Chelsea Staircase

This was my favorite of all of Thin Wild Mercury's sample set offerings, and I will be buying myself some. I was pretty confident I would like this scent profile, although I was scared of the wrought iron note as I'm normally put off by metallic perfumes. Plus I hate how my hands smell after touching a tarnished silver antique. So to purposefully put a perfume like this on myself...? Luckily, the iron note is pleasant. It hangs out in the background but does not overpower the rest of the notes. It's evocative to those who know it's there, but doesn't obnoxiously announce its presence to others. I've read comments about this being sickeningly sweet. I was concerned about this, because I dislike Lush's Supermilk and Chelsea Morning perfumes and didn't want Chelsea Staircase to fall along those lines. I'm glad to report that I don't see any resemblance. It's super cozy without being saccharine sweet. It's not a strong scent, and I think it's very wearable and would not offend passers by. To me, this perfume is very autumnal. Honeyed tea; watching dust float suspended in sun rays through casement windows; a denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up, tortoiseshell clips in your hair. I've become increasingly disillusioned with brands that create perfumes with funky fantasy notes or other gimmiky marketing that overpromises and underdelivers. Thin Wild Mercury really does deliver. I'm really happy to say that I've been super impressed with Cathleen's work and am excited to keep getting to know these scents better.

First I have to say, this frangrancier is extremely good at evoking a feeling of a memory. As a synthesiate, I deeply approve. This is what it evokes for me: In the 90s my Aunt wore Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers. She wasn’t a New Yorker, she was a petite graphic artist with an esthetic then described as “yuppie”. She lived in a high rise condo in Atlantic Highlands New Jersey. In the summers I visited her and donning linen shorts, she taught me how to use colored pencils to illustrate flowers. The warm smell of heated metal permeated from her balcony and chamomile tea drenched in honey sat on her kitchen island. There were other older high school girls who wore this kind of scent. They were the blonde, sundress wearing it girls who were too nice to hate. The kind who had many friendship bracelets. The kinds that had many colors of thread and never got dirty. I will wear it on days I want to smile and remember the sunnier sides of the street. For me the main notes of this are chamomile, honey and oak moss. The citrus brightens but is covered in nostalgia of the more grounded notes. There is a warmth emanating of earthy metal. Thank you to the creator for this capsulation.

The most unique tea scent i've ever smelled. Quite possibly my white whale honeyed lemony tea perfume i've searched high and low for. Honey isn't even listed as a note, and every honey note i've ever smelled in perfume smells like cat pee to me, so idk if i'm just insane but oh my GOD this is good. It's like, a light fresh bright perfume but for artsy cool people that are a little brooding occasionally? The canvas and sunflower and wrought iron just add the coolest atmospheric surroundings to the star of the show. I want a full bottle desperately but as an LA native I need to prioritze getting a full size from the LA collection first. But i WILL be back for this queen

This is one of my favorites from the brand and I really do think it has to do with skin chemistry. The opening of this is straight up fresh brewed lemon tea on my skin, super heavy and dense. I pick up the hot iron immediately. It smells hot, as if the tea is still steeping. The dry down turns into this sunny smell, with subtle notes of paper. It's as if you're watercoloring while sunbathing. This is not a safe buy, and it's not for everyone.

One of very few FSBs that I’ve purchased! As an artist, former-Manhattanite, and lover of Earl Grey & antiques, this is such a perfect, unique, and inspiring scent! It’s definitely a wild one though, and not a safe blind buy with the strong tea & metallic notes, but it was my favorite fragrance after purchasing Thin Wild Mercury’s NYC sample set. This will be my “day-to-night art event” go-to fragrance!

I ended up getting a full bottle of this... I don’t wear it all the time but it is definitely a mood booster. I can smell the sunflower and metallic smell of the iron note ... it drys down to a pretty skin scent. It has a rainy day feel to it as well as a morning sunny cool day these are the times I find myself wanting to wear this. This is a unique fragrance.

I absolutely love this. I normally dislike citrus and lemon notes, and have had a hard time finding fragrances I enjoy that are warm weather friendly. The other notes add a complexity to the lemon that mellows out that citrus and makes it enjoyable. Not sure if others around me have liked it as much as I do. Family seems to have sneezing fits when I wear it :(

This is so interesting. There's a warmth like you're out on someone's New York fire escape and they've made tea with lemon to bring out to you.

Ur hot cause you're cool not cause ur pretty U have to be able to pull this one off

with a constant backdrop of hot iron and canvas, earl grey and lemon on the opening, and a sunflower dry down, every note listed has its time in the limelight. i absolutely love this fragrance, it wears beautifully imo if you're up for the challenge. it really paints a picture for you and is oddly nostalgic in a way i can't quite pinpoint. i would absolutely purchase a travel size of this fragrance for hot balmy days. as someone that typically is a yellow floral hater, i never thought I'd love a sunflower scent this much

I didn't like this the first time I wore it, but I keep reaching for it on days where I want something "fresh" but still interesting. It is so interesting how you actually get the wrought iron note, especially at the opening. It dissipates a bit and dries down to a lemon & earl grey/herbal scent with a little edge. I really thought my only full size purchase from thin wild mercury would be Girl of the Year, but this grows on me. It's special but still wearable.

