#custom samples

SAMPLE 1 (PERFUME OIL) || Black tea, pink sugar, tea rose, sandalwood, teak, heather, white grapefruit E.O., light grass, pink pepper, tonka.

The black tea at the very front of this one makes this scent start out very, very sharp, and pretty dang soapy, with an edge of sour grapefruit. It's not a 'hot' black tea note, either: i'd say it's more like black tea that's been cooled to room temperature, or maybe just straight tea leaves. The sugar's there, rounding out the grapefruit, and underneath it is a lush, smooth, floral sweetness, which I assume is the tea rose. It's nice - some rose notes can go overly perfumey or hairspray-ish, and luckily, this isn't one of them. No wood notes, though, but woody notes tend to get lost on my skin unless they're VERY strong or it's a real simple perfume.

After maybe an hour and a half of wear, this one begins to fade, and I have a hard time really picking out the particular notes from that point: it's a little fruity-sweet, very femme, and pretty leafy-soapy. The fruitiness almost smells... Tropical? Weird. Maybe it's the tonka working some magic.

tl;dr: Sharp and soapy tea and citrus with a hint of sugary sweetness and lush, smooth rose. Gets a fruity-tropical smell on the drydown.

RATING: 3.5/5. Not bad, but a little bit too much on the soapy side of tea for me.

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SAMPLE 2 (PERFUME OIL) || Ruby red grapefruit, white tea leaf, pink sugar, jasmine & tea rose accord, lotus, sweet grass, pink grapefruit E.O., blackberry.

G R A P E F R U I T. Hard grapefruit. Rich, sweet, juicy, sour, deep red grapefruit that's been sugared just enough to make this feel... Punk, almost. Hollywood cerise with neon yellow splattered over it. It's absolutely delicious. That ruby red grapefruit note is, seriously, to die for: if you're gonna get a custom with grapefruit in it, i'd probably suggest this particular note. The florals are there, but they're very light and delicate, and come out more with wear: they're very smooth, not powdery at all. There's a little bit of green-ness in this, too - it's well-blended so it's hard to pick out in particular, but my sister could smell it pretty well, and I think it's the tea leaf.

The grapefruit eventually fades away and just leaves that elegant and smooth jasmine + tea rose accord, with an undercurrent of that grass note - which is nice, sweet and green and very unmistakably grassy smelling - and just a little bite of bitterness from a very realistic blackberry note.

It's got hellllla sillage - i'll catch whiffs of it all the time while it's wet, and I know my boss could smell it from a good few feet away. It can last up to 6-7 hours on me, but probably starts to fade around the 3-4 hour mark

tl;dr: RICH sugared grapefruit with gentle florals that dries down to an elegant, smooth floral with a hint of grass and bitter blackberry.

RATING: 6/5. I love this. It's beautiful, rich, perfectly meets the mood I was trying to get, transformative, complex while not getting lost in its notes... It's just SO GOOD. This is the one I ended up getting a full size of. It's awesome. *kisses fingertips*

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SAMPLE 3 (PERFUME OIL) || Carnation, tea rose, earl grey, pink sugar, spruce, feminine-woods, white grapefruit E.O., teak, pink grapefruit E.O., pink pepper.

This smells like a rich, velvety, smooth flower that's been coated in powdered sugar, with some hints of citrus - it's not quite reading as grapefruit to me, so I think it might be bergamot from the earl grey note. As it dries down, the powderiness goes away, and that nice, juicy, grapefruit note comes out - not as rich as sample 2's red grapefruit, but probably a bit more realistic; you can almost smell the white filmy skin that covers the grapefruit, y'know?

...Aaaand... This has me craving grapefruit, so i'm gonna just, go, uh... Eat a grapefruit.

.....

.....Okay, back from grapefruiting. (This is not a bit. I actually did this.)

I tend to lose most woody notes on me, as mentioned before, but my sister tried this on and amped the spruce pretty hard: it gave everything a bit of that evergreen minty scent. This lasts for about 3 hours before fading down to a soft, candy-like sweetness.

tl;dr: Sweet-smelling powdery florals amped up with sugar and a citrus edge that dries down to realistic grapefruit, then a simple fruity-candy smell.

RATING: 4/5. I'm not huge on powdery, but this was nice, and that grapefruit E.O note is hella good. Very realistic. Realistic enough to put me on a grapefruit kick.

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SAMPLE 4 (PERFUME OIL) || Musk, dark plum, pink sugar, black tea, white grapefruit E.O., sandalwood, pink pepper, a drop of teak.

