Nui Cobalt Designs: April Fool's 2020 Review

So I am probably more or less, disgustingly infatuated with Nui Cobalt's GBBO collection. As I've mentioned before, gourmands are like, my thing, and I love scents that are super foodie and very realistic. Last year's collection I ended up ordering decants of literally every scent (the first and only time I've ever done that!), and most of the scents really impressed me. My favorites from the house are Mourning Dove and Tiki Bar (which I recently upsized), but I've never had that many issues with the carrier oil from NCD. I picked up the collection this year again, so here are my reviews - and NCD also released a blog where they had professional chefs/bakers reviewing their scents, which is a delight to read. If you'd like to check out the 2019 scents, you can click on part 1, part 2 and the round up post. 

If you'd like to pick these up - NCD has recently started selling 1ml samples for their scents, which makes it much easier for me because I really don't do blind buys, although you can definitely opt for the 5ml if you wanted! I got all mine in 1mls, and they retail for $4.25 USD each, and the 5ml bottles for $19 USD each (breaks down to $3.8 for 1ml). You can pick these up from https://nuicobaltdesigns.com/!

Why the beach and not a restaurant you may ask? Covid. 

Flim Flam - Lush Phillipine mango with steamed sticky rice and a decadent drizzle of coconut syrup.  

I was super excited to see this scent come to life. Personally I would have loved to see the black Thai sticky rice with custard because, well it's my favorite, but also because that coconut custard with the wild rice just has this amazing strong chewy nuttiness that I would really love to see. 

Wet: Slightly warm nutty rice, with a modest touch of coconut syrup with a little slice of mango. The nutty rice is most prominent before dry down, and the note I enjoyed the most. Unlike black Thai sticky rice (which is a bit different from Taiwanese purple rice), white glutinous rice has the most demure rice profile, with a soft, inoffensive nutty scent. 

Dried down: The mango definitely starts to peek through after 15 minutes, and becomes the dominant note in this blend for me. The mango note itself is really lovely, it's got a good balance of the sweet juiciness of the mango, but it also has this lovely tart sharpness that you get from sour mangos. I would have to say the note is a little syrupy, which reminds me a lot of canned mangos, but I really love it because it has such a good balance of sweet and sour. It's complimented by a lingering nutty quality, but the coconut is the least noticeable note, just like a smidge of coconut sugar, although it's light, which I really like. 

When I first wore this scent (a week of rest) the mango was a lot stronger, but after having tested it after a few more months, I definitely prefer it with a little bit of aging because the other notes just felt stronger, and more complimentary as a result. I imagine it's also in part my skin chemistry which is amping the mango, but I really would have loved to get more of the rice in this blend. I have to confess though, I just love rice in general, so maybe I'm biased. Definitely my favorite out of the bunch. 

Perfect for: Lover Boy by Phum Viphurit. There's nothing that quite gets you in the mood for a mango sticky rice like walking through the streets of a night market where the heat of summer, the humidity sticking to your skin. It cuts through the muggy air, and a slow day. 

Hoodwink - A tall glass of Thai iced tea sweetened with Tupelo honey and swirled with vanilla rice milk.  

Wet: Chinese medicine graciously sweetened with honey. In the vial and on the skin, this is all harsh bitter herbs, which reminds me a lot of 雞骨草, which is also known as woundwort, which is often sold as a bottled herbal drink, and 龟苓膏, a herbal jelly often eaten with syrup, as the scent just has an overwhelming bitterness. For me, the intensity of the tea is almost overwhelming, and doesn't really have any of the usual culprits (cardamom, star anise), and is not exactly what I expected. 

Dried down: This takes a good amount of time to really settle into the skin, the harsh, herbal medicinal edge ends up taking 3-4 hours to really mellow out, and it's ridiculously sharp and very bitter. However, after 4 hours, that's when it really bursts to life. The Thai tea is tempered into a sharp and assertive rich bitter note, mixed with the rich evaporated milk that really goes straight to the heart of the Thai iced milk tea, and the honey note adds a creamy sweetness, although it's very honey and cream heavy. 

