#molinard

(picture from the store website again, I don't know why every time I try something on myself I feel like a thief and just put it on and run away)

Alright, so full disclosure - this is literally "The guy who only tried 'El Primer Deseo' by Fakoshima smelling another perfume: wow, I'm literally getting some heavy 'El Primer Deseo' by Fakoshima vibes from this," because yes, it did remind me of it, while no one of fragrantica compares them.

It starts like leather and smoke and some spices, it's not very bitter, but there's some sting - almost not sweet at all. Fakoshima is much richer and much woodier and more bitter at the start. I yet again didn't feel almost any top notes - no distinct citruses or anything.

Then it starts getting a little sweeter, less smoky and less spicy, while the leather remains. It didn't stay on the skin for too long (an hour or two) and the thing that clang to me was pretty light and sweet wood - I presume thanks to oud, sandal wood and amber.

Notes: orange blossom, raspberry, peach, bergamot; lilac, orris, jasmine, heliotrope, ylang-ylang, rose; leather, amber, musk, benzoin, vanilla, oakmoss, cedar

My first thought when smelling this was “This smells like Halloween.”

It smells orange. Not like the fruit, but like a sweet pumpkin Yankee Candle in a craft store in October, the kind that has potpourri and strings of paper ghosts to hang on the porch and decorative gourds and Indian corn. 

It smells friendly and Midwestern and utterly, almost charmingly, uncool.  

Luca Turin describes it as “vanilla vetiver”, but I don’t really get the vetiver, or indeed anything distinctly leathery. I get vanilla/benzoin + something orange-brown, maybe tobacco, plus a waxy smell from the orris. It’s a solid block of orange potpourri-candle smell, all the way through, completely linear, for hours and hours even after you bathe.

Habanita