Midsummer Magic - A Scentual Journey

Hi everyone! Sorry about the long absense! Finishing up my studies and moving back home again took a lot of time and effort.  My room is in chaos, too many books for such a small space, but it's getting less and less chaotic every day! I'm really happy to be back home again! Especially right now, Finland is so magical at Midsummer!

(This will be a very picture heavy post, consider yourself warned!)

It never gets dark here at Midsummer, the time between sunset and sunrise is so short that it never gets darker than twilight. One of my Midsummer Night traditions is to around midnight take a walk through the woods to a dark forest lake where I can swim naked and alone in the black water. That is Midsummer Magic for me. Last night I took my camera with me so now I can invite you all along on a little journey through a Finnish Midsummer forest! I will also make this a scentual journey by adding perfumes that to me give much the same experience as these landscapes.

The nature is so lush that the path is barely visible...

Ferns.

The forest I walk through is dark and dense. Moss covered rocks, ferns and blueberry shrubs are shaded by slender white birches and dark green spruces and pines. This part of my journey reminds me of Norne by Slumberhouse. This dark and mysterious forest is just as magical as that fragrance. Herne by Arcana would also suit this landscape. This scent is heavy with powerful resins enhanced by spicy cinnamon. Definitely what a dark god of this forest would smell like.

Suddenly the forest ends but what is coming is hidden on the other side of a hill and will be invisible for a few more steps. Anticipation bulids because I know what I will see and it is always magical. The lake is nestled in a deep bowl surrounded by the rugged rocky forest hills. The suitable scent fro this part of the journey is Samhain by Haus of Gloi. There is a hint in the air of something wet, of humid soil and green herbs.

The sun is already rising in the northeast, or maybe this is the lingering glow from the recent sunset in northwest... It is hard to tell when the wholse nothern sky is aglow above the mirror calm lake. Sometimes there is mist on this lake, but not tonight. The scent that would suit the beautiful dark lake is Gaea by Alkemia. This scent is water over rocks, decaying plant life and the clear scent of white water lillies.

Blueberry and Cloudberry shrubs and birches.

The edges of the lake are wet and marsh-like, very lush and green. Devils Milhopper by Solstice Scents has a similar note of fresh green leaves. A powerful green, full of life and growth, just like Midsummer is the height of the growing season.

Labrador Tea leaves and flower.

Other parts of the lake edge is dryer and rockier, here flourish baby pines and lingonberry. But all around this lake grows Labrador Tea, looking like rosemary but with its own unique scent and white flowers. As the name implies this fragrant herb has been used for tea. Every year I collect and dry the fresh sprouts so that I can drink this tea and enjoy this wonderful scent all year.

Tea of Labrador Tea and Veronica flowers.

You can get an idea of the scent of Labrador Tea by sampling the perfume oil with the same name by Salmonberry Origins. Or if you are really interested in smelling the real deal I can just send you a little sprig of Labrador Tea!

That's the end of the journey folks. There are no pictures of me skinny dipping in the lake...
The quality of the pictures is a bit influenced by the thousands of mosquitoes that landed on me every time I stopped to take a picture. Sorry about that. I have pictures of what my arms, legs and neck looked like afterwards, but I'll spare you. I looked like a victim of bubonic plague...
Several of the scents mentioned here were gifts from the wonderful Amanda of more tea, Wesley?, she really nailed my tastes when we swapped packages! Here is a picture of the perfumes I got from her! :D

Hope you all had as wonderful a Midsummer as I did, those of you on the Northern Hemisphere who celebrate the solstice that is... ;)

Perfume - The collection so far

Here are most of my essential oils and a few empty bottles for experiments...

Here are my perfume oils and samples (in the film canisters) as well as a few of my own experimental blends. You will note a couple of Body Shop perfume oils in here and a solid from Lush that I had completely forgotten that I owned, these are from the days when I was a coconut and vanilla gal... I don´t really know what to do with them now...

