Sarawen Perfume Haul

Late last year I finally got around to reviewing some Sarawen perfumes I'd bought and then pretty much forgotten about months earlier, and since then I've been wanting more. I recently got around to doing another order - annoyingly I'd left it so long that several of the ones on my wishlist are no longer available - and decided to make the shipping worthwhile and pick up quite a few at the same time. I'm not going to talk about all of them here as I haven't tested them yet, but I'll give you the basic rundown of what I bought (I'm assuming these prices are in Canadian dollars as this store is Canadian).

First of all, packaging and presentation is gorgeous - the samples are 1.5ml and come in little screw top bottles (much easier to deal with than vials with wand caps). The labels have been designed to fit in with the rest of the shop's theme and look just as lovely as the regular sized bottles.

Shipping for me for a total of 14 sample bottles was $10.40CAD, which is very reasonable considering the recent US price hike has all of us internationals shelling out $12US and up on the bare minimum of purchases these days (boourns!). My only concern is that although they were packed in a bubble mailer, the bottles themselves were not wrapped in bubble wrap, just (albeit very pretty) tissue paper. Given the general carelessness of Australia Post workers, it's just blind luck nothing was broken. Sara did put a sticker on it saying that the contents were glass and therefore fragile, however I've had several PO employees cheerfully tell me that they have no 'fragile' service here and those stickers mean nothing to them. I think I'd rather pay a bit more in shipping and know that my little glass bottles are safe - or at least more safe.

So on to what I bought! The descriptions are the seller's own.

Sherlock Holmes sampler - $15

Logical Deduction - Sophisticated notes of bay rum, Earl Grey tea, and tobacco, with a hint of leather and dark chocolate. This is a unisex fragrance inspired by Sherlock Holmes, and is reminiscent of a gentleman's Victorian parlour.

Logical Delusion - A dangerous and cunning blend of poisoned tea, tobacco, and gunpowder, with a hint of nag champa and absinthe. Beware, Holmes! This is a unisex fragrance that borders towards masculine and is inspired by the character of Moriarty from the world of Sherlock Holmes - it is the perfect foil to my Holmes' fragrance, 'Logical Deduction'!

Scandal in London - She's seductive, secretive, and little dangerous! Feminine lilac and ylang ylang flowers blends with feisty dragonsblood with a light hint of eastern sandalwood. A touch of Holmes' favourite tobacco tops off this sultry floriental perfume.This perfume is inspired by the character of Irene Aldler from the world of Sherlock Holmes. 

Tea With Watson - Take a break from adventuring and stop at 221 Baker Street for awhile. White tea, delicious yellow cake, and a dash of cream caramel layered over light tobacco and bay rum. It smells just like a tea party at Holmes and Watson's flat! This is a balanced unisex fragrance inspired by the world of Sherlock Holmes.

The Hunger Games sampler - $11.50

Girl on Fire - Wild strawberries gathered from the forest blend with the comforting scent of leather hunting boots, and in her hair a very faint hint of sweet forest herbals. A pretty scent, but not to be taken lightly - rebellion lurks beneath the feminine fruit notes!

Run Away With Me - The masculine scent of leather melded with gunpowder and soot from District 12's coal mines. A whisper of wild strawberries and amber completes this unisex fragrance inspired by the character of Gale from the Hunger Games.

The Baker's Boy - Spend a day frosting and decorating cakes with Peeta. A luscious, gourmand fragrance bursting with ripe strawberries (from Katniss of course!) and delicious yellow cake. Underneath the delicious-ness drifts soft vetiver, leather, and golden amber. This perfume is a unisex blend that borders towards feminine.

I also bought a set of 3 custom samples for $11.50:

Lion's Roar (Game of Thrones) - Let them Hear You Roar. Sexy leather blends with luscious neroli blossoms and earthy patchouli to create this unisex fragrance that embodies the Lannister family's conquering and ferocious nature. Top notes of frankincense, vanilla, and precious woods completes this rich fragrance! Primary notes: neroli, leather, frankincense, rosewood, vanilla.


Beer'n'Butter (Harry Potter) - A delicious and foamy elixir! Creamy butterscotch, dreamy vanilla, and a dash of pumpkin layered with a drop of coffee as you sit relaxing by the pub's roaring fire.


Lady Nightingale (Dragon Age) -Fragrant white flowers of ginger blossom, jasmine, and gardenia over a sensuous base of light musk. Topped off with a single note of sweet vanilla. Delicate and innocent, yet charmingly sexy.This scent is an ultra-feminine floral musk inspired by the character of Lelianna from the Dragon Age game.

