American Cream

Freshly homemade whipped cream with a generous dash of vanilla extract. It's mid-May afternoon, and the breeze whisking in from the open window, with its faint and distant aroma of strawberries and its herbal blooms in the garden, adds a brisk contrast to the pure, warming sun beating in a defined spot on the wooden floor of the cottage. Powdered sugar scooped off in a miniature bowl on the side, ready to sprinkle upon pastries that were just placed into the oven, not yet filling the dwelling with bakery smells. Still, the whipped cream and powdered sugar add a sensual reminder and gentle reassurance of the sweet treats soon to come. It's creamy, it's dreamy. A very comforting, addictive, everyday, and every-season fragrance. The best allegory would be getting a vanilla milkshake as a child, the giddy happiness you would feel, not yet hardened and sullen by age and circumstance, but innocent and full of whimsy. There is no cherry photogenically atop the mountain peak of whipped cream—instead—a single strawberry wedged on the side of the glass with its leaves still attached; slightly fruity and herbal overshadowed by the sweet, inviting whipped cream. The dry down does bring out more of the powder, which I don't mind, and the entire scent profile transforms into something more caramel-y, still creamy. Decent moderate sillage and longevity, there are stronger hitting fragrances from Lush in those regards. As a Lush perfume fanatic, American Cream is a staple as their more feminine-leaning scents. This is such a fun, innocent, cozy, and playful fragrance—it is unimaginable how anybody who has gotten their hands on a legit, untampered sample in-store could dislike it, this is literally one of their most wearable, inoffensive fragrances that still has that unique Lush edge. This got me the compliment "You smell sweet, like you work at an ice cream shop!"

To me, this is the gold/white or blue/black dress situation but in perfume. The notes as listed on the back of my bottle: Naturals - Vanilla Absolute, Clary Sage Oil, Lavender Oil, Benzoin Resinoid, and a variety of other naturally occurring fragrant oils are from the aforementioned oils. Synthetic - Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, and Couramin When I smell this, I get two very distinct compositions: 1) A lovely creamy, floral, herbal, and powdery lavender/vanilla combo supported by a deep and resinous benzoin to add depth, and a slight touch of clary sage to support some of the floral freshness of the lavender. Gorgeous. 2) Freshly picked (but not quite ripe) strawberries on an early summers evening. But in order to sweeten them up, you chopped them up and sprinkled them over top 2 big scoops of vanilla ice cream, and a small drizzle of honey because honey makes everything better :). As you sit on your porch, the warm breeze mixes the smell of your little treat with the bloom of the flowers all around you. Yummy. Regardless of what YOU smell, this is a FANTASTIC creamy, vanillic, and slightly herbal fragrance that is a must try for anyone looking for a different yet super pleasant take on vanilla. When I smelled this in the lush store and was immediately was head over heels for it and had to buy a 30 mL. One of, if not my current favorite from Lush, and I’m really happy to have this in my collection. Surprisingly versatile for being vanilla focused. Really good longevity with moderate projection throughout the majority of the fragrance. 9.5/10. Signature Scent worthy. Song vibe - Good Life by Kanye West & T-Pain

when i was very young, there was a man who tried to kill me. these things age you. they can make you wise. but they can also make you unbearable to the people around you, as if you wear the mark of the beast, as if they can sense your miasma of despair from behind baby blue gap sweaters and tortoiseshell warby parker circular frame glasses, behind trust funds and curated instagram pages and canada goose jackets. i am a woman whose past supersedes me. people look at me and know, and i look at them looking, and i look at them knowing, and from the tension of this looking is a wall which sometimes separates me from the joys of a normal life. but lush's american cream makes me feel like a girl again, like my hair is long and there is still hope to live for. it is strawberries and sugar behind a thick film of nostalgia, yellow and pink and full of sweetness. it's tall grass and meadows melting across my pulse points; it's the first snow day of elementary school, pink pajamas and shirley temples, touching another girl's hand in the dark before either of you have a word for what's growing between gas station slushees and practice-kisses in her bedroom. the scent molds beautifully with the skin while maintaining its own unique personality. the vanilla is not too artificial; combined with the powder-smell, it creates a downy, antiquated aura. i wear this perfume, and it makes me feel like a white cable knit sweater. a good thing to wear on an old battered heart.

I am writing this referencing from my veryyyyy macerated bottle, so it might be a little different from a new bottle. American cream is not an outwardly fruity perfume which some people are a little disappointed by, the strawberry + orange + lavender notes are the 'pillars' to hold up the main lactonic vanilla blend, which makes it a truly unique vanilla frag. Do not expect these notes to stand out first sprayed or dried down, but expect them to be present in the background. This does smell like a doll head, in the creamiest way, and I absolutely adore it. This is what Vanilla Powder by Matiere wishes it could be. Like a powdery lactonic vanilla with more nostalgia, like it simply has more memories attached to it. This was my signature frag for years for good reason, it projected extremely well and came out of the washer still on your clothes with a creamier and warmer washed scent. To me, this is the most soft and innocent frag you could wear. Do you miss your days playing with dolls and wearing cheap scented lip gloss? Wear this. If you are looking for a strawberry scented plastic doll scent like some of you are, I pair this with Demeter's Strawberry Icecream (you can find it for cheap). This frag is so extremely soft, fuzzy, powdery, subtly fruity, this will always be one of my top Lush grabs.

I thought about this fragrance while I was hiking along the coastline with my friends this summer, and we ended up in a seaside trailer park with an indoor pool and a little shop selling waffle cones. The heat was blistering, the sea turquoise, and everyone was middle aged and lobster-red and slurping down melting soft serve. I wished I was wearing this. Sadly I was smelling of sweat and sunscreen and some cheap aquatic body spray, but I wanted to smell exactly like this - powdery and milky, like a drying-out milk and honey soap bar slowly hardening in the sun. It would’ve put the grainy vintage filter on the scene, the heart shaped sunglasses, and placed a big red-striped cartoonish bucket of popcorn in my hands. Don’t expect the promised strawberries, there are none. This is the fragrance equivalent of the big fibreglass ice cream cones they put outside beach shops - powdery, a little plasticky, with a retro feel and a comforting lightness. There's a lavender note that reminds me of lotions for bruises, antiseptics and sleepy afternoon naps in patches of sunlight. I love it. If I lived at the beachside trailer park and had peroxide blonde hair perpetually in rollers and a little white dog named Sweetie, this would be my scent.