I wasn't really sure on this one, although I have a little habit where I rub the oil on my skin to break it down a little faster to get to that softer Thai tea note. After that, it's a really great scent, but I'm not sure I'm feeling the opening at all, but for a tea scent, this is excels where Blarney failed. 

Perfect for: Spice Girl by Amine. Tired mornings, or indulgent afternoons where you need a hit of caffeine. This is the kind of scent that will wake you up, but it's lovely, smooth and luxurious after that. 

Sophistry - Chilled sparkling lemonade infused with elderflower blossoms, thinly sliced cucumber, and a pinch of grated ginger root.  

Wet: It's a lot of vegetables, sliced cucumber, carrot juice and a little bit of fizz. It's like a vegetable soda, except one of those healthy juice cleanses.

Dried down: The fizziness hangs around, which you definitely get when you get real close to the scent. I personally would love to see a bit more fizz with this one. After dry down, the cucumber mellows out a little, and the elderflower takes the main stage. Elderflower is a soft, but demanding floral, with a little bit of clean muskiness. The overall scent is sweet, a little fruity, and paired with the sparkling fizz in this, it definitely reminds me a lot of a fruity floral, mainstream scent. When I first tried this, it had a lot more of the mainstream nuances to this scent, but after aging it a little more, the sweetness of the lemonade gets a little stronger, and it has more of a feminine profile to the scent. 

I think this would work great as a summer scent, but I also get these high end, classy vibes that wouldn't look out of place next to Jo Malone's Earl Grey and Cucumber at the department store. This isn't really for me, but I can't deny, it's got style. 

Perfect for: Best Part by H.E.R and Daniel Ceasar. Sunsets on a balcony on the top floor, sipping a delicate elderflower and cucumber cocktail on a Friday night. It's endlessly fashionable, chic and polished as the acoustic live music in the background is getting ready to wind down that post-work stress. Thank God it's Friday. 

Shenanigans - German Schichttorte: a sumptuous confection of layered yellow cake touched with lemon zest and rum, glazed with apricot and finished with a cloak of dark chocolate.  

When I first saw this, I had this idea of the Austrian sachertorte, which is a chocolate cake layered with apricot jam and coated in dark chocolate icing. Despite the similar names, the German shichttortre is actually basically the baumkuchen, but without the fancy woodwire cooking and roasting over a spit. Funnily enough, I didn't actually see any baumbkuchen or shichttorte when in Germany, but I've definitely had baumkuchen before because it's actually really popular in Japan (which is a bit of a funny story) and they come in a variety of different flavors - I personally prefer the honey or matcha flavors! 

Wet: Dry cocoa powder sprinkled liberally on top of a dark chocolate glaze, raspberries dotted on top of the cake. It's fruity in the way that dark chocolate tends to be in its 90% quantities, although the increasing dry down features more of a vanilla cake creaminess that sweetens, and makes the scent a little richer and dense.

Dried down: The dark chocolate is still there, although as a top note, it's one of the ones that fades the first. The fruity notes - the apricot jam with a touch of marmalade is a little stronger. The main base of this scent is the yellow cake, or the baumbkuchen layered cake. This scent definitely captures the same richness of the baked layers, with the rich sugar and butter mixture. On my skin, it feels deceptively simple with its quiet chocolate and jam and a touch of lemon cake blend, but it's pretty much exactly what it says on the label for me. With this scent though, it definitely hit me that my skin absolutely hates alcohol notes and tend to completely vanish on my skin - which means no rum. 

I think this scent was nice, but when compared to my memories of baumkuchen and sachertorte, I'm not quite sure this was one I'd go, yeah that's exactly what it is. I wasn't super inspired by this scent, so I'm fine with my sample size. 

Perfect for: Mozart's piano Sonata in D Major, K284 "Durnitz". It opens with a loud and boisterous Allegro, ending with the softer third movement with a cheerful and bright tone. 

Bamboozle - Baklava: diaphanous layers of flakey, golden pastry, toasted pistachio, roasted chestnut, crushed almond, and a generous drizzle of spring harvest honey.  

