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Gingerbread, Cacao, and Champaca

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Champaca, gingerbread and a whiff of cacao. This one is a champaca blend with a touch of gingerbread. If you love champaca, give this a whirl. Good throw and wear length.

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This is the same gorgeous champaca from Injured Dickchest, warmed into baking territory by the gingerbread and cacao. These, though, are more like the whiff of Christmas cookies baked earlier in the day and still lingering faintly in the air, while champaca diffuses beside you. It's a cloud of warmth and deliciousness, almost reminding me of the richness and depth of Pumpkin Mead and Black Oudh. If you're hoping for lots of gingerbread, I'm not getting a ton from this blend; a hint of spice, but mostly a wonderful goldeny glow that has the kind of intoxication of treats being baked. This scent just makes me happy.

 

It has good presence and lasts for a few hours, but I just want to slather this one all over and already I'm making a dip in my bottle. I can tell I will need multiples of GC&C. It might even be my favorite of 2018. 

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A well-blended mix of all 3, to the point where I can almost not pick anything out individually. I would describe this as a plant/sweet chocolate scent. As it wore on it almost went a little floral on me. Pretty sweet without being foodie. I find the gingerbread to be more in the background, but adds to the sweetness of the cacao, while bringing a slight whiff of sweet baking spices.

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Wet: Gingerbread and champaca! Cacao, where you at? This is actually much nicer than I originally assumed; it's like you have fresh baked gingerbread, but you're also surrounded by very fragrant champaca. It's an interesting combination. So far, so good.

 

Dry: The champaca has gone a bit soapy.. so this is like a soapy-floral gingerbread now. Also, the cacao never made an appearance... though I wasn't really missing it. ;) 

 

The wet stage was a total win, the drydown.. not so much.

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In vial: Dark, spicy, powdery gingerbread.

 

On me: Powdery, dry, sweet, spicy gingerbread + cocoa; it has a distinct "baking mix" vibe that reminds me a lot of the cocoa powder vibe I get from El Dia de los Reyes (hot cocoa with cinnamon, coffee, and brown sugar), plus the cocoa is a close dupe for that blend. Champaca come out in drydown but still takes second stage, a sweeter/more bodied/almost-woody base that grounds the powderiness a little.

 

Verdict: Like, not love. This goes too sweet (while still skirting foodie--it's pre-food, gingerbread dry ingredients) and too powdery.

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The champaca rises to the top of this, a nice incensey and almost fruity top note. I like champaca, so it's not bad. 

 

The cacao is earthy, a little less like chocolate and more earthy and ruddy on the skin. It forms a nice base to this though.

 

Oddly enough it seems to be the gingerbread where this goes kind of wrong on me. The chocolate and champaca kind of work together, but the ginger-molasses cookie kind of makes a weird bitter funk to this that I catch a whiff of now and again. It's thankfully not a constant part of the scent, but when I do get a whiff of it it's not really pleasant.

 

Overall a dud. I think maybe this gingerbread scent just doesn't work on my skin at all.

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Thank you to the fabulous torikitty for frimping me this.  It's to die for and I just ordered a bottle.  When I first smelled it, the combo was intriguing but odd.  Since then, it's really grown on me, and the strangeness of it has become a plus.  It's like that bar of notes in a weird key that just makes the song get stuck in your head all the more.  

 

This is very much about the champaca for me.  It's very incensey, like an incense stick.  The chocolate is more prominent than the gingerbread; both add an earthiness and subtle complexity to the champaca but stay solidly in the background.  This is not foody on me in any way.  

 

I have and love a bottle of Gingerbread, Red Patchouli, Orange Peel, and Champaca Flower, so I held off on this one, thinking I didn't need another champaca/gingerbread blend in my life... but I was wrong.  Completely different vibe here.  Yum.  :yum:

Edited by VetchVesper

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