Pause

firstly - this opening is warm, inviting and deeply familiar to me unlike nurture, whilst i am a fan of nurture i found the opening to be intense [although both dry-downs are sumptuous]. during the summer after university, i took to taking long, long walks through fields and country paths. this act of walking, with my old, battered backpack i have had since i was a teenager, made me genuinely regress, like i was in highschool and had to while away the summers in a village. again, during the summer, waving at farmers, taking pictures of the sheep, the pigs, the cows - to be printed and pasted into a patchwork scrapbook. the smell of hay, despite being fleeting, was so deeply transportative for me - leading into a gorgeous, vibrant mimosa, and for some strange reason, i detect cow parsley, but that may just be the nostalgia. i have thoroughly grown to love pause, and those summers.

Very natural-smelling and soothing as @Siv7Stars says. I also agree with @annema that it is barely a perfume, but I love that I can get such a beautiful scent out of a bottle. Not sure what it is supposed to do for perimenopause symptoms (and the penny has only just dropped why it is called Pause - doh!) but that ship sailed some time back anyway so I can just enjoy the fragrance. May have to put it into rotation with Miller Harris's cow-parsley number Dance Among the Lace, and Shay and Blue's Blackberry Woods, for an immersive English Countryside Experience.

Seeing the note listing for Pause caught my intrigue as my mental conjuring of them altogether seemed so appealing. It certainly did not disappoint my nose: a warm effervescence overcomes me. The impression of hay is so convincingly captured here—its softly green, coumarinic, almost musty and bucolic nature reminds me of petting zoos without the manure. A watery, diaphanous mimosa is evident soon thereafter. This is by no means a heavy hitter. It is entirely natural and it's longevity matches this. There is the usage of ambroxide naturally derived from biotech fermentation, and while it does fix the scent for perhaps a bit longer than if it were absent, this one would definitely be one to carry along with and re-apply. I am seldom concerned with performance, but it is fleeting. It is really beautiful, though. Lastly, this is promoted as a hormone balancing floral for women, but there is nothing inherently feminine about it—lest a gent might feel some cognitive dissonance wearing this while having its alleged purpose in mind.

Smell like hay (mostly) and unsweet mimosa. Very natural, you barely know it's a perfume really. It's a fleeting scent though, you might not even be able to detect it yourself. It's great to spray heavily in my hair and then smell like a walking harvested field in late summer if that make any sense :)

This is what the witch shop Emma Watson visits to get her Rescue Remedy must smell like. It’s a comforting flowering shrub in the gentle sun smell. If you like Heretic ‘flower porn’ you’ll probably go for this. I like close wearing, Watercolour type fragrances but this is more like a natural deodorant level of smell. If I over spray it (I’m talking 10 sprays all over my clothes) I can catch it now and then throughout the day but otherwise it disappears within an hour. It’s like you smelt something through a window. It’s not a ‘what are you wearing?’ sort of smell. It’s an outside smell. It’s something that you could get from an essential oil roll on blend at any health food store. 30ml for $200 AUD is extortionate and I feel silly for falling for the marketing around it. I’ve not tried the other offerings from this brand but I would seriously recommend getting the discovery kit first before you blind buying anything.

@joyjoy Re: ambroxan, a note from Abel - "Our ambroxan is crafted through biotech fermentation, starting from plant sugars. In contrast, 99% of ambroxan typically used in perfumery is derived from petrochemicals." Pause smells predominantly like hay, slightly musty, with fresh mimosa underneath. It does smell v natural. I like wearing it to bed, like sleeping in a hayrick.

My first intro to the NZ brand, a generous sample with a cosmetic purchase. Lovely mimosa with a touch of green (hay?) and a bit of a white flower note. Calming and relaxing. So happy I do not detect vanilla.

FYI this contains ambroxide aka ambroxan. And synthetic musk. I thought this was a natural perfume line?

This may be interesting!!! For test just based on the notes!