Sarawen Perfume Art

http://sarawen.bigcartel.com

I've ordered from Sarawen a few times and it has quickly become one of my favourites. The owner is wonderful to order from--she often responds to messages the same day and typically ships packages out within a few business days--and the scents are lovely.

I ordered from Sarawen because my boyfriend's favorite Doctor (from Doctor Who) is the Ninth. Sarawen happens to have a unisex (it actually sounds more masculine than unisex, from her description) cologne inspired by the Ninth Doctor, called "9". I knew that I had to buy a bottle for him, as he would get a huge kick out of it (he does love wearing cologne, so I knew it would also be a useful gift, also).

I figured, since I was paying for shipping from Canada anyway, that I would also throw in a three-pack of samples for myself, as well. On the website, it tells you that you can choose an additional free sample if your order comes to a certain amount before shipping, which I qualified for, so that was nice.

To Sarawen's credit, my package took an admirably short length of time to get from Ontario to Chicago, which impressed me. My items were wrapped up very neatly in tissue paper.

The problem is that, for some strange reason, all of her scents, except for one, smell basically the same to me. Most of them smell exactly like Christmas potpourri, and nothing like the scent description at all. I don't know if it's the carrier oil that she uses, if she reuses sample vials that originally had Christmassy oil in them, or if she likes burning Yuletide candles while she makes her perfume, but there it is. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed in my order, and I'm afraid that I won't be purchasing from Sarawen again.

Though, the one scent that I did like (and which did not smell like the others) is AMAZING. If you get the opportunity, try Ravish, which is a chocolate-raspberry scent, with nary a bayberry or clove-studded orange in sight!

I've ordered several times from Sarawen - three in total. My holy grail perfume is Violette and I go through it like crazy. All shipping has been timely and everything is packaged very well. Sara is very responsive to questions I had and is a dream to work with.

I even requested a custom size of Violette since I use it so much. She accommodated me wonderfully, offering a range of possible containers (roll on, dropper, etc) for the custom order. I'll definitely continue to order from her in the future!