NCD: An Autumn I Assortment

Another addition to the Autumnal offerings! This is the first part of the Autumn collection, and I picked a few of the new additions this year. As always, thank you to Forest and Josh for sending through these press samples. 

September Spidersilk - A harvest time variation on our beloved Starlight & Spidersilk. Slender strands of cotton flower hung with trembling dewdrops, tawny musk, tiny black vanilla beans, toasted almond, warm oatmilk chai, and guaiac wood.

Although I was never quite in love with Starlight and Spidersilk, I think I might have finally found a variation that I adore. The opening of this scent is gorgeous, it's a soft, rich sweetness, a touch of vanilla bean, custard, maple caramel and cinnamon chai sugar on oatmeal, tinged with the barest hint of guaiac wood. After dry down, there's far more of the soft musk and clean cotton flower coming through. For me, I feel like there's a sort of gourmand adjacent aspect here - I think the best way to describe this scent is that it's a sort of 'clean girl gourmand'. It's surprisingly pretty yet approachable - and the addition of the vanilla, maple and cinnamon paired with the elegance from the original Starlight and Spidersilk is a very welcomed addition to the party. I often say NCD makes some really accessible gourmands for people who don't like gourmands, but recently they've been making some amazing gateway scents for the gourmand lovers who want to branch out just a little bit (Ghost Train being the other one). I really enjoyed this one, and I'll definitely be reaching for it during some chilly days. 

Cornucopia - A bounty of autumnal riches.  Hand-woven baskets of golden straw brimming with blackcurrant, Bartlett pear, pistachio, toasted corn, and spiced sweet potato.

This is a strange one to me - I'm usually a huge fan of all of these notes from NCD, but this one is a rare miss. All the notes I've come to love from the house just don't feature at all here, weirdly enough. The opening is far spicier and sharp than I expected it to be - neither the corn or the potato is at all prevalent here, but far more of a spiced, sharp straw note. It's also unlike any of the previous straw scents I've tried from NCD either - it's almost mildly soil/bark like. After dry down, I get far more of the berries and the fruity notes, although I can't quite pick out the blackcurrant or the pears either - far more of a mulled fruit cider profile. For me, this is a strange one - I feel like it's autumnal in the way that it smells like what I think a Yankee Candle 'Autumn' would smell like - but even throughout the wear, this is far more spiced and sharp than I expected it to be. I definitely wish I got more nuttiness from the corn/potato and more of that faded, earthiness from the straw, but this is a little more sterile and fantastical than the notes would have suggested. I think I'll be passing this one on - it's just not for me.

Savor the Rain - A scent to awaken the senses and bring you back to the present moment. Petrichor and fallen leaves.

I often love the way atmospherics unfold even if they're not the type of scents I usually reach for - and this is lovely. The opening of this scent is a handful of fresh soil, paired with a touch of decaying, damp leaves, before the heavy petrichor comes to the forefront. For me, I always feel like I love the idea of petrichor and not often in a blend as it can be a little too screechy sometimes, but here, it's a 'just right' balance between the chemical sharpness of the petrichor with the earthier qualities of the soil, and the crushed leaves. While dry down does give the petrichor a bit of a bigger stage, and this does skew a little rain heavy, it's exactly what's written on the tin. Personally, I enjoyed this - it's relatively similar to most other petrichor scents I've tried since the accord smells relatively similar (Elemental from Hex, It Can't Rain All the Time from Deconstructing Eden), and also rainy day blends tend to have the same rainy day vibes. I do think this is nice, but I sometimes get this feeling of, try one petrichor scent and you've tried them all - though I'm happy to be proven wrong in the future! Looking for 'the one' that will change my mind.