Kyse Perfumes: General Collection review

Kyse Perfumes offers a permanent general catalogue and will occasionally add some extra scents. Information about my order which was placed in 2019 can be found below all the scent reviews! 

Oui Plus - graham cracker, marshmallow, cocoa absolute, Peru balsam, patchouli, styrax, bit of burnt coffee

This is a warm and crunchy scent, like standing in the middle of a chocolate digestive biscuit wedged between melting marshmallows, and just a hint of resin to round it all out. With Oui Plus, you can expect a lovely cloud of cocoa powder and sweet marshmallows- and the burnt coffee, styrax and patchouli just rounding it out to give it more body. This is quite a linear scent, and what you see (not literally) is what you get. I personally really love Kyse's graham cracker note (like, digestive biscuits). 

I like layering this one with Luvmilk's Ace of Hearts, and they're the perfect compliment to each other. Whereas Ace of Hearts is the sweet peanut butter cookie smushed into a chocolate chip slice, Oui Plus is the fancy handroasted espresso imported from Brazil with a complimentary slice of gourmet shortbread, and together they make one perfect visit to the coffee shop. 

I give this a 6.5/10, I like the general feel of the scent tho I can't help but feel it would have been better with just the graham cracker, marshmallow and cocoa alone. The sample size is more than enough for me. 

Frollino Lavender - lavender, sugar, butter, caramel, beeswax, vanilla, blackberry

Despite the name, this is very much a salted caramel slice with just a sprinkling on lavender on top.

The burnt caramel butter note is very similar to Shay and Co's Salt and Caramel, and this is a very cloying and sweet burnt sugar note with just a slight touch of herbal lavender. This has been described as "lavender shortbread", but to me the sugar and butter is very much the star of the show. This is delivering the scent of lavender shortbread, when you've just melted the butter on the stove, mixed in the sugar, and thrown in the lavender buds, and the scents are all simmering on the stove to give you that rich and luxurious, ribbon of caramel in the pan.

If you're a fan of Shay and Co's Salt and Caramel you might enjoy this scent. For me, I honestly don't know where I sit on this scent. Sometimes I come back to this scent and love it, and other times I'll try it and feel confused. It definitely wasn't quite what I expected based off the notes alone, and I struggle to find a time where I've really wanted to come back to this scent. I give this a 4/10. 

Confit De Rose - Rose Absolute-Morocco, plum, red berries, creamy notes, cocoa, and graham cracker

If you check out the Fragrantica reviews, they're pretty much very mixed. Some people get a really sweet rose note, some people get graham cracker, some people absolutely hated this, and I imagine this to mainly be due to skin chemistry.

On my skin this scent turns into this sharp boozy plum/raspberry with only the very barest hint of rose. It's very tart, the plum and the berries pull the strongest on my skin, just a hint of graham crackers and dark chocolate, and then softens into a scent that I can only describe as, graham crackers soaked in Chambord, a tart berry juice finished off with a crushed rose petal.

To it's credit, you can smell the the notes, and according to the review from missnick98, they basically had the same experience as I did - sharp wine/boozy without any cake but seems to vary a lot person to person.

This is definitely a wild card, and a shifty scent, so if you love a gamble, or you tend to amp florals-  this is a good one to try. On my friend, this turned into a beautiful Turkish delight, but it also is a beautiful soft berry when in whipped soap form on me. 

In perfume form, I have to give this a 4/10. It definitely made me reel back a little, and despite liking this in soap form, I don't think I'll be able to finish this sample. 

Fitchi e Panna - Fig, milk accord, sugar, vanilla, and sandalwood

Opening with a blast of fresh and juicy figs, it's complimented by a creamy and sweet base of milk and sugar - the result is of a lovely pannacotta base with slices of fig. It's a very bright and refreshing scent, it's sweet and cheerful, a pudding overflowing with figs. 

My only slight gripe - is the sandalwood. I love sandalwood, yet it veers this scent into soap territory, and the result is what you'd expect from "milk and fig body wash". If you don't like gourmands, maybe you'll enjoy this but for me, it's a let down on an otherwise perfect pannacotta scent.

