Saint Julep

Hey all! Just wanted to come back to just to let you all know how the body oil shapes up compared to the perfume. Perfume: Opens with this bright and sweet mint and tangerine combo that quickly settles into a tangerine mojito on my skin. It is very cooling, sweet, and yet fresh all at the same time and I love love love it. Like I said in my previous review, this is THE SCENT that got me into the hobby, and is still probably one of if not my favorite fragrance to date. If you like mint, you have to get your nose on this fragrance. Mediocre projection and performance and projection but the projection really comes alive under high heat. I have easily gotten 6 ft with this fragrance when I was sweating or when it was really hot out, but you do kinda have to do 10+ sprays in order to project. 10/10. Body Oil: Since I loved this fragrance so much I had to get the oil asap when I saw they had it. When I put this on, it's not nearly as bright and cooling as the perfume is, but that is also to be expected from oil and not perfume. The oil does improve the longevity of it, I now get 8-10 hours on my skin compared to the original 4-7, and it bumps up the mediocre projection from 2-3 hours to 4-6 hours depending on the weather. The oil is reminiscent to the dry down of this scent, the sweet orange and mint but this time a bit more boozy, but holding that for the 8 or so hours it sticks on you. There is a fair amount of ambroxan in the oil compared to the perfume, but that's not a complaint. I have taken a liking to mixing this with my lotion when I moisturize after the shower in order to really let it soak into me when I'm planning on wearing St. Julep for the day. It's nice, and even better when layering under the actual perfume but only get this if you really love the scent. TLDR: Not as fresh and cooling as the perfume, makes it last drastically longer (at least on my skin), and is a great base to spray the perfume on top of. If I had to buy one, I'd buy the perfume, but if you love the perfume but hate it's performance like I do then you should try this oil. Pretty good bang for your buck, and mixes well with lotion.

Saint Julep: I'm definitely an Imaginary Authors fanboy, first of all. This is an incredible fragrance. Very different and complex, which is refreshing with so much mimicry out there that there's still frontiers to be explored in fragrance. The initial blast is that of fresh mint and clear, bright citrus notes. When I say fresh mint, I don't mean double mint gum or listerine fresh, I mean out in the wilderness fresh. The mint has green notes in it that push it into smelling like grass or fir needles. As it starts to dry down there is an animalic note that comes out, which smells mostly like opening a car door that's been sitting in the sun with leather seats. In its entirety it keeps a candy sweetness that smells kind of like having an open package of sugar coated sour licorice. I drink bourbon every so often, and smelling a glass filled with bourbon does not smell like this. But, I can definitely feel the deep, alcoholic notes creating the backbone for the fragrance. It is simultaneously fresh and syrupy sweet, warm and cool. It really does conjure up a summer evening for me after the sun has gone down and the aroma of the herbaly plants start to emanate from the earth, sitting outside with a sweet cocktail in front of you as an evening cool starts to creep into the air. The only bummer about this scent is it doesn't seem to jump off the skin, it stays close the entire time. As it currently stands it also seems to only stay relevant for about 4 hours. I can see myself wearing this a lot during the summer, but with it's performance issues I might literally go through the bottle in one summer. At $95 for 50ml, it's not the worst thing in the world that I might have to restock sooner than later, but pretty much every other IA fragrance I have lasts for 8+ hours. Do yourself a favor and get a sample at least just to enjoy the experience

Besides Slow Explosions by Imaginary Authors, this was the first scent that I smelled from IA that REALLY got me into the niche fragrance world. This is such a wonderfully playful and happy scent, like sweet and boozy summer nights. This is one of my favorite scents of all time, and I don't say that lightly. If this scent had the longevity and sillage of something like a Mancera or Montale I honestly think I would never need to buy another scent in my life. This is such a boozy, sweet, and minty scent and it was love at first smell. In my opinion, this is a very similar vibe to "Batucada" by L'Artisan Perfumer but unlike the airy, loose linen shirt, mojito feel of Batucada. This is when the sun starts to set and the true fun starts to begin. Cocktails are being served on all sides, the smell of freshly muddled mint and sugar with a boozy splash of whiskey carries you through the hazy night. The smell of the salty water mixing with this sweet green to form this beautiful memory I'll never forget. That's the thing though. Just like any good night, they all must pass in time. Unfortunately for St. Julep, it passes too quickly for my liking. I have to LATHER myself in this scent for it to really smell like it for more than 3 hours. Granted, you get a good 5-6 hours out of clothes. I absolutely love this scent and spraying it for me will forever be a guilty pleasure. So, where does that leave us? Well it leaves us with a very simple conclusion. Enjoy this scent and enjoy this night, and let the good times flow.

as many other reviewers have noted, the biggest downfall of saint julep is its staying power. i have a sensitive nose so i'm usually very conservative with my perfume (1 spray for the whole day with very few exceptions), but saint julep is mild and inoffensive enough that i can slather on like 4 pumps at a time and still not be overwhelmed by it. even with ample application, however, i get maybe 30-60 minutes of bright fresh sweet floral mint and mild citrus before it fades into a soft, gentle creme brulee burnt sugar scent that sits very close to the skin and has fully dissipated within about 2 hours. it's a beautiful smell, smooth and light and refreshing like an iced cocktail on a hot summer day that goes down almost too easily (and before you know it, you're 4 drinks in and way drunker than you expected to be). there's nothing about it that i find particularly challenging or nuanced, it's a pretty linear smell that delivers exactly what it says on the bottle. and perhaps there's something poetic to be said about the fleeting nature of sun-drenched breezes and hot afternoons in the shade, but "pleasant & fleeting" doesn't necessarily feel full-bottle-worthy to me, and i would need a full bottle because of how quickly i'd go through it chasing those delicate lovely opening notes. maybe if i were rich, i could indulge in a saint julep habit and happily bathe in the stuff, but for the price, i'd rather splurge on something with more depth and longevity.

Unexpected Winter hit! I ordered this before Summer, but it was stolen off my porch and I finally got it back. Unfortunately, the atomizer only squirts now, but that's probably a result of all the bottle has been through. This is a sugary and refreshing treat that does evoke sipping a mint julep on a stuffy Southern Summer day. When I sampled this in the Summer, I at first interpreted something about the "watery" note as Stevia, which was very off-putting. Thankfully my brain somehow corrected that after a couple of wears. This feels "lighter" than I at first hoped for: delicate rather than biting mint, light rather than dark alcohol, delicate rather that pungent citrus, and white rather than brown sugar. It's a flirty cocktail, not a sexy drink. I didn't plan to wear this in colder months, but I realized that the holidays carry associations with Mint, Sugar, Rum (whiskey), Orange (tangerine), and "Frosted" (icy/watery) so this mixes magically with sweet coffee/chocolate/mocha scented hair/body care products, giving snow fairy or peppermint bark. This performs better than I expected. I get unexpected whiffs of airy white sugar/musk to the end of the day from my clothes.