NAVAlloween Part I

I've wanted to try Nocturne Alchemy for a little bit, but I never got around to it.  Then I was lured in by another decant circle.  I like decant circles: I get to try new things without committing to full sizes.  Also instead of agonizing over the full catalog, it's like: "This is all you get and you only have X amount of time to pick shit.  Hurry up."  I need a deadline or I'll hem and haw for ages.  I missed out on the last NAVA circle, which had Gardenia Crimson.  When I saw this was up and "add ons are welcome, leave a note in the box!" on the form and that I could get Gardenia Crimson as a sample still, I was all in.  

Besides GC, I picked up Black Crystalline Fig, Cemetery Ivy, Graveyard Dirt, and White Zinfandel.




Today we have a Guest (Under Duress) Reviewer!  A few weeks ago, my mother had to have surgery on her foot.  She's staying with us for awhile because she's in a cast (and also because she needs to be watched so she won't do something dumb like fall because she refuses to wait five seconds for me to hand over her crutches.  Again.)  Since she's taking the opportunity to torture me about everything, I'm swatching All The Things on her and making her tell me what she thinks.  Because she's hilarious.  Don't tell her I said that.  She doesn't need the encouragement.  

Black Crystalline Fig

Rich Black Crystalline Vanilla haunts this perfume while decadent Egyptian Black Fig permeates likes a phantasm within. Black Cardamom EO rises throughout the perfume like a ghost in the night treading across wooden floors but never touching the ground. A drizzle of sweet cream and black sugar are left where footprints should have been and an ethereal drift of White Fig haunts the spaces in-between. This was our vision when creating this one. We hope you enjoy this delicious ghostly perfume.

In the bottle: Fig… and amber?

On my skin: Fig, warm wood, and a weird spice… cardamom maybe? It’s warm yet subdued. It's one of those scents that has good throw, but is so subtle you don't notice it. Once dry, after about half an hour, the fig fades and leaves a warm comforting scent.  I got a little over two hours of wear from this.

Mom: I don’t like it. *sniff*

Me: What don’t you like about it.

Mom: I don’t know. *sniff* It smells like cleanser like that Graveyard mess.

Me: They don’t have anything in common…. *checks notes* oh wait, they both have wood, maybe that’s it. 

Mom: Now you know not to give me any more things with wood in it.

That was the wrong thing to say me.  Now we're testing out all the woody scents on her. For science.

Cemetery Ivy

Green Ivy that has taken over the cemetery overnight and has woven its vines of Ivy throughout, over headstones, broken into gravestones and shot its vines through to the coffin and fed on the decaying body within. Fresh and vibrant Cemetery Ivy with nuances of loam, wisteria and honeysuckle create an atmosphere of bliss and desolation with a touch of Bastet Amber whispering underneath the ivy.

In the bottle: Green

On my skin: Mmmm. It smells like ivy at first, and when it starts to dry I get honeysuckle twinning with the ivy. It’s lovely. This smells like summer. It smells like my crotchety old great aunt teaching us how to suck the nectar out of honeysuckle blossoms. The honeysuckle is surprisingly long lasting. Normally I find that the flowers disappear quickly and leave the greenery behind. With this perfume, the honeysuckle stays strong to the bitter end. It’s only when it dies to a skin scent during the last half hour that it goes back to smelling like only ivy. I got about a total of two hours of wear time from this one. 

Mom: Oh that’s much better. 

We tried this one after Graveyard Dirt.

Graveyard Dirt

Miasma accords of fresh rain and Graveyard Dirt, loam and sweet woods billow beneath but the star of this perfume is the dirt freshly sweetened and unearthed as the Vampire climbs free from her coffin and makes her way toward Dracula’s Castle.

In the bottle: Mint and a hint of rot. Huh. 

On my skin: A blast of mint with rich loamy earth under it. Dry, the mint leaves and it’s just that rich and now musty earth. Mmmm. Unfortunately, it’s not very long lasting on me. It’s faded down to a skin scent after about twenty minutes. It was completely gone by thirty minutes.  Which sucked because I loved it. 

Mom: EEEEEEEEEWWW!!!  It smells like cleanser. What is that?

Me: That’s not cleanser, it’s probably mint. It’s called Graveyard Dirt. 

