Lavender Chai

I love chai (I actually have my own home brewed recipe!) and lavender (the flowery aspects, not the herbal ones), so it's obvious that Lavender Chai was the first of Daniel's creations that caught my attention. I'm not very fond of the whole alcoholic beverage theme for perfumes, but I really love tea and was eager to try it.. Lavender Chai is a good and literal mix of the two main ingredients, emanating a cozy and comforting aura with a very clean and peaceful scent. The herbal accent dominates the initial burst, powered by the high dose of clove, and in the first 15-30 minutes I get a very soapy aroma. It seems like the combination of lavender and the camphorous aspect of clove creates a sort of functional scent that diverts the experience from the intended gourmand/flowery idea to something more akin to a high end bar soap. This phase, thankfully, ends in a gentle spicy breeze. See, this chai is not a heavy one, full of ginger and black pepper, but a subtle concotion that resembles more the diffusive smoke than the smell one gets straight from the cup. This second phase brings the cinnamon (not the sweet aspect, a plus!), the dry cumarinic gourmandisse of tonka, the soft musk and a well placed moss rounding everything in a nice blanket. I don't get much honey, lemon, geranium or cardamom, but they keep things a bit sweet, zesty and interesting in the background. Performance wise, this is a subtle, yet not weak, scent. People seemed pleased when they came to hug me, taking a little longer to leave even though they rarely realized what the scent meant or could be. I had one compliment in the vein of "you smell nice, what's this?", but no tea, flower or chai association. All in all, a solid offer with a subdued and relaxed approach. I like it, maybe it's bottle worthy for me.