Hello everyone – today I’m back with three more scents pulled from the Credo Beauty sample bag a friend gave me a few weeks ago, selected at random for perusal. I found a couple I really liked last time; what will happen on this round?
Ellis Brooklyn Myth – the card inside (which I didn’t read before sampling) says “clean sheets, bare skin … an intimate, stunning fragrance that invites you to lean in a little closer.” Huh. That’s interesting, because this made me lean as far away from my arm as I could without detaching it from my body. Notes: white musk, jasmine, cassis, cedarwood.
Look, this is 100% not designed for me. I dislike that predominant “clean laundry” smell in perfumery, home scents, body products, and/or in the actual laundry product aisle in the grocery store, which smells oddly acrid/sour to me and which I avoid like the plague. Also, while I’m being a pill, these seem like a waste of time and money. If you want to smell like this, fine – buy a similarly-scented laundry detergent, or some dryer sheets, and have at it. If it’s more of that white musk aspect you’re after, go to the drugstore (or the internet) and get some Jovan White Musk or, if you’re feeling saucy, some Coty Wild Musk. The nicest thing I can say about Myth is it wasn’t persistent enough to be a scrubber.
Next!
Heretic Parfum Dirty Vanilla – I snickered like a preteen boy at the text on the card, which reads like a bodice-ripper, here’s a sample (“both male and female organs nestled deep in the throat of the bloom … from first shy blossom to aromatic climax…”) To be fair, what they’re going on about in this purple-prose way is how (fun fact!) natural vanilla comes from the seed pods of a particular orchid, Vanilla planifolia. “Warm, rich, centering, sensual.”
The opening’s weird … almost barnyard on top of vanilla? In a good way, nice and dirty. Great start! Unfortunately that delightful foreplay doesn’t last long enough, the climax is premature and I’m left unsatisfied while this scent rolls over and goes immediately to sleep, so to speak. A little rasp, a little spice (sandalwood, coriander) but mostly a clean, tame vanilla amber with a woodsy musk remnant after several hours. I mean, I didn’t hate it, but I won’t be using up my sample.
Next!
Ceremonia Perfume de la Tierra – I was hoping this was going to be an incense fragrance, but it turns out I had the name of the brand and the fragrance reversed – Ceremonia is the company’s name, a “clean hair care brand on a mission…” Oh honey, aren’t we all?!?
Boiling the text on the sample card down: woody notes, lemon zest, tonka, violet, black tea, vetiver, brown sugar. “Enjoy the woodiness of a vibrant, humid rainforest,” which … isn’t what those notes conjure up, at least for me, but let’s get on with it.
We started off poorly because the atomizer doesn’t work so I had to pry it apart, but the effort was worth it. Oooh, this is nice! Lots of zesty lemon in the opening, then what smells more like herbal tea (maybe the earthiness of the vetiver?), a bit peppery, drying down to a sort of woodsy cologne-level intensity – a subtle skin scent, but it sticks around. I’m not going to run out and buy it, but I’d wear it if it fell in my lap, especially during summer which seems like more its season.
Honestly, even when I don’t love them, I wasn’t bored — which is a win. Have you tried any of these?
images via Pexels
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