Brand: Nocturne Alchemy
Scent Description: Beautiful aged Crystalline blended into dark notes of Black Amber, Black Musk and Black Vanilla, blended and aged two years in an oak barrel. Apply SL Originals Crystalline to heighten the vanilla experience
Released: Studio Limited Originals
So this is basically a straight forward blend of Kashmir (Nava’s Egyptian Red Musk which is a delightful fruity floral animalic musk) + Tibetan Crystalline (Nag Champa Vanilla). I’m surprised Parrot wasn’t impressed because she’s sung praises of both Kashmir and Tibetan Crystalline before but I’m guessing it’s because the mixture of both somewhat subdues the character of each. Where Kashmir and Tibetan Crystalline are super loud, in your face perfumes (my bottle of Tibetan Crystalline leaked a little in transit and EVERYTHING in my house stunk of Nag Champa for MONTHS), the effect here is smoothed out and toned down. I infinitely prefer this to Tibetan Crystalline which is just too much for me as I’m not a big fan of Nag Champa, but the vanilla is very subdued and just lurks around the edges, I was hoping for more vanilla! Also I HATE Crystal, it’s super fruity and fruit turns to toilet puck on me so even with the nag champa, I prefer Crystalline Dark way more than Crystal Dark.
Definitely darker than standard Crystalline, but not dark scent wise. It smells like a muskier, more grounded Crystalline. Very smooth and velvety, but not as heavy as I would like and it does not impress me. Crystal Dark is definitely better.