Over the past few years, I’ve developed a feminine side. The pandemic really kicked it off, with nothing to do outside, I started focusing on skin care and collecting makeup pieces. I purchased one of my first Anastasia Beverly Hills palettes and began experimenting with it, to some success. My interest in self care and beauty products grew, and then diversified. And this interest led me down a rabbit hole, one that I may never escape.
If you ask my friends, they will tell you that I love things that smell good. Soap, body oil, scented candles and most notably…perfumes. I’ve been thinking about my perfume obsession a lot lately, and wanted to go through a few I’ve purchased and one I’ve been given (thank you The Butters!) and talk about why I like them and when and why you might like them.
The first scent I want to talk about is Philosophy’s Pure Grace. When I bought it, it retailed for around $23 and came in a little square glass bottle. At the time I got it, I had no idea what I wanted, except that I wanted something pleasant and neutral. And, well, Pure Grace is just that. It smells like a white cotton t-shirt on laundry day, mixed with sunscreen and rain. Basically, it’s fresh and clean! I wear Pure Grace just about anywhere, because the scent is so nice and the price is pretty low, so I don’t feel bad about using it to my heart’s content. But Pure Grace is really made for those casual days for when smelling nice is just for you. I highly recommend this as a spring scent.
Fresh And Clean is Get The Butter’s answer to Philosophy’s Pure Grace. The scents have some cross over, sharing an affinity for bright citrusy top notes and a musky dry down. Both feel clean ‘n green in a way that makes you feel like dancing! However, when I wore Fresh And Clean, it hung around closer to my skin and didn’t project off me in the way that Pure Grace did. This, of course, is great for people who aren’t looking to blast the walls down with perfume. The occasion for Fresh And Clean would be a first date scent, something that your date would notice when they came in for a hug at the end of the night. Not too aggressively sexy and yet pleasant and lingering, just how a date should be. I highly recommend Fresh And Clean for indoor settings so that you won’t be announcing to the whole office that you’re wearing perfume. Although, if you’re looking to avoid activating sensitivities, just don’t wear perfume around them!
I also have to mention that right now, Fresh and Clean is $5, which is a steal! And you’d be supporting a black owned business that I love and have reviewed here with a lot of love.
Now we get to my weirder/more gourmand perfumes. These are for people who appreciate weird, so buckle in!
Alkemia’s County Fair is a recent favorite of mine. If you take a look at the listing on Fragrantica, you’ll see that it lists pink cotton candy, hot kettle corn, funnel cakes, candied apples, and saltwater taffy. Now, I don’t know if I picked up all of that, but I can say that DAMN that kettlecorn note is present! It’s so strange, I take a whiff of it from the bottle and all I can smell is the popcorn note, but it mellows out really sweetly on my skin. But for whatever reason, I’m sad to notice that popcorn note fading. Now, why anyone would want to smell like the bustling air of a fair is a little beyond me, but I think I know that it grew on me because I haven’t been to one in years.
County Fair hangs out close to the skin and doesn’t project, which is great because a rolling cloud of popcorn announcing my arrival doesn’t sound awesome. But I love that I can smell it on me all day. If I had to come up with a place to wear County Fair, I would probably suggest an artsy kind of event. If you could screen an obscure movie or go see an exhibit for free, County Fair would kind of rule for that.
The last perfume I’ll introduce is one from a perfume house called Hexxenacht. I received Frickin Bats as a sample in one of my orders and I fell head over heels with it. It smells like a candy skeleton. Or a cookie. Or both. Basically, Frickin Bats smells like Halloween should. And it PROJECTS. The sample had a nice presence to it, but readers, I will tell you, that when a bottle explodes over your luggage, it is over powering. So get it, but uh…make sure you don’t break it!
Perfume has been an obsession of mine I’ve been dying to write about for a while, so it felt good to write this post and stretch my legs. Hopefully, posts like this are a sign of my triumphant return!
Get The Butters sent me Fresh and Clean to review, but all opinions within this post are my own. Thank you Get The Butters!