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.

I've been testing this out for a few weeks, and have had a really hard time pining this down. Initially, it smells just like those old-fashioned, chalky violet candies. As it dries down, I get more of that slightly stinky pantyhose note that others have mentioned. I think it's really interesting that several reviewers have mentioned that this smells very young (Lolita-esque, or like a very loved baby) while others have described it as elderly, a little grandma-esque, a little Victorian. I honestly agree with all the above. It's somehow old & young at the same time, in a way I haven't experienced before, and find intoxicating. For people who have seen Poor Things, this is what I imagine Bella smells like during the sex worker phase of the movie. Sexy, a little dirty, of another era, another place, another world.

keep trying to chase the civet and find the piss note people say they pick up here, but i just can't. i think that would bring this up a notch to something exciting that really challenges me, but there is nothing divisive about this to my nose. as is, this is a delicious gently musky apricot-y almond heliotrope, candied but not quite edible. this is certainly not a realistic heliotrope--i smelled some on my walk while wearing this, and this lacks the spice and the powderiness of the real thing--but it's delicious nonetheless. edit: after accidentally spilling a large quantity of this over my wrists and wearing it out in slightly warmer weather, i think i can finally pick up the delicately pissy elements of the civet, but i think it works to make this a little skankier, less girlish, more exciting.

Heliotrope Milkbath smells like a forgotten afternoon in the attic, in the best and strangest way. The opening is powdery‐sweet heliotrope with [to my nose] a touch of violet, like digging through an old makeup bag tucked away in a box of keepsakes. The vinyl is cracked, the zipper a bit stiff, and inside are half‐used compacts, waxy coral lipsticks, and a lingering veil of cold cream. Underneath, there’s a milk‐warm softness tinged with something slightly off‐kilter: a faint mustiness, like the underbelly of an old theater, with dusty velvet seats and polished wood. It feels vaguely animalic, almost urinous, like the ghost of a rat problem long since handled. It's unsettling, but oddly tender. It’s not something I actually wear, but I cherish this little oddity in my collection

i love how complex this is. it keeps evolving and evading me and i keep trying to chase the piss note that everyone says it has but i just get animalic, powdery, flowery, plush.... i kinda hate when people "characterize" a fragrance as sort of "nymphette" by saying it smells sexual and childish at the same time (hello! weird! ew!) but i have to admit it does smell heavy in the same way that lust from lush has a kind of... discharge-y smell. which is not a bad thing! fellow lezzies you get it. its an oddly addicting scent. over time, it becomes kind of nostalgic like a hotel bubble bath or clean skin scent. but also still candied purple florals. it contains multitudes, its beautiful and complex, and the individual notes blend together really well

when i first smelled this perfume, back in the heat of late summer, i was totally and utterly enamored with it! while i don't think it's as stunning in the cold weather, putting it on today made me remember why i love it so much. i love a floral fragrance with odd, musky, almost milky undertones, and this hits those marks perfectly. it feels very sexy and heady in the heat, and certainly made me feel like a sensuous, sweaty flower garden. i love the presence of body in it - it's a very organic scent to me, with none of the artificiality that can make a heavy floral scent cloying. highly recommend, especially for garden parties or sunset orgies.

Thought I hated this perfume when I first tested it out, but I found myself wanting to wear it whenever I was home by myself or fresh out the shower. It's overwhelmingly powdery, which may be the only thing that keeps it from seeming edible, and lasts a good 10 hours. It's squeaky clean and simultaneously offensive. Imagine candied ginger / potpourri / chalky seashells and baby power in a tile bathroom where a cat has definitely pissed.... Or imagine dressing up in a bubble skirt to egg your ex's parent's house, or a late night cig / joint outside the local whole foods... I think I'm in love!

