Review: Arcana Flowers and Stars Collection
I'm a little late to the party (as always), but I have three scents from Flowers and Stars, the most recent Arcana release, to review! Arcana is one of the most beloved perfumeries over on r/indiemakeupandmore, and I will admit that I've definitely bought into the hype and purchased many, many perfumes from this brand over the past few years. From my experience, I've found that Arcana scents really benefit from an extended period of resting time... which is totally my excuse for taking so long to test these out.
Fun fact about me: I grew up loving astronomy and basically anything space-themed. I totally wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger. So obviously, when I heard Arcana was doing another collection based heavily off stars (following up on their collection from last summer, which was themed around constellations), I was so in. After a lot of agonizing, I picked up the following three decants:
Adhara - The maidens. Vanilla cream, tangerine, clementine, Nagami peel, black coconut, and a touch of sweet violet.
Bellatrix - The lady warrior. Sweet, jammy fir absolute with 3 honeys, honeysuckle, tiny strawberries, and blood orange.
Miaplacidus - Gentle waters. Sea air, spring water, cucumber, juniper, hyacinth, lavender, China musk, and 1 drop of hyssop.
Adhara in the vial is obvious orange, but this is no kiddie orange. It's sexy and slinky and has just that little bit of something that makes this interesting and sufficiently adult. I've seen others describing it as a "sexy creamsicle", and I'd say that's pretty accurate. There's a hint of bitterness that after looking at the notes I would guess is the Nagami peel. Nagami is a type of kumquat by the way, in case you were wondering. Thanks, Google. Once on the skin, this turns into a bright, juicy orange. Not the big fat oranges depicted on juice cartons, but the sweet baby oranges (aka clementines) you get at the supermarket in a huge bag of snacking goodness. This lasted for at least 4 hours on me, which doesn't sound like a lot but is fairly typical for oil perfumes on my skin, and had fairly decent throw. Unfortunately, while this smelled alright from a distance, up close it had a noticeable and off-putting quality to it--almost pee-like. I think this is one that just doesn't jive with my skin chemistry, alas.
Bellatrix is another scent I thought I would love, and another one that goes haywire as soon as it hits my skin. It smells more citrusy than I expected both in the bottle and wet on the skin. The honeysuckle (usually one of my favourite notes) is very obvious and very sweet. As usual, my skin amps the floral component of this perfume. As it settles, however, the jammy strawberry really comes out. The fruit comes across candy sweet rather than juicy, and ultimately this just ended up being too much for me. I had to scrub this off because it was so overwhelmingly sweet.
Miaplacidus in the vial is a clean, fresh, slightly green aquatic. It reminds me of a somewhat less sweet version of the absurdly popular LE Arcana Strawberries Crave Waterfalls. It is definitely a bit reminiscent of a spa, possibly because of the cucumber note, and it is a tad perfumey. The greenness comes out a lot more on the skin, and I've recently realized that I actually don't always like green scents all that much. However, I do like the crisp freshness of this perfume. I wish I got more of the other herbal and floral notes aside from the cucumber, because I feel like that would make this a more complex and interesting scent on my skin. The throw on this is very strong, almost to the point of being too strong! It also stayed prominent on my skin for at least 4 hours and I was satisfied with its lasting power.
Ultimately, these are interesting scents that just didn't work for me. I'm betting Bellatrix in particular will be a huge hit for many! If you missed out on getting these scents when they first released, full size bottles of all three might be found at the Arcana eBay page, The Rhinestone Housewife, or Pretty Indulgent (based in Canada!).
Fun fact about me: I grew up loving astronomy and basically anything space-themed. I totally wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger. So obviously, when I heard Arcana was doing another collection based heavily off stars (following up on their collection from last summer, which was themed around constellations), I was so in. After a lot of agonizing, I picked up the following three decants:
Adhara - The maidens. Vanilla cream, tangerine, clementine, Nagami peel, black coconut, and a touch of sweet violet.
Bellatrix - The lady warrior. Sweet, jammy fir absolute with 3 honeys, honeysuckle, tiny strawberries, and blood orange.
Miaplacidus - Gentle waters. Sea air, spring water, cucumber, juniper, hyacinth, lavender, China musk, and 1 drop of hyssop.
Adhara in the vial is obvious orange, but this is no kiddie orange. It's sexy and slinky and has just that little bit of something that makes this interesting and sufficiently adult. I've seen others describing it as a "sexy creamsicle", and I'd say that's pretty accurate. There's a hint of bitterness that after looking at the notes I would guess is the Nagami peel. Nagami is a type of kumquat by the way, in case you were wondering. Thanks, Google. Once on the skin, this turns into a bright, juicy orange. Not the big fat oranges depicted on juice cartons, but the sweet baby oranges (aka clementines) you get at the supermarket in a huge bag of snacking goodness. This lasted for at least 4 hours on me, which doesn't sound like a lot but is fairly typical for oil perfumes on my skin, and had fairly decent throw. Unfortunately, while this smelled alright from a distance, up close it had a noticeable and off-putting quality to it--almost pee-like. I think this is one that just doesn't jive with my skin chemistry, alas.
Bellatrix is another scent I thought I would love, and another one that goes haywire as soon as it hits my skin. It smells more citrusy than I expected both in the bottle and wet on the skin. The honeysuckle (usually one of my favourite notes) is very obvious and very sweet. As usual, my skin amps the floral component of this perfume. As it settles, however, the jammy strawberry really comes out. The fruit comes across candy sweet rather than juicy, and ultimately this just ended up being too much for me. I had to scrub this off because it was so overwhelmingly sweet.
Miaplacidus in the vial is a clean, fresh, slightly green aquatic. It reminds me of a somewhat less sweet version of the absurdly popular LE Arcana Strawberries Crave Waterfalls. It is definitely a bit reminiscent of a spa, possibly because of the cucumber note, and it is a tad perfumey. The greenness comes out a lot more on the skin, and I've recently realized that I actually don't always like green scents all that much. However, I do like the crisp freshness of this perfume. I wish I got more of the other herbal and floral notes aside from the cucumber, because I feel like that would make this a more complex and interesting scent on my skin. The throw on this is very strong, almost to the point of being too strong! It also stayed prominent on my skin for at least 4 hours and I was satisfied with its lasting power.
Ultimately, these are interesting scents that just didn't work for me. I'm betting Bellatrix in particular will be a huge hit for many! If you missed out on getting these scents when they first released, full size bottles of all three might be found at the Arcana eBay page, The Rhinestone Housewife, or Pretty Indulgent (based in Canada!).
Comments
Post a Comment