Mom: Yeah well it smells like it. Smells like graveyard ass dirt with some zombies running through it. Who wants to smell like that? Quick, gimme something that smells nice so I can get that mint out of my nose.  

I ended up giving her BPAL's Black Rose, which she liked a lot and was impressed with it's longevity.  Later on, I heard her complaining to her friend on the phone that I was making her wear all these weird perfumes that smelled like Graveyards and who in their right minds want to smell like dirt and something was wrong with me.  :D :D :D

White Zinfandel

with notes like red raspberry, rose petal, red currant and ripe strawberry, this decadent white wine is full of subtle notes that encompass the very soft palette of the fruit in this dry White Zinfandel grape.

In the bottle: grape soda 

On my skin: It’s like fruit punch soda and grape Tylenol tablets had a baby: I smell fizzy grape and heavy fruit punch with a chalky undertone.  This initially smells so much like tylenol that it’s giving me flashbacks.  I don’t know if I’ve ranted about this before, but I really hate grape soda. To me, it tastes exactly like Grape Tylenol, which I hated so much, I’d wait until my mom’s back was turned and spit it down the heat register. The only cure is Grape Tylenol?  I’ll just quietly suffer and die from this fever, thanks all the same. All I ask is that someone play Freebird at my funeral. After it dries, it goes more fruit punchy. Now it reminds me of Airborne tablets.  I’m glad I didn’t wash this off. After about twenty to thirty minutes, the chalk is gone and it fades from bearably strong to nicely moderate. It smells fruity punchy still but instead of chalky it’s slightly bubbly. This stage is really nice. If it was like this the whole time, it would have gotten two enthusiastic thumbs up. Then again, maybe not as it only lasted about an hour and a half.

Mom: It reminds me of something. *sniffs*  What is it? 

Me: It's White Zinfandel

Mom: Well you know that anything that reminds me of wine works for me.

This turned into a lament about Ice Wine, which she just discovered at one of her friend's parties and her bemoaning the fact that it's like $45 a bottle.  

Gardenia Crimson

Egyptian Gardenia Essence, Crimson (Studio Limited), Orange Flower and a kiss from the moon.

In the bottle: Gardenia. And it’s strong. I took the lid off, then put it back in my sample holder for a sec to start typing this up and it wafted through the room like I’d poured some into a scent warmer.

On my skin: Gardenia. This is very true to the flower. I feel like again, I’m at the nursery, smelling pots and reminding myself that anytime I’ve tried to grow one it dies. It’s also very musky, which I think a lot of Gardenia blends miss out on. As it dries it’s still mostly Musky Gardenia, but I can start to smell a bit of Orange Blossom mixing in. Lasted two hours.

Mom: This is nice.  I like this one a lot.  You should get me one next time you get more

This is the highest praise something can get.  If she really loves something I have then she tells me to get her one too.  Besides Gardenia Crimson, I've been ordered to get another ammo box to hold her perfume samples after she saw - and picked through- mine.

So the thing with NAVA and one of the reasons I’ve found it hard to shop is that some of their scent descriptions are beautifully poetic without telling me what the hell is in them.  Or at least making me have to think about it really hard.  It's also a really info dense website, for lack of a better term.  And then, I'm not certain what the difference between the Studio Limited and Limited Collection (or LC) designations are.  Rez, I've gathered is for limited edition and/or discontinued scents that are brought back or, resurrected so to speak. (I was very proud of myself for figuring that out.)  I'm still working on figuring out the Kobalts and Crystal/lines and Crimsons of it all. There is a helpful Intro to NAVA page found here that breaks down available sizes and how to navigate around, and also the embedded search box works very well.   I will admit that I haven't really delved into the site as much as it deserves.   I have a focusing problem and if I can't skim down and find a TL;DR at the bottom of long descriptions or screw around with sorting by different values I tend to wander off.  

Me and my attention issues aside,  I'm very glad I finally got to sample some of NAVA's wares.  I am a little disappointed that my skin chemistry burned through everything so quickly, but we all know it hates me and doesn't want me to smell nice or be happy.  On the plus side, these were all beautifully blended scents.  I am for sure giving White Zinfandel to my mom, but the rest are very nice editions to my scent hoard.  

~M.

You can find more things to spend your money on at nocturnealchemy.com.  If you're indecisive or afraid of commitment like me, they have a very nice 6 pack sampler set.