This post is inpired both by Dee's post about orginizing her makup and perfume as well as BrightestStarOfAll's post about her perfume collection. I´m feeling quite organized when I look at this! The wooden boxes are two of the drawers in a mini dresser that I have on my "desk". If you want to know what exactly is in my collection, you can have a look at my stash at ScentBase. The only things missing both in the pictures and in my Scentbase stash are a couple of full size vintage perfumes (Madame Rochas EdC and Yves Rocher Venice EdT) and a few vintage decants...

Perfume Review - Incendere

Incendere by Alkemia.

A late night, early morning post from me, because I just put on Incendere and felt it needed a review. I have read rave reviews about Smoke and Mirrors, Les Mysteres and Miel de Sauvage et Tabac (sorry, can´t be bothered to look them up right now, to late/early for that) but not even one word about Incendere. Yet it is one of three scents from Alkemia that I really have to get a full size bottle of (along with the aforementioned Smoke and Mirrors and Les Mysteres).

I bought this one because I had gotten it into my mind that carnation was a floral I would probably enjoy. You might have noticed that I really hate florals in general, but I had never sniffed a carnation perfume and they were always described as spicy and hot, and that appealed to me. So I thought, why not, it is only a sample. Thank the gods of perfumery that I did because this is gorgeous!!

In the bottle this smells of creamy cinnamon and floral, plus something boozy (the bay rum?). On wet it is strong at first, with hot spices and a sharp floral note that I suppose is the carnation. I believe I can smell black pepper and clove here, my absolute favorite spices, so I´m sold already! Soon the spices calm down and the carnation gets deliciously creamy and soft. For a while it is still definitely floral, but what a lovely spicy floral! Then it happens! When completly dry it turns into the most glorious chai tea! When I sniff this I remember the most delicious cup of chai I ever had. It was at a folk music/world music festival in nothern Sweden. In the festival area there was a cafe, on the outside it looked like a dingy party tent but on the inside everything was covered in oriental rugs. They only served two things in there, that most glorious chai and hookahs. I remember that the tobacco in the hookah was a superb blend of licorice and mint and in my memory the chai smells exactly like the drydown of this perfume. Every time I wear this perfume I´m brought back to that deliciously decadent, exotic place full of peace, licorice and mint smoke and creamy spicy chai...

Needless to say, that is one scent memory that I do not mind at all! I will be buying a full size bottle of this one! The sillage is medium and so is the longevity, about six hours on me. But damn this makes me long for that most awesome of chais. And now I know that carnation is something I enjoy, I´ll have to see to it that more carnation scents come my way! Do you have any favorite carnation perfumes that you can recommend?

Perfume Review - Smoke and Mirrors

Smoke and Mirrors by Alkemia.

This will be a short review, because I do not need too many words to describe this scent... Three would be enough really...

In the bottle Smoke and Mirrors is a mild smoky vanilla. It actually doesn´t smell very exciting in the vial.. But when I put it on my skin the smoky note morphs and becomes much stronger  at the same time as the vanilla becomes deeper and sweeter. There really are not any clear stages in this perfume but it seems to constantly change, with the vanilla and the smoke playing a game of dominance. As it dries the tonka becomes more noticeable, giving even more body to the vanilla.

This was love at first sniff, I have never ever fallen so head over heels for a scent! It is deceptively simple and   is very useful for layering, it was actually made for this purpose and is said to be good for "toning down any perfumes that are too sweet, deepening and gloriously complicating resin and incense based scents, and softening chypres and any 'sharp' woody scents"... But I prefer it as is! It is just so overwhelmingly gorgeous!! (Though I do think I´ll use it with Wing of Bat and see if anything exciting happens, Smoke and Mirrors can probably tun anything gorgeous, I am a believer!)

I am getting a full size bottle of this, or maybe two, just to be safe... It even lasts long on me! Not as long as MdSeT, but still a full 12 hours on my skin.And the sillage is just perfect for leaving an intoxicating trail behind you, not monstruous like MdSeT, but still more than average!

This scent in three words: Smoke! Vanilla! Glorious!!

P.S. Beware leakage with this one, store upright... Also recommended with Soma, Moon Goddess and colorless oils in general... These sample vials tend to get less tight the more times you open them and colorless oils with no heavy and thick resins and therefore less viscous tend to leak out...

