Wicked (2014)
by Sixteen92

Black. Gothic. Almost a burnt vanilla sometimes. At times, it's boozy sweet. Patchouli is strong. It is the star performer here. Almond buttercream accord is served, on the side, like a spread or icing for a muffin or cake. Sweetness isn't over-powering - it's just here. It adds je ne sais quoi to the vanilla & patchouli.

What you see is what you get. The very first seconds of Wicked give up a sharply sweet patchouli in rum-- OOPS, that's just the alcohol still drying. When you wait a few seconds like a normal human, you find yourself in a lightly sweetened patchouli.

I swear my friends, there are wood shavings about.

There's an old southern thing people eat--black strap molasses with soft butter beaten into it using the table knife. It gets creamy and beige, thick and rich. One smudges it onto lightly toasted white bread, a bite's worth at a time. I hadn't thought of that in 40 years but it sprang to my mind for Wicked.

There is also a sense of extract--as in the cooking flavorings used for cookies or icings. I couldn't pin it down, so checking the notes I see almond and vanilla. It's more to me than just almond or vanilla, because it blends immediately with the ever so slightly camphorous aspect of patchouli and pulls them both into a single accord.

All this at the thirty minute mark.

At three hours it's beginning to fade, and although the extract sensation had faded earlier, it has remained a dry patchouli throughout. The almond/vanilla is always an accent to a very patchouli forward fragrance. I suspected it would hang onto my skin for quite a while at this lower amplitude, in the manner of patchouli vanillas. At four and a half hours it seems to move into a patchouli amber phase--softer, and a bit powdery, as a lingering skin scent.


For me, it's a fine and worthy fragrance, but not one I would choose over Jalaine's Patchouli, seeing as I already own that one--my first patchouli love still reigns supreme, as long as one ignores the price point.