This leaned way too soapy for me. I'd have given this a higher score but as it is, it's a 5/10, although I have to admit, I struggle to think of any occasion where I'd wear this. 

Gateau e Carnavale - Funnel cake, vanilla latte, toasted brown sugar, and apricot

This is funnel cakes, carnival sweets and a good drizzle of salted caramel. There's a slight touch of vanilla that adds some much needed sweetness, but other than that this is all deep fried funnel cake, smoked salt and caramel at the heart of this fragrance. The apricot is mostly undetected, like a touch of fruit to add some freshness the heaviness of this scent. This is a heavy and almost savoury interpretation of funnel cakes, but it's a beautiful one nevertheless.  

If you're a big fan of straight gourmands and funnel cake, or sweet smoked salt, this is it. Worth checking out - and you don't even need a full size because this is how concentrated the EDPs are.  

This gets a 6/10 from me, I enjoy this one, but I'll be happy with my sample size. 

Doceur Brulee - Lemon, Browned Caramel, Butter, Coconut Milk, Beeswax, Oakmoss, Ambroxan and Musk

Wet lemon juice squeezed on top of a creme brulee - and despite the general hit and miss of lemon notes, this is a soft and comforting lemon buttercream.As the lemon buttercream fades, it's a very sweet and creamy coconut cream scent with an edge of bubbling browned caramel, but the musk is quite a prominent note in this blend. A review above from missnick98, it says that this needs to rest at least for a month, but this may vary depending on your bottle!

For me, this is a lemon and sugar crepe served along a freshly torched creme brulee, but you're having the dessert next to a woman who's wearing oakmoss and musk. You love the dessert, oakmoss and musk is just a constant reminder that she's still sitting next to you. There's an almost dizzying quality to this blend, it's very evocative, sort of sensory overload in dessert form. I can't say oakmoss and musk is my favorite part of this perfume, but I imagine it adds to the sharp and almost hypnotic sweetness of the blend. 

This is a 3.5/10 for me, I dislike musk in general but something about the combination also makes me feel a little nauseous.  

Foaming Bath Butter Soap:

The ingredients for the butter soaps are: Aqua, Glycerin, Coconut Oil, Avocado Oil, Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Sorbitol, Disodium Lauryl Sulfosuccinate, Sodium Chloride, Fragrance, Phenoxyethanol, Tetrasodium EDTA

This is described as a "luxurious and moisturizing foaming bath butter" and it absolutely is - It's my first bath butter type formula but I think I've fallen in love with this. 

The formula itself, if you've never tried this, is what you can imagine 'whipped soaps' to be like, it reminds me a little bit of a thicker shaving cream. You have to scoop this out and really massage it into your skin because it's definitely not as easy to use as liquid soap. 

The upside of this soap is it absolutely does not strip your skin at all, the more I lather it onto my skin it just bubbles up a bit more and does not dry the skin out at all! I genuinely have really been loving this - and it works really well as a shaving cream as well. 

Also, the scent in the foaming butters is super strong - even having taken a shower I can still smell this hours after my shower, and it lingers on my skin for a few hours if I lather this on my skin for about 5-15 seconds and rinse it off. I love this, and I also find the scents work a lot better in the soap form than they do perfume form, and I think they work much better on my skin after showers than they do as EDPs. 

In Confit de Rose, instead of that sharp boozy scent, the fragrance turns into this amazing graham cracker heavy scent with a touch of sweet berries and rose, and it just clings to the skin in this amazingly light and sweet cloud. 

With Doceur Brulee, where the oakmoss gets a little too sharp for me, in the soap it's this amazingly tame lemon and coconut musk - it retains all the sweeter elements that I liked in the perfume but none of the heavier more 'perfume-y' elements, and again it just sticks to my skin so nicely. 

I wholly recommend this product and cannot get enough of this!

It comes a few sizes:

           Sample size (5g) for  $1.75USD

 4oz/114g for $12USD 

 8oz/227g for $18USD. 

About the brand: 

Kyse Perfumes is a small brand run by Terri Bozzo, who is also in charge of making all the products on offer. This brand isn't mentioned on r/indiemakeupandmore at all, and there are very little reviews on the sub, but there are a few on Fragrantica. I'm not sure why they're not mentioned more often, but they do have a smaller selection of scents and aren't very active on social media at all. 

