Sylvaine Delacourte Musk Collection

I'm done my first round with both of Sylvaine Delacourte's collections (musk and vanilla), so here are my first impressions for musk:

Sylvaine Delacourte Dovana
The official description is pretty accurate: “light as soap bubbles”, it reminds me of the super thick, luscious, foams from certain face wash. The smell isn’t soupy at all, more like powdery. So far it seems like I’m a fan of powdery scents haha. It also smells familiar…perhaps I recognize the orris. I also recognize the vanilla, and like it actually. Maybe I don’t dislike vanilla haha…hopefully this is true since I have the vanilla discovery set as well. Online notes say there’s rose and sandalwood, don’t smell those yet. Projection is good, sprayed it on my elbow and can smell it in a seated position. I imagine it to be perfect for lazing in bed. I’m thinking that this would be good to layer onto Lord George after it wears for the day. However, I can see myself feeling fatigued by the super powdery scent.

Sylvaine Delacourte Florentina
The opening is sweet-is with some sharpness, and then some floral note rising through. It smells different than Dovana, but both are predominantly powdery that I feel its repetitive. Once the scent settles into the heart, it’s super iris-y and more to my preference. This would be a good wedding guest perfume. About 3 hours in I catch a whiff of the vetiver, also very much my thing. Iris and vetiver is such a wonderful combo.

Sylvaine Delacourte Smeraldo
The opening is green and citrus-y, I like! Possibly because it’s a rather hot and humid day. The particular green scent I can’t readily identify, will have to read the notes. It’s still a smooth fragrance, like the others. There’s somewhat of a sparkling feel in the green, like fizzy soda bubbles? I think a common pit fall for citrus scents is that it can quickly resemble cleaning products, and I’m getting just a hint of that. Something warm is emerging, but the soda bubbles are still here. Reading the official description now, “tonic” is quite accurate, and this fragrance does feel very fresh. The citrus I smelled in the opening was yuzu, and the bubbly green is angelica. The something warm would be the vetiver? Or is the warmness the white musk? I think I’m starting to have a sense of what it smells like.

Sylvaine Delacourte Lilylang
I was expecting full on floral opening, but it’s actually quite green? Like smeraldo but without the citrus. Turns out the green-ness is from pink peppercorn. The creaminess is starting to show, maybe 5 or 10 mins in, which I read is from the ylang-ylang. Sometimes I can smell the jasmine? Usually it’s quite a dominant note so I’m surprised at its subtly here. Once it settles into the heart, I wouldn’t say it’s very floral at all, mostly the white musk scent (I’m more confident that what I’m smelling is the white musk, all four fragrance ends in this way).

Sylvaine Delacourte Helicriss
Opening is earthy! I like very much. There’s some feelings of tonic as well, like herbal-y bitter? Official description says middle notes of rosemary and sage, which I get, but I seem have missed the top notes of citrus. Feels quite refreshing to wear during a humid hot evening. It’s settled for a bit and still very much earthy and tonic-y. Not complaining at all, I’d be happy if this stayed like this till the end. I’m tempted to compare this to Terre D’hermes vetiver intense, but it’s been too long since I smelled it. About 2 hours in, I'm starting to smell the musk peaking through? Or at least the earthiness has changed to be smoother. I also realized that the earthy/tonic-y smell is real similar to the forest in Aesop's Hwyl. So it's also woody, which should be the patchouli. I also imagine this to be good with Aveda's Chakra 3 layered on top.

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So far I like Helicriss the best, by a good margin, and then Florentine. In the broader picture, I'm likely to pick up a full bottle of Helicriss since it reminds me of Terre D'Hermes vetiver intense (regardless of if they actually smell similar, the mental connection is good enough for me), and this is a prettier bottle lol. (Ugh Hermes I just don't vibe with your bottle designs.) Will compare the other Iris perfume samples against Florentine tho.