Old Scratch

6 thoughts on “Old Scratch”

1. On my skin I get every note listed. 15 minutes later and it’s all pumpkin spice. It stays that way before fading away at 3 to 4 hours. Honestly this was a bit of a letdown. I wish the rest of the notes would’ve stuck around longer. For the initial strength, I’m surprised that this blend disappeared as quickly as it did. This must be one of those perfumes that my skin gobbles up. This reminds me of Basic Bitch minus the coffee note. Damn, I really wish that candied ginger note lasted. It was beautiful. I’m glad that I sampled this but it’s not for me. I’m jealous of the reviewers that got molasses cookie vibes.

2. This is immediately recognizable as a soft, ginger and molasses dessert. It’s pillowy and not too spicy, and the pumpkin pie gives a nice additional element (though I wouldn’t have picked it out specifically). The bourbon helps give an additional richness without being too sweet.

3. It’s a very strong and sweet molasses smell. It’s difficult to wear just because it’s kind of a sweet-one-note scent, I always feel like I need to layer it with something lighter to add dimension.

4. This is incredibly gorgeous, in a very foody way. It’s heavily molasses cookie, with a touch of pumpkin (actually I made pumpkin molasses cookies because of this perfume, it made me desperately want to eat something that tasted just like it smelled). It’s a tiny bit boozy, a little bit pumpkin and spicy, and a LOT molasses-y. Overall it adds up to a surprisingly sexy gourmand, and it’s one of my very favorite indies.

5. Bottle sniff is a homemade maple syrup vibe. It’s got me thinking of breakfast! On application, the sweetness I was getting is tempered by a rich bourbon smell (not boozy, the charred oak and spice part) and I can occasionally pick out some wafts of ginger that I quite like. That molasses is still dominant though and I’m searching for pumpkin pie and not really getting any. This is a cool blend, but because of my expectations, I’m a little disappointed. I wanted what a previous reviewer called “pumpkin pie drenched in syrup” and in my head that meant a strong pumpkin and “baked” presence. I smell more… molasses-infused bourbon in a glass rimmed with crushed ginger candy. Like someone is experimenting with Christmas cocktails. It’s not necessarily bad, but I’m not swooning. It gets softer and more pleasant as it fades, trending back to the fresh maple syrup I get in the bottle.

6. When I first put this on, it just screamed BUTTERSCOTCH really loudly and aggressively. It’s thick molasses-y cooked sugar with a little booze underneath. But as it dried down, it got a lot more subtle, and some of the spice came through. The butterscotch notes settled down to a pleasant level of sweetness, the bourbon started to come through as more of a mellow, cooked/aged alcohol smell rather than a just-poured glass of whiskey, and the ginger started to float to the top. Overall I really liked this fragrance; if you’ve sniffed it and felt overwhelmed, I’d say give it about an hour on your skin and then decide how you feel.