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| Herald in the autumn with an exquisitely aged blend from Haus of Gloi |
Queen Mother 2013
Full size: 5mL amber glass bottle for $25.00 USD
Queen Mother is unique in that we use the previous years Pumpkin Queen and add additional botanical essential oils, absolutes and other essences and allow it to age for a full year before offering it up. Stock is very limited, but we made an extra big batch last year! Each bottle will be sold and presented in a little brown box.
Aged Pumpkin Queen with: tonka bean, labdanum, orris root, black patchouli, mitti attar and a lovely white champa flower co2. The white champa flower adds an oomph of hay and tea notes and supports the fruity aspect of Pumpkin Queen. This perfume will continue to age beautifully over time.
What makes Queen Mother special is that the folks at Haus stashed away a good deal of their Pumpkin Queen blend from last year and added some extra goodies while letting it sit and age. You know how a good dish sometimes tastes better the second day? (Like crockpot chili!)
The higher price tag for Queen Mother feels a little difficult to justify at first, especially if you aren't familiar with the Pumpkin Queen base scent. (For reference feel free to check out last year's Haus of Gloi perfume round-up review including Pumpkin Queen here!) I returned to my sample vial of Pumpkin Queen from last year and still very much enjoy it and did not make the repeat mistake of wearing it to any other cookouts, so when Queen Mother appeared in this year's lineup I decided I really wanted to test it out.
I love how this perfume receives such special treatment, although I feel the label's colors and designs are a bit lacking and could be much more aesthetically pleasing. The bottle is the same as all other Haus of Gloi full-sized 5mL bottles, but it's nestled in a little brown box. You feel like you're getting something extra special.
I did a bit of digging - last year was my first autumn with Haus of Gloi, so I didn't realize Queen Mother was a recurring specialty each year because I never saw it last year. According to the Haus of Gloi blog, they didn't tuck away a bottle for 2013. Each year's Queen Mother blend is a bit different as well:
2013: Tonka bean, labdanum, orris root, black patchouli, mitti attar and a lovely white champa flower co2
2012: 5 year aged patchouli, jasmine essence and the blackest vetiver, co-distilled with honeysuckle blossom
So not only does this blend change from year to year, it also changes as it mellows and ages!
So knowing all this, how does the actual fragrance hold up?
Queen Mother still reminds me of a pumpkiny-scented gift shop, packed to the brim with autumnal goodies. However, unlike Pumpkin Queen, this shop is a bit more expensive and has some more unique wares for sale. The spices seem more muted, but there's a musky sweetness that isn't present in the original Pumpkin Queen blend that clings and lingers. It's sweet, almost sticky but not sickeningly. It reminds me of roasted sugar pumpkin! It's far sweeter and less vegetal than the original Pumpkin Queen from last year.
Once Queen Mother has a few hours to settle down, the sweet spices and pumpkin meld into something so neatly blended that I can't really pick out the pumpkin anymore. I can't tell if it's because I am actually able to notice the sweet hay scent or if the description's suggestion has tricked my brain into smelling it. I encouraged my sister to test it out, and she told me that it smells like "Coming back inside to bake some autumn food after going pumpkin picking and taking a hay ride on your way home." Sounds like a nice plan to me! However, given that it's almost 90°F outside today, I'll probably have to wait a month or so to participate in the kind of day Queen Mother smells like.
Duration: Much like its original Pumpkin Queen base, Queen mother lingers on and on throughout the day. I wouldn't say it's as robust as many Solstice Scents fragrances (those are powerhouses!), but it's definitely one of the more robust scents from Haus of Gloi's catalog. For the first hour or two it wanders more, and my car definitely smelled delicious while I was driving. Even once it has dried down it's not so clingy that I have to press my nose close to my wrist to pick anything up!
Score: 4.5/5
Queen Mother is a beautifully sweet-spicy (and dare I say yummy) scent that somehow manages to be all three without waltzing into gourmand territory. It does a fantastic job of capturing how an autumn day and all its associated festivities smell.