This is a super sexy old lady perfume. The heliotrope has a really nice powderiness that blends well into the civet. The civet is definitely noticeable. I can smell the pee note everyone is talking about but I think it smells amazing in the perfume?? Like it totally works. Plus I asked my friends and they said they didn’t smell pee at all, they really liked it. It dries down to a lovely almond milk with musk and a hint of dried apricot. This is an absolutely beautiful fragrance and definitely worth buying a sample of. Don’t blind buy it though, it’s a weird one!

half private high school girls' bathroom, your friend who doesn't like you much and knows she's prettier than you sprays on her perfume and does her makeup before you walk to 2nd period, and you can still taste the milk from your breakfast at the back of your throat... half raped nymph squeezing her swollen breasts curiously in a patch of flowers, a drop of milk falls from her nipple and onto a gnat that just landed on her white thigh. she doesn't understand a thing, her skin is warm and fragrant.

Idk but I want to bathe in this, live in it, and be burried in it. If I could drink it...no. But geeze, I mean never say never. This is one of the prettiest smells I've ever smelled. Yes, it's powdery, but it's also juicy. Somehow it smells chewy, like candy. I don't know how something can smell chewy, but it does. Like gummy frogs with the creamy bottom. Mmmmmmmmm.

Drug of choice, babydoll head... it’s there Someone said this is Hole’s album live through this. Yes. This is Victorian girl child hiding that she is wasting away from consumption in the best way possible. Saccharine and a note of something sour. Smells Like girlhood. Like hiding your power until you get what want. I will wear this all spring.

a musky floral that veers slightly animalic. imagine candied violets meeting sins of the flesh. velvety and lasciviously smooth. perfect for sleeping on silk sheets and reading anaïs nin. fitting for a pillow princess... makes me feel like a porcelain doll. dainty, soft, and powdery sweet. like getting caressed and kissed by purple florals.

This smells similar, but not 100% the same, of Palmolive to me. I love the smell of Palmolive, so naturally I love this scent. I don’t get any “cat pee” smell, and I have a cat so I know what that smells like, but I also let my sample sit in the sun for like a month before I even tried it (I’m a horrible perfume owner I know lol).

smells like someone went to take a warm milkbath littered with petals but fell asleep and was found a couple days later. feels like it's purposefully trying to mask filth behind a sickly saccharine veneer. has a vintage quality that's not dated per se. something about it is so compelling

very into this!! the first five minutes on my skin were pure candied violet—crystalline and powdery—but it settled into a lovely creamy sexy scent. my girlfriend said it smells like wearing cashmere with nothing underneath, i think it smells like wearing a silk slip to bed.

Number one of my wishlist- a beautiful sleepy powdery waking dream of a scent. Like a lavender tea before bed. Like Lush sleepy dusting powder. I like to pair it with something leathery. It wears best on clothing as opposed to skin.

I heard someone describing this scent as “chewy” and I would have to agree. This is a big love for me. I do get a slight animalic note but blends well into the wear of this fragrance. Milky, powdery, sweet and fun.

Somewhat sweet purple florals, powdery, milky, sexy, mischievous, and dirty—the perfect scent for '90s ladies like me who wanted to be Courtney Love and Audrey Horne.

Love it!! To me, this smells exactly like L’Oréal lipstick, which I love. Very sweet and powdery.

purple floral marzipan heaven. delicate, and real nasty. sex and candy by marcy playground.

this is what audrey horne spritzed on herself before climbing into agent coopers bed

Milky chowards violet mints with a slightly animalic musk in the background 🫶

If the album “Live Through This” by Hole 1994 was a perfume.

