E Sempre Natale

This is extremely festive! The spice blend is somewhat similar to Musc Ravageur’s. It is very clove and cinnamon-forward with a tannic black tea effect to begin. It is sweet but not majorly so, and softens on the skin to give a mulled apple cider effect, and the ambers provide warmth and nostalgia. It’s like sipping a hot toddy next to a (not smoky!) fireplace with cinnamon brooms nearby. Not really a gourmand, but I guess could be an apple cider gourmand, with the ambers providing depth and maturity. Could be a fall-winter frag for anyone who likes these notes, even if it does scream Christmas.

This smells like Christmas spices to me. Star anise and cloves. I love it so much that after two sample spritzes, I bought a bottle. This is truly my new obsession. It is very light, which I like. But the scent remains. It is as if the baking scents have wafted into my hair and it's just so lovely. I also find that it mixes well with other light scents, like Mojave Ghost or Princess or Love You Latte. This is a very unusual scent, but I find that I want to smell it every day.

To me it is a sultry, sexy, amber-ish, root beer/gingerbread fragrance. it has a beautiful melange of spices, the sweet moody presence of amber and something I can't quite put my finger on. But i can say that i love it. I got a decant to try it first, but now I am going to just get the full size.

"And Always Christmas". There is supposed to be spices, amber and biscuit here. For me it is cloves and anise. I think this would layer wonderfully with a milk or musk scent, such as Chabaud's Lait series or something like Ginger Biscuit. Another wonderful fragrance by the QUEEN of gourmand!

This opens dangerously close to candle territory, but evades it before hitting the skin. I am then hit with a fun cranberry note, specifically like opening a fresh bag of Craisins, with that little whiff of plastic that somehow makes them more appealing than fresh. I have long wanted a more feminine version of Polo Red for that note alone, and this fulfills that. I also get some cinnamon, perhaps a little nutmeg, that my brain is ready to interpret as a Michael's store, yet stays just soft and realistic enough, as if it's wafting out of a pumpkin muffin. A citrus cake blends in nicely, almost like this could be the holiday flanker for D&G Devotion. Just a dab from a sample vial is enough to provide some throw. The scent mostly remains linear; it might increase my enjoyment if I was taken on a little journey, but it is already quite a fun wear. I'm not mad that there isn't any annoying musk-y base note as a result. I wouldn't go into this expecting the most realistic gourmand ever, it is a tad uncanny valley, but in an inoffensive and pleasant way that matches its festive mood. It also isn't "too Christmas-y" to wear anytime; it would actually work well for Easter, too. E Sempre Natale is worth trying if a spicy fruitcake appeals to you and while it leans feminine, I would still place it as unisex. It's a shame that Hilde doesn't make smaller bottles, forcing us into buying off-brand decants, as I can imagine few with a collection would require 100ml of a scent like this. Otherwise, her prices per ml are fair.