Perfume Review! My Top Three "Tea" Perfumes

By Unknown

Purchased

A good cup of tea soothes the soul...and the nose!

I like to think a good cup of tea can remedy almost any stress, or at the very least help put you in the proper "head space" where you can think things through. During a really tough week I might be throwing back cups of tea like a tipsy bridesmaid at a bachelorette party.

Yet sometimes I just don't have a teapot within arm's reach. Many people seek fragrances containing therapeutic notes of lemongrass or lavender. What if I could have the calming benefits of tea without any of the effort? Here are a few of my favorite tea-themed perfumes for just those occasions!
 

Sweet Anthem Perfumes: Wendy

A soaring floral to help guide you straight on 'til morning. All you need is a sprinkle of fairy dust and the perfect, happy thought.  Matcha Tea, Black Currant, Gardenia, Peony, Cedarwood, Civet (vegan).

Wendy from Sweet Anthem Perfumes

As a daily matcha drinker, I'm always excited to see one of my favorite teas represented in the perfume world. Unfortunately, Wendy falls short as far as matcha is concerned. Matcha to me smells very grassy and vegetal, but Wendy from Sweet Anthem Perfumes is more like a crisp, woody citrus. The black currant in particular comes through strong on my skin - forest berries bathed in sunlight with climbing greenery behind them.

It's hard for me to describe a scent as "berry" though because I worry people will equate it with syrupy sweet dessert berries. Wendy is more like a farmstand berry atop a wooden bench. I really like the warm cedarwood drydown on my skin, but this is a pretty quiet fragrance with limited sillage and weartime. I get maybe 4-5 hours of clear fragrance tops, followed by another 3-4 hours of skin-hugging drydown that only a very curious nose-to-the-wrist will pick up.

Despite not nailing the matcha fragrance whatsoever, Wendy is still one of my favorite "tea" scents because it is soothing and calming, just like a good cup of tea. I don't really see how it's a "soaring floral" at all. In fact, I don't pick up any flowery notes whatsoever. But happy thoughts? That I can agree with!

Darling Clandestine: Serpentina

Green tea with a smoky opium bite. Unisex to feminine. This is a hands-down favorite among my female customers, and a great primer for folks who are cautious about plunging head-on into the weird world that is DC. It’s fresh and invigorating, and comforting, but has just a little bit of snarl, a flash of a dark underside.

Serpentina from Darling Clandestine

Serpentina (currently not up for purchase but always making an appearance) constantly finds its way into my Darling Clandestine purchases via free sample vial. It seems to be a classic introductory Darling Clandestine fragrance!

I'm also starting to question the credibility of my nose's tea-identification discernment because again, I do not think this smells like green tea. I drink a lot of green tea. Chun mee, genmaicha, mao jian. Even the Lipton stuff. Serpentina smells like juicy, nose-nibbling cup of lemony jasmine with an herbal drydown. This is a sharp, wet perfume that gives you just the right perky pick-me-up. Who needs coffee with tea like this?

This is a tea scent I reach for when I need something bright to wake me up in the mornings, and I know I can count on the drydown to be undeniably cool and green. I particularly like how there's just a tiny tickling whisper of smoke in the background to keep everything grounded.

OHWTO: Make It So

Black Ceylon tea and Bergamot, Skin musk, Mandarin, Neroli, Orris, and a hint of Ozone.  An olfactory ode to everyone's-okay, maybe not everyone's, stop yelling at me!- favorite Federation starship captain, it's like tea in space. Earl Grey. Hot.

Make It So from OHWTO

This is kind of an old scent, but my golden standard for tea perfumes. Originally part of the spring/summer 2013 lineup, Make It So from OHWTO smells exactly like a cup of earl grey tea. All those other fancypants notes? I'm sure they're important SOMEHOW, but my nose only knows what it knows, and the nose knows Earl Grey. There's definitely citrus, as all good earl grey should have, and the mandarin and bergamont give this just the right twist without being too sour or bitter.

I can't go on and on with poetic tomes about this fragrance because it's simply the most tea-like scent I have sampled so far, and in a lineup of my favorite teatime scents, Make It So reigns supereme. My only lamentation is that on first application (even with my vial exquisitely aged two years) I get suckerpunched with a bit TOO much orangey goodness, but it's still very clearly tea. If you want to read more, check out the Spring/Summer 2013 review for OHWTO.

So do tea perfumes fill that hole in my heart? Not quite - calming and refreshing, but nothing can quite replace the charm of a proper cup of tea, but they have their own specialness. Plus, what cup of tea can last over three hours? My tea perfume white whale though would have to be Thai iced tea... if I can find a perfume that smells just like that, this list might be very different! What sorts of tea-themed perfumes work best for you?