I agree with everything said below and I still love it lol

Heliotrope Milkbath is a sheer almondy heliotrope without much weight, on a base of fermented almond dough. The heliotrope in this is unmistakable, and yet it doesn’t have that cherry liqueur feel of the typical heliotrope, or the deep purple feel that some heliotrope have. This whole perfume feels very blanched to me, blanched of color, punch, and depth. Milky but not super lactonic, more in the sense of whiteness. It is delicious though, weirdly so, and there’s an undeniable animalic facet, but I don’t perceive it as urine. More like a gentle fermented smell, and this adds to the whole doughy effect. The apricot is probably adding to that light and fruity fermented feel. It doesn’t make me think of urine but it does make me think of pampers, the scented kind. I don’t know, I like Heliotrope Milkbath, it’s weirdly appealing. I’ve only smelled Poems One through Twelve from this line but so far my impressions including this one are that the fragrances are sheer and mild, and don’t have a lot of longevity or sillage.

I understand that the civet note is very divisive. To be honest, I didn't even notice the animalic note all that specifically until I saw the notes. It's an interesting fragrance. Powdery, a little lactonic, sweet when it heats up. It definitly opens with a strong baby powder/lotion note. Personally this put me off initially because I don't enjoy powdery scents. There definitely is a noticeable animalic note but it just kind of smells like a pet store/owning a hamster. I would definitely not reccomend a blind buy, but if you do get to sample it PUT IT ON SKIN!!! It performs its best when it heats up, something about the warmth really activates the sweeter floral notes and makes it a yummy milky heliotrope fragrance. Unfortunately, this is a very skin chemistry reactive scent and while I find it pleasant, it has very unique notes that others may be sensitive to.

It smells of new mothers/ newborn babies and breastfeeding. Idk if anyone else knows what I'm talking about but I've been around some pregnant women that have a certain smell to them? Like a subtle sweet smell.. Maybe it was their perfume but I've smelled it on several pregnant women. I haven't actually smelled breastmilk (well, not as an adult lmao) but this perfume brings back memories of breastmilk and breastfeeding. Human muskiness, warmth and sweet milk. It's the first perfume I've smelled with a civet note and I personally don't get any pee/poo/dirty/whatever element. It smells like BABY but not baby powder, a literal clean baby that just breastfed. Overall I do like it but it's not FBW for me. If you want a very sweet and innocent baby like smell I would recommend this.

i'm not a professional so this is my review as just a normal girl trying to get into fragrance: first spray is borderline intolerable... to me it smells incredibly plasticy? it almost smells like sour milk. I sprayed it on paper and on my wrists. it smelled worse on paper, but I could not imagine spraying that initial scent all over my body. when it dries down, its much much better! feminine, musky, sexy, sweet, smelled a bit peppery but that went away. If I could see past that insane initial smell that lasts around ten minutes, this is a yummy smell. I think for the price point though, you could get a very similar musky sweet girly smell with something like Glossier You.

I actually appreciate this one, but definitely not for me to wear. I think it's got really interesting DNA. It's creamy, very sweet, and animalic in a soft skin-like way. I'm getting some apricot, but I'd say it smells very much like fluffy rice pudding. Someone below called it "chewy" and I agree. I definitely don't get a urine scent. Which is interesting, because I normally hate civet. The blend is quite lovely, but it's far too sweet and youthful for me. However, I do like how powdery and nostalgic and comforting it feels. I feel like this would smell really pretty on someone under 30 years old, or on a girl who has the aesthetic of an antique doll.

heliotrope milkbath is most enjoyed by girls with troubled childhoods (without revealing too much of myself, though I fear the scent itself may be reminiscent of an open vulnerableness and naïveté) playing with dolls and offering their hearts to others too soon. it opens very powdery, and reminiscent of a candy bowl in a house that owns a pet cat. there is a lived-in animalic edge to this- i appreciate the Poor Things Bella Baxter reference in these, and must agree with the comparison. along with skanky stockings. suffice it to say, i might have to be naked post-bath at night to wear this, but it's beautiful artistry in its own right.

Opens sweet, touch of subway cleaning fluid, but not outsized and doesn’t ruin the scent for me. Choosing to wear this on a rainy and chilly day wasn’t the best choice, because it leans a little saccharine. But I start to love it as it develops. When I sniff it on my wrist, I get a nice powdery, almondy, creamy scent. Later in the day, sitting at my office, I feel like I’m a pretty little ghost from 1948, like a doll on my grandfather’s ornate oak pantry cabinet, stacked next to the doilies and the tins of dried apricot.

