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Anise Swallowtail Caterpillar Hair Gloss

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Bourbon vanilla, cardamom, amber cream, and star anise.

Cream, vanilla, and a whiff of cardamom. This is mainly a vanilla cream on my hair. Very creamy. Medium throw and wear length.

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Starts off a creamy spiced vanilla, but with an odd perfumery/hairspray-like effect to my nose. I can tell it's the anise/cardamom combo, and the more I consider it, the less it bothers me. Even so, this stage isn't my cup of tea.

After a few hours, the spices mellow out and I do enjoy it. Lasts through the next day in the tamer yum version.

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Anise is one of my favorite notes, and while Anise Swallowtail Caterpillar isn't strongly anise-scented, the anise adds a lovely depth to this HG. I always worry with booze notes in HG since it tends to have much more throw than perfume does on me, but the bourbon here is quite understated (I don't smell like I just walked out of a speakeasy). The overall feel is a lightly spiced vanilla cream, totally work appropriate and terrific for autumn, and I get good throw and wear length.

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This is in the broad family of Black Cardamon Vanilla and Love Swing. It is a creamy vanilla cardamon. I cannot pick up much anise (which I was after), but it is still a lovely scent.

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Most people see anise, and think of black licorice. This is not that. This leans closer to salty, nuanced European absinthe sans alcohol, and it's not overpowering. Kinda like a burnt sugar that leans on the musky side. It's so simple, yet so hard to describe. I don't feel like the cardamom is easy to pick out, but grounds this nicely. This would be comparing it to the cardamom in Blueberries, Cream, and Cardamom. And the amber doesn't make it feel perfumey, as I'm used to amber doing.

 

I haven't smelled star anise in a while, so I'm realizing that I wrote this for regular anise, and that's not even listed in the notes. Yet, somehow, some of the lighter European absinthes still come to mind.

 

It's not in your face at all, but hangs out for a while. It's a very comforting scent to me. I know this would get lumped into gourmand, but I guess the way that my body chemistry reacts with the star anise and the cardamom, it feels more musky. Like kitchen musk, is that a category? It doesn't make me think of food, but is very comforting while being a great skin smell.

Edited by torikitty

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