I know, I'm so late to the party, but before this collection, I'd never actually tried baklava before. To amend this - and of course, all in the name of research - I asked my friends to point me to the right direction of where exactly I could get some good, authentic baklava. In the name of research, I also then went to buy about 5 packs of baklava (I tried a Turkish and Greek version, I'm covering my bases) and just sat down to taste test all of them to make sure I could accurately review this scent because I really had no idea what to expect the first time I wore this, and sat down again with it on my hand as I went through each box. I also had no idea that you could kind of use just about any type of nut (my Turkish friend used walnuts, although I tend to prefer the cashews and pistachios), and I really love drizzling mine with extra rosewater (I love the floral aromatics in food). 

Wet: This is all NCD's signature honey. It's creamy, buttery honey, with nutty walnuts, chestnuts simmered in sweet butter. There's a real richness to this scent, but its not buttery in the heavy way, but the way pastry buttery smells out the oven. It smells exactly like baklava from the vial, although the sharpness of the almond and pistachio dominate the scent, and the honey floods the rest of the scent. 

Dried down: So this has basically all the elements of baklava, buttery filo pastry, crushed nuts, honey (although I want rosewater in this so bad), except I don't really QUITE get the baklava as perfectly as I would have wanted to. Shey and Jennie had similar thoughts with this - it's very vanilla dominant, and the sharp almond just was a little too strong for me, and ended up obscuring the rest of the scent. During my first impressions, I didn't get vanilla or birthday cake frosting, but it actually reminded me a lot of Hot Cocoa (Arcana). It's not quite the same, but the sweet, marshmallow and cocoa nuttiness in Hot Cocoa actually had a lot of overlaps with the nuts and sweetness in Bamboozle, and I ended up doing a side by side wear just to check. The scent is very much creamy, vanilla honey with nuts and pastry. Overall, I liked this, but I don't think I'd full size this. I have to confess though, this has really started a real baklava enthusiasm for me and I'm not ashamed at all. 

Perfect for: Baklava Song by GoRemy. There is nothing that captures my feeling towards this scent more than me eating baklava at any possible chance I've gotten. Frankly, there is no inappropriate circumstance to wear this scent, because baklava is literally appropriate for any occasion, including that any social events, going to sleep, waking up, and a Wednesday night work induced breakdown in which you stress eat baklava and inject happiness and sugar directly into your body. It's perfect. 

Roguery - Kouign Amann: Elegant puff pastry that takes the simplicity of buttered sugar rolls to the height of sophistication. Wear for a boost of confidence, comfort, and radiant self-esteem.

A multi layered Breton cake, sandwiched between pastry, butter and sugar, this is a little like a caramelised croissant, and I absolutely love a puff pastry.  

Wet: Creamed sugar and fluffy pale butter in a mixing bowl with a puff of flour. It's sweet, decadent and rich. 

Dried down: The richness of the butter takes a back seat, but the sweetness of the sugar has a light vanilla sweetness, and a warm caramel richness to it. It's a simple scent, but it has all the elements it needs, a crispy caramelised top, flecks of sugar, butter and a dash of vanilla extract. I really love the simplicity of this scent - and it reminds me of a less spice heavy version of Malarkey, but with the same bready/pastry heavy elements, although this also has that edge of caramel which Malarkey lacks. 

Perfect for: What's Inside from Waitress. This is literally, sugar, butter, flour, with all the richness, sugar, sweetness wrapped inside a little bottle. 

Final thoughts: I really genuinely and honestly love the direction NCD took with this collection, especially when it came to branching out from the typical vanilla and baked goods scents that they did last year. It really surprised me when they decided to pick a Thai sticky rice with mango, and also how there were so many different types of desserts here (as I always bang on about how cool it would be to see global influenced gourmands). 

My personal favorite from this collection was definitely Flim Flam though, which is a scent that I just love to go back to because of that amazing mango note, but Roguery is a close second! 

Disclaimer: Sophistry was sent for review, the rest were purchased with my own money. 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.