What strikes me the most about Queen Mother was how cozy and familiar it smells. This is autumn - it's how autumn always smells for me. A New England autumn is so charming - people travel from even far away to admire our foliage, enjoy the local seasonal foods, and of course sight-see; don't even think about straying into Salem, Massachusetts during October because it's so packed! It takes a little bit from all my favorite parts (which are admittedly more involving food and less involving leaf-raking chores) and distills them down into a teeny little glass bottle.
Haus of Gloi is closed to catch up on orders until Thursday, September 4th - if you haven't managed to grab Queen Mother and it's in stock when the shop has opened again, I highly suggest trying it out!
The higher price tag for Queen Mother feels a little difficult to justify at first, especially if you aren't familiar with the Pumpkin Queen base scent. (For reference feel free to check out last year's Haus of Gloi perfume round-up review including Pumpkin Queen here!) I returned to my sample vial of Pumpkin Queen from last year and still very much enjoy it and did not make the repeat mistake of wearing it to any other cookouts, so when Queen Mother appeared in this year's lineup I decided I really wanted to test it out.
I love how this perfume receives such special treatment, although I feel the label's colors and designs are a bit lacking and could be much more aesthetically pleasing. The bottle is the same as all other Haus of Gloi full-sized 5mL bottles, but it's nestled in a little brown box. You feel like you're getting something extra special.
I did a bit of digging - last year was my first autumn with Haus of Gloi, so I didn't realize Queen Mother was a recurring specialty each year because I never saw it last year. According to the Haus of Gloi blog, they didn't tuck away a bottle for 2013. Each year's Queen Mother blend is a bit different as well:
2013: Tonka bean, labdanum, orris root, black patchouli, mitti attar and a lovely white champa flower co2
2012: 5 year aged patchouli, jasmine essence and the blackest vetiver, co-distilled with honeysuckle blossom
So not only does this blend change from year to year, it also changes as it mellows and ages!
So knowing all this, how does the actual fragrance hold up?
Once Queen Mother has a few hours to settle down, the sweet spices and pumpkin meld into something so neatly blended that I can't really pick out the pumpkin anymore. I can't tell if it's because I am actually able to notice the sweet hay scent or if the description's suggestion has tricked my brain into smelling it. I encouraged my sister to test it out, and she told me that it smells like "Coming back inside to bake some autumn food after going pumpkin picking and taking a hay ride on your way home." Sounds like a nice plan to me! However, given that it's almost 90°F outside today, I'll probably have to wait a month or so to participate in the kind of day Queen Mother smells like.
Duration: Much like its original Pumpkin Queen base, Queen mother lingers on and on throughout the day. I wouldn't say it's as robust as many Solstice Scents fragrances (those are powerhouses!), but it's definitely one of the more robust scents from Haus of Gloi's catalog. For the first hour or two it wanders more, and my car definitely smelled delicious while I was driving. Even once it has dried down it's not so clingy that I have to press my nose close to my wrist to pick anything up!
Score: 4.5/5
Queen Mother is a beautifully sweet-spicy (and dare I say yummy) scent that somehow manages to be all three without waltzing into gourmand territory. It does a fantastic job of capturing how an autumn day and all its associated festivities smell.
What strikes me the most about Queen Mother was how cozy and familiar it smells. This is autumn - it's how autumn always smells for me. A New England autumn is so charming - people travel from even far away to admire our foliage, enjoy the local seasonal foods, and of course sight-see; don't even think about straying into Salem, Massachusetts during October because it's so packed! It takes a little bit from all my favorite parts (which are admittedly more involving food and less involving leaf-raking chores) and distills them down into a teeny little glass bottle.
Haus of Gloi is closed to catch up on orders until Thursday, September 4th - if you haven't managed to grab Queen Mother and it's in stock when the shop has opened again, I highly suggest trying it out!
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