Fluxit

In the Bravanariz portfolio, Muga belongs to the trio of landscape fragrances. As with Juniper Ridge & consortia, materials are collected in the wilderness to be composed into 100% natural perfumes. Unlike JR, Barnaby Black or Firn Fragrance, Bravanariz comes from Europe, namely Catalonia. This is noticeably reflected in the different scent impressions.

First of all: The complete Discovery-Kit with the three fragrances is great! Both in quality and lastingness. However, they are not all easy and certainly niche, far away from mainstream.

Muga challenges me the most. Immortelle and I are anything but friends and so I could well do without its savoury spice, which accompanies the scent for hours. Nevertheless, there are a lot of counterparts here that contribute to a balanced picture. Muga starts almost medically bitter, the alcoholic note dries pale and hot with a green camphorous forest impression. After a few minutes we are already in sunlit fields, warm and goldenbrown.
I could have sworn that oakmoss would come in afterwards, and not exactly little of it. But according to Ernesto - an excellent and lively contact by the way, to which I will write more in the description of Bosc - it is not included. Labdanum it is! Not listed in the pyramid directly, but nevertheless implicitly contained, extracted from the components of the cistus rose. Sharpness and smokiness are now in the foreground.
I wouldn't have been surprised if Muga slowly smoulders out in the same way, but after 8-9 hours (!) an almost honeylike sweetness slides under the dry base. This is where I enjoy the fragrance the most, this is where all the ingredients are found and shimmer harmoniously across the plain. Minimal floral to powdery aspects contribute sparingly to the peaceful overall feeling.

Muga means "river", but this perfume stands for the plain. The river winds its way out of the mountain and crosses the dry land, which blooms thirstily. Plains ... plain ... may stands for "ordinary". Here it's anything but. Not the tamest of scent, but rivers are rarely tame either. Interesting!

When I tested Cala in a Berlin store, I immediately thought of "Sola Laudanum" by KoRo Perfumes. Both pure natural perfumes. It is clear to me that this fairly unknown perfumes cannot give reasonable orientation to most of the folks here, therefore I'll list the related attributes: Dark resin, sticky in smell as well as on the skin (compare Norne by Slumberhouse), almost dark to resinous fruity (plums? raisins?) base.

In my second test at home, this impression is confirmed, but shifts far to the rear.
Instead, I take the top note as aromatic spicy, somewhat herbaceous with rosemary, resinous spicy camphor / menhol, sour sage. This sounds confusing and is also unusual for the nose, which shifts between the warm and cold melange at the same time. In aromatherapy, this contradiction can already be found in camphor alone, which has a cooling effect on the skin, but at the same time promotes the flow of heat through the stimulated blood circulation. Here the higher temperature impression is probably reinforced by the drier-seeming herbs. I find the muse described on the web page (cooling sea breeze in the sunshine heat banging on the cliff caves) appealing and appropriately converted.
It only takes minutes until a sweet anise note appears. No doubt thanks to fennel and soon clearly smelling of liquorice to me. Polarizing - I love it! This dark resin liquorice aroma gives Cala its delicious heart, perfectly balanced with a tiny mint freshness.
In the heart any liquorice action loses itself and Cala changes as described above into the more resinous, fruity darkness. Maybe we have already retreated into the cave here.

I like Cala through its whole evolution. If you like dark fennel themes and natural perfumes, you should take a look here.

Forgive me for that sloppy title-rhyme. Without humor, I simply can't deal with all the upcoming bans on natural ingredients. Now is probably the best time to stock up on real oakmoss scents. Anyway, I did it and count Bosc among my newest achievements.

Fresh on the skin, Bosc is actually fresh, orange-fresh. But just for a second. Green herbaceous, lots of juniper, soon a bit pungent with a hint of acetone. However, not exhausting to my nose. After around 30 seconds, sharper and more dry. Not dusty like many pinewood fragrances, rather clearer and lighter.
The base is leveling off quickly. Juniper and oak moss, smoky and glowing in dry pleasure. Excellent! You don't need anything more for an exciting full-day companion, who even still continues to crackle at night.
By the way, Bosc doesn't mean "bush" as I suspected, but "forest". This fits better. But as so often, the truth lies in between. And while we're at marketing: I have a fitting story that is much longer than the description of the fragrance.