This isn't a crowd pleaser. Strong sillage and longevity. I was told I smelled exactly like an antique shop. The earl grey and sunflower are comfortable, inviting, with lemon to cut the mustiness in the building. The wrought iron is edgy, but it does get less tolerable over time. It outlasts everything else and I don't like falling asleep to it. Interesting and unglamorous. Easy to overspray.

Absolutely sickly sweet in an amazing way. Fresh lemon in a cup of fresh, hot earl grey tea. I don’t normally sniff wrought iron, so I don’t really know how to detect it in this perfume, but there’s a bit of a metallic smell that the tea sits on which definitely helps the lemon become sharper and fresher. I can definitely see myself wearing this. This is a beautiful perfume.

This immediately brings me back to being a kid in a ballet studio. I think of powdery hair sprays and makeup, mixed with tights and used ballet shoes, and perfume from the mothers and grandmothers dropping off their kids. It's a nostalgic, worn-in freshness. So far, I've only sprayed it on paper, but I can see how this would dry down nicely on the body.

i do get the hot iron which i really like, i get a little hot black tea though thats probably just helped by the hot iron. its mostly really, really powdery, in a makeup way, which im not a fan of. if it wasnt so powdery i would really love it. i wear it when im sick of everything else i have

A pretty tea scent. The citrus and sunflower come through and work really nicely. I don't get too much of anything metallic or cotton-like, just a simple and very wearable tea scent. It's like a more sophisticated Chelsea Morning from Lush, which I really like as well.

I really like this fragrance but it the top notes don't pull at all on me. I don't get any tea, iron, or lemon. On my skin this smells like a yellow floral and cinnamon and the dry down is very sweet. I still like it a lot but I was expecting a fresh bright scent.

Metallic like the bike you rode to the beach after sitting in the sun all afternoon. i definitely get the lemon, but its in no way fresh or realistic. a gas station by the coast maybe, where all the window signs are sunbleached and they just cleaned the floors.

I love wearing this when I go thrifting or visit antique stores. It makes me smell like a beautiful vintage trinket on a shelf—powdery, nostalgic, lemony, and antique

Ok y'all are trippin if this smells like Sunflowers. Sunflowers was my signature scent and this does NOT smell even remotely close to that.

I really had to work this one over in my head. It reminds me of so many niche little shops in my home state that would be useless to name in this review. Overall, start to finish, this fragrance stays pretty consistent and pretty consistently strong. There’s bright lemon peel, soft earl grey leaves, and sticky sunflower petals all muddled together and yet still very distinctive. I’m sad to hear that others find that wrought iron more apparent than me. Though I suppose all the previously mentioned “niche shops” do decorate with wrought iron so perhaps I’ve overlooked it. As some have mentioned this does feel kinda lotion-y. This isn’t necessarily bad. Though I wouldn’t describe it as “fresh”. This one does stand out from the rest of the NY collection. Not bad but not my cup of tea either. Quick edit: this will stay on your skin for ages. I began to get sick of it. God. Go easy on the sprays with this one.

Individual skin chemistry must be a powerful thing because I don't get any of the tea, honey, or lemon notes that others report from this one. On me I get a fairly deep perfume, definitely more fall/winter vibes, with notes of smoke, amber, herbal, and something almost animalic. Definitely a hint of wet wool smell in there. Super weird! Was hoping for more of a daytime signature scent based on the listed notes and what others have experienced, but this one might not be for me. Just got the sample so I can see myself experimenting with it from time to time but not likely to purchase a full bottle.

Of the NY collection I was most excited for this based on the note list unfortunately I’m pretty in the middle on it. It doesn’t smell unpleasant, but it’s not pleasant either. I was most hoping for a good tea scent, but I can’t detect the Earl Grey at all. I can somewhat smell the sunflower and lemon, but they meld together to make a lotion-y smell. This fragrance more reminds me of the smell of a medicinal lotion with fragrance added, more than a perfume.

Another one from TWM I wanted to love - I love the idea of this brand and think the perfumer is so cool. I got none of these notes. this was the first fragrance I ever had to scrub off of my skin. it legitimately made me nauseous. Something about my body chemistry makes the dingy notes in these fragrances come forward. a very poorly cleaned staircase perhaps? Sigh. oh well.

VERY strong opening of sickly-sweet lemon/honey/cinnamon! The hot iron scent could be playing into the cinnamon aspect I am smelling; it's really interesting overall. Feels like I have a summer flu and am bedridden but forced to watch the bright days move further from me day by day while my grandmother continues to feed me cup after cup of honey lemon tea. Whew!

