Villainess Scintillating

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Villainess is a small company that sells soaps, perfume oils, and sugar scrubs. I’m partial to their Krakatoa soap myself and had a bit of their Scintillating perfume oil kicking around for review.

In Bottle: All mint, all the time. This isn’t the sweet mint you might be used to in candy and gum, or the sharp mint in mouthwash, this is just mint and if you like mint you’ll probably find your sense of smell right at home with Scintillating.

Applied: It’s hard to really judge Scintillating based on my usual method because it doesn’t really move or evolve. It stays relatively static and that’s the main stage with the three mints up front. I can’t separate the mints as they are fairly similar to one another, but I do get a bit of a spicy bite from the spearmint. The black tea in this adds a bit of bergamot to the fragrance, but it requires some very close attention before it reveals itself. The vanilla casts a bit of smothness on the fragrance as a whole but to smell vanilla in and of itself isn’t going to happen. End story is, vanilla and black tea are both minor players. I have three mints up top, in the middle, and at the bottom. Mints ahoy. The longevity of Scintillating was moderate. It gave me a good five hours on. The sillage started off projecting rather loudly but quickly calmed down and got much more personal in the end-stage.

Extra: If you like mint, love smelling mint and want a very minty experience, Scintillating is a good way to go. Check out its corresponding soap too.

Design: Scintillating, like Villainess’ other perfume oils, are bottled in an ampule flask with a stopper cap. It has this interesting, old-timey, perfumer’s lab feel to it with a thin metal wire holding the name card for the fragrance and a delightfully tiny round plate with a skull design on it. Very cute presentation overall.

Fragrance Family: Aromatic

Notes: Spearmint, cornmint, peppermint, black tea, vanilla.

Scintillating isn’t a complex perfume. It’s very simple and will appeal to those who enjoy simple and straightforward fragrances. It isn’t much to my taste, however, as I tend to move more toward complex these days. But it is a nice display of mint notes.

Reviewed in This Post: Villainess, 2009, Perfume Oil.

Hugo Boss Hugo

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Hugo is your run of the mill fresh aquatic that doesn’t bring much to the table and doesn’t leave with much either. The tide of aquatics has petered out in the latest years as the incoming flood of fruity florals starts dominating the scenes. Some of these are works of olfactory art in their own respect while others are forgettable. And some even regrettable. Unfortunately for Hugo, it was one of the less notable aquatics of its time. Hugo

In Bottle: Green and blue aquatic. Fresh, sharp, and a little bit spicy. The herbal notes up front are paired with pine and citrus.

Applied: The green flare, just a touch sweet before it settles into its spicy woodsiness where the pine is predominant on me. I smell kind of like one of those pine-shaped air fresheners you use for your car. Not unpleasant, I just have a strange association with anything pine scented. Well, perhaps not strange, just persistent. The scent stays with pine as it introduces a few spicy herbal notes into the mix. Hugo takes a turn for the interesting near the complete dry down stage as it leaves its fresh pine-scented herb garden and veers toward a darker, murkier, funnier funky note that’s reminiscent of the blast of aquatics upon application. It’s fleeting though, a one or two second moment that could just be me. Hugo dries down to a benign woodsy, spicy, fresh accord that doesn’t make any presumptions and doesn’t even want to think about standing out.

Extra: Hugo Boss fragrances have largely been a miss for me. The only one I can say I actually like is Deep Red. Even then, I don’t particularly like it that much. I can say nice things about it though. But this fragrance, it’s the generic men’s scent with the all too familiar aquatic citrus opening, the woodsy spicy middle, and the miasma of leftover freshness at the base.

Design: I could give or take with this design. It’s clean and simple and functional. Holding it is easy. Spraying it is easy. Kind of looks like a water bottle which is a bit cheesy but overall, not bad.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Woodsy

Notes: Grapefruit, green apple, pine needles, thyme, spearmint, basil, cedar, rum, jasmine, sage, geranium, clove, lavender, cedarwood, moss, fir balsam, sandalwood, vetiver, suede.

Yeah, I definitely cannot get past the predominant evergreen scent in this. Too much pine, maybe, or maybe I’m just not the kind of person who likes that in a scent.

Reviewed in This Post: Hugo, 2000, Eau de Toilette.