Top...um...Few Summer Scents

So several of the bigger perfume blogs are doing their lists of Top Ten Summer Scents.

I don't have ten of them, but here, in no particular order is, the short list of things I like to wear in the summer. In the coming week, I'll be reviewing the ones I haven't already reviewed, along with a couple of LE's from BPAL.

1. Boronia Eau de Cologne by The Scented Djinn -- I'm dead serious about what I said in my review the other day. As soon as I get paid, I'll be picking up a couple of dram sized bottles and filling up an atomizer to carry with me on days when I have running around to do.

2. The (un)Poisoned Tea Cup by Blooddrop -- Tea Scents are in and off themselves, incredibly refreshing, and this one has the added advantage of a nice tart fruit scent. It's crisp and sharp and is another day-time-when-it's-100F-outside kinda scent.

3. California by Possets -- Fabienne's hommage to my home state isn't necessarily what I would have done--it's really too evocative of SoCal--but it is quite nice. It starts with a burst of juicy but not too sweet orange and then drys out into a very interesting floral with a faint resin note underneath. It's deserty and dry, but not "hot," and is a really nice thing to wear on an summer evening as things finally start to cool down.

4. Morgause by BPAL -- Violets and incense together make the perfect summer floral oriental, sweet and maybe a little old fashioned, but not cloying. This will be what I wear if we go to High Tea while my sister is visiting next month.

5. Ruth by Loreto Aromatica -- This is a nighttime scent in the summer; it would be a bit much in a hot car before the a/c kicks in. But on an evening, or on a day when we're heading to the Bay Area where it will be foggy and cool, it's perfect.

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Also, it's Double XP weekend on City of Heroes/Villains aka CoX, which means maybe one review from me over the weekend. CoX is an MMORPG in which you play either a superhero fighting crime or a supervillain doing crime. I'll probably be logged in and playing during most of my waking hours.

Hmmmm...I think that Arcana's Caffeinated Death is the perfect gaming perfume.

Three from Arcana

Arcana makes both perfume oils and soap which they sell in a few shops and through several e-tailers. These are three random oils I picked up through a decant circle. I'd never tried Arcana before and was particularly impressed by the throw and staying power; both of which were excellent for perfume oils.

Caffeinated Death -- "Caffeinated Death Perfume (Limited Edition): A fatally wired combination of cocoa absolute, coffee, chai spices, Bourbon vanilla and white cognac. You can sleep when you're dead." Available at The Soap Box Company.

Okay this? This is what I was hoping for when I bought Miskatonic U back in the very first Picnic in Arkham line. Misk U had a cream note, but this one doesn't. It's all coffee and spice and cocoa and it's smooth but sharp at the same time. I was worried that it would be too foody, and at first it's a bit much. But about ten minutes after the dry down, it mellowed out and became this dark, vibrant scent with a decent throw and some serious staying power. It's hard to describe what it smells like; the coffee is the dominant note on me but this isn't like how my clothes smell after a few hours spent in a coffee house. I used the word smooth above and that's what this is; I suspect it's the vanilla and the spices that make it a lot more than just some fake latté scent. If you normally don't like chocolate scents, don't be put off by that cocoa absolute; this is 100% bitter cocoa, not a Hershey's bar.

I think my only caveat is that while it's a great nighttime scent, all dark and mysterious, it's a little too strong to wear while going out to dinner. For an evening spend wandering through late night gallery shows or a coffee house poetry slam followed by a quick jaunt to Rick's Dessert Diner, on the other hand, it's perfect.

Black Amber -- This is a layering oil designed to be worn either by itself or with something else to bring the particular note into prominence. Although Arcana (or maybe it's just the retailers) seems to refer to the whole line as single notes; some of them aren't. I've heard that Arcana is discontinuing their layering note line and, in fact, there's only one--pomegranate--still for sale at The Soap Box Company. However, Magical Omaha still has many of the various notes, including Black Amber.

This is, as the name suggests, a very dark amber. It's got a faintly sweet note, but it's not as sweet or as simple as the cheap Temple Essence Amber Butter I picked up somewhere along the line. There's an almost smoky/woody undernote to the Black Amber, as if there's just a faint hint of sandalwood in there too. I love it; amber is one of my favorite base notes and one of the few, along with sandalwood, that I'm perfectly happy to wear on its own. While some ambers can go powdery, this stays resiny and true. Also, it has staying power like crazy and a pretty good throw for a perfume oil.

Finally, I layered it with my custom perfume from Funkier Than Thou--reviewed here--and it brought out the amber like crazy and toned down the fruit a bit. I like the difference, it makes the oil more dark and nighttimey (what, "nighttimey" is a perfectly cromulent word!).

Black Tea -- another layering note, also available at Magical Omaha.

Remember how I said some of these were blends and not single notes? This is a blend and one that doesn't actually smell like black tea at all. It smells like...well, perfume. A very nice, green perfume, but nothing at all like the strong black tea I was hoping for. Tea scents tend to fade really quickly and I was really hoping for something to amp up the tea notes in a couple of tea based blends, but this isn't it.

I'm not much for the green family, although back in the late '80s I wore Perscriptives' Calyx a lot. Greens are nice in the spring and summer and they can be uplifting and casual. If you're looking for something like that, as weird as it sounds, Black Tea would be worth looking into. It has one hell of a throw and stays on for a good long time.

My only caveat is that this might not be Black Tea. I got it as part of an Arcana decant circle and there's a slight possibility that a mistake was made and I got something else.

PS. I think I just found a reasonably priced perfume from a perfume house that I want to try. *cries* There goes my indie cred.