Heliotrope Milkbath

it’s like the ancient fragrantica proverb goes: you know a perfume is about to be incredible when half the reviews are saying it smells like cat piss. to me, this is the sexiest perfume out there, but i have strange tastes. before i purchased my sample i saw someone say this smells like an incontinent elderly woman’s piss-stained pantyhose, and that secured the purchase for me. make of that what you will. but this fragrance is insanely good. it’s one for the super-weird lesbians. it’s hospital florals for sickness, a flowershop counter-girl with pollen on her nose, peeking in the medicine cabinet on a sleepover and looking at incandescent bottles of body shimmer and candied violet lipgloss and feeling a pang of jealousy or longing or desire. its central eroticism, in my opinion, comes from this fragrance’s ability to balance maturity with playfulness, like an older woman who knows how to have fun, and who knows what she wants - but not in that classy, sleek-hair-bun and sunglasses way that everyone covets these days, but in a chintzy way, a vision of kitschy florals and ugly wallpaper and delicious lipstick and pink maribou feather kitten heels on click-clacking on kitchen tiles. she’s femme in a neurotic, cadillac-driving, miss piggy type of way. perverse and motherly. another thing that i find so distinctly sexy is that this smells like being lost and entrenched inside the world of this gorgeous imaginary woman, in her bedroom and bathroom and dressing room, and all the intimacy that comes with that - the smell of old makeup, dried bouquets, body fluids on crumpled tissues, her hair rollers and perfume, heart-shaped gift boxes of candied violets, pussy and pussycat and porcelain dolls. it’s a portrait of closeness, a closeness that’s borderline uncomfortable yet attractive nonetheless, like the moment you’re close enough to someone’s face to smell their breath moments before you french kiss them. spectacular. femininomenomenal. it’s not for everyone - floral-musky-animalic scents are often polarising, no doubt - but speaking as a lover of cat piss and pantyhose and old women, this is a favourite. 10/10.

I agree with all the reviews (they're so creative and spot on!) which is so interesting in itself lol. I'll just add that I really enjoy this one. There's something weirdly addicting to the softly flowery, creamy, spicy, powdery, babydoll head, bit of cat pee medicinal clove like a brand new bandaid fresh out of the wrapper scent. It's unique to anything I own and I honestly cannot remember why I own it. Having re-worn it, I remember why I bought it: I was after the almond and it dries down into this delicious creamy soft hum-of-powder almondish concoction with no cat pee to be found. It's quite lovely, very feminine. It's going to be my scent of the week! Edit 2: I now adore this. It's delicious for some reason and causes zero headaches/itchy eyes (I'm annoyingly allergic to many perfumes, particularly musk notes). I think I A)Love heliotrope and B) I'm fortunate that civet does not become emphasized with my skin chemistry. On the contrary, it seems to disappear in this scent. I like to layer this with Calycanthus from Acca Kappa and it adds a gorgeous powdery depth to the bright floral, same with Osmanthus Yunnan. My husband got a waft from me today and it turned his head in a good way lol.

When I bought my first Universal Flowering sample set, I did so out of immense curiosity for Courtney Rafuse’s artistry that’s so palpable in the way she describes her scents. When I received them, I was perplexed to find that I didn’t actually enjoy wearing any of them, though I could respect them for the works of art that they are. Heliotrope Milkbath was one of these. I was turned off by the delicate girlishness - the powder fresh quality that I sometimes associate with chalky white deodorant or sock drawer pouches. But something about it kept me coming back to it, far more so than the others I sampled. By my third or fourth wear I realized (foolishly late) that I was totally enamored with it. Heliotrope Milkbath opens with a puff of talcum powder and dries down to a silky sweet violet - soft petals caressing bare skin. This perfume makes me feel like a milk drunk baby, freshly washed and swaddled, safe and cared for in the arms of someone I love. Right as my 2mL sample came close to empty, my sweet girlfriend gifted me a 7.5 mL pen for valentine’s day. A beautiful ode to being fastidiously yet gently cared for.

funny how our taste changes huh? originally smelled this 4 years ago and i didn’t get it. why? the same reason i dismissed other violet fragrances—and yes, i know violets are not listed here, but i do get a combo of violets and violet leaves, sue me. there’s something sourish in the opening, and yes it’s a cliché, but it has the same sourness as an unripe fruit—not so obviously abstract, it’s just there. then, around the same time, there’s a warm powdery effect that kinda leans ultra-feminine, as in someone who wears this has a high feminine energy, if that makes sense. it’s very sensual and sexy, not a try-too-hard fragrance. but what i really like about this is the drydown—the powderiness never really goes away, it just transitions into a skinny musky theme that is ever so slightly woody as well for some reason. you’d think it might be too much, but no, not really. i also appreciate that even though it does change a little bit, it maintains everything that i like throughout the wear. if this was a colour, it would’ve been white.

Smells like a very watered down version of Carnicure by Marlou, for those who know of this fragrance. The opening is floral and on the slightly sharper end of the spectrum, but quickly dries down to be more powdery. The animalic note from the civet comes out just slightly on me and to me it doesn't smell too "human", if that makes sense. This fragrance smells mostly floral, kinda soapy, kinda powdery but also like somebody had been wearing it for a few hours. The sillage is so intimate here – probably one of the most close to skin scent I have ever tried – yet I do find the longevity to be decently long. Not forever, but quite long. But because of this, often I forget I have it on and that Heliotrope Milkbath is my natural scent haha or rather I wish I smelled like this naturally. I like it, but probably would not wear it to work or go out etc because it sits so close on my skin that it's essentially lost on me when I'm in public spaces.