Geisha Botan Eau de Parfum

I have this in the perfume oil roller ball. It’s gorgeous and feminine, very light but a drop or 2 lasts all day. Reminds me of the light flavor of Botan Rice Candy, chewy Japanese candy wrapped in transparent rice paper that dissolves in your mouth. It’s a very intimate scent, powdery and personal, only meant to be smelled by a lover, as when they come in close for a kiss. Very sexy. Also perfect for wearing around that one friend we all have who “hates perfume.”

I have to agree with the others who said this smells like a Victoria’s Secret body mist, with a distinctly vanilla scent profile. I personally don’t get any of the sandalwood or peony. “Geisha Botan” is thankfully not overly sweet, but it doesn’t strike the elegant and sophisticated tone I prefer in my perfumes. 4/10.

I had really high hopes for this one and was mostly looking forward to the peony note. Bought a 5mL travel atomizer of Geisha Botan from Olfactif. I expected peony and vanilla with a musk and woods drydown. What I got was vanilla root beer in a perfume bottle that went on in a strong waft of root beer and artificial vanilla, the note reminiscent of cream soda with matching fizziness. The faint barely there hint of florals in the background, like catching a passing breeze of a bathroom air freshener while drinking a root beer float with vanilla ice cream at a local diner. Geisha Botan dried down to a strong balanced vanilla, very linear, like a gourmand body spray from Victoria's Secret or Bath & Body Works. It lasted about 2 hours on my skin. Maybe this was reformulated; the early 2020 review of it by Unfurling Blossoms sounds divine.

It is one of the most beautiful smells I've ever smelled. It is more like a walk through a garden than a soliflore alone. It is the combination of a very soft light pink, photorealistic peony coupled with the photorealistic environment around it: the raw wooden planks of the garden pathway in a japanese garden (think the type of wood you find on a beach boardwalk that's raw, natural and has been dried by the sun - no heavy, aromatic sweet woods but rather the natural dry spiciness of sandalwood where its natural oils give off the quality of salty humid air by the waters of a beach (not a sweet spiciness but a dry and arid one - the irony here is that it creates the picture in the mind of a sun bleached boardwalk at dawn, strolling through a Japanese garden where the skies are purple and the woods are caught up in the whistling air around you - the smell of aged beachwood gone adrift.) It is ghostly in composition: the soft, gossamer peony (just as soft as that in Nirvana White - Elizabeth & James), the sun soaked driftwood with a natural dry spice (just a whisper from the old wood's oils) and the ghostly , almost transparent, vanilla that is neither powerful or heavily sweet but rather a soft, salty vanilla like that of the note in Vanilla Vibes from Juliet Has a Gun. What does it remind you of? It has its own originality, however, the peony is as soft and beautiful a quality as the peony scent in Nirvana White from Elizabeth & James. Is vanilla rich and deep? No, it is a non-sweet, almost salty vanilla exactly like the kind used in Juliet Has a Gun's Vanilla Vibes. It is almost translucent; it's so ghostly and ethereal, taking on the form of an enchanted haze of humidity within the air. Does the floral shine more or the vanilla? Both are equally gossamer (light and airy, almost ghostly). The photorealistic peony is soft and airy (like that of the peony in Nirvana White by Elizabeth & James) and the subtly soft vanilla, coupled with the natural spiciness from the velvet woods & sandal wood notes takes on the quality of air and atmosphere of a Japanese garden scene - a peony garden with old wooden pathways. Longevity/sillage? It lasts on my skin strongly for two to three hours then softly fades. It is a skin scent with little projection (unless heavily sprayed and multiple areas - I sprayed it once), an intimate beauty.

This has some of the vanilla-playdoh of Kenzo Amour (but simpler), but with some of the peony in l'eau de Kenzo Amour. Quiet, but pretty.