KindKit

This was a frimp, and I think it's just the wrong scent for me. I don't care for florals, and this is strongly (STRONGLY) floral. After about ten minutes it turned into a kind of cheap-perfumed-soap scent on me, and I had to wash it off. It might work for someone who likes florals, or whose skin reacts well to them.

I'm conflicted about this scent: I love it, but I also found it less masculine than I was hoping for. In the bottle, it's very sweet and vanilla-y, with just a slight musk. Wet on my wrist, the pine really leaps out, along with juniper and then the vanilla underneath. The musky and golden notes start to come out after about fifteen minutes. The topnotes fade after a couple of hours, but at that point the sweetness has mellowed, with more amber and not pure vanilla. Very golden, sweeter than I expected, not remotely as sexy/primal as the name implies, but: damn it's a gorgeous scent on me.

Much more floral than I was expecting. The jasmine and geranium seem to overpower the orange blossom and mint, which I only get hints of. After an hour and a half or so much of the floral wears off and I'm left with a fairly sweet musk with a bit of woodsiness. I don't hate it but I don't love it either. Too floral and too, well, ladylike for me, since I prefer masculine scents. The description says this is based on an 18th century men's cologne; maybe tastes have changed since then.

In the bottle, it smells (to paraphrase and expand on a previous comment) like someone brewing a cup of Stash Holiday Chai while filling a pipe. (This is not a bad thing.) Rum isn't supposed to be one of the scent notes in this but I can definitely smell it, and the tobacco note is the good smell of high-quality unlit tobacco, without the acridness of burning. On first application, there's a piercing spicy top note (clove, I think) that's much more noticeable than in the bottle. A lot of sweetness but it's nicely toned down by the dark tobacco. After fifteen minutes or so the spices mellow--they're still very present but it's a mix of spices with no single one predominating. This is a really heady, intriguing scent. I kept sniffing myself while wearing it. It lasts well too.

In the bottle, it's sharper than I was expecting--not so much mint as forest herbs crushed underfoot, with a a muskiness that's also unexpected. The scent isn't as clean-and-green as the description implies, although the name might've been a hint. On first application there's a balsamy tang, like a herbal shampoo, with at last a hint of mint underlying it. But after about 15 minutes it's like the scent disintegrated. Nothing but a faint mint, like the inside of an empty Altoids tin. At this point I went to work and didn't sniff again for about four hours--it was completely gone, not even a trace. It's a shame because I liked it a lot for the first fifteen minutes.

In the bottle, incense and bronze. On first application, the incense really leaps out, but there's also a kind of dustiness, like metal shavings and concrete, but with sweetness underneath and the beeswax melding everything. After about an hour, the metallic notes are fading a bit, with the underlying benzoin (deep smoky vanilla) and beeswax sweetness more prominent. Much later there's a patchouli-like remnant that I do not like at all. Won't be buying this one because of that, although I'll keep the imp.

I've nicknamed this one "Hello, Sailor." It's a very masculine scent (whatever "masculine" means in this context, or indeed any other). In the bottle it's got lovely salty freshness and an undertone of rum, and it's pretty much the same on me for the first hour or so. Then the salty sea-air topnotes fade a bit and the rum and especially the leather notes become more predominant. It stays quite dry, though, which I like. This is a scent I would gladly wear every day.