Note: I've reviewed this perfume for my other blog here.

Ambrosia Chocolat (free sample) - "If you are not feeling well, if you have not slept, chocolate will revive you. But you have no chocolate! I think of that again and again! My dear, how will you ever manage?" - Marquise de Sévigné... Chocolate: delicious, sensuous, and an absolute necessity! This scent will satisfy your chocolate craving as it drizzles with honey, dark chocolate, and hints of vanilla cream. A scrumptious blend of tasty treats with a light touch of patchouli to round out the sweetness. A gourmand perfume that will have you constantly sniffing your own wrists! Main notes: chocolate, amber, honey, vanilla.


And of course, because this is going to be the big theme among indie cosmetic artists this year, I had to get the sampler of The Great Gatsby ($11.50). I haven't seen the movie and I'm not entirely sure I'm all that interested. I'm iffy on Baz Lurhmann - sometimes his movies are a glorious mess (Moulin Rouge), and sometimes they're just a mess (Australia). The Great Gatsby looks... ehhhhhh. I do love the book though, after reading it for school and then many times since, so I'm all for buying into the current craze. And of course, I'm all for anything inspired by the 1920s - when are they going to bring back The House of Eliott, I ask!

Jaded Ambition - He lights his expensive cigar, watching the party descend until dawn. The enigmatic Mr. Gatsby seems to have many secrets. Sidling up beside him, he gives you a friendly grin and you catch the aroma of his sweet cigar, exotic woods, citrus, and little hint of Daisy's orchid perfume. For only one woman can truly hold his heart. Main notes: tobacco, citrus accord, oud, coffee, orchid, benzoin. This scent is inspired by the character of Jay Gatsy from F. Scott Fitzgerald's American masterpiece, and is unisex bordering to masculine fragrance.

Manly men doing manly things. The tobacco and oud amp on me and it's almost headachy. The coffee is in the background but it's so subtle I couldn't place what it was. Not for me, but I think those who like very masculine scents would enjoy this.

Jaded Decadence - She's the ultimate party girl. She is youth, beauty, and decadence personified. Her athletic figure dances to the latest rage - jazz music. And soon you note the scent of violets, rose, and a hint of cream vanilla and sweet red wine. She flashes a smile and the young men sigh. Main notes: violets, vanilla, rose, chypre, citrus accord, merlot wine. This scent is inspired by the character of Jordan Baker from F. Scott Fitzgerald's American masterpiece, and is a floriental -style scent for modern flappers!

The wine adds an interesting seedy element to this- it's quite clever. This is a fairly strong floral, dominated by the violet. Definitely more of a night time perfume than an office one.

Jaded Innocence - Distant yet so close. Cold, but still yearning for a past love. Her soft eyes twinkle, and the scent of orchids, cream, honey, and violets fill the sense. She speaks, and the warm timbre of her voice can still make Gatsby weaken at the knees. Main notes: orchid, champagne, honey, citrus accord, chypre. This scent is inspired by the character of Daisy Buchanan from F. Scott Fitzgerald's American masterpiece, and is a soft floriental scent for modern flappers!

Again, the boozy note brings this perfume out of the realm of your bog standard sweet florals. And again, it's quite strong, though the honey softens it up after 30 minutes or so. I liked this one the best of the three.

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Sarawen has two shops - Big Cartel and Etsy. I bought this order from Etsy, really only because I prefer it for ease when I can use it. My last order was through the Big Cartel site, and there's really no difference except that one may sometimes have stock the other doesn't.

In summary, Sarawen is a gorgeous little perfume shop, and I highly recommend trying it out.

My Indie Perfume Collection

*Warning - this is a super long, pic heavy post. 

In the last few years I have gone a bit bonkers with indie perfumes, pretty much since I became solidly aware of their existence, really. I've always liked perfume oils, but I never realised they were available outside one's local hippie shop (which for me was Back to Basics in Geelong - their vanilla oil was responsible for a lot of my romantic action throughout a great chunk of the 1990s).