Perfume Review - Wing of Bat and Ardorem 21

These are the two scents out of my haul from Alkemia that disappointed me. Not really because they are bad scents, but because they are not at all what I expected.

The name Wing of Bat really enchanted me, together with the description, containing notes of oakmoss, green patchouli, fern, dirt, ambergris, leather. I really expected something dark and earthy. In the vial Wing of Bat smells green and herbal with hints of citrus. On wet it is a very sharp and clean kind of scent, very green but not very herbal anymore. This is the kind of sharpness that I associate with cheap men´s cologne and that just gives me a headache and no enjoyment. As this dries it becomes less sharp, but  I still get only lots of green with a vague chypre background. I get no leather, no moss, definitely no dirt, even the slight patchouli I can smell here is not very earthy, it is indeed very green. I guess this isn´t a bad sort of scent... It is made like a classic and old fashioned men's cologne, I´m quite sure I have smelled some commercial scent that is very much like it. As long as you don´t expect anything else it is fine, after the sharp green note in the beginning it is not bad. But if you expect another unique and exciting Alkemia creation this is a disappointment. This one is going on my swaps list, if anyone is still interested in it after this review... ;)

Ardorem 21 is sorted under the category "Musk Spices Suede" in the Alkemia shop and the notes are as follows. "Coriander, Mandarin, Amber, Nutmeg, Saffron, Bourbon Geranium, Blue Lotus, Tobacco, Musk, Clove, Sandalwood, Vetiver, Kashmiri Tea, Cardamom, Black Pepper, and Japanese incense." Lots of spices in that description and I am a huge fan of spicy perfumes, I thought that perhaps the geranium and the lotus won´t be so noticable and a little bit of mandarin can´t drown out all those lovely spices and darker notes. But in the bottle Ardorem 21 smells of mandarin most of all. But it was a spicy mandarin, so I had high hopes still. On wet there is a wonderful flash of spices at first, black pepper, cloves, cardamon, coriander, hints of musk, the mandarin is prominent too, but the spices are more dominant... But then comes the bourbon florals and take over. It is not an awful floral by any means, it is sweet and pretty together with amber and some faint hints of musk and spices. The floral fades with time, and the final drydown is sweet and creamy, quite complex, with tea, musk, amber and a hint of tobacco... I like this one better than Wing of Bat, I can enjoy it and the drydown is lovely... I was just expecting something full of spices, and this isn´t it... This one goes on the swap list too.


Neither of these oils have much of a sillage, Ardorem 21 slightly more than Wing of Bat, and neither lasts very long on my skin, Wing of Bat lasts just a few hours and Ardorem 21 perhaps an hour more.

Perfume Review - Attar al Oudh and De la Forêt

Oud.
I know next to nothing about it. I know that another name is agarswood and that I love it! (If you are interested in this note, you can read more about it here.)

Both Attar al Oudh and De la Forêt contain this note, but in very different ways.

Attar al Oudh is all about oud. In the bottle it is a musty but sweet wood, slightly herbal and medicinal. On skin the true oud note develops, it is musty and pungent, woody and nutty, deep and resinous and probably not a scent that everyone will love. As it dries, amber emerges and the drydown is a gorgeous oud/amber.  This is a very simple scent, there are no surprises, nothing much happens... But if you love oud this is awesome!

De la Forêt is quite similar but a bit more complex. In the bottle this scent smells a lot like Attar al Oudh, but not as musty with more of a fresh forest character. On wet there is a flash of oud at first but then comes other exotic woods and a large dose of musk. This is a more delicate scent, not at all as musty and pungent as Attar al Oudh. The oud is still noticable but one of many notes rather than de dominant note. There are sweet notes of tonka and amber as well as sharper notes that I can´t quite place. This dries down to a gorgeous, but not very special, woody amber that at times morphs into something that smells much like fresh mushrooms. I get that mushroom note sometimes in various scents, I don´t know where it comes from, but I love it! My theory is that it´s a quirk of my skin, that turns some vanillas into this fungal note... There is no vanilla listed in the description of this scent, but it might still be there, so I´m not dismissing this theory quite yet...

