Sweet Anthem Perfumes

http://www.sweetanthemperfumes.com/

Reviews of Phoebe, Nell, Hipployta, Emily, and Kay: http://www.reddit.com/r/Indiemakeupandmore/comments/1wnj1g/sweet_anthem_reviews/

I just signed up for their subscription service. The prices are quite good. for their general catalogue the prices are maybe a bit higher than some indie perfumers but the scents are very high quality and you can get samples or solid scents at a lower price point. plus, the subscription is a really good value. the first shipment had 3 of those chubby little sample scent bottles with eau de parfum and one roughly chapstick sized solid perfume basically for $7. i got the smallest package, 2 seasonal shipments for $14.

When i opened the package the solid scent had been opened and used. i emailed the owner and she replied within an hour and offered to send me a new one right away. she said one of the testers must have gotten mixed up with the stock. very gracious, helpful, and responsive.

The scents themselves: with the subscription you get samples of the seasonal releases and then a couple other things i guess. i got the two spring scents, Lolita and Poppy, plus another eau sample in Phoebe and the solid scent in Anton.

Lolita: cheery and sweet. i shy away from very sweet perfumes but this is appealing in a candy-ish kind of way, and the sea salt comes up here and there to balance it out and keep it from being cloying. Only smelled this one from the bottle.

Poppy: kind of the opposite of Lolita. Dark, damp, heavy, somewhat sinister. tannic and smoky sweetness. On my skin it got pretty musky.

Pheobe: i swear i get cocoa from this, but it's not in the notes. it reminds me a bit of one of my favorite perfumes, the Duchess Georgiana from Sweet Tea Apothecary. Probably the lavender/amber combo. also smoky sweetness (tobacco?) which recalls Poppy. This is my favorite from this order.

Anton: this smelled like soft vanilla in the tube, same on my skin, then completely disappeared within 90 minutes. Which is exactly what it says on the website for solids so i'm not complaining. anyway, this one is a very nice vanilla but on me it's nothing else. a little flat for my taste, but i can see wearing it on days when i feel like something really simple. It also seemed like the flatness could be due to the formula, and again the website says that the scents vary a little depending on what format you get it in (they offer eaus, oils, and solids.)

The blends are really interesting and do cool things on the skin. They're the kinds of scents that i keep opening just to sniff when i'm in my room doing whatever. i will definitely be placing an order outside of the subscription shipments.

I also signed up for the SA List. The first one that I received was the Summer Anthology which, unfortunately, had two masculine colognes (Sweet Anthem's scents are divided into masculine and feminine--feminine scents have female names and white labels, masculine ones have male names and black labels), both of which were too manly for me. I gave them to my boyfriend, who used them up very quickly. They came in tiny spray bottles, which was kind of fun. Also included was a tiny clamshell of lip shimmer, and what appears to be a full-sized pot (not twist-up tube) of a discontinued Christmas fragrance. Everything arrived in a lovely, reusable silver box.

With the SA List, you get a $10 voucher each season, which covers everything in the shop except for shipping. I used my Summer voucher to order a twist-up solid perfume in Fox. It also arrived in a pretty silver box. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they also included a free double sample vial (it looks to be 1.5 - 2 times larger than a normal sample vial) of a masculine cologne, which I also gave to my boyfriend.

This was the first solid perfume that I ever tried. I had heard people say that solids don't last nearly as long as oils do, and aren't as powerful, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find that Fox is extremely potent, and lasts quite a while (3 - 5 hours, perhaps). The twist-up tube is also extremely convenient--you can just pop it in your purse and go! Based on this, I would definitely recommend Sweet Anthem's solid perfumes. The scent is also gorgeous--honeyed beeswax with ginger and white florals. If you love honey and/or ginger notes, then Fox is definitely a scent for you.