John's Blend: Musk Blossom Fragrance Stick Review

John's Blend is a Japanese brand which mainly produces fragrance and body care items. 

This time, due to the cute packaging and release of a new scent, I decided to pick up their new Musk Blossom fragrance stick! 

As we're entering sakura/cherry blossom season, a lot of limited edition pink colored and sakura themed goods come out, and this year John's Blend have released a Musk Blossom scent which is described (from translate) as "To the sweetness of the cherry blossoms, the softness of the musk makes me think of the spring weather. "

A really beautiful display in the drug store, that I just wanted to take this all home.

You can usually see their brand and products at most Japanese drug stores (Ainz Tulpe seems to stock them quite a lot), and they have a few different products on offer. These include air freshener paper slips, scented room mists, fragrance gel, reed diffusers, "aroma water" for humidifiers, soap, hand creams, fragrance sticks and hair and body mists. They don't offer a huge amount of scents, namely white musk, red wine, apple pear and musk jasmine, although they sometimes release seasonal scents such as lavender and latte mocha (which aren't available any more.) 

I've tried red wine, which smells more like a grape-y scent, and musk jasmine which is just a light jasmine scent. The scents aren't very strong or complex, which typically I find popular Japanese scents are (such as Body Fantasies, and Layered Fragrance which do a lot of one note, sweeter fruits and florals).  

Picture of the musk blossom fragrance gel. The packaging in all pink is so delicate and pretty! 

Unfortunately, the gel, pictured above, is more for home use rather than body use, and the room spray which retails for 1000 JYP, is a great deal for the amount you get and what you pay- if you don't want to spray this on your body. I prefer being able to apply this to my body and not hauling a huge spray bottle around, so I picked the fragrance stick which was 1512 JYP (tax included). While this is sold out on the main site online, I'm sure you can pick this up in stores until the end of sakura season. 

The product is sealed inside a plastic bag with a slip of paper. 

To me, this product smells like a floral 'musk', just a sweet flower scent with a bit of a soapy touch, like a nice shampoo scent. It's not a remarkable scent, but if you like lighter floral scents that you might get from any fruity/floral femme body spray, this might be for you. 

To me, this scent reminds me a lot of this apple scented Snow White spray that I had as a kid from a gatcha machine, and while I found a nail oil that smells a lot like that scent, this one smells quite similar as well (though not so heavy on the apple scent, but more flowery). It's not a scent I'd usually go for but it gives a lot of nostalgia for me, so I wanted to get this as a sort of memento, despite the heavier musk profile. 

The packaging is of smoothed over paper, not rough at all. 

The little illustration of John is a nice touch, with the color matching as well! I like this a lot. 

The stick comes with a little protective cap you can take off, and you can twist the product up. 

 This fragrance stick has an amazing amount of silage for a solid product, as I've tried a solid lavender perfume which just vanished within an hour. You can smell this from around 30-40cm away, without too much product at all, and this lasts around 3-4 hours, mostly wearing off because the warmth of my skin keeps the product warm and melty, thus leading to me accidentally smearing it off quite a lot, but it's not sticky at all. It doesn't quite set but it does also settle into your skin, but it keeps it nice and moisturized without being too tacky. 

For the amount you need to use to get a good amount of smell, despite there not being a lot of product, it does make up for being very strongly scented.  

 A picture of the ingredients list and descriptions of how to use this product. I can't read this, but maybe you can. 

Personally, while I'm a little underwhelmed with the brand and what they usually have to offer as they're not really products that I usually gravitate towards to, they're nice home scented goods for anyone looking for something nice and refreshing, and I definitely suggest this scent as I think it's a nice and inoffensive 'clean' scent for the home. Additionally, I recommend their products if you're looking for an easy to try brand in Japan with a nice polished and simple aesthetic and easy scents to refresh yourself or your bathroom/bedroom.