A Mirror of Spring Pleasures on Kites (2016)

[erinallana]

Pink strawberry, gardenia, blackberry wine, vanilla frankincense, and champaca absolute.

Finally, I get to check off a strawberry scent from my list, and this could not be more perfect. Oddly (given the label and the spirit of smut that inspires the Shunga collection), I get a strong sense of nostalgia from this scent for childhood summers at my grandmother's house, which is exactly what I was looking for.

The overall impression is not just strawberry; the blackberry wine and the vanilla frankincense bring it a sweet, slightly creamy berry scent. Gardenia and champaca are definitely there as well, but more in the background on me, like sitting in a garden and catching the scent of flowers on the odd breeze. They play more in the drydown but overall the blend stays pretty steady all day.

This is definitely candy-like, and playful (fitting to the image, although what the hell are they doing), and may be too unsophisticated for some, but I often wear scents to evoke a mood and wow...this is perfect.

Hubby review: "you smell like fake fruit" so...not the same scent for everyone

Edited for readability

[Kat Conover-Karpuk]

I get a lot of strawberry and blackberry wine from this, but sadly no frankincense or champaca. I'm not saying I don't like it, but it sort of reminds me of a strawberry car air freshener. I think it'll be good for layering-- maybe with either The Candy Butcher or maybe even The Imperfect Enjoyment?

Edited March 5, 2016 by TijuanaBible

[macabre_fae]

Got my Luper decants today and this has stood out to me the most because it's so yummy! It is all berries and sugar, the vanilla is quite faint but rounds it out very nicely. If you like Bordello or other heavy berry blends you'll probably love this. Will be pursuing a bottle.

[Leopard403]

This is what would happen if some high white florals had babies with powdery berry bubblegum...which is not altogether a bad thing!

[Larinessa]

Initially this was a blast of strong Gardenia with a hint of sweet berry behind it. An hour later it's a soft, slightly incensey blend of strawberry and blackberry with a hint of Gardenia. It's pretty, and sweet, but it didn't blow my socks off like I had hoped it would. I'll keep the imp, and possibly spring for a bottle later.

 

EDT: two weeks later and the Gardenia has really settled down, and the Champaca is blooming. I've worn this 3 times as full day runs, and gotten complimented each time. It wins the bottle buy out of my luper decants.

 

Edit #2- I ordered a bottle, and it's all Vanilla Frankincense. No berries, no wine, nothing. I did a side by side next to Hope and Fear set Free, and they smell identical. I'm heartbroken, as the strawberries and blackberries were my favorite part. Hell, I'd take some Gardenia at this point too. I'm going to let it age in the hopes the other notes show, but I can't believe it. This appears very batch variant.

Edited April 16, 2016 by Larinessa

[hammy]

In the imp - Innocently sweet.

 

Wet - So pretty. Not a high-pitched obnoxious kind of sweet, but rounded and substantial.

 

Drydown - I did NOT except to love this as much as I do. Anytime Beth mixes florals with this kind of sweetness, it's like friggin' catnip to me. And the berry wine on top is just perfection. I wish I had more to say, but my nose is glued to my arm and it's kind of hard to type that way.

 

Verdict - Please sir, can I have some more?

[LizziesLuck]

This collection of notes could really go either way with my skin chemistry, but I am hopeful!

 

 

Wet: This leads with strawberry on me, which skips plastic and goes straight to cough medicine, maybe due to the addition of blackberry wine (the blackberry part of which was what sold me on this, even knowing I can hardly ever pull off wine). As it dries though, it gets much less artificial smelling on me, and the vanilla frankincense creeps in, somehow smelling a bit like flaky pastry...yum!

 

Dry: This is all over the place - I'll sniff it, it'll smell like plastic. Then I'll sniff again - a nice fruity floral. The gardenia in this is really nice, and I am getting some lovely blackberry, but the wine and strawberry have turned to plastic on me, sadly.

[sarandipitee]

Very nice and sweet floral, but I'm amping the gardenia over everything. It's too floral for my liking and I wish the blackberry wine was more dominant so I'll be passing on my decant. Anyone one who loves a softer candy floral will love this one.

[quintessentially]

This is a sweet fruit smell, but it's also very green to me. I think that comes from "pink strawberries"--which I envision as those poor berries plucked too soon before their time, when they're still firm and mottled white and pink and haven't yet turned to that juicy ruby-red fruit that dribbles down my chin when I bite into it. I get some of the other notes later on, but gardenia overpowers them in a way that I don't like.

[Kay Torres]

 

In the bottle - It smells like something that I'll love - fruity and sweet. There's just a delicious bursting berry ripeness to this with a sharp sugariness.

Wet - Holy mother of tropical flowers... gardenia overload!

Drydown - Ugh. Gardenia. So much gardenia. My head hurts from the heavy, sticky, sweet smell of it. I can't get it out of my nose and I can't smell anything else.

