Inevitable Crimes of Passion

Its Terry Chocolate Orange with a touch of grapefruit! I don’t know about a Victorian orangery but in my imagination the German fat kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is sitting there tucking into a TCO with great gusto. Even as the alcohol fades its still TCO but now the coffee and woods dominate. It just gets better on me. Please dont think this is a sickly sweet fragrance because it is not. Its all perfectly balanced. Yes, I get the fungus with the coffee and wood which make the backbone of this special fragrance. I cant help thinking of TF Black Orchid which also has this sort of quality. Its a perfume of mystery. A decent sillage and moderate longevity. I think this fragrance does lean a bit more to the feminine but if you love it then go for it. I love to wear this when doing something arty like visiting the Royal Academy for an exhibition. If you want to smell delightful and totally unique then this is for you.

Of this fragrance, Sarah McCartney said, "I've deepened it with more mushroom absolute, boletus (the cep or penny bun) to give it a dark, sensual, animalic end. The start though is still Terry's Chocolate Orange--although I didn't put orange or chocolate in it--grapefruit, coffee and woods create that particular illusion." Although I can't quite pinpoint the chocolate, I do get a sweet orange vibe. I get a hint of the coffee, and the dirty tinge is there too. It's sweet, but not overly so. I also smelled something earthy like patchouli, but it must be the mushroom (which I'm not familiar with). It's not specifically a mushroom scent (like you would smell in a food dish), but the mushroom absolute is adding that hint of dirt to this sweet fragrance. It is fairly long-lasting on me, although it turns into a skin scent after a short while. I really like the contrasts in this fragrance, and it's definitely FBW for me!

This is a truly unique fragrance, I can't think of anything else that smells quite like it. I would describe it as a woody - gourmand leaning - chypre. It has an earthiness to it from the mushroom and patchouli (contrary to the above notes, I am almost certain that it does contain patchouli) and the coffee and grapefruit draw it in a slightly gourmand direction but it is not overly sweet. Very wearable but also distinctive.

The first stage of this tantalisingly named fragrance is like inhaling a big powerful grapefruit and pineapple cocktail in a sleazy Miami bar. A super- alcoholic cocktail, though - the type where you slurp down two and you're drunk, and a third would separate the women from the girls. After that extremely fun first stage this is pure dirty, sexy chocolate orange - like an edible body lotion you'd find in a sex shop for 'marital use'. Glorious!

The woods dominate throughout. At the beginning there's something that reminds me of herbal tinctures and brandy, the mushroom note adds to to earthy herbalness of the scent and then a bitterness kicks in when the coffee and dark chocolate shine as the alcohol fades. In the drydown there's a hint of pepper as the scent slowly fades. A unique deep, dark fragrance.