I started off my journey with Indie perfumes with Solstice Scents, so it’s about time I came back to them with this mini Solstice Scents review. A few Sundays ago, I picked up two samples from the Solstice Scents Night Collection released in Summer 2014 from the Indie makeup subreddit, Indiemakeupandmore. The ones I had heard the best reviews of were “Heat of the Night” and “Heart of the Night,” so of course, those were the ones I had to try. Read on for my opinions!
“Heat of the Night”
Heat of the Night is one of the most popular scents from the Night Collection. It has the following notes:
“Vanilla, Mango, Coconut, Orange, Sandalwood, Amber, Orange Blossom, Edge of the Night Base.”
A blog post from Indiependent Maven raved about it so much that I had to try it for myself. After all, who doesn’t want to smell like a tropical island during the summer?
Scent
Unfortunately, I probably should have read the notes before purchasing Heat of the Night. I have a food intolerance when it comes to mangoes…they make me sick like none other. The entire bottle just smells sickly sweet like mangoes to me, so much that it’s nauseating. It was so sweet that it actually triggered my gag reflex. That’s when the cap when back on the sample, never again to be opened.
Wear Time
I could not bring myself to put this on my skin. The Solstice Scents website claims that the fruit smells fade after twenty minutes, but that’s just twenty minutes too long for me.
Overall
This was not the perfume for me. I do have a huge aversion to mangoes, so I could just be very sensitive to the smell of mangoes. However, the mango scent seems to just overpower all the other notes to me. Definitely tropical and summery, just not something I would put on my skin.
“Heart of the Night”
On the other hand, Heart of the Night is the premium scent from the Night collection. The notes of this are as follows:
“Moroccan Rose absolute, Bulgarian Rose absolute, Sugar, Chocolate, Vanilla, Edge of the Night Base.”
Scent
My first impression was there seemed to a bit of a competition between the rose and chocolate smells in the perfume. They didn’t seem to mesh together very well. This one might need to sit for a few months before being used so that the perfume can settle. After applying it to the skin, the chocolate and roses did not seem to settle anymore, but the perfume did have a nice throw. I ended up layering a vanilla perfume over it, which actually balanced out the notes a lot more.
My boyfriend said I smelled like a candle…not what I was going for.
Wear Time
My mixture of perfumes lasted for a solid twelve hours before I went to sleep. Like I said, there was a lot of throw at the beginning, and I could smell the perfume on me just while walking around. It stayed close to the skin after about two hours.
Overall
I’m not sure if this just needs to age in a drawer for a bit or if it is just not working with me. The contrast between the rose and the chocolate did not blend smoothly enough for me; it felt like the perfume never quite settled right. The wear time was impressive, though.
Coming Up
Thanks for reading my mini Solstice Scents review! I have a full-size bottle coming from Arcana, and I’m hoping to get some more Arcana decants, as well! It will be my first full bottle, and my first time trying Arcana. I’m also waiting on samples from Deep Midnight, an indie perfumery I haven’t tried yet, and more from Solstice Scents and Possets.
