Stereoplasm: Winter Bake Sale

This little mini collection was released as part of the 'Winter Bake Sale' at Stereoplasm a while ago, and I finally got my hands on it! You know it's always a gourmand friendly zone here, so I was super excited to try these. These were sent as a gift from Meaghan, I actually asked to purchase these during their sale but she kindly included these with the press samples, so I'm very grateful for her generosity here! 

On a related note, I received these in Stereoplasm's 1.8mL rollerballs. I like the size, but I've had a bit of difficulty with the rollerballs on these in terms of them rolling smoothly (I ended up using some paper towels to get these properly rolling, and once you get them going and oiled up, it does give it a little more pep with its rolling). It seems that the neck of the bottle is a little too small for a majority of the rollerball inserts, which is causing issues with the ball just being too tightly contained to roll properly. Previously, these 1.8mL vials were paired with reducer caps with a little stopper on top, which I felt were fine for application. I'm personally not bothered between rollerball application and reducer caps (I don't even really mind open top bottles), but if these aren't rolling properly, I'd definitely prefer the reducer caps. I'm hopeful this will be improved in the future as I've heard similar experiences with the rollerballs, but I've never had an issue with the Stereoplasm's square rollerballs (the 4.5mL and 7.5mL sizes). I've also been told that there are 15mL and 30mL sizes potentially coming in the future, so if anyone enjoys having more size options (never a bad thing IMO), that's something to look forward to! 

Florentine - rolled macadamia biscuits sandwiched between rich chocolate drizzled with toffee butter and manuka honey

Honey can be a bit of a hit and miss note in general, but I'm personally not the biggest fan of Stereoplasm's honey note - it's a little musky and almost savoury, especially with it's last appearance in Honey Butter Crisps, which is great, but very heavy and can have a habit of dominating a whole scent. Florentine here, on opening, is sort of torn between the white chocolate and the buttery honey here, without much of the toffee or macadamia at all, but it does dry down and mellow out into more of a softer, sweet creamy honey butter scent with a lot of cocoa butter/cocoa oil. In fact, it's sort of a dressed up version of Palmer's Cocoa Butter massage oil, and while it's not a bad scent, I'm largely ambivalent about this one for its relative simplicity. 

November Cakes - Fluffy sticky rolls, lightly spiced with nutmeg, smothered in zesty orange glaze steaming hot and fresh from the oven

I've never associated November with oranges at all, but this scent is just all orange. This actually reminds me quite a bit of the darker, spiced orange note of Rapscallion (NCD), but my thought process when testing this scent was like this, chocolate oranges, orange zest flapjacks, orange butter cakes, lemon seed poppy muffins with spiced orange, cinnamon allspice orange jam. It's not orange the way Orange is Technicolor is this fresh, juicy orange, it's like, the dark, spiced, baked types of orange, with simmered, candied orange zest, and it's nice. I enjoy this once, I prefer Orange Is Technicolor for the brighter, fresh sugary note, but this is definitely the winter twin of that.  

Bananaimo - Smooth banana custard, crushed graham crackers in dark chocolate, shredded coconut and sugared almonds.

If you're testing this one straight out of the bottle, I really recommend you give this some time to chill out because this one needs it. When I first testing this, I really did not like the aggressive amount of almonds and sharp amaretto (and most almond accords tend to be very amaretto centric, which is nice to drink, but not my favorite in scents.) On opening, the amaretto stays sharp and forward, but dries down almost immediately to a smooth banana custard and banana milk, with a drop of chocolate syrup and a chunk of bounty bar, and the shredded coconut flakes as the base of the scent. I like Stereoplasm's banana note, Banilla Cloud being one of my favorite scents from them, and this is definitely within the same playhouse. While it's still not beating Banilla Cloud, I'm not saying no to more banana! 

Lemon Meringue Macaron - Delicate meringue lightly toasted to perfection! Made with fresh lemon zest, dusty almond flour and buttery creamed sugar 

I've waxed poetic a LOT about how much I love lemon meringue tarts (at one point I demanded like a full cake sized version of it for a birthday. and it was great), and I think this just nails the lemon meringue, especially with its lovely bright lemon, it's tart and sugary, it's a little zesty and tangy, with creamy powdered sugar and a touch of buttery pastry tart. The lemon, like all top notes, does fade relatively quickly, before settling into a soft creamed butter and nutty flour note, but I really love the opening and the zest on this. This is also very similar to Poppycock (NCD), although Poppycock is more of a softer, creamy lemon note, and it's a little more blended together, whereas Lemon Meringue Macaron has distinct little sections of butter and lemon curd you can easily pick out. I like both honestly, and there's never enough lemon meringue tarts for me. A firm favorite, and I'd happily upsize this in the future!