First sniff impressions: Geek Chic Cosmetics

The perfume newbie is back and ready to smell the wrong notes in indie fragrances.

I ordered these solid scents from Geek Chic Cosmetics--they have quite an array of makeup items (eyeshadow, blush, foundation, lipstick, gloss, etc.) and also a few solid scent collections. I got two from the Traces of Thedas collection, based on Dragon Age companions, and one from the Badasses of Fiction collection--the one based on Riddick, because obviously.

Full disclosure: I was hesitant to order from Geek Chic because of past controversies with their products. (Please do Google this if you are considering buying from them.) However, my fandom-nerding and curiosity won out, and I don't want what I know to bias this review.

Obligatory bit about customer service: I ordered from Geek Chic on June 18th. They shipped on the 27th within the stated turn-around time (seven business days, which is pretty short for an indie) and I received the package today, July 9th. So my shipping experience wasn't particularly fast as it has been with other indies lately, but it wasn't at all slow, and everything went smoothly without me needing to contact anyone. No samples were included, but I made a very small order, so.

On to the scents!

Props to Geek Chic: this is very cute packaging.

Prepare to Be Boarded
Leather, salt, something woodsy, and something very sweet (vanilla?) and vaguely floral? That's the order these things popped out to me but the sweetness definitely exists at first sniff and pushes to overpower the scent--while I think that's a neat way to interpret Zevran, it's maybe a little too much. This leather + sweet afterscent reminds me a bit of Bubble and Geek's Sunnydale Library, although the leather in that has a musty tinge and the endnote here is far sweeter.

Geek Chic's description:
Dark, earthy woods mixed with spicy cinnamon, cloves, fresh rosemary, and clad in tight leather. Tempered with fresh, juicy fig and Tahitian Vanilla with a touch of tonka bean. A robust, spicy, and manly scent. A good scent to wear while fist-fighting a grizzly bear.

I don't think I find the woodsiness of this dark or earthy--a little fresh and piney, maybe due to the rosemary. Leather is far more on the surface than perhaps I anticipated from this description. Cinnamon I should've picked out, but I'm not sure I get cloves or fig (maybe the fig is coming off floral to me...?). I think this scent is interesting as an interpretation of Zevran, but the cinnamon-tinged vanilla is too strong and bakery-ish for this scent to seem spicy/masculine to me. Not sure how I feel about this scent, so I'll come back to it, but I think it's not really as described for sure.

Lone Survivor
Wet dirt (not soil, dirt), sweat, Speed Stick, and something sweet but not as pushy at the end? I don't even know what is happening here but I am pretty amused by it because it definitely evokes Riddick to me. This also smells like my dad at the end of a day at work after he's washed his hands with that orange Gator soap, so though it's odd I like this scent. It's familiar and comforting.

Geek Chic's description:
Lone Survivor is a spicy sweet scent mixed with that fresh potting soil scent that just smells... alive. It's fresh and warm, and wears really well.
Top notes: Smooth, earthy vanillas and champa
Middle notes: Dark, cool, fresh soil
Base notes: Nutty cinamon and molasses [typo preserved, sorry GC]

I think the cool soil here really comes to the top for me, though I don't find it fresh-garden as much as I do sweaty-person-who-just-worked-on-a-dusty-construction-site. Earthy vanilla and molasses do sound like the sweet thing I'm smelling at the end, which is not too much like I find in Prepare to Be Boarded. Otherwise, I have no idea how the notes they have put down here correspond to what I am experiencing, but I like this scent. Again, I don't know that it's as described, but in this case it's better for me.

Swooping is Bad
ROSES--really strong roses--vanilla, and something boozy. I might've layered that over some sweat, steel, and maybe a little woodsmoke to be Alistair, but I don't make perfumes, so I can't complain--these are good notes for the character and smell pleasant together.

Geek Chic's description:
Swooping Is Bad has a cool, earthy oakmoss base with fresh-cut rose and airy midnotes, topped off with buttery sweet rum.  

Hmm, I probably would've felt this scent more if I could smell that oakmoss base, but the roses here are pretty insistent. The sweetness of the rum must be that vanilla hint I smell. In any case, this is pretty pleasant-smelling and totally wearable, so I'm cool with it.

Overall
I think Prepare to Be Boarded is probably a miss, but I really like Lone Survivor so I'm okay with that. Ultimately, these are $3.49 each, so although they're small, they're a pretty good deal and a small investment to try out a fragrance. I don't know that I would order again since the descriptions didn't strike me as matching the scents very clearly and I already have the scents I most wanted for the geeky novelty, but maybe if they do another collection of a rarely-represented fandom in future!

First sniff impressions: Bubble and Geek

Recently, I've been interested in dipping a toe into the strange and wonderful world of indie perfumes. Which is odd for me since basically my "signature smell" is the tea tree oil I use for every skin problem and whatever my partner's shampoo smells like. My favourite perfumes are celebrity-endorsed and I use them twice a year. So when I say I know nothing about perfume, I definitely mean it. (I like to cook, though, so I guess my nose is okay.)

I decided to make an order with Bubble and Geek because I enjoy a well-done fandom-inspired item and their shipping costs to Canada were very reasonable. They're most known for their scented candles, which are sadly prohibitively expensive to buy internationally, but I figured some of their scents-as-perfumes sounded intriguing.

