Brand: Solstice Scents
Scent Description: Sea of Gray is the first offering in our Light and Shadows: Amber series which focuses on gradations of light. Each offering includes a style of amber and there will be one release per season. Sea of Gray portrays diffuse light through a cloudy sky: gray, rainy, endless rolling sea. The ambers featured in this blend are an ambergris accord and a fresh creamy white amber. Upon initial application, Sea of Gray features a strong combo of vanilla rain, roasted seashells, saltwater and seaweed. The seaweed and roasted seashells provided a briny marine note with the salt water but the vanilla is in the foreground. This is a marine vanilla with a light drizzle of rain. As it begins to rain, the oceanic elements recede like a tide as you seek refuge in the beachside ice cream parlor. The scent of the cold ice cream freezers and a sweet vanillic odor typical of ice cream shops comes to the foreground. It mingles with the saltwater that has dried on your skin and clings to your towel. The white amber comes out more on the dry down which is a creamy, sweet, slightly salty vanilla. The sandalwood and ambergris are used very lightly in this formula. The frangipani is extremely subtle and is not very detectable. This is not a floral perfume. It does not resemble Blackburn’s Parlor which is a pure gourmand, uses a different blend of vanillas and is meant to represent the waffle cone sundae. Sea of Gray is more about walking into the parlor itself, complete with the cold scent on the air and a vague sweetness that most parlors always have. It is a more atmospheric concept though still pretty literal.
A mermaid took a seaweed-wrapped driftwood and smacked me in the face. If you’re willing to wait and look for it, you might be able to find a hint of vanilla.
[…] Sea of Gray (Vanilla rain, saltwater, seaweed, ambergris (vegan), white amber, roasted seashells, white sandalwood, frangipani.) Full description here. […]
It’s a very stormy, briny marine scent, with a big hit of dark, smoky vanilla (not gourmand). The amber, seashells and sandalwood kind of blend into the vanilla note. The frangipani is only noticeable on my hair, making the scent a tad brighter. It’s a teeny bit sweaty, so I will NOT be wearing this in hot weather. Not at all soapy. Moderate throw and longevity.
This smells like an ocean milkshake. The vanilla note in Sea of Gray reminds me of the vanilla note in Sixteen92’s New Radio. If you swapped out New Radio’s grass for seaweed, and its’ cherry/lemonade for what is probably pistachio and frangipani, you get Sea of Gray. If mermaids had Shake Shack, it would serve up this. It is a creamy sweet vanilla milkshake blended with salty kelp. It’s weird. I like aquatics but this is such a milky vanilla with such a true salty ocean smell that I don’t think it works for what I want to wear.
This strongly reminds me of driving along the road between the ocean and the saltwater marshland in Wells and Ogunquit, ME. But with vanilla! I would probably fullsize this if my skin didn’t amp the vanilla so much as it sort of ruins the atmosphere for me.
Realistic murky saltwater with vanilla dirt. Like a sad, sad brackish little grey lake. Dries down to mostly vanilla salty tears. Melancholy. I love it.
Smells like a pool more than the ocean
You will either love or hate this one. This is not an “artistic interpretation” of murky water, the seaweedy brine is most definitely there and it’s strong. Vanilla notes make it more wearable but still – this is a smell of a mermaid. Sweet and innocent with a fishy background.
This one needs to rest.
I tried it on the first day I received it and it smelled like sour, rotten sea trash. The stench was so terrible I didn’t actually believe letting it rest would help and figured I’d destash it.
Luckily, I decided to put it away for a month anyway on the off chance it would fundamentally change. And it DID. Now it’s a beautiful atmospheric scent. With each sniff I can see the gray clouds rolling in over the ocean and a light drizzle starting. The vanilla, although light, has finally appeared and gives it softness. To me, this is a very nostalgic scent, one to wear on a rainy day sifting through old memories.