Madera

I absolutely love how this smells, the vanilla caramel sweetness of it is profoundly delicious and it lasts forever. Whether or not I want to wear it, I certainly want to smell it. This was an experiment in gourmands for me, and especially as I love vanilla, I couldn't have chosen better. I could smell this on my arm for days and never in that time did it change or play a false note. The first time I wore it I thought it was wonderful but I guess I don't want to wear gourmands. I've tried it twice since, and enjoyed wearing it more and more. Last night I used it strategically to cover the "dishwashing powder on crystal meth" stank that I could not get off me from testing Essential Parfum's The Musc (I get it, EP, we are not to be!), and this immediately wiped out the stank that no amount of soap and scrubbing could budge. I have always loved sweet scents and I know what cheap sweet smells like, but this is clearly expensive sweet. I am so impressed with the quality of the ingredients and the blend and how they last and last, softening but never going bad. I won't buy this but I would love to receive it as a gift. Edit to add that I am testing Perfect Veil by Sarah Horowitz, and on the arm still containing Medera, PV has brought forward all the floral notes I wasn't smelling in Medera. PV turns this from a sweet gourmand to a magical and complex creamy floral.

The performance of this is remarkably close to Indult Tihota, and I'm suprised to see there's not more overlap in the 'people who like this also like' section. It's a very literal interpretation of caramel and vanilla, syrupy and creamy and buttery, with just a splash of coconut cream. If you've ever had Nancy Silverton's famous butterscotch budino, it's as if they've managed to bottle her delectable, rich dessert into a fragrance. The notes in this actually sing on my skin, and I don't find it cloying or overly sweet. That said, I also know I'm the kind of person who can handle super sugary scents, whereas powder and heavy florals tend to send me running for the hills (or more accurately, the sink.) Thankfully I also don't get anything synthetic or chemical in the dry down, just that beautiful, warm, creamy caramel, for hours and hours. Whoever said it lasts forever on fabric and clothing is totally right. Much like Tihota, if I catch the edge of a sleeve or the corner of a lapel with this, I can smell it wafting from my laundry basket the next day.

This smells almost identical to Crema di Latte by Hilde Soliani. I've been looking for a creamy vanilla caramel but this scents seem to have the laconic note that goes acrid on my skin. Such a bummer Edit: I decided to wear both Crema di Latte and Madera samples for longer and note that while Madera and CdL are both incredibly similar, I don't get the acrid note with Madera on my skin. A local boutique had this on sale so I snagged a bottle, and it's very much my bedtime scent, especially for cooler weather or if I want a no brainer gourmand. This is a dense, lactonic, chewy coconut caramel, with soy candle-like waxiness that comes and goes. This may or may not be a bad thing depending on your preferences, and this may be the supposed floral notes competing with the densely sweet and chewy-thickness of the caramel. I'm still on the hunt for the perfect vanilla, but the dent in this bottle shows my love for it. Absolutely not a performer on skin, and quickly becomes a skin scent after an hour or so, but does linger on collars.

Madera is a creamy vanilla and caramel with undertones of coconut. It's warm, cozy and sweet but not cloying. It's delicious! I absolutely love this one. It's so smooth and the performance is great. It sits pretty close to the skin but longevity is good. And I can get a nice scent bubble going on if I over spray. I'm an over-sprayer anyway. This is my current favorite vanilla! I can wear it any time of the year, day or night. It layers well with many other fragrances too. Edited/ I wanted to add; I love the Omnia bottles. I love the simplicity of the design. And the glass bottles are very weighty, high quality glass with a nice cap that fits tightly. I did have an issue hen I ordered my bottle from LuckyScent though. It leaked some, the sticker was no longer sticking to the bottle. I contacted them and they asked for the photos. They sent those photos to their distributor and immediately sent me another bottle out. They told me to keep the defected bottled which was still 85% full. Great customer service!

Ok, so I totally get the reviews stating that Madera smells like vanilla candles or butterscotch. That was my first impression as well, and I thought, "meh". But then, it did a thing. Wait half an hour or so and voila! The musk and vanilla bean come through. Yes, I still get *some* nuances of butterscotch but the waxiness disappears entirely and it smells like a more complex, caramel drenched Indult Tihota. The caramel is not candy like (as in Prada Candy, which is aptly named lol) but more like caramel drizzled ice cream. It's not very burnt smelling either, which I appreciate. Madera may not have smelled very complex to me at first, in all honesty, it smelled like a cheap-ish perfume oil, but after I gave it an honest chance the complexity won me over! It's basically extra-gourmand vanilla musk, and I've been wearing it almost non-stop. I'm allergic to dairy and can't eat creamy dessert treats at all anymore (boo!!!), so this is how I get my fix :)