again a few days later, and it was a ridiculously addicting scent. I ended up wearing my sample for almost a week straight. I honestly cannot paint my usual scent-scape for this fragrance, so here’s what I smell: A (very) slightly sweet, milky, incense scent with a noticeable earthy-powdery-starchiness similar to orris and raw Jasmine Rice. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever smelled before. Extremely comforting and last for 12+ hours on skin and clothing.

I can only wear 2-3 sprays--this is extremely strong. That is the only drawback to Blanche Bête. It irritates the back of my throat if I use more than three sprays (sidenote--why does this happen? I only get this sensation with 'stronger' scents like extraits and oils), and could easily cause a headache if inhaled too much for too long. At least this means I won't have to pay for a full bottle hehe.

Your Mom has just handed a bunch of medicinal herbs to put in the car. It’s the last purchase from todays trip, and stains your hands with a licorice-y, minty, bitter herbal smell. It mixes with the stack of fresh-cut wood in the back, imbuing the car with a minty, herbal, woody aroma. It’s not bad, but as you go to take a sip of your reward (a vanilla milkshake), it makes an off-putting amalgamation of aromas that turns your stomach. You put the milkshake back.

This was NOT the sweet, nutty, pistachio scent that everyone claimed it to be. The davana and palo santo are wayyy too overpowering for the pistachio and vanilla to positively benefit the fragrance. The combination of the two turns this fragrance into a mostly sharp, bitter, slightly minty, herbal scent profile rather than the woody-fresh pistachio vanilla the notes would lead you to believe. After a half hour, the scent is almost invaded by a sweet, vanilla-like note that adds another unpleasant component to an already confusing fragrance. I just don't think this version of this scent profile is one that works. Personally, I think they should’ve continued along the earthy, green route and added some green atmospherics (mist, humidity, wet stone, soil, moss, more woods, etc.) rather than this attempt at a complex gourmand.

You’re babysitting your nieces on a Friday—Ice Cream Night. They’re sitting on the counters pouring a mess of sprinkles, marshmallows, syrup, and chocolate over their bowls of vanilla ice cream. The kitchen is filled with tiny giggles and the scent of an ice-cream parlor. Your eldest niece hands you a bowl of your special iteration. You look down to see a partially melted French vanilla ice cream stirred into the consistency of a pumpkin purée. You a release a sigh of relief that it’s not laced with something more nefarious.

This is a very sweet, densely creamy lactonic scent. I don’t particularly get a strict ice-cream ~vibe~; it’s more like a cooled custard about to enter an ice-cream machine. It’s nice. It’s similar (in theory) to Bianco Latte, but its sweet, creaminess doesn’t read as artificial or powdered as BL. More like true sweetened heavy cream. It feels milky in texture and in flavor, and the waffle cone note adds a richness that invokes a scent similar to an enriched, high-quality ice cream base (the ones with egg yolks, vanilla bean, browned butter, etc.; you know the ones). If you're looking for a rich, custard (NOT ice-cream) fragrance, you should try out this one.