If you'd like to learn more about Terri, here's a little interview if you're interested. Excitingly enough, she describes herself as a "gourmand nut", so out of her limited selection of scents, I was drawn to most of them. The whole brand also has all their names in Italian and also some French hybrid (Oui Plus). 

I bought from their official website, and despite having less than 30 scents, it's still frustrating that there is no master scent list, but Fragrantica offers an easy to read webpage on all the scents on offer.

When I placed my order, it was 20% off for the March promotion, with the code SPRINGFLING offered on the site! In regards to customer service, the ordering process was extremely easy. There wasn't any need for additional emails, and the shipping notification is sent via email as soon as it's shipped.  

Shipping: 

Another lovely part of Kyse is that they offer flat rate shipping, domestic US shipping is $3USD, and international shipping is $10. For this order, this was shipped through USPS and made its way to me in just over a week! It was shipped on 28th of February and arrived on the 7th of March. 

This was shipped in a compact little cardboard box and was stuffed with paper and sealed in individual plastic packs. The tiny 1ml vials are also packaged in these, but 3 of the 3ml glass bottle sprays fit perfectly into these bags- which also have the Kyse Perfumes stickers on the pack, which is a lovely touch. Nothing broke in transit, and even came with a small handwritten note personally thanking us for the purchase! 

Order: 

I made an order of 6 sample EDPs, which were all only $4.75USD for 3ml ($4USD during the sale!), which breaks down to about $1.6USD per mL - which is very affordable, and on the lower end of prices for indies. The low price however, doesn't compromise quality in my opinion. 

Terri also packed in samples for our order, and I got the two whipped soaps while my friend kept the whipped body butters. 

One of my favorite parts is how good the spray bottles are- while other reviews have spoken badly about the 1ml sample screw top pots (the same as Sucreabielle's new vials) if you're going to try them out I'd probably suggest the 3ml spray bottles unless you're on a budget. However, it's about $1.75 per 1ml for the 1ml samples, whereas the 3mL are a smidge cheaper per mL. 

This brand has a more of a mainstream "gourmand" scent that you can expect with perfumes. While I'd say Kyse is firmly gourmand central, it's better to envision these as desserts rendered in perfume form, similar to Prada's Candy and Shay and Co's Salt and Caramel. 

Conclusion: 

In regards to the shopping experience, prices and bottles, I have no complaints. Everything was perfect, nothing came damaged, and at the price they're sold for, I wouldn't even think twice about trying these out.  For me, I'd suggest the 3ml sprays if you'd like to try, as they're a great deal, perfect for a bit of travel and you don't have to be scared of giving a few liberal spritzes to sample these out - especially as EDP's work best with sprays and not screw top pots, and a smidge cheaper too. For the EDPs storage however - these evaporate relatively quickly, because of the clear bottles, and the plastic screw tops. It might be worth looking into adding additional tape to prevent the alcohol from evaporating, and keeping them in a cool, dark area. 

The projection for these scents are amazing, the throw is huge and the lasting power on these scents are incredible though, I've sprayed this in my hair and still been able to smell it, and on my skin I've had this on for 12 hours and it's still strong and I get whiffs of it whenever I move my arm around.

This is a very concentrated, and strong scent, and if you're into heavier perfumes, Kyse is definitely "a little goes a long way". 

In regards to the scents themselves, I noticed that this brand has more of a 'perfume' approach to gourmands, but much like ptilda's comments, I'm not sure I personally enjoy all of the finished results. They aren't amazing, they're not bad - they're very much a middle of the pack kinda scent for me. I have to say, I just don't feel the general feel of this house works well for me, and with their new releases I haven't seen anything else catch my eye either. With the amount of houses out there, I don't find myself reaching for these scents often at all, and I feel like I just didn't love these as much as I wanted to. 

 

With the scents I own, I'd compare these to mainstream leaning gourmands. If you enjoy scents along the line of Prada's Candy, Shay and Co's Salt and Caramel, Pink Sugar - these smell like high end branded blends but at a fraction of the price.  

If you're looking for something new to try though, I'd say this is a great brand to start with, especially at the price point.