It’s that time again!

I always get excited about new perfumes from Darling Clandestine! Evonne makes, by far and large, some of the most intriguing, weird scents out there and I find I can’t get enough of them! So when she announced her Valentine’s Day release, I got my ninja gear on, and let me tell you I don’t think I’ve ever ordered faster. Ever. For anything.

For those of you who have missed out on any of my other DC reviews, I’ll give you the short rundown: Darling Clandestine is a one-woman show, run by the fantastic Evonne. She does everything from the ideas to the brewing, packaging, and shipping, with occasional photography/photoshop love from her hubby. You can find her Etsy shop right here; at the moment, it’s a bit empty but the normal range of spring scents is starting to pop up.

I’m going to start a new thing here. I often marvel at how Evonne is a magician when it comes to making perfumes that suit certain moods perfectly, so I’ll be giving a mood rating for each of her perfumes from now on (obviously, this is just a suggestion or an observation on my own moods when I reach for a perfume. YMMV).

/r/HugOfDeath:

Description (via DC’s Facebook page):

“Out of the bottle, you’ll be smacked with strawberry and splashed with apple and blackberry. Then the fruits mellow and the tangy ginger and tea come forth, followed by vanilla-smooth tonka bean and just a whisper of vetiver to ground the blend. Give these beauties a couple of weeks to really bloom; keep them in a nice dark cabinet and the fragrance will get richer and richer.”

Random Thoughts:

This scent is pretty glorious! First applied (and in the bottle) this is very, very sweet, juicy fruit. It’s almost like candied fruits. There’s something smooth underneath, almost like vanilla, and the faintest bit of black tea.

After a bit, the fruit recedes a little, gets a little less sweet, and an almost earthy, woody note comes up to create a wonderful depth. The black tea also gets a bit stronger, and there’s something a bit tangy going on.

As per the suggestion you see up there in the description, I waited a couple of weeks before I really tried this with the intent of reviewing. When I first got it, the fruity notes stayed around quite a bit longer and the deeper notes didn’t want to mix with each other in a friendly manner. Everything balances out much more nicely now that the perfume has set back in my dark cabinet for a couple of weeks!

Mood rating: I’d say this will go well with energetic, upbeat days. Or maybe toward the end of the summer, when that back-to-school feeling is settling into your bones and you feel the need for one more adventure.

Blue Valentine:

Description (via DC’s Etsy page):

“The ghost of your memory, baby it’s the thistle in the kiss

It’s the burglar that can break the rose’s neck

It’s the tattooed broken promise I’ve gotta hide beneath my sleeve

I’m gonna see you every time I turn my back

Oh, loves, I hope you don’t find me too predictable, but it had to be done and the scent is anything but. My Saint Valentine’s Day scent, inspired, of course, by the irreproducible Tom Waits. A moody bouquet of hyacinth and violet and poppies and figs, washed down with shots of whiskey and bitters and delicate musks and mint. Very potent, very heady.”

Random Thoughts:

Let’s go into this with the knowledge of two things:

1) Floral perfumes generally aren’t my thing

2) I really don’t like violets (which I learned after this perfume, sadly).

Knowing that, I’ll tell you that this is one of my all time favorite perfumes, period. When applied to skin, it’s a dark, boozy, musky floral; there are no bright bouquets and happy, powdery things here. These flowers were discarded in a dark alley to be rained on, after the receiver (or would-be giver) has had a few drinks in the pub down the street. Much like the only other floral scent I really love (which happens to be Mad as Birds, also by Darling Clandestine), this is a bit of a mysterious take on florals and I have figured out that this is a concept I really enjoy!

Mood Rating: This one is for the darker days. I find myself reaching for this a lot when I’m absorbed in a book; it feels like it’s just tempestuous enough for all the emotions I’ll be going through as I read.

Don Gato:

Description (via Etsy):

“… It’s clean, sun-baked, green-soaked cat. It goes on subtle but lingers strong.”

Random Thoughts:

If you’ve seen the listing, you know that that’s the very last sentence of an entire paragraph describing Don Gato. I have to disagree with Evonne on this one, though. I think it goes on strong and lingers subtle! It’s quite similar to La La La, All Right, but I’m enjoying this one more. La La La, All Right was all the things I was hoping it to be, but the grassy notes were so strong I could almost feel my allergies/sinuses kicking into high gear. This scent is spectacular. Imagine a day where you’ve spent a lot of time in the sun, on the lake. You get back inside and the cold of the A/C hits your skin but you can still smell the warmth and sun on it. I can tell you from many day exactly like this, that this smell makes an appearance among all the other notes in this perfume. Add in red clay, and a softly grassy/herbal scent, and you have Don Gato.

Mood Rating: This seems like it will be wonderful for bright summer days, or when you’re longing for those days. Also, if you’re road-tripping through the desert. The red clay smell just… it makes it seem like it’d be great for that!

Vortex:

Description (via Etsy):

“Vortex is not your average “winter” fragrance. There’s no evergreen, no mint, no “holiday” spice—just a vast expanse of cold, white and blue, frigid, soundless. Stark and invigorating, this fragrance is purely unisex.”

Random Thoughts:

I can’t help but think this is similar to what Tiny Ice Bees would smell like without its fruity tang. This stays very close to the skin and is very skin-like on me. It’s like a thin, delicate veil of blue ice on top of skin. it’s a bit fresh and clean, leaning masculine, and I think “stark”, “vast”, and “soundless” are perfect descriptors here. And yet, there’s still something a bit comfortable, lukewarm, and musky coming through all of that. This really is an interesting scent. I’ve spent hours wearing it and trying to dissect it and I’m sure I could spend many more hours before I felt like I really had any grasp on what’s going on in this scent. There’s just so much. It’s so contradictory while being so damn calm. It’s a little maddening, to be honest, and maybe that’s a small part of what makes it so vast.

Mood Rating: This isn’t the scent for a light snow. This is for nothing less than those days when you’ve been snowed/iced into your house for so long you think you might go a little crazy. I would also say it’s a good scent for those days when you’re feeling a bit alien in your own skin. It’s just fitting that way.