I got luckyscents of this, saffron flour and poems 1-12 and this one is the strongest/most projection out of all of them. the almond milk smell complements the heliotrope rlly nicely like IDK how to describe it they blend together well. the civet isn't bad to me it adds like a human/musk-y smell to this that I like :-)c I rlly dont get a piss smell lol. reminds me of chanel no 5 but if it was more milky, heady, and sweet. I rlly like it !

The animalic civet note opens very strongly (i.e. the Victorian/urinal cake waft), but as it dries down, it becomes more milky, delicate, and powdery. This is a very vintage, antique, quirky, feminine scent. It was a blind buy. This is not a vanilla heliotrope.

It reminds me of taking a bubble bath in the summer. Your skin is soft, perfumed, and soapy but there's a sheen of sweat on your forehead from the heat.

grandma coming out of her milky flowery bubble bath and powdering herself down, oh lord it’s clean and yummy!

If the 1975 ethereal classic film 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' was a perfume...

I don't know why I keep trying fragrances with civet... Well it's definitely in here! To be fair, heliotrope and almond, while lovely, can be kind of a boring combo on their own (super soothing and pleasant, but when worn all day can be a bit meh), so I get the idea of introducing a bit of intrigue with the civet. And it certainly does shake things up, but unfortunately I just can't get on board the civet train as I'm a basic bitch who just perceives it as urine. The civet is gone by the time you get to the drydown and at that point it's a close-wearing, subtle heliotrope, which is nice but, again, not super interesting.

Heliotrope Milkbath takes the rather decorous Victorian accord of heliotrope, grabs its hands and leads it to an erogenous zone. The purple cherry-pie powder blooms have been caught with their knickers down. I almost blush when smelling this, as a somewhat pissy sensation lies just under the surface of puff and pillow drool and lipstick smear. The funny business does wane into a rather tepid hotel-soap musky base but it was fun while it lasted.

Nice. It kind of smells to me like sweet, fresh garden peas in the pod. This musk does not feel particularly animalic or pissy though...it’s just a bit of added depth to an otherwise sweet, light and gentle flower and almond. It’s still fairly sweet and gentle, though. But the accord is not sustained; the dry-down loses dimension and becomes basic soapy.

i really loved this on the first spray. the almond really stands out and gives it this really creamy sophisticated scent, especially on skin. after twenty minutes, my nose was brutally assaulted by the powdery element in this fragrance. smells a little like the odor coating they put on doggy poop bags. interesting fragrance, just not for me.

Opening is like being punched in the nose by something unpleasant. From there, baby diaper for some time. On my skin, barely smell the heliotrope but a lot of the almond and powdery musk. Tried to make it to the dry down but couldn't. Not a safe blind buy. Definitely sample if considering. Sillage is really quite impressive for such a scent.

I actually found this much more unique and interesting on paper than I did on skin. On paper I really felt equal parts floral and milky, but on skin I did get the air freshener type quality that others have spoken about. If you like a light floral with a twist I do think you could really like this but just a bit to heady for me.

i literally do not pick up on the animalic notes and all and that might be for the best. this is just a nice, powdery floral almond. i originally bought a decant due to the contrasting notes, but there’s nothing challenging about this to me. it’s nice, that’s all it is though

I've been wearing this for 5 hours and my left wrists smells like Almond Roca dust, rock sugar, and hot floral milk. My right wrist smells the nightstand of an aging 70s sex pot: pussy, silicone, and baby powder. Maybe I'm having a stroke.

A thick humid cloud of heliotrope, milk like whipped cream melted too sticky on the sheets, in your hair, smeared across the body, warm, powdery, almost cloyingly sweet at my throat.

Idk man this smells just like straight baby powder to me .....