Sample Grab Bag

Sometimes you just find no one or two things in the sample closet that call to you as needing a review, so I went and grabbed a bunch of new to me things from the sample bag to see which charms and which might bite me.

Mona di Orio – Bohea Boheme. A tea scent with notes of Bergamot, sichuan pepper, cardamom, iris, chamomile, balsam fir, boxwood, geranium, black tea, juniper, smoke, oak, sandalwood, beeswax, bay leaf, benzoin, vanilla.  I am pretty much liking this.  It’s a very soft tea, more creamy and a little floral.  One for tea lovers to try for sure.

Majda Bekkali Tulaytulah – notes of Cherry blossom, cypress, star anise, bitter almond, frangipani, malt, musky leather, blond suede, tonka bean, vanilla.  This is a really interesting gourmand, heavier on the gourmand on the open, but steps it back a bit.

Agonist Nordic Noir – Notes of Cardamom, rosemary, spearmint, mint, orris, ginger, heliotrope, cedar, sandalwood, vanilla, musk.  Okay, just no. I thought maybe at first, but the spearmint/rosemary/heliotrope combo turned it into cough syrup on me.

Memo Marfa – holy tuberose!  Notes of Mandarin, orange blossom, agave, tuberose, ylang ylang, sandalwood, cedar, vanilla, white musk.  This a pretty big tuberose. Not my favorite tuberose, but a decent one.

The Renegades Mark Buxton – Notes of Basil, lentisque, black pepper, cassis, galbanum, leather, rhododendron, labdanum, gaiac, vetiver, amber.  A Buxton incense gives me no end of pleasure, and the basil sharpens this just a little in all the right ways.  And wow.  Love it, it seems really close to that mosuljewreligion thing he did.  Perfect incense.

The Renegades Geza Schoen – Notes of Pink pepper, lemon, bergamot, cassis, lime, osmanthus, iris, fir, juniper, hedione, mate, iso-E super, cedar, sandalwood, labdanum, incense, myrrh, castoreum, ambrette.  Iso-E landed in a forest and grew incense on the the mossy tree bark. I really kind of love it.

The Renegades Bertrand Duchaufour – Notes of Pink pepper, bergamot, cardamom, gin, cassis, galbanum, red berries, olibanum, hinoki, balsam fir, driftwood, amber.  Normally I loe Duchaufour, and I have a feeling this should work fo rme, but I think it’s the gin note that I’m anosmic to that is making this read all alcohol.  I get a lot of interesting things, then the alcohol note just buries everything else. This is the fault of my nose, not the fragrance.

Those are the quick hits for today.  I’ll do a drawing for one lucky winner to get all of my little samples in this post from the comments.  Which one sounds most like you’d love it?

Winner of last week’s drawing for the Amouage Myths samples – SamanthaL, Fleurious, Elaine and Petunia. Just click on Drop Us a Note at the top, send me an e-mail, remind me of what you won and get me your mailing address. I’ll send you a quick e-mail to let you know I got your e-mail and it didn’t land in a spam filter and then get it on the way to you.