Starring...! Fragrances is a lesser-known player in the indie perfume world--I only found out about them via some free samples I received in a swap at some point. If the indie perfume world were a high school in an 80's teen movie, I'd be hanging around with the weirdo (pre-makeover) Ally Sheedy misfit types behind the gym, or the nerds in the computer lab; Starring...! Fragrances, on the other hand, would be a beauty pageant girl, glossy and girly. Founded by a "former actress turned psychotherapist," most of their fragrances are named after Hollywood themes and archetypes. Also, this sort of fills me with unreasonable rage, but "inside each bottle you will find a genuine star gemstone that infuses the bottle with nature's positive energy." Although it does not contain a gemstone filled with nature's positive energy, I do have a sample vial of Temptress that I thought I'd talk about for today's review.
Price: $26 for a 1 oz alcohol-based spray perfume or $10 for a 9 mL oil-based roll-on. I'm not sure if this scent is currently available--it's not listed in the dropdown menus but it is on the master scent list.
Samples: Samples do not seem to be available at the moment, although 3.5 mL mini roll-ons are available for $5 each. Again, I'm not sure if this particular scent can be ordered or not.
Description from the website: "Laced in sultry sandalwood, enticed with dark rich vanilla, kissed with warm sweet caramel, and caressed with pure coconut milk. Seduction never smelled so good!"
I am usually sort of wary of sandalwood because it can sometimes smell really gross to me, and I'm usually quite wary of caramel because I've smelled far too many overpoweringly sweet fragrances, while I was still figuring out for myself that "good to eat" is not always equivalent to "good to smell like for an entire day." Temptress is fairly innocuous on both fronts--part of this is that it's not a scent with a particularly high throw, so it smells subtle rather than overpowering.
I think the sandalwood is also well-balanced with the sweet, edible elements, so there's enough light woodsiness balancing out the vanilla/caramel/coconut sweetness to keep it from smelling like a macaroon.
This scent smells faintly like lemongrass to me and I don't know if it's just my brain filling in the coconut gaps with Thai food or if it actually has some tiny amount of something herbal-lemony in there as well.
Ultimately, I find this perfume inoffensive but lacking a "hook," if that makes sense. It smells nice but generic to me; something I would wear if it were in front of me, but nothing I would ever specifically think to reach for. It's too bland to smell like "temptress" to me--in our fictional indie perfume high school movie, this ends up neither beautiful enough to be the prom queen nor strange enough to be the arty weirdo.
Note: I do not know if this scent is vegan.
I love to promote good indie fragrances, but sadly, I've never been impressed by Starring...! I find their oils are just not of the highest quality, I think they have too much carrier oil in them, and the scents often turn plasticky on my skin.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get a plastic note with this, myself, but I agree that it seems to have more carrier oil than many other indie perfumes. For some people, that's a positive, though! Keeps the scent very subtle.
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