Indie Makeup and More

9/20- Poesie Charm of Making (amber honey in the comb, antique pages bound in leather, bunches of lavender smoked over a wood fire, jars of dried chamomile, juniper & clary sage). This one is a nice soft herbal blend, we'll see how long it lasts. I'm going through my Reissue scents and retesting them all to see what's worth keeping. The throw and staying power is just not there for most of the scents I've tried.

My Deconstructing Eden samples finally arrived yesterday! I'm impatient so I'm testing two today (9/20):

Green Man (earth, moss, dark woods, rosewood, cedar, amber, agarwood, mahogany, green leaves, and conifer branches). When first applied, this was heavy on the "earth" (lots of dirt), but it mellowed pretty quickly. After a few hours, I'm mostly getting confier branches and cedar with maybe a bit of amber (some sweetness), but it seems to be fading a fair bit. It's nice but I was hoping for more green leaves. When the dirt note softened but before the scent started to fade significantly, there was a pleasant "picking pine cones in a dense, damp forest" vibe, although it did come off a bit camphor-y on me. It seems like a nice unisex sort of scent, but the lasting power on me is disappointing.

Naamah (Rose Attar and rose absolute, jasmine, ylang-ylang, dove wings, and amber). I don't know what "dove wings" is supposed to be -- maybe a sweet white floral? Because I'm getting a lot of that, plus jasmine and amber, and maybe a little ylang-ylang. There was a lot of rose at first, but after a few hours, the rose notes have become really subtle on me, which is disappointing because I was hoping for something really rosy. It's not fading nearly as much as Green Man, so that's a plus. It seems to have dried down to a pleasant jasmine/white floral, which is nice but a little more generic-y than I was hoping for.

I waited a long time for this order and the packaging was really nice. Even though these first two samples aren't really what I was looking for, I'm glad to have tried them. I ordered 9 samples in total, and a bonus sample was included, so I've got lots more to try!

9/21 -- testing a couple more Deconstructing Eden samples:

Libra (a perfectly balanced blend of soft air, ivy, clover, oakmoss absolute, tonka bean butter, and clean amber). This is quite pretty and somewhat powdery. I wish I was getting more ivy and clover from it, but I like it overall so far. I think the tonka bean is giving it a slight "sweet pipe tobacco" note, which helps keep it from being cloying, although it is maybe a touch sweeter than I'd prefer. Really wish for more greenery!

Poseidon (crashing waves, seaweed absolute, ambergris, ozonic air, and a touch of petrichor). I've always lived in the Midwest and haven't been around oceans very much, so I'm probably not very good at judging whether something is a true ocean scent or not. This seems ocean-y to me, though -- like a mild, sort of windy day on a seaweed-y beach. A few minutes after I applied it, it got a little urinal-cake-like, but that seems to have settled down. So far, I like this quite a bit, but I don't know if I like it enough to FS it.

Today is Arcana Wildcraft's Two Finger Ballet (delicate blend of French vanilla crème, white amber, sugared vanilla beans, caramel, and the smallest dab of opium). This one became an instant favorite as soon as I sniffed a sample in my first order. It was promptly FS'd with my next order. It feels like such a sexy grown up vanilla.