Nui Cobalt Designs: Autumn Part II 2020 (Review)

As always, a grateful and heartfelt thank you to Joshua and Forest at Nui Cobalt Designs for sending through the press samples from their Autumn collection. Both Part I and II will be coming down in February! 

After having reviewed a few of Nui Cobalt's seasonal releases, I really appreciate that they always have some sort of theme running through their collections. Some are definitely more apparent than others, like how the Bee's is primarily centered around honey notes, whereas April Fool's is just more loosely gourmands in general, but Autumn definitely had a lot of pumpkin notes - so if that's your jam, you'll definitely love these. 

You can pick these up as 5ml bottles or 1ml samples (as shown below) on the Nui Cobalt Designs website here! 

Calico Cat - Tawny suede, pale sandalwood, toasted coconut, deep amber, and golden honey are accented with bright satsuma, and spiced tamarind.

This is a super sweet and fuzzy scent - opening up with sweet golden honey, amber and sweet orange. The sandalwood and amber here add a depth and complexity to this scent which mellows out the more foodie aspects, and the suede actually adds an almost smooth texture to the scent. The spiced tamarind here grows stronger over the course of the wear. The notes in this scent are a little harder to pick out, but the overall feeling is a bit like a lightly spiced cup of lemon honey tea. 

Perfect for: A chilly afternoon, curled up in a comfy chair, blankets, a cup of tea, a good book and a cat. 

Pumpkins and Spidersilk - Slender strands of cotton flower hung with trembling dewdrops, cold crystalline musk, tiny black vanilla beans, pumpkin chai, hot cinnamon rolls, nutmeg, clove, allspice, and a scant drop of honey. 

This is an autumnal variation of Starlight and Spidersilk - while the delicate, musky florals of the original aren't really my thing, the blend here is absolutely perfect. The autumn spices are the dominant note here, chai with allspice, clove, nutmeg and cinnamon, while the light ethereal musk and a touch of laundry like sweetness from the cotton flower dances over the grounded warmth. It has a relatively linear performance, but it dries down to a sweeter, honey forward sweetness with a smidge of savoury pumpkin. I personally prefer this variation - it really captures the duality of the autumn chill with the warm tints of autumn leaves and spices. 

Perfect for: The crunch of fallen autumn leaves under your feet in the quiet mornings.  

Pale as Death - Funeral lilies, datura accord, luna moths on cotton flowers, and white clover along a graveyard path. 

Wan and bloodless phantoms move forlorn among the headstones.

Imagine capturing the scent of sheer white tule and pale organza, and morning fog. This scent is a really lovely ethereal scent - when I first got this scent, it had a real laundry forward cleanness from the cotton flower but as it aged, there's a richer cleanness and body from the funeral lilies. NCD's lily note is gorgeous, especially in Mourning Dove, and aging this scent has really added this complex sweetness, especially in comparison to the otherwise waspish reedy sweetness of most white florals. I like the balance between the sweetness, the delicate white florals and the touch of laundry (which mellows out over the course of the wear), which makes it a really complex scent despite how light it seems to be. 

Perfect for: Laundry scents and white floral fiends. 

Crone's Cottage - Oatmeal cookies still warm from the oven, beeswax candles on the windowsill, a warm cup of strong black tea with milk, and a generous dollop of honey.

Opening up with this deliciously rich and luxuriously sweet blast of amber tinted honey, drizzled into a cup of English Breakfast, a lot of milk, and lightly spiced raisin bread and Anzac cookies. This scent reminds me a lot of a richer version of Flummery from Nui Cobalt's April Fool's collection, and Blarney. It's a sweetly blended combination with the rich nuttiness of the oatmeal, a darker, tannic tinge from the tea, warm milk and NCD's signature sweet honey.  

While the spices, a little touch of allspice, clove and nutmeg simmer under the sweetness of the honey and sharp fruitiness of the raisin bread, this mellows down at about an hour into a lovely warm gourmand, all soft edges, crumbly warm cookies, and honey orange marmalade. I seem to get a lot more fruit than the notes would imply - I think it adds a nice dimension to the scent, although it can lean a little cloying because of the density of the beeswax. I like this, but I didn't love this. 

Perfect for: Making your own jams and preserves, having a nice afternoon scone and a nice cup of tea. 

Entombed - Cemetery stones enshrouded in mist, wild English lavender, blue chamomile, rain, and freshly turned earth.  

Firstly, this scent has this gorgeous blue tint - and I really love the color. However, the scent itself is a full atmospheric. It's unexpectedly strong, with a real acid sharpness from the freshly turned earth and cemetery stones. Combined with the other notes, it amplifies the softness of the wild lavender and the blue chamomile into a sharper, almost menthol like herbal scent, and inches towards clean laundry soapiness. 

