Last Birthday Cake

This perfume, as well as all the perfumes of this great perfumer that I have touched, tell me the story. The association that comes to mind is with the word FAITH. It takes me straight to an Orthodox church and I feel good. Milk, wheat in the church, candles, it smells very strongly of a temple...that special sweet smell in our ortodox churches. I love going into temples, and what could be better than the aroma that takes me there, without even having to physically find myself in that space. Almond-milk cake and church. I can almost taste this fluffy milky consistency by smelling the aroma: fluffy chocolate sponge cake with nuts and almonds, dried fruits piled high with sugar, vanilla pods drowned in milk. My mother always puts alcohol in the cake. Isn't that an Eastern European/ Balkan trick? I give my mother a liqueur, and she hides it in the cupboard and says with a wink: "It's for cakes, we won't drink it!". It is amazing to me how I look at the pyramid and I can feel every single note that is presented there. Incense; melted wax; flowers; oils and myrrh... Burning incense means redemption and creates a feeling of divine delight. Doesn't eating a delicious cake also bring this holy delight? Here I also find a playfulness between the candles that we blow out on each of the cakes, even over the years until the last candles that will light our loved ones in our memory. It is not sad, it is beautiful. I see this perfume as a manifesto of the life we are going through and I want to accept it as a means of expression and art. Since I was a child, I have loved going to church. I remember how many times in my life I have been asked: "Where do you want to go today?" And how many times I have answered: "To the church." The scents of incense and candles are some of my favorite notes in perfumes, they take me back to the last moments of faith, peace and love. This perfume makes me feel like I'm back in those last carefree days when everything was simple and beautiful. I wish today for one person to imagine and believe in this story about at least the creation of the perfume Last Birthday Cake, instead of the replicated story of the sought-after sensations on TikTok about a person committing suicide on their Birthday.

At first, I didn’t like it. I had to sit with it for several hours before I became it grew on me and that’s rare for me. Usually, if I dislike a fragrance, I’m completely over it by hour three, but for this one something about it grew on me and I started to really love this. I'm pretty much in the same boat as @monipod about falling in love with this slowly. To me this has this existential type of feeling to it, happy but bittersweet. Like being in your elder years, blowing out candles on your 99th birthday cake, surrounded by loved ones and your dog at your side. But you have a speech impediment now and you struggle to speak clearly, and can't quite do the things you once loved the way you used to before. There's pride in having made it this far, you are no longer afraid of death anymore, but deep down you know it's right around the corner one day, so you've had people help you arrange foster care for your dog who will outlive you. The smell itself? It's a little bit complicated as shifts dramatically depending on how you apply it, which is a flaw with this fragrance but I'm willing to look past that here. But yeah, wearing this perfume is a balancing act. the less you apply, the better it behaves. Apply too much, and it smells unpleasant, apply it lightly, and it smells amazing, but fades quickly. So you'll need to carry a travel spray and reapply it carefully. When applied lightly: Not quite fresh cake, but more like licking store-bought buttercream frosting off a cold metal spoon, with a chemical tang lingering at the back of your throat because you ate too much sugar. It also smells vaguely of the inside of a gas station, a burnt match, tree bark, and dust. It is very charming, sugary but with just enough edge to avoid being juvenile. Overapplied: It smells a little pissy, dry, and like cat litter or brushing your hand over something coated in dust. Not nearly as pleasant. I will say, if I were ever given the chance to buy as many Toskovat’ perfumes as I wanted, this one would absolutely go into my basket. It’s not perfect, and it’s not my all-time favorite from the house, but it is still great and I enjoy it a lot. I hope we never lose Toskovat’. This is becoming my favorite perfume house.

