Venomrock101

If SM Café is Strangers Parfumerie’s dark and devilish dive into debauchery, then Kira Kira is their ascension into an apple-y angel. The scent just radiates cleanliness. It opens with a concussive blast of sour green apple that will knock the socks off you if you aren’t ready for it, and then just as quickly as it appears it vanishes, being replaced by some artificial fragrance chemicals that remind of Le Labo’s Another 13. After the Another 13 phase it slips into a really clean soapy scent with just the faintest hint of that opening green apple hovering in the background, just barely detectable at the rear of the fragrance. Now, while you may think that the opening, to middle, and finally to dry down would take a little bit of time, this rollercoaster of a fragrance does all of this in about 5 minutes flat. Luckily the fragrance doesn’t die as quickly as it changes form, as the soapy finale will last you the entire rest of your day with the fragrance, and while not the only “clean” fragrance in my collection, it’s definitely the one that reminds me the most of how it feels right after stepping out of a hot, sudsy, and steamy shower. Overall, a pretty easy recommendation as I can’t really see anyone particularly disliking it, because it’s not really offensive. I would especially recommend it as a clean alternative to people who found Zoologist’s Panda too dirty, as I find the green apple in Kira Kira heavily reminds me of the one featured in Panda, though it’s definitely not featured as prominently as in Panda. Remember to try before buying.

Have you ever watched Winnie the Pooh, and seen the scene where he breaks into the bee hive and starts eating and playing around in all the honey? That’s what this fragrance smells like. While others in the house might take me to the natural environment of the animal they seek to portray, this instead takes me into Winnie the Pooh, as it’s an almost cartoon portrayal of the scent of honey, and it is amazing. Incredibly warm and gooey, with little of the animalic touches that can make other Zoologists so challenging for other people, Bee is also probably one of their most crowd pleasing scents as well. It opens up incredibly rich, and sweet with a kinda waxy honey note and what kinda smells like brown sugar to me. After the opening some of the floral notes begins to appear though still sweetened by the honey, so it comes across more like nectar then like you’re actually smelling a flower. Even though honey (or to use the term Zoologist uses, Royal Jelly) is only listed as one of the top notes, I get it the entire way trough the fragrance. Which is extraordinary considering how much of a longevity beast this fragrance is. The late dry down also picks up with some vanilla and woody touches that I guess could be considered the smell of the actual hive itself. An all around absolutely delightful gourmand experience that will have you sniffing your wrist the entire way through its life span, I definitely recommend but from what I have seen from other reviewers it’s definitely a little divisive, so try before you buy.

Easily the most realistic and long lasting black coffee scent I have ever come across in my fragrance journey so far, SM Café is beautiful debauchery. Typically when looking at coffee scents a lot of people look more so for a sweeter coffee, like a latte or cappuccino, typical café drinks. But when growing up, my dad was, and still is to this day, a huge drinker of pure black coffee. The experience of growing up with that has definitely had an effect on what I look for in coffee in fragrances, as I don’t have the same kind of attachment to sweeter coffees that others do. SM Café scratches the dark coffee itch, but this fragrance is also more than just its amazing coffee note. There’s also the really heavy leather note to complete the SM part of SM Café, and later on in the fragrance some fruits, amber, and woods join the fray in what I’m assuming is to be symbolic of finally being tempted into eating the forbidden fruit after entering the café. A wonderful dark and sensual experience the entire way through. It gets my recommendation, but remember to try before buying.

One of my favorites from Creed and what I feel like my friend best described as, “spicy laundry,” Original Santal is a great, easy to wear scent that I feel is severely underrated in Creed’s pantheon of fragrances. Besides spicy laundry there’s not much else to unpack about this fragrance. It’s a very basic and straight forward fragrance that just smells like freshly laundered clothes with a nice little kick to it that manages to separate it from other laundry smelling fragrances like Warm Cotton from Clean Reserve. It’s great, and if you just like smelling clean then this is definitely a fragrance worth trying and is definitely a Creed that shouldn’t be overlooked as much.

When I first got my sample of this fragrance I absolutely did not enjoy it. It reminded me of our experiments with mothballs in chemistry class in high school, just that weird grandma-y scent burned into my nostrils after a long day of heating, boiling, cooling, and separating it from other chemicals. But, Zoologist is a house where I truly believe if you don’t like a fragrance at first, you definitely need to come back and revisit it in the future. First this, and more recently coming around on my opinion of Civet and Camel, Zoologist is a slow burn house where taking the time to learn and appreciate the different facets of each fragrance unlocks scent masterpieces that unfold before your very nose, and this fragrance is a prime example as to why. Moth, which was originally just mothballs to me has evolved into a beautiful dark, smokey, gothic, floral that’s extremely comforting to me. Imagine if you would, you are a regular human individual. You exist, live your daily life, and just do your own thing for the most part, but one night you’re coming home kinda late. It’s dark and cold out, you can see your breath in the air and you’re rubbing your hands to keep warm, when suddenly, out in front of you on top of a lamppost is just a massive moth. Obviously at first you’re scared and terrified because it’s a giant ass moth, you’re worried it might eat you or pick you up and drop you. But alas! In your worrying you didn’t see it take flight, and now, frozen in fear you stand there and let it take you, but instead of killing you, it wraps you in its wings like a warm blanket and flies you home safely where it gently places you on your doorstep. That is the experience wearing moth gives me, and now that moth flies me home regularly. Definitely try before you buy.