Anyway, after having acquired a ton of perfumes, and then spending a year or so destashing the majority of them, I now have a pretty manageable size collection, and with one or two exceptions, I try to only hang on to those ones I truly love, and either give away or sell whatever I'm not totally gaga over. Today I'm going to show you what I have, for no reason other than I just felt like it. If there's anything in particular you'd like a review of, let me know, though I must warn you that despite my long-standing love of fragrance, I am bloody hopeless at describing them. I'm like Melanie Griffith doing the museum tour in that Simpsons episode ("This room's nice, this room's nice too..."), or those You Tubers who sniff a bottle and say, "This smells - *sniff* - just - *sniff* - it's just amazing!"

Sarawen Perfumes

I bought some perfumes from Sarawen way back at the beginning of the year after reading Suzanne's review, and after playing with them for a while I put them in the box with all my other fragrances and kind of forgot about them (that happens to me a lot). I was reminded of them recently when I happened across a review of Ambrosia (which I don't have but definitely want after reading that), so I pulled them out again.

I have three bottles and four samples. The bottles are 1 dram (just shy of 4ml) apothecary bottles, and these appear to have now been updated to 4.5ml roller ball bottles on the website. The samples I have are 1ml, but these also seem to have changed. The website now sells little screw top 1.5ml samples. I don't recall how much mine were individually, but now a full bottle is $12 and samples are $4 (or you can buy sets that work out a little cheaper). This is a Canadian store, so I'm guessing those prices are Canadian dollars...?

The packaging and themes are lovely - geeks get in there, because the big fandoms are well and truly covered. Whether you're a Harry Potter fan, a Sherlock Holmes fan, a Game of Thrones fan, a Supernatural fan, or many others, there's something there for you. The artwork on the labels is gorgeous, and it all looks very lush and a bit magical. From memory it was all wrapped very prettily in tissue paper and ribbon.

Although some of the fragrances lean more toward the masculine or the feminine, I'd say all the ones I have could be carried off by anyone who likes rich gourmand scents and darker florals, regardless of whether your buttons are on the left or the right of your shirt.

Cake or Death

When you -must- have your cake or die! Decadent buttercream frosting and vanilla cake with a touch of spice over a darkened amber base. A favorite amongst Sarawen perfumistas. Delicious but wicked. Beware!

This was the one I was most intrigued by, and I still cannot for the life of me decide whether or not I like it. It's definitely interesting, and more complex than your usual cake scents. There's something there that prevents me from instantly loving it, however I do find that when I wear it I sniff myself constantly, so.... I don't know. It could be that the amber is amping on me a touch too much. I can't seem to stop testing it out though, so it's definitely got something going for it.

Empress

A throne room, fragrant with the scent of blood-red roses strewn on the marble floors and the aroma of musk and spices. A dark, spicy blend of roses with hints of musk and amber. This scent is inspired by Livia Drusilla, the first Empress of Rome and wife of Augustus. She was said to have used poison to clear the way for her son to ascend the throne. Naughty woman. She would have made an excellent vampire.

Rose, rose and more rose. A couple of hours later I could smell the musk, but only very close to the skin. This is a pretty scent, but probably the least complex of all the ones I have. There really wasn't much more going on other than the rose.

Ravish

A delicious blend of summer raspberries and decadent chocolate over incense and amber. Sultry, sweet, and indulgent! Beware, an innocent little nibble could quickly turn into love bites!

In the bottle and when first applied, this smells like a child's flavoured medicine - that cherry/berry scent you get in things like kiddie Panadol. After a few minutes that settles, and then it becomes... well, you know in Cadbury Roses those chocolates shaped like hearts that have the pink filling? This smells exactly like those. (I hate that you only ever get one or two of those in the box when there are always eleventy million of the boring milk chocolate and nut ones.) I normally detest fruit scents, but there's a dark chocolate note here that blends beautifully with the berry and it just works so well.

The Rose Knight

This sexy and romantic fragrance is a blend of dragon's blood, battle-worn leather, eastern musk, and a hit of cedarwood. Within lies a single red rose representing Alistair's love and friendship! Inspired by the character of Alistair from the Dragon Age: Origins game, this scent is a balanced unisex blend.

At first I get the dragon's blood, with something woody in the background. This is probably the most definitely masculine of the ones I have. The wood note comes out more after the drydown and just stays there. It's a bit too blokey for my personal taste, but I certainly wouldn't mind smelling it on a bloke.

Elf Queen

"... and they were grave and beautiful. They were clad wholly in white; and the hair of the Lady was of deep gold ... but no sign of age was upon them, unless it were in the depths of their eyes; for these were keen as lances in the starlight, and yet profound, the wells of deep memory." ~ The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
A powerful yet sweet fragrance blend with notes of vanilla cream, honey, jasmine, and patchouli. Inspired by the character Galadriel, Lady of Light, Queen of the Golden Wood!