I found this scent a bit of an enigma, I could smell the lavender and the chamomile, yet it felt like there was a filter hung over the scents. If it had a voice, it would probably be rather shrill and thin. Although I wanted to love this, I found it hard to wear because of sharp and prickly this scent was on me.

Perfect for: the eerie, unsettling quiet of walking through a cemetery, with the soaked chill of damp soil under your feet, and the rows of heavy memories clinging to grey stones. 

Saint Expedite - Freshly baked pound cake, sacramental wine, cathedral frankincense, beeswax votives, and a scarlet bouquet of carnations, roses, and Asiatic lilies

A sharp splash of wine, a rich eggy pound cake sweetness, topped with the dense richness of honey and beeswax. The pound cake here is divine, it has that lovely baked sweetness that just dominates the whole scent - it's not too heavy or rich at all with a light dusting of icing sugar. The frankincense and the florals aren't very noticeable, but they add an elegant complexity to the pound cake. It's still relatively sweet, but it's not an obvious gourmand.  

This scent has some overlaps with Crone's Cottage in that they both have a dense richness of the beeswax, and a strong gourmand base, but I have to say, I personally prefer this to Crone's Cottage. 

Perfect for: A Christmas party, except you're the only one who decided to show up like it was the Met Gala with a golden halo headpiece, rosary, a thurible and a poundcake - because you're a great guest. 

Drunk Pumpkin - An oversized pumpkin punchbowl filled with hot apple cider, Caribbean dark rum, Tennessee whiskey, cinnamon sticks, ginger root and a twist of lemon.  

I enjoy this one! The first hit reminds me a lot of mulled wine with sweet pumpkin, cinnamon, apple cider, candied ginger and powdered sugar. It's sweet and spicy in the right way. After dry down, I got a lot more sweetness on my skin (though I tend to amp sweetness so YMMV). With all the fruity elements of this, with a sweet dark apple, a touch of lemon, and orange zest, this has a real tropical feeling. 

I think this is really fun and I like it! It's a little darker because of the whiskey and the rum, but the booze notes aren't super apparent on my skin either (as booze always vanishes on my skin), and it's like a straightforward, fruity spiced apple cider scent. NCD's ginger also tends to be quite hit and miss for me, but it really works in this one. Unexpectedly, it also reminded me a lot of apple pie - which I liked.

Perfect for: A boozed up, spicy take on Apple Picking - yeah you like an apple cider, but wouldn't it be better if it was spiked, and you got to drink it out of a carved flaming pumpkin? 

Flaming Pumpkin - Woodsmoke, burnt brown sugar, two types of patchouli, fresh ginger root, and Jarrahdale pumpkin pureed with nutmeg and a spritz of blood orange.  

Smokey, sweet pumpkin. Aspects of this actually almost remind me of motor oil, because of the burnt notes in the woodsmoke and sugar. While the savoury sweetness of the pumpkin still provides a smooth base to this scent, I can't help but feel like this is what it would smell like if you set a pumpkin pie on fire with gasoline - except prettier. 

This definitely has a real unisex quality - especially because I get nuances of leather underneath all of the burning pie, and it's not quite as sweet as the other pumpkin based blends. 

Perfect for: Wrecking havoc at someone's Halloween party - sure you've smashed a pumpkin on the car and insulted the host's pumpkin pie, but you look really sexy in that leather jacket and that's all that matters. 

Baby Pumpkin - Homemade maple pumpkin bread with Autumn harvest honey, spiced with nutmeg and clove, drizzled with salted caramel, and dotted with Turkish apricot. 

Firstly, despite my general fear of spices, NCD always makes spices work so well. Secondly, I was actually really excited to try this one, and it did not let me down. 

On opening, this is just delicious, it has a real butterbeer feel with all the thick butterscotch and caramel notes - complimented with the warmth in the nutmeg, cinnamon and clove. The savoury sweetness from the pumpkin works really well with the richness of the maple syrup, and after dry down the wheaty texture and nuttiness of the bread just sits on the skin like an inviting plate of pumpkin pancakes. 

This is a gorgeous foodie gourmand, and definitely my favorite from the bunch. I also really wanted to compare this to Pumpkin Cupcake - but alas it was sold out. 

Perfect for: me. Seriously I can't get enough of this, I don't even care what season it is, I just want more of this. Thank you. 

Disclaimer: These scents were was sent for review. I was not sponsored for this review or affiliated with this brand, and all opinions are my own, and do not reflect the brand's opinions or interests.