This starts out like, 80% plum, dark and cold and lightly tart, with just a little hint of sugar and just enough of a 'drinkable', watery-smelling quality to identify the black tea. Sometimes I can catch whiffs of the musk - sharp and humid - but not too often. As it dries down, the grapefruit comes out, nice and sour but not sharp or astringent, kind of a delicate grapefruit, and the tea is WAAAY more noticible: smooth and green and like, vaguely soapy in the way that tea can be. Not as soapy as Sample 1, tho. I'm also getting the pink pepper, which i'm really excited about! It makes my nose tingle without smelling overwhelmingly, well, peppery. I've had much more experience with black pepper, and this is so much lighter. If I really huff at it, I think i'm picking up... The sandalwood? It's a dusty, warm wood, but very faint, under everything else. Makes a good base for all the other colder notes.

When it dries down, I get a smell that's kind of like tart, tangy bubblegum, and then eventually, an indistinguishable creamy sweetness.

The scent is pretty light - detectable, but not super strong or filling the room. It lasts for a pretty long time, though: I put some on last night and could smell sugary sweetness on my wrists come morning.

tl;dr: Dark, cold plum and sugar with a hint of musk that dries down to drinkable-smelling black tea, delicate grapefruit, a faint base of warm sandalwood, and a sparkle of pink pepper.

RATING: 4.5/5. My second favorite of the scents, but it doesn't quite match the mood I was going for, and a plum note that swings bubblegummy isn't my cuppa tea.

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SAMPLE 5 (PERFUME OIL) || Green tea, pink grapefruit E.O., bamboo, white grapefruit E.O., hot pink sugar (stronger), sunflower, driftwood.

I've already got a name picked out for my custom, but if I were to pick this one, i'd pick something else, and it would, quite simply, be 'pink tea' - because that's what it smells like. At the forefront, unmistakeable green tea - smooth, but decidedly herbal, and not particularly soapy - and pink sugar. I'm testing this wearing it on the inside and outside of my wrists, and it smells different - I assume because my skin on the outside of my wrist is drier, so it's fading more quickly. On the inside, i'm getting a gentle floral sweetness that I can't quite place. On the outside, a woody base, and very subtle... I assume white grapefruit note.

Lookin' at the notes... Yep, this smells about as Green with Pink as those suggest. I don't really have much more to add on it: green tea and green notes with sugar and grapefruit that dries down to a subtly sweet sunflower with a woody driftwood base. OH - it fades kinda fast. Within two hours I could barely smell it. ...But maybe that's because i've just gotten grapefruit juice all over my hands and it's overpowering everything.

I've been, uh. On a pretty big grapefruit kick while writing this.

tl;dr: check that last full paragraph, i've basically got it there.

RATING: 4/5. Nice, with some excellent notes, but not quite what I was lookin' for.

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RUBECULA - ROBIN (PERFUME OIL) || Wild blueberries, wet garden mud, nag champa and vintage musk.

At first: Blueberries, and it's a pretty good blueberry note. I don't like blueberries. Everything about them tells me they're gonna be nice and tart, and then they're way sweeter than I want. Even the sour ones are sweeter than I want. Every blueberry muffin i've ever eaten, i've wanted it to be delicious sweet vanilla complimented by tart zingy blueberries, and every single time it's been a heartbreaking too-sweet disappointment.

And, unfortunately, this is true for this too: it's just... *shakes fist* TOO REALISTIC

But, really, it's very warmly sweet as blueberries tend to be, but also with an edge of tartness that comes out after a few minutes that I big appreciate. It's a very true blueberry scent. Underneath it is a hint of that mud note, which is surprisingly clean for, well, mud - it's like... A gentle earthiness, and a WHOLE lotta wet, like wading through the cool water of a marsh. Every now and then I get something that smells sort of dank and spicey, which I assume to be the nag champa, and then there's the vintage musk, which... Alright, so, it's hard to tell whether it's the blueberries going powdery or the musk, but i'm getting something that smells like makeup powder. I'd say that that powderiness is sort of ever-present, all encompassing everything else. It dries down, basically, to powdery blueberries, and lasts for-fuckin'-everrrr. I was still smelling it into the next morning.

This is pretty, but just a bit too blueberry-sweet for me.

tl;dr: warm, sweet and slightly sour blueberries, powder, and a subtle wet earthiness, with very vague whiffs of spicy, dank nag champa.

RATING: 4/5. Once again, a well-crafted scent with great notes that just isn't quite my jam, because i'm a blueberry hater.

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