Cocoa Pink Bavarian Coconut Cake Review

Brand: Cocoa Pink
Availability: General Catalog
Notes: Rich creamy custard cake sprinkled with toasted coconut. 

First impression out of bottle: Sweet coconut

Freshly applied: Sickly sweet caramel coconut with butter

Drydown: Still a bit sickly, butter cake with coconut. Has kind of a rancid butter smell. 

After several hours: Same as drydown. 

Longevity: High
Sillage: Medium high

Would an [X] lover love this? I'm a gourmand lover and a coconut lover and I'm not a fan. I think Cocoa Pink can do milk/cream notes well, but the custard in this smells like scalded milk to me. Unpleasant. If you want to give it a try, I get the feeling it would be good on different skin chemistries. 

Would an [X] hater love this? If you hate milk notes or custard notes because they tend to smell burnt or sickly to you, maybe give it a pass.

Where am I? Eating coconut mixed with burnt microwave popcorn butter.

Where would I wear this? I wouldn't wear it, but if it smelled more like what I imagined, I'd wear it for daytime and warm weather. 

Cocoa Pink Coconut Rum Cake Review

Brand: Cocoa Pink
Availability: General Catalog Autumn/Winter (N/A in Spring/Summer)
Notes: A scrumptious bakery arrangement beginning with almond extract, chopped almonds, and dark rum followed by sugar cane, coconut milk, vanilla extract, and heavy cream topped off with flaked coconut.

First impression out of bottle: Sharp rum and coconut

Freshly applied: Straight coconut Malibu rum

Smells like...lemon cake??

Drydown: Something kind of lemony. Almost smells like OHWTO The Cake Is a Lie. Weird! Now I get a lovely crumbly cake scent, kind of like cake covered in brown sugar. There is still a steeped-in-rum feeling and a nice tropical feel like flaked toasty coconut. I'm so confused why this smells like lemon cake though. I guess my nose could be interpreting sharpness from the rum as citrus, but it's  bit unnerving!

After several hours: The coconut becomes beautiful and silky, almost like you made an icing from coconut milk and powdered sugar. Very tropical smelling. Still smells like lemon cake!

Longevity: High
Sillage: High

Would an [X] lover love this? This is definitely a successful gourmand scent. I am bewildered by the lemon but I still enjoy this.

Would an [X] hater love this? Cake haters need not apply. This is a very sweet gourmand with prominent cake notes.

Where am I? Drinking a rum cocktail and eating lemon-coconut cake at someone's destination wedding.

Where would I wear this? Summer, daytime. Especially considering I get such a fierce lemon cake smell, this reads warm weather to me. Not like a heavy dark Christmas rum cake. Oh well!

Possets Courtly Love Review

Brand: Possets
Availability: General Catalog
Notes: Coconut (here used more as a serious element rather than a novelty) dances with apricot and a light kiss of vanilla and a very sweet, not stinky, jasmine. 

First impression out of bottle: Apricot jam

Freshly applied: Mm this smells just like KIND bars- Apricot & Almond flavor mixed with the Almond & Coconut flavor. The apricot is  jammy on me, like semi-dried fruit with a concentrated flavor.

Smells like an overpriced fruit and nut bar

Drydown: There's now a little more "perfumey" scent, not so much the straight food scent that it was at first. The coconut pops out too, it smells very much like the coconut in the LE Silver Coconut from Possets, which is a bit musky and vanillic. Mmm now I get a really nice pure jasmine note, very soft and tropical. I think it's mingling with the coconut to give me that beachy/humid feel and I love it. Not stinky or spicy at all! The apricot is still there, but it's almost like a background note now. I love it. The apricot comes back out to play, stronger than the jasmine again and this is my favorite part of the transformation. It's a sweet, pure apricot with nutty nuances from the almond/coconut and a hint of delicate jasmine.

YES, Apricot Jasmine Macarons exist and that's exactly what this smells like

After several hours: The strongest remaining notes are the apricot and jasmine. Super delicious, swirly, and feminine. The mix of notes on the drydown almost makes me think of jasmine tea, in addition to the jasmine/apricot macarons from before. 

Longevity: High. This 
Sillage: High. This has amazing throw for a fruity-floral! Intense, sweet, floral, and powerful.

Would an [X] lover love this? Fruity-floral lovers need it. It's more unusual/unexpected than your mainstream fruity-floral but it's totally beginner-friendly.

Would an [X] hater love this? I think this could appeal to jasmine-haters but they'd need to try a sample first.

Where am I? Having a tea party in a secret garden.

Where would I wear this? This is a spring/summer scent for sure. I'd wear this to a wedding, garden party, or other romantic/girly event. It's super fun and that perfect combo of perfumey and edible that I love so much.

NAVA OM NA: Eternity Review

Brand: Nocturne Alchemy

Availability: General Catalog
Notes: desert sage, softened resin of vetiver, the scent of temple grass, black coconut milk and husk, dragon's breath incense and white benzoin liquid resin of the netherworld

First impression out of bottle: Dank grassiness

Freshly applied: Grassy from the vetiver at first. The sage is there, giving that herbal nose tickle but the vetiver is front and center. I get almost the dark damp quality you can get with patchouli, only without the rubbery potential. This is a very WET sage scent. Not a smudge stick, no burning or ash, just like an offering of sage and herbs that has been rained on. No coconut yet.

Damp, fresh herb bundles

Drydown: As it dries, I get some black/dark coconut, and the blend sweetens a tad. Light on the incense, definitely not a burn-y or smoky smell. Wet and dark and twisted, like the inner tunnels of an ancient temple. There’s no stone notes, but it absolutely reminds me of being inside ancient tombs when I visited Egypt. Cold. Interesting and beautiful. And I also start getting another coconut note, milky and white, to go with the black husk note from before.

Black coconut husk joins the wet sage

After several hours: The more I smell it, the more I love the paradox of the milky sweet coconut and the wet-smelling sage. It’s not like food or like anything I’d immediately deem attractive…but it’s kind of addictive and weird and pleasant in an unusual way. At first it was so grassy and cold but now it’s warmed up with the benzoin and the coconut, so I think it will layer fantastically with a sweeter or woodsy scent.

Sweet, pure coconut milk lightens up the dark, earthy blend

Longevity: High, as with most NAVAs. This is a morpher though, and the ultimate drydown described above is what lasts most of the day.
Sillage: High, which may be an issue as it's quite strange-smelling at first. It settles into something much more pleasant. Maybe don't apply this at your desk, though.

Would an [X] lover love this? I don't even know how to classify this scent, so...would a sage lover like this? I'd say YES unless they only like "dry" smelling sage. This is rich, a bit grassy, herbal, and dark. It's unusual for sure, but I think people who like sage are usually pretty adventurous.

Would an [X] hater love this? Would a sage hater love this? Maybe! I did not like it when freshly applied, but it has this uncanny fascinating moreish smell, where you just want to keep sniffing. It's rather addictive and surprisingly wearable. I'd say give this a spin even if you are a coconut or sage hater.

Where am I? When I wear this, I feel totally transported to a damp ancient temple. I smell hanging plants and offerings of herbs and sweet coconut, and the hint of incense.

Where would I wear this? I probably wouldn't wear this out to dinner, it's not a sexy date type of scent. I would wear this if I wanted to go for a long walk by myself, or maybe at work on a day when I needed to be focused and feel strong. It's kind of a subtle "power scent" because it has a pleasant sweetness but a strong backbone.