La Fete Nouvelle

Holy Moly this reminds me of Luctor et Emergo! There are many more notes in this perfume than listed: sweet grass, BITTER almond, hay, vanilla and Tonka, all notes it shares with LEE. The bitter almond/cherry note, the sweet grass, hay and vanilla are so similar. This is softer, the cherry isn't as cough syrupy and is missing the incense note I get in LEE. I'm on a never ending almond quest so I tried a sample of this specifically for the almond, and it's here! But it's bitter, so if you don't enjoy that cherry note that comes with it (and Tonka) you might be disappointed. LEE is my holy grail, but it's so disappointing in sillage and longevity. Ten sprays and I can't smell it 30 minutes later. I'm happily surprised by La Fete Nouvelle. It may be the close dupe I needed. I'm wearing the oil essence version and it's supposed to be a skin scent, but I'm finding the projection better than I expected. It's delicately sweet and a bit creamy. I'm so happy to have another almond perfume that actually delivers. The majority of almond scents don't work for me and end up smelling floral. Also, as much as I love Jour de Fete, this doesn't smell similar to me. JDF is a creamy, powdery, more heliotrope almond to my nose, closer to Cara. I highly recommend this if you like scents like LEE or SL Rahat Loukoum. I'm getting some Turkish Delight vibes as this dries down, even though rose isn't listed. I don't actually smell rose, more like a ghost of it. This is the first scent I've tried from DSH and I can't wait to try more. I also got a sample of Marzipan and I can't wait to try it. I'll report back if I find the longevity in this to be lackluster. It's been an hour and so far, so good!

What this smells like to me is hay. I should clarify: I live on a cattle farm in the Southern US, and my reference for "hay" is not the stuff that's been sitting around in the barn waiting to be fed to horses. It's meadow grass (or alfalfa, or timothy, or small grain crops like wheat or barley, before the grain ripens) cut and left to dry in the field before it's baled. THAT is the smell of hay to me, and it's a sweeter, riper smell than cut grass but very close. It's a scent that says Summer to me, and Home. And *this* is MY hay fragrance. The almond note is quite faint in it for me - like I say, it's largely drying hay and Dawn's signature sweet/dirty skin-like musk plus a bit of coumarinic tonka bean. I love it. I find it a very comforting scent. It wears quite close to the skin, but lasts. I have a dram of the oil format and a small bottle of the EdP, but the oil is my favorite. Lasts for several hours, even on my scent-eating skin.

I have this in the oil version. It's very much my style of perfume with it's sweet but dirty musk. Which reminds me of my signature, Reminiscence Musc. Very comfortable and easy to wear. It's a mild fragrance. Slightly powdery, slightly sweet. I don't find it to be particularly earthy. I can pick up lavender and a slight green-ness in addition to the almond. From the DSH website, I've gathered the additional notes in this fragrance are as follows: American Sweet Grass Freshly Mown Hay Green Oakmoss Green Wheat Lavender Flower Sandalwood Tonka Toasted Rice Vanilla

I bought this perfume mostly as substitute for Jour de Fete and unfortunately these two can't be more different 😫 This one is quite dense, dark, thick and it has kind of vintage/mature smell to it. Honestly I don't smell almonds at all, what I get is smoky, plum, tobacco combo. That smell reminds me of Karelia rolling tobacco that is popular in Europe. Can't see anyone below 40 wearing this Even though I don't like this perfume at all I must say that Dawn was really nice and very helpful for my special shipping request so customer service is 10 out 10!