MoonaLisa: Spring 2021 Review
Information about the brand :
MoonaLisa is a small indie brand - it first came to my attention when I was sifting through reviews for realistic foodie gourmands, and I had heard nothing but rave reviews. The brand offers perfume oils, and also soaps, candles, and an assortment of bath and body products. Up until last year, MoonaLisa was a brand that only opened a few times per year but they've since opened a dedicated site for perfume only at MooScents, which is now available all year round with seasonal scents (but most of the really good scents tend to be sold out if you don't jump in on the day it opens).
Before the opening of MooScents, the minimum price for international shipping was relatively expensive (~ $35) for just three bottles of perfume, and MoonaLisa in general do not offer sample sizes and do not have any associated decant circles. As a result, it's relatively difficult to buy from the brand especially if you're not used to buying indie - taking into account opening times for releases, blind buys for all products, and be prepared for a lengthy TAT (three weeks minimum).
Despite this overwhelming large hurdle (and a key reason for why it's taken me this long to actually buy from the brand), MooScents now offers generally acceptable rates for international shipping (starting at $17.40, and jumping up to $29 for 3-6 bottles of perfume). Moreover - with the slightly easier to access website, I just needed to be okay with blind buying from a brand I only had one blend from (bought from a swap). After having been into indies for a while now, it's far easier to pick out notes I like and don't like in scents across different brands, something I definitely did not have a high hit rate with when I was first buying from indies.
My Order :
Customer service wise, I found MoonaLisa/MooScents a little on the unresponsive side. With the one scent I had received in the swap, I found that my skin tended to eat up the scent rather quickly, so I wanted to reach out to the brand directly to see if it was possible to get a higher intensity of scent (like CocoaPink's various strengths, or Stereoplasm responding to reviews and upping concentration among all their scents). I emailed them about perhaps seeing if there was an option for a higher intensity of scents and received this response.
"Our perfumes are always at their maximum dilution, and generally strong enough for the thirstiest of skin chemistrys’."
Frankly speaking, I was slightly disappointed with this response as it felt that my concerns were not being answered - only offering one concentration to keep TAT or prices low makes sense, but claiming that there is no issue with the current concentration is not addressing my actual concern. On top of this, the stated TAT was 2-3 weeks, my order was placed on the 3rd of May, and was shipped on the 28th of May, so just a few days over 3 weeks. After posting on IMAM, I was actually informed there was a slight delay in shipping that was communicated over their Facebook page, although I would have preferred this to be on the website as it made things relatively difficult to follow up on. As a whole, I was a little bit frustrated when it came to communicating directly with the brand.
My order arrived in 2 weeks (relatively quickly for international shipping at this stage), and I was incredibly impressed with the packaging of the order. In the box were some paper butterflies and flowers, dried flowers, pink and gold wrapping paper with fleur de les stamped on it, and all the perfume was packaged in a box with a MoonaLisa sticker, wrapped in crepe paper as well. The order came with one sample 1mL sample scent. I would imagine that this amount of detail for each order does push up the TAT - but it really was a genuine delight to unbox, it feels very luxurious and decadent.
Overall I had a relatively high hit rate with these scents, especially considering the blind buying and not having previously tried them - I definitely felt there were scents that I would want to regularly wear and get a good amount of use out of - especially because of the relatively shorter wear time as it turns out, my skin still tends to eat up Moonalisa scents, so reapplying a bit more feels fine due to the majority of these being 5mLs.
At $15.95 USD for each scent (most of them being 5mLs, some being 3mL), Moonalisa goes for $3.19 per 1mL, which is a slight rise in pricing from 2019, when their scents were $13.95 for one bottle. They're currently around mid-tier pricing, and are roughly the same price as Sucreabeille which offers 5ml bottles for $16.
Scents :
Banana Tarte Tartin - Rich sweet banana filled puffed pastry with butter rum sauce.
This is the scent that I received in the swap - so this is a slightly older version of the scent. I really love banana in scents, and this really has all the richness of warm baked banana drizzled with caramel and vanilla sauce. Unfortunately, rum tends to go very strange on my skin, and I'm not partial to a butter note (I find it too heavy, and generally don't love butter in my food either), so while the scent itself is really a spot on reflection of a banana tarte tartin, this isn't one I'll need to repurchase. But I will definitely be on the hunt for a banana note in future scents - and be sure to avoid butter when blind buying!