After about 30 minutes it smells like crystallized gardenia petals and pepper. One hour in and it smells like chai tea. Definitely not at all what I was expecting from the description. I actually like it now that it smells like chai tea, but I'm unsure if it's worth the headache from the initial gardenia explosion. I'm sad. I wanted to be in love with this.

 

edit** Idk if it's because it's my happy time, or because this sat for a week, but the gardenia has calmed down immensely. It's still there, but it's tolerable. The strawberry actually shows up on my skin now. Something in this has gone a bit powdery, but in a good way. So now I get strawberry powder and chai tea. That makes me a happy girl.

 

Also please note that on me this has an insane throw...

Edited April 8, 2016 by SunsetKay

[sunlitgarden]

In the decant: I mainly smell boozy berries -- the strawberry and blackberry wine.

On my skin: I'm not really smelling the gardenia here. I'm still getting the wine/boozy fruit, with a little vanilla and I think I can detect the frankincense as well. As it dries, I'm getting a bit of an incensey background to the fruit/wine, but the fruit wine is still the strongest note on me. And, as it dries down further, the incense note seems to fade away but the "concentration" of the alcohol note seems to increase... now it smells more like blackberry brandy than just blackberry wine.

Based on the other reviews I'm guessing this is somewhat chemistry (or batch?) dependent. On me it's basically heavy berry booze and I didn't get the gardenia at all. I do seem to amp wine notes, though.

[stellamaris]

Well, at first when I sniffed this bottle I thought, Blergh. This is sort of not good. A few weeks later however I am glad to report that this has become a lovely fresh strawberry scent, with the wine giving it backbone without making it too boozy. I don't get too much flower, just a bit. It's lovely and smells much more like real strawberry than candy or strawberry scent. Also it lasts forever.

[astarinel]

Sweet berries!

 

I'm not sure if this is batch variation, scent perception, skin chemistry, or some mix of these things, but I saw all the reviews talking about gardenia overload and was concerned. However, my decant is definitely the sweet dark boozy berry. The review that compared it to Bordello was the most spot-on for me, it's definitely a scent in that family on my skin, with sweet berries in the foreground and darkness and booze in the background.

 

Decent throw and lasting power. This is probably my favorite of the Luper decants I tried, but it reminds me of other scents I already own (in particular I have a million strawberry scents) so I probably won't seek out more.

[zankoku_zen]

Oh god, this is strawberry x100, blackberry, red wine, and a splash of vanilla. This is super fruity strawberry and blackberries. Great throw and wear length.

[Lucchesa]

So, I didn't realize there were two formulations of A Mirror of Spring Pleasures on Kites, and I thought I was getting the one that was hemp, white honey, amber, black currant, beeswax, and wild honeysuckle. So I was pretty confused when I tested it, especially since I looked at reviews and everyone mentioned how strong the hemp note was, and I wasn't getting anything hemp-like or grassy at all. Fortunately the Kites I swapped for was an imp in the original bottle, and the picture helped me figure it out. That wasn't black currant I was smelling; it was the combination of strawberry and blackberry.

 

I would have easily believed there was honey in here; it's very sweet. Berry notes do that on my skin, but maybe because there is no honey or sugar note here, it keeps from getting cloying. Gardenia is usually good on me and champaca is usually awful, but there's just a hint of soft vanilla floral in the background. I can't honestly say I'm aware of any frankincense. There's a girlish quality to this -- not my usual thing at all, but I'm going to keep it and see if it gets some wear this summer.

[renfair]

First Sniff Impression: Cologne-y floral with strawberry and maybe a hint of red musk?

Wet in Vial: Ok I think the "red musk" I thought I might be getting was the wine mixed with frankincense. The strawberry is definitely not a strong one. But it all seems pretty balanced.

Drying Down: Wet on skin nothing jumps out right away. It's definitely a different, "pink" strawberry than the note the Lab usually uses from my own experience. The gardenia and champaca are fortunately pretty far in the background with the frankincense since all of those are things that tend to amp on me with BPAL. Nothing is amping so far. It's surprisingly well blended. I thought one of these notes would shoot out and ruin it.

Dry: Dry it's still very blended. It's kind of a fruity floral with an incense edge. It's actually really pretty but I'd have to be in the right mood for it. Kind of a warm fall version of Kamisuki or something (Kamisuki always being the fruity/floral I tend to compare things to). The frankincense stays nice and subtle. The strawberry and blackberry with the vanilla are perfectly balanced with the floral champaca and gardenia. The florals give it a slightly tropical/heavy edge which works nice for a Japanese-inspired scent. It brings to mind a woman's perfume in the air of a hot, heady Japanese summer.

Conclusion: Not one that really stands out in general, but it's pretty enough that I wouldn't mind a very low partial bottle of it to put the decant I have into. Glad I tested it!