This is a super interesting fragrance. It’s VERY long lasting and the silage is great, but I’m honestly confused about the notes. It smells, and I mean this literally, EXACTLY like scotch whiskey to me. Like—identical. It’s not unpleasant at all, actually pretty nice, but it’s definitely unexpected from the frag notes. Just a heads up if you’re considering it!

this one reminds me of wearing a 90s rayon dress with no bra, on a lazy day in June spent watercoloring en plein air. really enjoy the open of this. sunflower and canvas are strong to me. unfortunately I did not enjoy the dry down on my skin. it was spicy and astringent. perhaps in my reverie, I left the teabag in too long and forgot about it. :)

This is such a unique smelling fragrance, the canvas and iron are surprisingly there for me. I also really smell the sunflower, very very unique and interesting. I don’t think I would wear it however but it’s super cool to smell

smells like a rack of weird vintage hippie clothes in an antique store. fringed suede jackets, fur vests, corduroy pants, and flowy hand-dyed dresses with fading colors. they all smell like the remnants of their past lives: heady patchouli incense, clean sweat, the spilled contents of an unsmoked spliff, lemon candy wrappers, dust, and the inside of a forgotten closet. as you flip through them, the scent clings thickly to your own clothes and makes you sneeze. you can smell the must of the old building and its cracked concrete floors, the soft wood and weathered iron of the tools in the booth to one side, and the powdery avon bottles and porcelain figurines of the booth to the other.

This is... something. I thought, by the notes, I would be more open to this than some of the others in the sample set. It smells like a perfumed bathroom, but not in a good way with air freshener, but the remnants of someone's body odor. The lemon is super sharp, overpowering the tea, like Lemon Pledge but more astringent? This is not my cup of tea (it's lacking in that aspect, actually), but I find it to be a unique, evocative scent that does more with creativity and inducing memories than it does for wearability.

Ugh idk I think the whole New York line is a flop for me. They all smell the same, like the inside of an occult gift shop. It's a shame cause I loved the LA line so much. Smells like a very cheaply made indie perfume with essential oils, which is disappointing for this price point.

wore my sample out going back and forth on this one; i think it’s time i admit i don’t like it. it’s time i admit it smells like the overwhelming potpourri fragrance they were pumping into pier 1 imports back in the day.

This smells like leather, cherry and tobacco, is something wrong with my nose? Anyone else? I tried to guess notes before I looked and I was way off lmao

Opening is beautiful, but I'm not a fan of the dry-down, which I find very cloying. Just doesn't work with my skin chemistry :/

Honeyed tea, but in a sickly way. Not for me.

"Canvas" and Earl Grey tea. Bizarre. Hot iron?? Just rank, and makes me recoil. The test strip to the garbage. It does not feel healthy to breathe this in.

The smell of dirty metal mixed with vomit on old carpet. Horrid.

Wow this is good, and so unique. I ordered a NY sample set, and sprayed this and girl of the year on a piece of paper because I was so interested to smell them. I was wearing another perfume at the time or otherwise, I would have immediately worn one. Today, I am wearing Chelsea staircase on my skin and wow it's incredible. I absolutely love it- it really smells like a sunflower oil painting, inside someone's flat cutting fresh lemons, and dried tea leaves. There's also this faint sweet shampoo note, probably floral. I won't lie- I ordered the la sample set after smelling this I am going to have an impossible time deciding which perfume I want to buy a full size of.

I wanted to like this so much, and I can definitely understand why some people do. Unfortunately my nose is so sensitive to what I think is the wrought iron note. I appreciate the creativity and innovation behind it and am glad to have my sample but i had to scrub it off my skin. There was just something very dense and heavy and a little sickly to it, i ended up with a nauseating headache. I think maybe it’s the warmth of the sweet, honeyed florals with the contrast of the dense, cold iron that just made me feel very nauseous. Again, i have a lot of appreciation for the scent and the creativity behind it i just can’t wear it.

I agree with some of the others that this scent is a bit too "sickly sweet" and it REALLY clings to you. The opening is lovely but what it turns into is something you have to really be in love with because it's almost headache-inducing if you over-do it. I didn't mind the scent of it on my clothes after a few hours when it had lightened up. It reminds me of a Lush perfume I had back in the day but I don't remember what it was called, but the dry-down was super powdery sweet. Overall, this was okay but I don't think I need a full bottle.

Oh wow, I'm instantly thrown back to my babushka's house when wearing this. The smell of hot tea infused with lemons and honey fulling up the room mixed with her natural old woman smell and freshly bloomed sunflowers peering through the open window. No, I'm not kidding about the old lady smell, it is noticeable. I've made my russian mom smell it and she agrees that it smells like a babushkas house lol.

C-Staircase smell identical to Alina by Lush. Its bizarre. Both have a sunny disposition with some weirdness in the background. Like a very cheerful very cool person but aloof and non committal. You are left wondering where do they go, where do they live. It's a sunny confusing mystery.

smells like wet dog fur and dried tea leaves. i attempted to scrub this off but i couldn’t so now im stuck feeling sick for the rest of my day. can’t even study for my degree. if i fail im blaming this fragrance. sheep meadow is amazing though so no hate to thin wild mercury.

There is something almost sickly about this one. Like sweat from a fever mixed with tea and honey... I love it.

the metallic lemon honey aspect of this scent is really cloying and difficult for me. i don't like this one.