Chateau de Chambord: Reformulated: Made from raspberries, blackberries, Madagascar vanilla, Moroccan citrus peel, honey and cognac to create an all-natural Black Raspberry liqueur. Indulge in Moona's new scrub concoction consisting of white chocolate cake scrub enveloping a Chambord ripple made of natural raspberry fruit fiber, black raspberry seeds, and scented with natural and artificially scented oils of cognac EO, raspberry, vanilla oils, with a fusion of natural citrus and just a touch of spice. Good enough for any King or Queen!
Be still my beating heart! I am generally a big fan of fruity scents, and I love a sweeter, light scent almost always (I often tend to gravitate towards summer/spring scents in all weather). Although alcohol notes tend to go a little feral on my skin, which was my main concern about blind buying this scent, this is the most perfect scent and quickly became my absolute favorite from my whole order. It's just a beautiful blend of juicy berries, with a hit of fruit punch in the background - it reminds me of a really well crafted sweet cocktail, and in a strange way, also reminds me a little bit of my favorite Dimetapp flavor (the purple one, which is grapey, syrupy and sweet, but also only take this as instructed by medical professionals and not for the taste, it's just that I'm perpetually sick and have allergies).
Anyway this scent is just really well blended and really lovely, it's really hard to pick out individual notes in this but all together it just makes one fruity sweet whiff of goodness and I'm in love with this one - although the wear time on this is basically pants on my skin, it goes for about an hour and just vanishes.
Confetti Cake: Big white fluffy cake, with mounds and mounds of freshly made buttercream icing, sprinkled with bright and cheery Confetti sprinkles.
When I wore this scent, I genuinely had to double check if I had worn the wrong thing or bought a scent without thoroughly checking the notes, but uh, nope it's just supposed to be buttercream cupcakes with sprinkles. For me, there's something really salty about this blend - the white fluffy cake scent reads way more as a salty, bready, yeasty donut scent, and it almost smells smoked as well - if you'd told me this scent was bacon and vanilla milkshake, I'd have believed you. Even after having given it a good amount of time to rest and age a little, it still smells predominantly savoury, and even though my skin predominately amps sweeter notes, this still was very odd on my skin. Pretty disappointed with this one. After peeking through some reviews, it seems Confetti Cake has some pretty mixed reception, so I think I was just unlucky with this one!
Cotton Candy Cupcakes: Ok, I said I never would but... I have these irresistible smelling cotton candy oils that beg to blended with a vanilla butter cake scent! So here she is, all fluffy and pink, so sweet she will give you a toothache when devoured!! NOM!!
The lovely u/snugglemews had actually also bought this scent, and told me it was a really tooth-achingly sweet scent - which was exactly the type of review I wanted to hear. This scent has all of the hard candy sweetness of the cotton candy note floating on top which is gorgeous, but the confetti cupcake note reveals itself very quickly after dry down, with all its savoury salty smoked goodness just bubbling to the top after the cotton candy melts. I was definitely expecting this to be far sweeter than it actually ended up being (again, balanced out by the salty cake note), but it's at least palatable compared to Confetti Cake. When I wore this to work, a coworker sniffed this and told me that it reminded her of old lady candles, so there's that.
French Quarter Coffee with Jelly filled Beignets: Cafe Du Monde's famous for its coffee and beignets! This scent tries to recapture that essence and the deliciously famous deep fried, powdered sugar-coated beignets with jelly!
So, I love the scent of coffee - but I don't drink it at all. I have been on the hunt for a 'coffee' scent that captures the scent of a small lil coffee house, the way it smells all freshly brewed and with the few that I have tried (namely Ganache Parfum's line of coffee scents), this really just shot up to the top of the list for me. Although this is supposed to have the deep fried, jelly, sugar coated beignets (full disclosure, have never had a beignet) this scent just reminds me of a coffee house, with a rich dark roasted scent to the coffee, with a slight touch of cocoa powder and hot chocolate, and many a mocha. Despite being largely uninspired by coffee scents, I kinda see why Moonalisa has such a cult following - this scent made me believe.