Obligatory bit about customer service: I placed my order with B&G on June 26th and it shipped on the 30th, arriving here on July 7th. Their turn-around time is listed as 1-3 business days, which was accurate and that's really fast for an indie. Shipping to Canada was quick, especially given the holiday weekend here during that week. The order was also well-packaged. Observe:

The order arrived in an eco-friendly bubble mailer. Inside the mailer, the items were wrapped in another bubble-wrap bag (the black one pictured). Inside the bubble-wrap bag, the perfume samples and two lip balms were wrapped in blue tissue paper (the cute sticker sealed the perfume samples; the lip balms were wrapped individually like Christmas crackers). In the tissue paper, each vial is inside its own plastic baggie. Granted, I've never ordered perfumes before, so I am unsure what's standard--but I feel that this packaging indicates some real determination to ensure that everything arrives safe and unspilled!

The order does not contain other samples, but it does contain a code for 10% off a next order over $20.

Now to scent impressions! I'll likely provide a more in-depth review of each scent after I wear it a while, but I wanted to at least check these out. I won't be inserting the product's description until afterwards so I can be as uninfluenced as possible.

King in the North
Very masculine with a sweet afternote. Lavender buried under woodsy musk, maybe? Maybe a bitter mint? I really like the scent of this, though it's a little bit overwhelming at first. It's definitely got a sweet-herbs-poking-out-of-the-forest-floor thing going on that suits my idea of Robb Stark. I don't know if I can pull it off as it pulls even muskier on my skin (I might try anyway), but I'm going to see if my partner likes it. I will find a way to have this in my life.

Bubble and Geek's description:
This fragrance features scents from a weirwood forest mixed with a blend that, on its own, I call "Prince Charming," which includes soft lavender, crushed cardamom, and sensual oakmoss. It is topped off with a hint of frosty mint and vanilla.

Kicking myself for missing the cardamom here because it's definitely there and I love cardamom, but I don't really notice much vanilla. In any case, I love this scent.

Sweetsleep
Smells like cloves and cardamom to me. A bit of sweetness, maybe orange peel? This is a little sharp and peppery at first but mellows into smelling like it might waft out of an oven.

Bubble and Geek's description:
In a certain epic fantasy realm, Sweetsleep is a drug that (in small doses) can be used to calm frayed nerves. This particular fragrance channels the soothing effects of Sweetsleep and is a relaxing, clean citrus blend with bergamot & orange, combined with a faint scent of lily, supported by a rich base of piney woods.

The pine is definitely there and I am clearly not the best at this, but this feels a little more chai than Earl Grey to me, if you know what I mean. I don't find it soothing--it's a little attention-snagging for that--but it's nice. The initial sharpness might put me off wearing this as it went straight to my head (I get dizzy easily), but I bet it's great as a candle.

Sunnydale Library
I'm getting musty books, leather, light vanilla-ish sweetness, and something vaguely green in that order. Maybe also tea leaves. I have no idea if this is wearable--it seems unisex but I don't know if this is necessarily the most enticing way to smell?--but it sure does evoke a night of research in early Buffy: I can imagine her flipping through a book in Angel's jacket eating donuts with Xander while Willow and Giles poke through stores of magical herbs. So major geek points there.

Bubble and Geek's description:
Take a trip back in time to the Sunnydale library, where one might find leather-bound books on how to slay vampires hidden amongst the calculus textbooks. Other notes include rosewood (Mr. Pointy!), hot brewed tea, and a house plant. May or may not open a portal to the hellmouth.

I am clearly wrong about the donuts, but the rosewood is maybe a sweet note here for me? There's definitely sweetness. I'll try wearing this, but I feel it's possible that the nerd novelty may outweigh the "I smell awesome!" value.

De-Gnoming the Garden
Lilacs, something else vaguely floral, and fresh-cut grass, in that order. Smells simple to me on first encounter but I love lilacs and fresh-cut grass and this evokes both in a not-artificial-seeming way, so it'll probably be a nice spring/summer fragrance for me.

Bubble and Geek's description (sorry, only the short one is up for this fragrance):
Weeds, grass that needs cutting, gnarled, leafy trees, and blooms (lily, lilac, rose, and hyacinth) spilling over from every flower bed

This smells much simpler than the description, but might have more complexity on the skin. I am surprised I don't get more rose out of it, since that's usually an insistent note from what I've read of other perfume reviews.

Stormborn Queen
This smells like sugared orange peels, ripe wet strawberries, and some kind of spice to me. Kind of a juicy, late summer scent that reminds me of August sun. I like it, but I don't know that it epitomizes Daenerys to me. I could see her having these overtones, but I also associate her with warm sand, salt, and smoke.

Bubble and Geek's description:
This popular fragrance is a luxurious blend of sugared orange, mulberry, and a hint of spice, and is how I imagine the Stormborn Queen might smell when she is NOT traveling across the desert. 

Well, to be fair, this explicitly states that she's not travelling the desert, ha, which makes my other associations a bit moot (I'm still holding out on the dragonfire smoke). I was pretty close on this one actually (maybe I remembered this description deep down? ha) but I have no idea what a mulberry smells like, so. I think this could be a great summer scent so I'm eager to try it on.

Overall
Sweetsleep is probably a miss for me--it's a lovely scent, especially once it mellows, but I think I'd prefer it in a room. It's in their close-out section, though, so maybe I should've anticipated that! I like King in the North the most, which is a shame since I'm not sure I can pull it off--but I'll probably get my partner to wear it. I will likely enjoy De-Gnoming the Garden and Stormborn Queen and I'll see where Sunnydale Library goes on skin.

I don't know how these scents from Bubble and Geek will wear yet, but if you're curious about them based on my impressions, sets of five samples go for $9 USD in their Etsy store. They also sell candles, wax tarts, lip balms, and soap.