So. I'm going to begin by addressing the elephant in the room, which is that... this is not nearly as subversive as the edgy marketing copy and notes would lead you to believe. In fact, it's incredibly wearable. I do think part of this is due to the social media discourse around Toskovats being these ~super crazy~ frags when a lot of them are not that outlandish. Now that I've gotten the negativity out of the way? This is a real treat of a fragrance, and might be a FB purchase once I get through my 1ml. The gunpowder note manifests as a sting of something metallic at the opening, but it's not strong and quickly fades. The best way I can describe the drydown is eating cake- the sticky, less sweet retro kind, not the fondant-and-icing birthday cake kind (ironically)- in a church. With your bare hands. And no matter how much you wash your hands, they feel sticky and syrupy, and you're going to get yelled at for eating what you shouldn't have. I tend to have issues picking out individual notes in Toskovats, but there's an ambery incense over the whole thing that adds depth and nuance here. It simultaneously tempers the (six!!) sweet gourmand notes while imparting this melancholic, moody vibe. This is really a masterclass in blending because everything works so well. It's a funky and unique take on what is, on paper, a scent profile that's been done by every house under the sun. Like every other Toskovat I've tried, the longevity and sillage are absurd. I kept my sample tightly shut in my purse for a full weekend and now the entire inside smells like rum cake. I also would file this under True Unisex- I don't think I could see a super ultra masc manly man or a hyper femme fairy princess wearing this, but it should be accessible to 98% of people tbh Takeaway: If you go into this expecting a Love Don't Be Shy style sweet gourmand bomb or photorealistic cake, you will be disappointed. If you go into this expecting some super edgy "OMG this frag is so HAUNTING" experience, you will be disappointed. But... if you want a nuanced and melancholic yet sweet gourmand, this is a must-try :)

Wow... okay, there is a lot to unwrap here; Firstly, this smells like a depressive gourmand fragrance, which is so unique, Toskovat' captures the motif of a last birthday so perfectly, it's sweet, it's in a way creamy, boozy but melancholic. From the first smell I was immediately reminded of something but I cannot wrap my head around what it is... once I figure it out I will edit this post but right now all I get is some memory with my grandparents (maybe?). So this gives it a plus point from my end. As I mentioned the smell is captivating, beautiful, dark, depressive in a way but is still absolutely wearable, very nostalgic to me. The first ONE spray, which I did in my car, had my throat and nose begging for fresh air, so the strength is undeniable here; Longevity, I put one spray on the top of my hand at about 11am, it is now 9pm exactly and I can still very well smell it, but it has dried down to an amazing coca-ish, milky buttery vanilla cake scent with noticeable incense, 9.5/10 (I want to see how much longer this lasts and I will edit it accordingly) Sillage, on my skin it was a BEAST in the first two hours, over two arms length easily, then it gradually gets closer to the skin but never becomes skin hugging, even now as I am typing this my nose is picking up trails of the scent. 10/10 It's perfectly unisex, but I do NOT recommend blind buying especially with some retailing prices now.

I've finally recived LBC. I wore it today and yesterday and I think that I have formed my opinion on it (mostly). Yesterday, I wore it on my hand. I got: - Heavy incense & reisins, gunpowder and booze in the opening - A milky, gourmand and beautiful vanilla cake in the drydown. Today, I wore this scent properly. Two fully pressurized sprays on each side of my neck. The experience was something else, no other fragrance acted the way this did. Once applied, I was HIT and when i say HIT, I mean it. The gunpowder & incense were so so so strong, It felt like I was hit by a bullet and I can smell the smoke all around me (it also reminded me of firecrackers (it's that kind of smokeyness)). At one point, I began coughing and the fragrance stung my throath, it was painfull. Once that was done, the gunpowder was less prominent and the incense took over along with the congac. After that, I went fully noseblind to it LBC. It was so strong that I went noseblind so so fast. I could tell that it was strong because it filled up my entire house with ease. The longevity was superb, it lasted me from the morning to the night. LBC left me satisfied as it is kinda pushing the bounderies of what I would normally wear (usually I don't wear incense & gunpowder scents). A wild ride of a fragrance, in my top 5 of all time because of the impact that it had on me when I wore it.