I know I’m whiny. I complain about the cold. I complain about the rain. And now I’m complaining about summer. I’m over it. I feel like I’ve had enough of this summer of 80º+ heat, no a/c and a bedroom on the top floor. I’m romanticizing fall and look forward to balmy days.
I’m also looking forward to fall perfumes. Ella and Petra are two limited edition perfumes in Sweet Anthem’s seasonal Fall ’14 Collection.
Ella has notes of agarwood, black tea, lavender and pumpkin.
Ella was the winner of Sweet Anthem’s Dream Fragrance Contest ’14. This is a contest where people submit their own fragrance briefs and then others vote on them. If you have ever wanted to smell like pumpkin spice, here you go.
Ella is woods, pumpkin spice chai “lattes” and and a cool lavender that adds a “fall chill” to the scent. It dries down to nutmeg, cinnamon and dry woods. It’s a woodsy pumpkin pie fragrance.
Give Ella a try if you want to smell like pumpkin spice. Or if you like perfumes like Etat Libre d’Orange Like This, NEST Pumpkin Chai and/or Demeter Pumpkin Pie. Ella is most definitely unisex. Really, I think guys should wear it, especially if they want to attract the ladies…because I hear that ladies love pumpkin spice lattes.
Projection and longevity are average.
Victoria’s Final EauPINION – Woodsy pumpkin spice. I really don’t want to smell like pumpkin spice but I know plenty of people that do. Here you go. It’s limited edition, get it while you can.
Petra has notes of candle smoke, cherry, heliotrope, immortelle, Madagascar vanilla and myrrh.
Petra opens as Cherry LipSmacker and vanilla candle wax. It then really does smell exactly like when you snuff a candle wick. It’s like vanilla candle smoke and cherry pipe tobacco. The dry-down of Petra is a sweeter myrrh with a hint of latex.
Petra is weird one but that’s what I like about it. It took me a few wears to really dig the entire “nostalgia” and angst of it all. But, now I do. It’s like an angsty, gothy cherry vanilla. This isn’t something that I want to smell like (most of the time) but there is something I like about it. It’s an era and a place. But, I admit, that it can be a challenging ‘fume to wear.
I don’t really know of any other perfume to compare it to other than Parfume de Vanille Cherry Vanilla Cologne, candle smoke and condoms. So, yeah, there, you go.
I find projection and longevity to be above average in comparison to the others in this post.
Victoria’s Final EauPINION – Teenage angst…in perfume. A really cool olfactory photograph of an era and a place.
1 oz EDPs in Ella and Petra retail for $48. Solid perfumes are $6.50. Please note that it’s common for perfumes to smell differently in different mediums. For example, top notes aren’t as noticeable in solid perfumes. I’ve reviewed the EDPs and can’t comment on how the solids compare.
Nest up is Owl, it’s not a limited edition fall fragrance but it was featured in the SA List.
Owl has notes of chai spices, juniper berry, jasmine, mimosa, black and white amber.
Owl opens with an evergreen coolness with apple cider spices. Here come the florals. They’re honeyed, almost waxy, and smell so Southern California to me – because I pick up on a warm jasmine. Mimosa steps out into the spotlight. It’s dainty, pretty and powdery with a childlike innocence. Owl dries down to a pretty powdery mimosa and amber.
Try Owl if you like powdery florals. Or if you like Tommi Sooni Passerelle, Yves Rocher Tendre Jasmin and/or L’Occitane Mimosa de L’Esterel. I view Owl as a more feminine fragrance.
Projection and longevity are average. The packaging is super cute.
Victoria’s Final EauPINION – Spicy, warm powdery mimosa. It’s really pretty.
The 1/4 oz perfume oil retails for $28. The solid is $8.50.
Out of these three, I think Petra is the dopest but I’ll probably wear Owl the most. It reminded me that I really like mimosa perfumes.
All scents are available at Sweet Anthem.
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This is pretty much exactly my thoughts on these scents as well. I voted for Petra in the competition but I think “challenging to wear” is spot on. I’ve tested my sample a few times and how much I enjoy it really depends on my mood that day–I’m interested to see how it will wear once the weather cools down. Ella was nice at first but there’s a “craft store potpourri” smell lurking in the background that pretty much ruins it, unfortunately. No way do I want to smell like Michael’s! 🙁
Out of all three, I also think I’ll get the most wear out of Owl. It’s the prettiest and most versatile of them, imo.
I can’t remember which one I voted for, but I think I voted for Petra as well. There was another one that sounded interesting too but of course now I can’t remember it. Petra is cool but really challenging. And like you said, it depends so much on mood. I can see myself wearing this in the “wrong” mood and being really annoyed by it.
Ella, yeah, not my favorite out of the trio. The “craft store potpourri” that you speak of is exactly why I can’t do any fragrance with too much cinnamon. “Cinnamon spice” automatically reminds me of gross potpourri or Yankee Candle in the winter, I don’t want to smell like that at all. With Ella, I just don’t want to smell like “pumpkin spice” and that is what it is all about. It reminds me of home fragrances as well. And I do burn pumpkin spice candles in the winter so that makes me associate it even more with home scents.
Owl is really pretty. It is powdery which may be an issue for some people but for me it’s “fluffy” like a mimosa flower and I like that sort of powderiness (it’s not baby powder, thank goodness).
Yep, that’s everything I wanted to say about these two fall fragrances, too. I couldn’t wear either of them longer than the testing period. Petra, in particular, made me want to…I don’t know. Explode. I like the cherry-tobacco element in some other perfumes, but all together here (with immortelle, which hates me), I just had to hold my wrist out as far as possible (hard, considering it’s, you know, attached) and breathe carefully.
Immortelle is my absolute nemesis note. It hates me so I hate it. There are a few perfumes with it listed that I can wear…but I apply those lightly in fear that in a larger dose the immortelle will take over. Ugh.
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