Actually, it was all planned differently: Juniper Ridge has new solid fragrances and where can you test them? In Berlin, for example, and I happened to be there. Wildhoodstore is the name of the shop, friendly people behind the counter. Of course, perfume is not their core business, but the exchange was as fun as it was interesting. I talked about my natural scent impressions and alternatives to JR, in return they told me that in fact almost only lumberjack-shirted hipster guys buy the JR fragrances. When I inquired about other colognes or test quantities for passaround packages, they rummaged in their storage and summoned the Discovery Kit from Bravanariz. A young Calatonian brand that wants to bring its natural perfumes to the market. Wildhoodstore hesitated with the placement in the shop, in my opinion rightfully so: A discovery kit for 85€, without simple pre-tests because of the missing spray possibility (rollerball-pens!) ... hmm. Especially since one rarely finds all three fragrances convincing in the normal case. They still let me apply the fragrances - I suppose because they didn't believe in selling them - and Bosc accompanied me so charmingly for 24 hours that I enquired directly on the website how much to pay to own some myself. And lo and behold, the pens are also sold individually. I couldn't help but dump my detailed opinion directly into the purchase note input field, also praising the fragrances for their quality, as after more than two years of intensive natural fragrance tests, I am confident that I have sufficient competence in this area. Ernesto's answer came promptly: Yes, they would share a lot of my views and thank you very much for the feedback, and if I'd possibly want either the (high) postage for free or rather the free upgrade to the discovery kit? And so the fragrance trio of Muga, Cala and Bosc soon arrived here, after some breathtaking days of delay due to a neighbour having priorities other than perfume (how could you ;)). Together with a notebook with colored herb drawings, a printed shopping bag, a personal letter and two unfinished bases for planned perfumes with the request for my German straight-forward feedback. I have only tested one of the two and am already fascinated, may be put directly into the bottle and then to me, only a fixative would probably improve it. Oak moss in, as Ernesto emphasizes with a wink and a certain pride, IFRA-standard breaking concentration. Here I can directly cry tears of joy about the scent and tears of mourning about the coming EU prohibitions at the same time. After a lively email exchange I am happy about this great contact, which is still more direct and authentic with indie perfumers like these. And I'm also looking forward to the test of the second base.

Recommendation - both the perfume and the brand!

Dang! At last - like always around this time of the year - you don't want to buy new perfume anymore and then Lush launches a fragrance with blackcurrant, pine, vanilla, lime and oakmoss. Yes, copied pyramid, but simply because I do love all these notes. What could go wrong? I mean, have you ever been disappointed by Pyblitru (read: "Pyramid Blind Trust", an insidious perfumery disease that stimulates consumption)? Like, ever? To make it worse, Assassin is only available online, no sample chance.

At least my discipline was strong enough to wait until I got hold of a souked sample, which I opened together with KayLiz and KingLui. A little absurdly this act reminded me of various unboxing videos from the Internet, which I've usually met with skepticism and incomprehension. Kay sprayed the fragrance on herself and - tadá! - I was cured: Sweet tonka powder, uhh. A sticky gourmand who played so far away from any listed notes or even advertised fragrance categories, that my next assassin act at best opened outrageous holes in Lush's marketing employees.

At home a second forlorn test on me and this time delicious sour currant streams towards me. Like it's a different scent. Tonka powder too, but this time blended sumptuously. Just as the Lush stores smell of all sorts of things - some folks love it and others can't stand it - also in Assassin there is something bubbling under the citrus-fruity surface, tarty and soft at the same time. Sticky sweetness, forest rather as resin than as collection of green branches, later dark dusty mixed milk cocoa. So natural - not really - like their flashy bath bombs and in its inflated aroma almost a little too much of a good thing in its sweet-sour (trick or treat?) overall package. And yet, kind of awesome. In its majority certainly gourmand.

The icing on the cake is the smoking oakmoss at the end, but this time it's surprisingly natural. Having grown fond of oakmoss during the natural fragrance project, it occasionally swells to the light after half of the day and sets smoke signals. Assassins successful. Mission accomplished, total duration from eight in the morning to midnight.

By the way, then sold out. Which I find EVEN bolder than the pure online sale, but now from the buyers, to whom I did not allowed to belong. Gnah. Then I spotted a lonely as-good-as-new flacon on Kleiderkreise, a German second hand platform with a focus on clothing, where the private vendor generously left me with further exclusive lush (shower gel) samples. And now it's mine. The rest follows Schrödinger: Before you open a used bottle, there is as well the original scent and some kind of fake nonsense dupe in the bottle. Only after spraying, the flacon decides for a quantum state. With me fortunately to the original, yay!

I believe, my Schrödinger's Cat was an anti-consumerism cat.
Unfortunately, Assassin killed it. Smells good, though.

I like Tolteca as a brand. Really really great flacons with decorative wooden cap and fine atomizer. You can even remove the cap with the beautiful relief and attach it to the supplied key ring. I seldom rate flacons, but this one has impressed me so much that I recently decided to buy them spontaneously after a short test of the sample.

Omeyocan starts green fresh, with a delicious bitter grapefruit flavour. Sour and funny-fruity. Quickly softly creamed off, a friendly twist. After a few minutes then dry, almost earthy. Interesting how both Angua's statement of closeness to Earth and Maggy4u's image of the air element apply. Omeyocan is serious yet light on his feet. Okay, direction light men's cologne, but far away from the aftershave and easily executable by the female sex.

After about half an hour a herbaceous note slips into the overall picture. Thyme or basil, I'm not sure. The fragrance reminds me of "Mandarine Sanguine / Ruby Tangerine", which also begins freshly citric and transforms into herbs. It's called thyme there, fits. I would prefer it without this herbal note, even if the enhanced complexity is welcome. Overall, Omeyocan remains discreet and pleasant, hardly overdosable. Flirts peacefully to himself.

At the moment, the flacon first comes decoratively to its more disreputable cabinet siblings. If you are interested, feel free to write to me, sooner or later you will be on your way.