For a good half hour the only thing I could smell was bandaids. Eventually that faded to a light vanilla with a tiny hint of honey. I could still smell it up close after about 6 hours. Pretty enough, but not my favourite, and that bandaid thing was just weird.

Vampire Bride

"The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness." ~ Bram Stoker, Dracula 1897
Dried honeysuckle blossoms mingled with exotic musk and sweet honey. A touch of decayed figs rounds out the top note of this fragrance that only a true vampire bride could wear! This feminine but dangerous scent is inspired by the character of Lucy Westenra from Bram Stoker's novel.

This is a lovely honeysuckle scent - one of my favourite floral notes. It makes me wish I lived somewhere like Savannah, Georgia (in my head the US South all smells like white flowers just after the rain). This is a very sweet fragrance, but not lolly sweet - I think it's the honey in it.

Vampire Princess

Withered snow-white jasmine and ylang-ylang flowers layered over rich honey, a whiff of musk and darkness creeping beneath. A hypnotic and sweet floral scent perfect for a fanged princess!

At first this perfume is like being smashed in the face with a jasmine vine. After a short while it goes a bit dusty, but thankfully that doesn't last too long before the honey comes out. This one was probably the least lasting of them all, gone entirely by late morning after I applied it at about 7am. But that first hit of jasmine is lush and gorgeous.

Overall, these are beautifully blended, complex scents. They don't have a lot of lasting power so you need to reapply through the day. They also don't have much throw (with the possible exception of Cake or Death), and stay very close to the skin, so if you like something that is more interesting than your average floral or foodie perfume, but doesn't enter the room before you do, then these are definitely worth trying.

I have quite a long wish list of others I want to try, and I am thinking about splashing out on a Christmas present to myself.

Sarawen has two stores - Big Cartel and Etsy. I bought mine through Big Cartel.

Random Update (with random picture just because)

I have a bunch of posts I've been meaning to do but it's too damn hot at the moment so here's a bunch of random things for no reason.

1. I am now on Pinterest. As near as I can gather it's just Tumblr with the ability to organise the pictures, but it gives me somewhere to put all the pretty pictures I see around the interwebs. Especially house ones - I'm always collecting house pictures. I seem to have some invite wotsits too - only a couple, so if you want one let me know and if you're quick enough I'll send you one.

2. After nearly 14 years Noodles has finally learned to ride a bike. I tried to teach her when she was young but she had no interest and since she was a city kid I didn't push it. It's not like she needed a bike to get anywhere. However, her friend R is buying a new one and offered to give Noodles her old one so she had to learn, and now she's super jazzed with herself.

3. Work is annoying me. There's been awkward drama going down and where I sit is SO effing hot. The air conditioning is craptacular and I'm sweating like a weight watcher in a cake shop most days lately. Ugh.

4. My attempt at Frugal Fortnight - ie: not buying a single thing I don't need, as mentioned in last week's fritter post - has not gone well. It was supposed to start on Thursday, but today is the first day so far I have not bought something trivial and unnecessary. And that's only because it's too hot to get dressed and go anywhere.

5. I finally got around to updating my ScentBase, which was about a year out of date. I'm amazed at how much I managed to cull last year - I went from 300ish (mostly samples - I'm not ready for Hoarders just yet) to a much more reasonable 77 (nearly half still samples). I'm also surprised to realise that I bought hardly any commercial fragrances last year. I've really moved away from a lot of those because the ones I want (Frederic Malle Carnal Flower, Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille, etc.) in full sizes are well out of my price range and I've not much interest in all the celebrity junk and cash-in flankers that flood the cheap to mid-range market these days.

6. It's really hot here. Did I mention that? I hate summer. :-(

7. I am currently testing out some perfumes from Sarawen, which I heard about via Suzanne (damn enabler). They're mostly headkicking oriental/gourmand scents, which long time readers will know is right up my alley. It's really a bit hot for those kinds of perfumes at the moment (did I mention it's hot here?), but I don't care. So far I'm loving them - proper review to follow soon. Here's a sneak peek pic.

8. I am also enjoying these cute owl earrings that I got from Ike and Co on Etsy. They're quite large but super light so they're easy to wear. I want some more in
different colours.

9. Finally, this is not really safe for work, but it made me laugh my head off when I saw it so I have to share it.



So, what are you guys up to lately?