Peach ou Apricot Confiture: It is a gorgeous accord that captures the juicy, sweet essence of a freshly ripened apricot and peach!
I'm largely ambivalent about this scent despite my love for fruity notes - this was also the only scents to come in a 3ml format (with the lil gold bottle). I like the nice peach note but it does vanish quite quickly. This scent reminds me a lot of Peach Blossom (Nui Cobalt Designs), without the touch of patchouli. The apricot is also very true to the fruit, but there's something that just feels odd about this blend for me - it's like a fruity version of Peach Blossom, but I just didn't love it as much as I'd hoped.
Rigio Jansci Hungarian Chocolate Cake: Inspired by an old cake recipe from the, “Vienna Empire Cookbook.” A recipe for a Hungarian Chocolate cake for Lovers, "Rigio Jansci." Named for a 19th century, Hungarian, self- proclaimed gypsy violinist, who, legend says, “Broke the hearts of princesses with ease and equanimity.” The, soap is made with goat’s milk and cocoa butter, rich, creamy and dark chocolate scented, a touch of Rum, & with real ground Organic cocoa nibs for exfoliation. Naturally tinted with red clay and dark rich brown mica. A deeply satisfying chunk of chocolate bliss.
I was pretty apprehensive about the red clay in this, but uh, I'm convinced. I'm converted. Much like Quarter Coffee, this scent goes so hard, it's this rich, beautiful intensity to the chocolate, it reminds me of dense chocolate cakes, rich dark chocolate brownies drizzled with hazelnut crumbs topped with a modest amount of whipped cream, but like at the very end there's like a hint of red earthy clay that just lingers around the edges. I mean this scent is not coming to play - it's just a chocolate cake bottled up. Much like Quarter Coffee, I was largely uh, not a huge fan of chocolate notes in perfume, even across a variety of brands, it's hard to find a brand that really nails chocolate the way it tastes, rather than opting for cocoa absolute which is more of a dry, dusty, cocoa powder scent. I have never smelt any chocolate blend remotely close to this one, so yeah, I'm in awe of this chocolate goodness. Yes. Very good.
Snozzberry Fizzy Lifter: Snozzberries smell like Snozzberries ;) Juicy red and purple berry blend with effervescence and a teeny touch of a secret floral, just a tad to give it enough freshness, but barely detectable. Now with more berry, and fizzier!! But till with a touch of Dogwood floral!
I really love fizzy scents. A single note blend of just, fizzy scent, is enough to satisfy me. This scent is not it. Since snozzberries do not exist, I can't speak for how on point it is as a scent. However, I will say that this scent is not super fizzy, it has a lil lift of fizz but it's not overwhelmingly noticeable, but the snozzberry fruit mix in this is strangely medicinal, it feels more like actual cough syrup but not a nice way. I can pick out strawberries and raspberries and grapes but the way this is presented and mixed is not it for me. For wear, this ended up vanishing on my skin in about half an hour.
Strawberry Sugar Shortcake: Ripe juicy strawberries, crushed and rolled into sweet cane sugar. Then, gently folded into fresh whipped cream on top of a warm buttery shortcake.
This is a nice simple blend - it's got a nice top note of strawberries over a rich warm butter cookie. The strawberry does occasional veer towards medicinal, but it settled relatively nicely onto my skin and doesn't go too strange. Compared to Preposterous (Nui Cobalt Designs), this is a little sweeter with a stronger strawberry note, so I prefer this a little more.
Lemon Sugar Cookies: Deliciously fresh and zesty exclusive blend of cold pressed Lemon essential oil, and a blend of scrumptious cookie fragrance oils makes this a mouthwatering combination, but do not eat!
Another one of those simple blends, but it really works. This is almost identical to Poppycock (Nui Cobalt Designs) despite being different things, but it captures the bright tartness of lemon curd on top of a warm baked butter tart base perfectly, although it lacks the meringue top. Overall a really nice scent, but one I'd probably be more impressed by if I hadn't already owned several bottles of Poppycock already.
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