Brand: Arcana
Scent Description: Bourbon vanilla ice cream, coconut husks, coconut creme, and foraged wild blackberries.
A collection of indie perfume reviews
Brand: Arcana
Scent Description: Bourbon vanilla ice cream, coconut husks, coconut creme, and foraged wild blackberries.
Budget blackberry ice cream in the bottle; it smells objectively tasty but not realistic. Wet on skin, the artificial ice cream and berry notes get LOUD. They fade on drydown, but stay very plastic-y. Like a scented doll I would have loved to huff as a kid, and indeed my daughter wants me to douse her in this. Eventually, something that I think must be the bourbon – my nose wants to read it as mild, sweet spice – emerges as the dominant note. I like gourmands when they veer skin scent rather than plastic. This is definitely the latter. It’s not offensive but as a middle-aged adult I can’t see myself wearing it.
Elastoplast and germolene. I get no vanilla, coconut or berries…just weird, pink antiseptic gunk stink. I have no idea why this is…maybe my nose is just broken.
After seeing the notes, they make a ton of sense. I get an initial burst of alcohol and blackberries, like the fruit has been fermenting. It has the coldness from the ice cream but isn’t sweet or very creamy. After several hours, the berries are more background while the coconut husks take over. It’s a fresh but slightly woody and astringent coconut, similar to Arcana’s My Heart Was Like the Weather… I don’t really love it or hate it.
Wet: melted vanilla Ice cream with hints of artificial berries, though as it dries down it goes more chemically and plastic-y, like a cheap ice cream scented lip balm or something
Dry: melted vanilla ice cream + artificial berry syrup. A little sweet, a little tart, but mostly milky
Verdict: 2.5/5 I love both blackberry and ice cream notes, but this is a bit too artificial, and a bit too heavy on the milkiness for me to realistically ever wear it as a perfume. I’d use it as a body wash, since it’s a nice comforting smell, but as a perfume, I have to pass. Destash!
Coconut ice cream topped with blackberries
The blackberries smell almost like chocolate cherries to me. It’s very creamy & very potent The fruits dominate but never sharp or tart the creaminess is blended throughout. It could be borderline on the sickly side especially if you don’t like gourmands I do so this is a huge favorite