Star Flower

I had the good luck to win a bottle of perfume from Fragrantica and Anya's Garden. Thanks, folks! :-) I'm not as enamoured of Floral Fruity Scents or Gourmands as I used to be, but when given a choice of any scent from Anya's Garden, something about the notes and the concept of Star Flower spoke to me. The perfume arrived quickly, and was conscientiously packaged in a plantable Seed Paper Box. Very thoughtful! I tried it right away and have given it two subsequent tries. It's a beautiful scent, and in spite of its category, not overly sweet. The sweetest notes occur in the opening blast of cherry and almond. Upon first application, it almost smells like marzipan candy. The tuberose is also immediately detectible, and remains present in each phase of the scent's evolution. More on the tuberose in just a moment. The sweet top notes gradually yield to a warm maple and cocoa aroma, but this is a dark, bitter cocoa here--the unsweetened cocoa powder instead of a milk chocolate bar. The tuberose is noticeable here, too, and I think its presence is what keeps the fragrance from being too sweet after the top notes fade. The maple-cocoa phase lasts a couple hours, and the fragrance gradually dries down to a sexy musk tempered with a whisper of the cocoa and tuberose. I'm especially impressed by the skillful use of tuberose in this scent. Tuberose is often an overpowering, almost narcotic aroma that can easily overtake the other notes in a blend (think "Fracas"), but the tuberose is married with other powerhouse notes in Star Flower: cocoa, vanilla, almond. The overpowering aspects of each of these essences are muted and transformed into a softer, more wearable combination, but make no mistake: this one has sillage to spare! This is going to be a great scent for the colder weather we're already experiencing in Nebraska this year. Star Flower also has great longevity. I have tried several natural perfumes in the past, and I understand that natural beauty is sometimes more fleeting than synthetic, but truly, I get about seven hours of wear out of Star Flower. That's decent persistence for any type of fragrance! Well done, Anya!

Star Flower is such a beautiful and optimistic gourmand scent. It is light (as oppose to heavy dark sensual gourmand scent, think Lolita Lempicka) in its own unique way. With the first sniff, I smell sweet cherry cough syrup and some really fainted almond scent, it’s so fresh and fruity, genuine without any synthetic plastic fruity feel - which can be found in many newly released pink fruity perfumes. Soon there’s a weird but definitely intriguing and beautiful melting pot of fresh lemon, cherry syrup, and something heavier, and tart. Then I get a lot of maple syrup, with something else which ground the maple syrup a little bit, and makes the whole scent a little bit more earthly. I can’t smell any ‘normal’ tuberose, which is a really good thing, Star Flower keeps its gourmand side by showing us a syrup glazed tuberose if there’s such thing, or maybe I should say, maple syrup with a little bit hint of tuberose flavour. The dry down is really warm and chocolate-smelling. It’s like smelling dark chocolate or coca directly. It doesn’t have any of the ‘conventional’, but really weird high-voltage sugary side effect which nine out of ten times come with chocolate notes in nowadays’ gourmand perfumes. Quite a real gourmand treat, worth trying!

Dear Arance, You are right, the note of almond is very profound, but please wait a few minutes, the fragrance will change drastically, and you will smell tuberose ;o)