Attar al Oudh has greater sillage than De la Forêt, but they both have about the same longevity, about six hours on me. I love both of these scents but perhaps not enough to get full size bottles. But I definitely want to experience more oud perfumes! Can you recommend any?

Perfume Review - Miel de Sauvage et Tabac

Miel de Sauvage et Tabac by Alkemia.

I have had Alkemia among my favorites on Etsy for a long time, but never ordered. Miel de Sauvage et Tabac (otherwise known as MdSeT) was the reson I finally ordered some samples from Alkemia. I had read many rave reviews about this scent and it sounded so intriguing, I just hade to try it. (If you want to read some of the reviews that influenced me there is one here and one here.)

I love this one, but i also HATE it! Even now as I prepare to review this I hesitate to put it on my skin... I can smell it as soon as I open the film canister where I keep it... It overpowers every other scent in that film canister. So far it is a lovely scent though. Then I take a deep breath to master my nerves and open the vial...

In the bottle it is still quite lovely. The tobacco is muted, a resinous and sweet tobacco, covered in honey. Then I put it on my skin.

Something scary happens when this is put on my skin, it was mild and sweet in the bottle, on wet it is a monster!! The sillage is unbelieveable, I cannot escape this scent even with my hand as far from my nose as possible. And at this stage I do want to escape. Right now this smells, no stinks like my grandmothers house where she has been smoking indoors for 40 years. It smells musty and stale. Is it supposed to smell like this? I don´t know, it might be my skin. My skin does strange things sometimes...

Unfortunately this first stage does not go away for a couple of hours. The power if this is impressive, I just wish I loved it. When it finally does calm down it is wonderful. When the tobacco softens and the honey gets to bloom it is gorgeous and the amber in the background is warm and beautiful. Truly awesome drydown! Oh, and the longevity is immense! 24 hours on me!

Tobacco is usually a very comforting scent to me as my awesome mother is a smoker, but this tobacco does not remind me of her... it reminds me of my grandmother, and that is not as positive. I´ll still be keeping this sample though, I will try to layer it with other scents as it is intriguing and might add interest to a boring scent. But I don´t think I can stomach wearing it as is, the wet stage is just too unsettling and overpowering. Perhaps if I scrub it a little after putting it on, maybe I could skip the whole wet stage completely... I will have to try!

Still, I recommend everyone to try this one, it is the most unique scent I have tried to date! You might just love it, or you will hate it, but in any case you will have had a memorable experience!

Perfume - Samples from Alkemia

So this is my sample haul from Alkemia. I have read so much about Alkemia on other blogs, so I bought two sample packs right away, and got two free samples. So far I´m in love with a bout half of them, like a few more and dislike a couple. There is also a love/hate relationship going on with one of them. I received them a week ago and I´m just about ready to review...

Here is a list of the samples received and the notes:

• Smoke & Mirrors - burning wood, madagascar vanilla, tonka.
• Moon Goddess - datura, cereus, poppy, water musk, cucumber, melon.
• Miel de Sauvage et Tabac - pipe tobacco, honey, honeycomb, forest blossoms, amber.
• Wing of Bat - oakmoss, green patchouli, fern, dirt, ambergris, leather.
• Incendere - carnations, spices, incense, bay rum.
• Ardorem 21 - coriander, mandarin, amber, nutmeg, saffron, bourbon geranium, blue lotus, tobacco, musk, clove, sandalwood, vetiver, kashmiri tea, cardamom, black pepper, and japanese incense.
• De la Forêt - amber, golden musk, orris, tonka, bergamot, rosewood, oud, sandalwood, paper, oakmoss, birch tar, vetiver.
• Les Mysteres - frankincense, fig, labdanum, amber, russian tea, musk.
• Attar Al Oud - oud, dark musk, sandalwood, amber.
• Soma - cannabis, artemesia, spanish broom, opium poppy, morning glory, snake root, absinthe.
• Arcanum - eastern spices, aged patchouli, sandalwood, frankincense, nag champa, dragons blood.
• Falling Stars on Winter Solstice - balsam needles, dark musk, sweet myrrh, incense, melted snow, wood smoke.

I was just wondering if there are any wishes as to which one I should review first? Any one scent that is especially interesting?