https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbWHtRzOz3M

#sotd... Essence of Casablanca by Swiss Arabian... This is a very well done vanilla fragrance. It is smooth and non cloying. Not your typical vanilla gourmand fragrance. This is not overly syrupy or heavy gourmand. This opens with a burst of tart sweetness. The mid comes in with a slight powdery note before the dry down brings in the smooth vanilla. Good projection with great longevity. I went 9 hours before refreshing. I am giving this an easy 9 out of 10.

There’s a point where collecting stops being primarily about fragrance appreciation and becomes completion-driven collecting. It’s the mindset of: “I already have the one I love, but now I need the Intense, Parfum, Elixir, Limited Edition, Night Edition, Summer Edition…” The actual scent can become secondary. The urge to own the complete line becomes the motivation. A few signs of this collector mindset: Completion over preference: “I don’t love it, but I need the set.” Flanker propensity every new release creates an urge to acquire it. Fear of an incomplete line: owning 6/7 somehow feels incomplete. Bottle-family appeal: the visual continuity of a collection becomes part of the attraction. Acquisition becomes the reward: sometimes the excitement of obtaining the bottle exceeds the excitement of wearing it. Redundancy gets rationalized: “They’re different enough” even when the actual wearing experience is very similar. The house becomes the object: you’re no longer collecting fragrances; you’re collecting the brand’s universe. And honestly, this isn’t necessarily bad. It’s just a different type of collector. Someone may buy a flanker because they genuinely enjoy it; another buys it because the OG without the flanker feels incomplete. With a very large collection, that distinction becomes particularly interesting: Are you collecting scents, or are you collecting completeness?