Earl Grey Tea - Demeter Fragrance Review

A little while ago, I found out about the Demeter Fragrance Library. It is this amazing collection of perfumes that have the strangest scents - things like Fireplace, Tomato, Greenhouse, etc. Not only was I intrigued (who wouldn't want to try a perfume that smells like a crayon? or eggnog?) but I was also very excited. I really enjoy scents, but have a very sensitive nose and I have a hard time with traditional perfumes. They're often too strong and overwhelming (not to mention floral and complicated) and I catch whiffs of them all day, which I don't particularly like. I can't even wear heavily scented hair product.

I've often thought that, instead of smelling like a combination of flowers, musks, or other more typical perfume scents, wouldn't it be great to smell like pancakes? Or freshly mown grass? Apparently I'm not the only one!

There are over 250 different classic scents from Demeter Fragrance Library, and apparently they often add new ones. It was very very difficult to choose which ones to try (I would love to smell them all), but I settled on nine scents to order sample sized bottles of. My partner and I are going to be trying one each day, and I'll be writing about how they smell and our reactions (as well as whether or not they actually smell like their names)

First up: Earl Grey Tea

Unfortunately, it did not make me smell like Captain Picard.

Right out of the bottle, it smells just like a lightly scented perfume, with perhaps a bit of citrus (I'm new to the whole perfume game, so I'm assuming this has to do with the fact that we were smelling the alcohol). We sprayed a bit on a slip of paper to try and get a more neutral reading that didn't interact with either of our body chemistry. On the paper it definitely smelled more like tea, and had a stronger citrus scent. I felt that it smelled like Earl Grey Tea... but without the tea. The citrus-y bergamot and slightly floral scent of Earl Grey was definitely there, but it was missing the tea scent (it smelled good, though).

We then sprayed some on our wrists, and the scent became much more present in the air - light and floral and kind of citrus-y, and very pleasant! Maggie commented that it was not intrusive, and didn't smell chemical. We tried to give it a few minutes before smelling it more directly  - apparently that's a thing you're supposed to do (to let the alcohol evaporate???). Maybe we smelled it too soon, but for a while there was a definite chemical sort of smell on the skin. Maggie said it reminded her of the floor cleaner they used at her high school, and unfortunately once I got that idea in my head, all I could smell was a citrus cleaner! 

The scent got mellower, and became pleasantly sweet and citrus-like, but seemed to keep moving away from smelling like Earl Grey. Throughout the day, I found that the citrus scent disappeared and as the scent became lighter it also became more flowery.

Overall, I feel that this did not quite hit the mark (but I suppose tea is a harder scent than bergamot). There are also individual preferences/body chemistry to take into consideration, so don't let this discourage you if you want to try it! I'm probably going to try it again another day, since there were definitely parts that I liked.

In the meantime, I'm going to bury my nose in my tea tin and have another cup.

P.S. There will probably be a couple scents that I don't want to keep, so if anyone has any information on how legal/difficult it is to ship perfume (domestically) I'd appreciate it - I might do a giveaway!