Awakening Desert

Honestly, as a huge gourmand person, I didn’t really get into fresh or aquatic perfumes until this baby. Upon first sniff, I got fresh, juicy melon. The “fresh and aquatic” opening note reminds me of summer melons after soaking in the icy cold well water in the countryside. Then it develops into this...creamy, beautiful floral. It literally paints such a clear picture of the desert being brought to life with the perfect storm. Everything turning green, drinking in the cooling and quenching water. Then, everything comes to life!! Desert flowers are blooming right before your eyes and the dried up greens suddenly spring to life!! This is a beautiful, amazing scent. Highly recommend!!!

This has an extremely authentic and realistic 'wet dirt' smell. Less sweet and spicy than Solstice Scents desert thunderstorm but they are pretty similar. 4.5/5 for smell, 2/5 for wearability.

"What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry This has a wonderfully interesting start. It's fresh rain hitting dirt and rock, it's grassy and a bit musky. It's very fresh, like a gust of dewy morning air. Brisk, sharp. But then there is something else that sneers it's ugly head into the fragrance... Out of all the perfumes I've tried from Alkemia so far, this is the one that veers the most into "candle" territory. It weaves in and out of this harsh chemical/artificial note(s), sometimes it's quite photo-realistic as a fragrance, sometimes it's fresh and aquatic and then sometimes it delves into something very unpleasant on the skin. This is something I think that is better forgotten and remembered from time to time, or better yet to let it naturally catch your attention in the wind and sun. Putting your nose on it and continuing to breathe it in does not suit it. I think this would be more lovely in the heat and wind, and I am interested to see what it smells like in a few months. 5.5/10

@Thranduilseyebrows It's funny, I thought of Desert Thunderstorm after I had this on my skin for a few minutes before I even read your review. :) On me, this one is sweeter than Desert Thunderstorm is. This smells more like a combination of Desert Thunderstorm and High Desert to me. I live in Arizona so I'm always curious to see how accurate perfumers can get the smell of rain in the desert. It's one of my favorite smells. I don't get the kind of desert I live in off of this one. This is more green than where I live. More like the area around Palm Springs during a superbloom. The rain and clay notes wear off into something slightly herbal and very sweet on me. Like desert wildflowers, but if you turned them into a syrup or a sweet tea. There's still some slight woodiness and a touch of dirt or clay, but it's very hidden. I like this as an atmospheric and I think it would make a great scented candle. I'm not 100% sold on wearing it though.

In the bottle and immediately on application, I thought this smelled like what wet stones would smell like if they had a smell. You also get a strong clay note, which I love. Soon, the spicy cut grass emerges. This is supposed to evoke a desert, but it reminds me very much of the loamy smell of a damp deciduous forest. Sadly, other than that, it dries into a kind of generic woody cologne. This definitely veers masculine. I wouldn't wear it on its own, but it can be nice for layering or if I miss the smell of the outdoors.

smells like if you stripped prairie 66 of the citrus, and the aldehydes and kind of left like a wet sidewalk concrete smell. honestly i really like it! doesnt have a lot of projection on my wrist unfortunately. it’s unisex and it leans just the teensy-est bit masculine imo. it’s a very clean scent. the rainwater doesnt really smell soapy on me, it could be because it’s grounded by the other earthy notes. i do want to mention it doesn’t really smell like an atmospheric to me, jsyk!

Alkemia scents change over time so I'm doing a longitudinal review. April 2021 (tester) Very aquatic yet earthy with a hint of tea tree. Notes of Concrete and clay. Later cinnamon and spice come through. June 2021 (tester again) Now I catch some of the aquatic notes. I get melons growing in sand. September 2021 (full bottle) Does not smell like the same scent. It's got sickly sweet note that isn't what I hoped for in the tester. August 2023 (coming back to the full bottle) I miss the melon smell, all greenery is gone, and now it's more like a warm musk