Visiting the Sumida River with a Geisha

[Lycanthrope]

Crystalline azure musk, orange blossom, water lily, hinoki wood, Texas cedar, and night-blooming jasmine.

Was super interested in this melange of scents all together. I have no idea what to expect.

Wet and in bottle, it's a weird mix of orange blossom and... maybe the sweetness of blue musk?

Applied to the skin, it's a very strong thrwoosh of something very similar to fabric softener? Maybe it's the orange blossom. As it has a bit more time to settle down on the skin... I'm getting the two florals mixing together - orange blossom and water lily. Definitely getting a very beachy aquatic floral vibe. The jasmine is adding a little bit of ferocity in the background, a bit of depth, however the floral stays a... um, Mediterranean floral? Crisp/clear, and high. The blue musk kind of evens everything out and it's a little sugary.

Hinoki and cedar really aren't too apparent. There may be a little 'sandiness' or 'woodsiness' at the base, but it's definitely not cedar-shavings/pencil cedar. Very subtle. It keeps this from being purely a floral scent.

I'd say this is one of the more surprisingly 'beachy' scents. Light, airy, and somehow a little 'salty' without having the salt note (which on me turns into tortillas). I like this one a lot!

[roseus]

Okay I wanted to try this because something about the blue musk and fresh florals made me think of Bestiaire du Moyen Age from the Unicorns but a Shunga version.

 

In the imp: dark heady orange blossom and a little bit of smooth wood. Smells a bit like Rub Rub Rub from Lush which I love.

 

Wet: similar to in the imp but with a touch more wood (but still quite soft) it doesn't really scream cedar at me, just faintly outdoorsy. A little bit of jasmine mingles with the orange blossom. The blue musk is sweet and crisp and wafts about very breezy like.

 

Dry is very similar to wet. The blue musk comes to the fore a bit more, making it a bit more fresh and a aquatic and just a touch salty. The heady blooms are gentle. The wood just supports. It is strong yet delicate. While conceptually it is very similar to Bestiaire they do not smell the same at all. Bestiaire is sitting in the grassy banks of a river in a blooming apple orchard at noon. Visiting the Sumida River is laying on a river bank at dusk smelling the rich perfumey breeze from a nearby garden. I love it!

[zankoku_zen]

Jasmine, orange blossom, woods and blue musk. This one is a sleepy jasmine blend. It's very green and clean. Medium throw and wear length.

[AraliaShine]

Picked up a decant of this primarily for the 'crystalline azure musk.' More floral than I was expecting-- boatloads of flowers drifting downstream.

Gonna let this one settle and reach for it again when I'm feeling spring-y. (Current weather has me reaching for comfort scents and Yules.)

[mishi-bear]

I was hesitant about this one, worried that the woods would be too strong, the jasmine would be too much, and not being sure what azure musk would smell like. I'm glad I took a risk trying this one though, it's definitely something I like.

 

The crystalline azure musk is pretty much a clean aquatic, sweet and even a touch salty. The orange blossom kind of takes this into clean laundry/fabric softener territory for a while. I don't mind that smell at all, I actually quite like it, but given time to dry it does chill out quite a bit, going from fabric softener to something just adding a clean touch to the throw. The jasmine and water lily are both lovely florals that lean a little clean and aquatic on their own. Thankfully though the jasmine is not the strongest of these two florals and doesn't take this too far into soapy territory. The water lily is the strongest floral in this blend and it's very pretty. It's probably one of my favorite florals and doesn't seem too common in perfume blends so I definitely appreciate it here. It also steers this perfume even further away from clean laundry to a more beachy scent. The woods in this are the absolutely lightest notes in this blend. I don't get the cedar at all but I do get some of the hinoki, which even though extremely light lends a touch of a citrusy wood to this scent. Good throw and wear length.

[kelpsoda]

This smells a clean and soapy - probably the lily? I actually don't get orange blossom at all in the decant. It reminds me of water - not a true aquatic, but a clean smell.

[theredkilt]

This smells like flower stems-infused water, a bit green and clean around the edges. Reminds me of a floral chypre. 

[starbrow]

One of my earliest bottle purchases! This one is humid as heck, but the crystal-blue musk is sheer and shimmery, so that you can see the reflections of three heady flowers through its clear depths, with orange blossom and jasmine as the strongest presences and water lily a distant third (thankfully, since lily and I don't get along). This transports me to another time and place, away from the orange blossoms of Florida and to those of Japan, with salt-soaked hinoki wood enhancing the watery effect of the blue musk without hitting me in the head with aquatic woods.

 

Visiting the Sumida River is a bottle I will hold onto for my orange blossom love until my feelings fully settle. (They haven't settled after three years, amazingly!) For being sheer, it is also kind of a LOT. Just on the side of being a little too much. However, the jasmine and aquatics are not punching me in the nose, and the orange blossom and blue musk are also gorgeous and glittering. This little Shunga can stay for now!