LouLou's: Dreamsicle, Calm and Good Morning Review

Information about the brand:

Lou Lou's is a Etsy store run by Evelyn Dunder, and they sell a variety of soaps, scrubs and other scented goods. They also do custom scents, and offer a lot of single note/layering oils which you can find just about most foodie accords for!  You can also check out Evelyn's Instagram page. While they're not talked about much on r/IMAM either, the very few reviews I have seen have largely been positive.



My order:
I actually bought these in a Sunday swap, from the same user who kindly sold me my Hexannacht drams, and these little bottles were described to me as 5/8 drams, which are the same size as the 2ml vials that I also actually own for decanting purposes.

If you're interested in buying from the shop, they sell sample sets of five for $15USD in these 5/8 dram bottles, which is a pretty great price, and you can pick from a huge catalogue of scents (most of them seem to lean towards gourmands which I personally love.

Additionally: International shipping to Australia is also $14USD. 

Good Morning:

 Sugar crusted blueberry muffins with butter, a bowl of maple syrup drizzled oatmeal, sugar cookies, and a warm mug of vanilla bean infused milk

I love blind smelling scents, but these are incredible - You can pick out each and every element in this blend, it's such a pleasure to smell these.

In the vial: BUTTER! It's a lot of butter and maple syrup, with a touch of pancakes. 

On my skin wet: The blueberry really comes out as a bright sugary top note, it's almost exactly like blueberry jam and those box mixes of blueberry muffins. This reminds me of Blue Highway (Poesie), but a brighter and slightly sweeter rendition. 

Dried down: There's an almost bread like quality to this scent, it's a rich and luxurious butter that mellows into a whipped and melted butter and maple syrup spread on pancakes, but it's also a thick, oat stout porridge with sweet milk.
This reminds me a little bit of Papa's Waffles (Sucreabeille) without the almost burnt crispy and slightly bitter quality of the blend, and a gingerbread less Lebkuchen (Sugar and Spite) with the beautiful oatmeal, brown sugar porridge - and no gingerbread note.

If this was a breakfast experience, it's early morning McDonald's hotcakes with syrup and butter, a freshly baked blueberry muffin, a bowl of oatmeal with a heaping of oatmeal, like every sweet breakfast you love but all at once.

Compared to the other scents, this is a smidge stronger with medium projection, and lasted around 4-5 hours on my skin. 

Good for: Those who like realistic notes! This is definitely the pancake/hotcake, maple syrup and whipped butter note that I've been looking for. I just adore this.

Calm:

Calm is a blend of lavender, French vanilla, cotton candy, musk, and a shot of black raspberry latte

In the vial: Coffee? Lavender essential oil. Something sharp, almost gingery. 

On my skin wet: There's a strange bitterness - it's a weird blend of the coffee and the lavender, it's almost like herbal, kind of like a musky savoury muffin. This is a muddled scent next to Good Morning's clear cut blend.  

Dried down: A light brushing of sugar, a slight hint of musk, a whisper of coffee and lavender essential oil. This is like a fireworks display that accidentally all went off at the same time, looked beautiful (probably) but brief, leaving behind a chaotic cloud of smoke, and causing confusion and upset to the citizens of the village. 

I suppose somewhat ironically, this blend does not make me calm. 

Good for: anyone who likes a challenging blend - it's definitely a 'gourmand' blend, but where it sits as a blend, depending on whether you amp certain notes you may find yourself loving this... or maybe not. 

Dreamsicle:

 Orange creamsicle

This blend is a pretty simplistic one compared to Calm and Good Morning, it's a straight forward blend of sweet orange and vanilla, and it's part of my crazy hunt for replicating the Sugarpill liquid lip scent. We're getting pretty close. 

In the vial: Fanta - not that fizzy. Touch of cream. 

On my skin wet: Pretty strong on the orange. Just sweet orange, but without as much of a tang. 

Dried down: Same sweet orange, but heavier on the sugar, and fades pretty quickly. Give it like an hour or two- it's pretty much a faint ghost of the scent on my skin. Compared to Good Morning, this has a very low projection and a slightly lower wear time.
I don't mind this, but it's not quite "dupe" quality.

Conclusion:

From the sounds of the Lou Lou's master scent list, I can see myself enjoying a lot of the scents from the notes alone. I do love the scent of a lot of these blends, and I might even consider getting more samples directly from the shop, but from the swap I haven't quite found what works from the shop and what doesn't.
While I am a huge fan of Good Morning, Calm leaves me a little befuddled, and I really find myself wishing that I loved them both the same.
That said, it's very easy to pick out the notes, and what you see from the notes is definitely what you'll get, and I've never been blindsided by the interpretations of notes from LouLou's, more just the actual blend being confusing on me/my skin.

I would definitely consider rebuying directly from LouLou's next time, but overall I definitely recommend Good Morning.