Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Mad as Birds - Darling Clandestine


Details: 
Mad as Birds (prototype)
Darling Clandestine

Notes: 
Mad as Birds is a sweet, cool, garden-dew fragrance with notes of pear and mint and amber and marigolds. A multitude of different scent elements and weeks (months!) of methodical alchemy make Mad as Birds no ordinary scented oil mix—it's a truly inimitable fragrance. 

A few weeks ago in the middle of the really hot spell towards the end of summer, I was stuck in the house and bored and read a Facebook post on Darling Clandestine's page offering a special deal of 3 full size (specific) bottles and a 'bitsy' (Evonne's version of a sample - though really it's not that much shy of a full size bottle of, say, BPAL) of a prototype of Mad as Birds, a perfume that had been available in the past but was now reformulated. I had no idea what the notes were in any of the perfumes in the deal, and I'd never bought anything from Darling Clandestine, but I decided on a whim to grab it anyway. White wine spritzers may or may not have been involved.

In the bottle, Mad as Birds smells green and fresh, with a tiny hint of the mint discernible and a slight wine-ish note. This might just be me - when I was little my grandpa was always making wine out of weird things like bananas and pears, and since then I've always thought pears smelled slightly alcoholic.

Once I applied to my skin the pear was more distinct and true to its fruitiness, and I have to say, I really liked it. Am I actually coming around to fruit? Noooooo! The green note (is that marigold? I don't know what marigold smells like), still with that little dab of mint, keeps this perfume light and bright; I would have liked to have had this in the above-mentioned heatwave. The fragrance doesn't change all that much throughout, though the dry down is a bit deeper, with the amber darkening it all just a touch (not too much, though - it certainly doesn't scream "Hey, I'm amber!" as many others do). Sillage was medium, as was longevity. I had this on from early evening and could still smell it when I went to bed. In the morning there was just a tiny faint hint of it left.

Note: As this is a prototype, it may or may not be the same version as the one currently available on the website.

Rating: 
4/5 I don't feel like I need a bigger bottle of this at the moment, but I am glad I have more than a standard size sample. I have hardly any 'summery' perfumes, so this is something a bit different for me.

Day 78!

13 comments:

  1. I SO wanted to take advantage of this package deal, but I didn´t feel like I had the money for it... :¨( This was the scent in that package that I think I would enjoy the least. I´d love to hear your thoughts on the other scents too, Pyrotechnic, Aequitas and some new gourmand scent was it not!? Especially Aequitas is on my list of DC scents to buy!

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    1. Small Saga is the other one. I'd be happy to decant some of each for you if you'd like - I'm doing some decanting on the weekend for a couple of other people. Just email me your details at deedee255@gmail.com if you're interested, and let me know if there's anything else you want to try too. :-)

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    2. Oh, that would be so kind of you! DC scents are just gone the moment they are restocked... and it seems the scents I want to try are never available in bitsy size. I´ll send yo an email later! <3

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    3. That's one reason I've never bought anything there before - she seems to just stock random things at random times when she gets around to it. That's her prerogative, but it's annoying when you want to buy X, Y and Z and none of them are ever available at the same time or in the bitsy vials. I have a long list of perfumes from there I want to try but I'm not going to spend all that shipping buying one thing at a time.

      As I said earlier, please also let me know if there's anything else you're interested in checking out - I know we have very disparate tastes, but I probably have a few that you might like. :-)

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    4. Just sent you an email! :)

      I agree, having to wait for ages for that one scent to get restocked is a bit annoying... (I´m waiting for Carny Wedding, Whitefall, Cloudswing, Maudling & Bedlam and Vardogr perfume oil right now.) But Evonne does make up for it with affordable quality, originality and awesome customer service! I never hesitate to buy full sizes unsniffed from DC! I am such a fan!

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    5. Haha, they are all pretty much the same ones I'm waiting for!

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    6. Some of them are rather gourmand and scents I wouldn´t normally go for... I normally avoid gourmands because I find them rather boring nowadays, but I imagine that all DC scents are special and interesting!

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  2. This sounds lush! I should bookmark this store!

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    1. I'll send you some too, Jade. Doing my decanting and sorting on the weekend. :-)

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  3. This perfume does sound quite lovely. Regarding the above discussion, I get kind of turned off when I'm on her etsy because of the randomness of available products. It's not a big deal, just slightly annoying for someone like me that's never purchased from DC ;)

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    1. Agreed - I check the site every few days but the ones I want are either never there or only one of them is in the big size or whatever. FIRST WORLD PERFUME PROBLEMS.

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  4. I have issues with shopping this shop, but Mad as Birds was not too bad. It is unique and I really like unique scents. But the dry down on me is nothing grand. Dee, I think I sent you a sample of WHitefall in the package this week.

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    1. I find it difficult to get what I want from there as it's so haphazardly stocked. I did get slightly lucky this morning and grab a bottle of an interesting-sounding Hallowe'en perfume and some samples (she hardly ever has samples listed).

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