SOTW - December 2-17 · Brotherhood Of Scent

SOTW - December 2-17

It's been a bit since I posted one of these. I have been super busy with shoots for the holiday season, and I'm so exhausted that it's hard for me to want to stay up and post things when I get home. Mostly I just want to sleep and recharge. I've put over 1000 miles on my car over the last 4 weeks, had 6 weddings, with 7 more before the end of the year, and a photo shoot nearly every day since the week before Thanksgiving. I have 2 days for Christmas, and then shoots every day through the end of the year. It's good to be busy, but I am very much an introvert, and too much interaction with large groups of people drains me physically and emotionally. I find myself very much just needing alone time to let myself recover.

Some highlights from my selections the past few weeks:

London from Widian - holy god. I think I finally get why people love this. It goes through three distinct stages from top notes to dry down, and each is distinctive, unique and more intriguing than the previous. It's one of the most complex, interesting, beautiful fragrances I have ever experienced. I would absolutely buy this, but it's close to $300 for a 50mL bottle. I'm going to probably buy a 5 or 10mL decant because this needs to be in my collection.

The same can be said for Les Eaux Primordiales Vanilla Supermassive and Ambre Supermassive. Both would be in my collection tomorrow, but they are $250 for a 50mL bottle, each. I'll have to be happy with my 2mL and 3 mL samples that I got from pervious TPG mystery boxes. But I will be saving up for these. Ambre in particular is stunning and exactly the kind of fragrance the jocks my rocks.

Third Eye Red Rum is another beautiful fragrance, but I think it's a bit too similar to other scents that I already have in my collection. If I didn't have this profile already, this would be a definite on my wish list. I got the sample along with Flamango, which I actually thing is the more interesting fragrance from the house, and I'm looking forward to trying the new Iris Obsidian that was just released.

SWY Sandalwood - I liked this the first time I wore it, but wasn't really impressed with it this past time. It's just kind of boring and the sandalwood overpowers everything for me. I'm having a hard time reconciling it with the hype it seems to be getting. Several reviewers called it their fragrance of the year, but I wouldn't even put it in the top 100 of my collection.

Now that the weather is finally turning colder more consistently (today it was 70 degrees, but it's supposed to drop below 60 over the weekend), I'm finding myself drawn to more ambers and tobaccos and dark vanillas. I've pulled a lot of items out of storage and will be changing up my dailies to be darker and woodier now.

I've gotten a bunch of new stuff as Christmas gifts, but I'm saving that post for after Christmas to make it easier to talk about. I do want to single one out though - Fine'ry released Fireside Vanille, and it's a spot on dupe of MMR By The Fireplace, but a lot more wearable. The cinnamon and toasted vanilla take on a more prominent role, and the smokiness is not overpowering. It's also an EDP and I get a lot more longevity out of it than the original. It's not quite as complex as the OG, but the dry down is so close to the original that they are nearly indistinguishable to me. For $30, it's one of the best By The Fireplace dupes out there. Definitely worth a trip to Target to get your nose on it.

Have a good week everybody.

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