Sweetly Known

Oh my gooooooood. This is the best blind buy I have ever made. I had been meaning to try Kerosene for a few years now and as samples aren’t quite available where I am from, I decided to jump the gun and blind buy this one. Boy oh boy did I make the right choice ! This is genuinely one of the most beautiful, wonderfully crafted fragrances I have ever laid my nose upon. The opening is full blown realistic cardamom pods, fresh and citrusy. I was a bit uncertain I made the right choice at first as I am not used to actually realistic spices in fragrances but I now cannot stop spraying it just to experience the opening again. After a while, the cardamom goes into the background and leaves the spotlight to the freshly strung, still warm cotton candy and caramel. There is definitely coffee. A mystical , lingering incense note is also present and gives the fragrance depth. This is the Ghost Train at the funfair. Your mouth is full of candy and your nose of the smell of the smoke they blow at your face as a zombie animatronic screams at you. Like someone in the comments said, I do also feel that Sweetly Known is to Type O Negative what Unknown Pleasures is to Joy Division. Performance wise, it’s a beast that stays on your clothes and skin for days on end. It fills the room and has a magnificent trail. I sprayed some before sleep; woke up in a gorgeous cloud of caramel & gooey white chocolate which lingered on my skin until I washed it off. The bottle is splendid and has a very Steampunk edge to it, the spray is really nice and allows you to do half sprays (if that’s your thing). The pouch it comes in is very soft and velvety, a good change from the usual fragile cardboard. Season wise, I think it would be appropriate all year due to the fresh opening and the fact it is a light gourmand that is quite far from being heavy and cloying. Overall, an absolute masterpiece of a fragrance that takes a while to get the hang of. Do sample first as the opening might disturb you. Update : Unfortunately, this has started making me sick due to its potency. Oh well !

Luuuuuuv this. Stunningly unique, undeniably complex, and still curiously charming. A rare delight as very few fragrances are so strange, yet comforting. Cardamon blasts you at the beginning and the smoke is a brisk slap to wake you up, just hang in there though because the sweet caramel is a smooth caress that will keep you coming back for more. Perfectly unisex. Completely addictive. It's quite dark at stages, very warm and welcoming at others. Beautiful as it transforms through the wear, telling a story at every step. I love sweetness with an edge, this was made for me. SWEETLY KNOWN speaks directly to my soul. John Pegg is a true artist. While I don't understand or even like all his work, I respect the talent and surprising details that transform these smells into magical scent journeys. He creates fragrances for unconventional lives, adventurers, and those few breaking-trail out on the frontier. I have finally found my fragrance house, it's Kerosene. UPDATE I had put on my heaviest coat right after applying this uncommonly well-crafted gem and OVER TWO WEEKS LATER I am still welcomed by it's cozy comforting scent when I wear that coat! Beautiful! P.S. I think Kerosene is an underrated house because people do not expect fragrances to transform throughout the wear. Mass produced, generic scents that remain "stable" with only a brief hint of top notes that quickly burn off, have conditioned consumers to have a short attention span and limited understanding of how a carefully crafted fragrance can perform. Kerosene brings an entire scent story in a bottle. Each one is a journey that lasts hours. Just as you can't accurately judge a book by its cover, you can't judge a Kerosene scent in a few moments by spritzing on a card. You must spray on skin and give them at least 4 hours to fully develop.

This has made me love gourmands. I really don't know where to start with this review. There have been very few times where I have gotten a sample set and worn only ONE of the scent's to the end of the sample, and still want more. This is one of those fragrances. Starting with this fiery and fresh cardamom, instantly making it sexy and alluring and playing into the "lit match" note. Then the cardamom slowly takes a back seat to the a burnt sugar, caramel, vanilla and slight wisp of smoke (again playing into the match dying). This is the main bulk of the fragrance as the caramel, burnt sugar, and vanilla wrestle for control, one never truly overtaking another. This is all backed with probably my favorite musk note to date and a dark and dry cacao. I also get a faint woody-ness like an old Victorian nobles chair. It sinks deeper and deeper into my skin and becomes something truly beautiful. I am in love. As I stated above, this scent and "Winter of 99" by Kerosene have made me into a gourmand enjoyer. I really and truly ask that if you are at all interested or intrigued by gourmand fragrances, or like me and are often turned off by them: try this fragrance. John, you have easily jumped to my second favorite perfumer of all time, and I cannot wait to smell what you make in the future. Longevity on me is crazy, I get a good 10ish hours on skin and multiple days on clothes. Trail and sillage are excellent but can be overbearing if you have an itchy trigger finger, keep it to 2-5 sprays max; trust me, people will smell you. Compliment MAGNET on me. Fall and winter are perfect, but I can see this as a summer's night fragrance if you go easy on the sprays (1-2?) Price is amazing too, I ordered the collectors edition and it was only $8 more than the OG bottle. 10/10

Sweetly Known, king of my heart, crown jewel of my collection. I didn’t choose Sweetly Known, Sweetly Known chose me. The first time I smelled it, I wrote it off entirely. I’d just been dazzled by Unknown Pleasures and the intense cardamom opening of SK felt like an assault to the senses. I literally recoiled, stuffed the blotter in my pocket, and bought a bottle of UP. But I couldn’t stop thinking about SK. Even though it unsettled me, I couldn’t keep my nose away from the blotter, and I purchased a bottle shortly thereafter. When my boyfriend smelled it for the first time, his face lit up. “It smells like a record store!” he proclaimed, beaming. Not exactly what I was going for, but I see it - it’s the earthiness of the cardamom that’s reminiscent of incense or old paper. Don’t be scared, though: the real magic of Sweetly Known is in the dry down. After about 20 minutes, our cardamom overture settles into a deep, radiant caramel. It’s ambrosial. Truly, this stuff is the nectar of the gods. It lasts days and garners more compliments than any other fragrance I’ve ever worn, but I’d wear it even if everyone else hated it. I didn’t think SK would become my signature, but it crept up on me and now I can’t imagine life without it. John Pegg, I hope your coffee is always exactly the right temperature, I hope you have a perfect unobstructed view of the stage at every concert you attend, I hope the Lions win the Super Bowl every year from now until forever. You’re an artist.

My first Kerosene experience and all I can say is wow. I blind bought this because I really wanted to try Kerosene and I love cardamom and was feeling a bit spicy (pun intended) in the moment so I pulled the trigger and went with this one, and I’m not disappointed at all. The first spray is definitely a huge blast of cardamom, maybe a bit too much to handle, and I can see why some are turned off by this. But then let it dry down and it becomes something so amazing. I’m certainly getting whiffs of cotton candy that others are talking about. It’s so fun. The dry down is a burnt sugary caramel with cardamom when smelled up close. I don’t know if I would equate it to the smell of baked goods unless these baked goods were loaded with spices but it’s definitely some kind of confectionary smell with the caramel and sugar and cardamom. No burnt match notes at all, it’s just burnt sweetness. Speaking on longevity, this stuff is an absolute nuclear BOMB. I sprayed my arm at around 8pm and when I woke up the next morning I could still smell it very strongly. This is the strongest fragrance I’ve ever encountered along with megamare. It’s so god damn strong. Worth every penny -and this is very fairly priced compared to other frags out there. I love it and I’m so happy I went with this one from the Kerosene line up. I got a sample of blackmail too along with my purchase and I really loved that one too. Really can’t wait to try other Kerosene frags out there! 9/10