The Crumpet-Fanlight Expedition

[doomsday_disco]

A bitterly cold, bone-white chypre; austere polar musk, vegan ambergris, and white tea combine to make a genteel, frigid perfume as bright and sharp as the first crack of glacial ice.

[ghoulnextdoor]

A lime on an ice floe, wearing sunglasses. Pale juice, cold-zapped. Sun on snow, blinding white. The lime casts no shadow but casts a circle in salt. The lime is simultaneously freezing and thawing, bright. Sharp. Frozen, broken things having a good time at the end of the world.

[SmellsPrettyGood2Me]

Lightly lemony tea, a puff of cold air, and the tiniest twinkle of something aldehydic in the bottle. On skin, the marine tones of the ambergris meet a musky, slightly wintergreen current. Slowly, as it dries down, the scent softens; there is less tea and more ephemeral sweetness. Is this what the Coca-Cola polar bears smell like? Super cozy! Lasts 8 full hours with low to moderate projection. 

 

Verdict: Gorgeous. This is so wearable that I can see it being an all-season alternative to something more intense or gourmand when you're seeking a refreshing, non-minty sweetness and brightness. 

[gentle-twig]

Ghoulnextdoor is right on the money with this paradoxical sliquid scent. A blizzard of frosty aldehydes clears to reveal a vast white tea glacier—limpid, smooth, frozen solid. As it cracks and slides, it reveals glimpses of moss below until it meets a frozen ocean where sea spray is suspended in the air, the salt and ice forming nacreous, flowing sculptures where land, sea, and sky meet in a reconciliation of the elements.

 

In a different register: I tried this decant after Snowman Beatdown, which immediately won me over. They share that frosty opening, but the Crumpet-Fanlight Expedition is less of a total white out and dries down to a remarkably polished white tea chypre—genteel indeed, full of textural interest but somehow also smooth, polished, with a fastidious quality that feels appropriate for the ball gowned and smoking jacketed world of Edward Gorey. White tea and ambergris are both hit or miss for me, but they work so wonderfully together here, the ambergris encrusting the sharper edges of the tea, the tea lending an herbaceous backdrop to the salt sparkle of the ambergris. The musk here is not a classic white musk, but nor is it particularly funky. It casts a silver sheen on the proceedings, and lends this scent a wonderful sleekness.  
 

Color associations: Blinding white and the lime green version translucent blue glacial ice. 
 

Scent associations: Lyonesse in a cold snap, Mars and Venus takes to the tundra. More complex and hence not quite as chilly as Snowman Beatdown. A pale green chypre counterpoint to the deep red Pomegranate and Scarlet Chypre. 

 

Verdict: Love, my immediate favorite of my (overall exceptionally successful) Yule decants.

Edited 6 hours ago by gentle-twig