Wiggle Perfume Honeysuckle Sweet Tea

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If you’re a Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab fan then also consider taking a look at Wiggle Perfume and what they have to offer. Honeysuckle Sweet Tea is an impressive, minimalist fragrance that, to me, captures the essence of a warm day.

In Bottle: A nice sweet, flowery fragrance that reminds me of warmth and green grass.

Applied: Something about the opening reminds me of grass. Maybe there’s a green quality to this fragrance that helps temper its sweetness. Honeysuckle Sweet Tea, being very faithful to its name plays up the sweet notes and has a good tempering green and floral note to tone itself down a little. The tea note is present too, in a small amount to me, lending the fragrance a delicate dryness that mixes very well with the rest of the fragrance. As the scent ages, the tea evaporates along with the florals leaving the heavy honey note behind on dry down. Progression on this perfume isn’t too distinct because it’s a relatively simple construct, but if you’re just looking for a simple perfume that doesn’t try to be more than it advertises then this one’s a good candidate to try.

Extra: Wiggle Perfume can be found on Etsy and is operated by a lovely lady known as Nani.

Design: Wiggle’s visual identity borrows from equal parts Film Noire and Burlesque. The bottles are presented with nicely designed labels and the photography used to present the fragrances in the store gives everything a very soft, sensual feel. The bottles themselves aren’t constructed in any spectacular fashion. You get functional glass bottles and vials, presented nicely with a pretty label and cap.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Floral

Notes: Black tea, honeysuckle, honey.

Lovers of indy perfumers might want to check out Wiggle for their simple, well-presented stock with a nice variety of fun and pretty fragrances.

Reviewed in This Post: Honeysuckle Sweet Tea,  2011, Oil.

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.