Moonalisa: Summer 2021 Review

ter the honestly, smashing success and high hit rate I had with Moonalisa's spring collection, and with my recent realisation that I actually really love spring/summer scents (just scents, the actual seasons can piss off), I definitely wanted to dip my toes into the Summer collection. The summer collection ended up being released, quite close to the end of summer to be honest, but considering my time frame, by the time it gets to me, it's probably the perfect time to wear them. 

The general theme for this collection was pretty much unchanged since previous collections as Moonalisa mostly just comes back with previous collections/re-releases every year - and because its sort of summer island themed, there's a lot of tropical scents and cocktails and that. It's pretty great that there's no FOMO, although I'd like to see one or two new scents every year just to switch it up. For the Summer scent choices, there was an overwhelming amount of coconut in the catalogue and to be honest, I'm not that crazy about coconut, so this was a bit of a miss for me, but what I do love is fruity fizzy scents and they also had a good amount of those. That said, I felt slightly bad about picking out like 5 of the same things (like, do I need EVERY single fruity fizzy scent? no.) so I tried to pick out a range of things to at least pretend to myself that I'm not the sort of predictable idiot that goes for the same scent every time. 

About my order: 

Much like with Spring, the MooScents website offers international shipping at from $17.5 USD to Australia. For my order (8 rollerballs), I paid $29 USD for shipping. 

Although the TAT time was stated to be 2-3 weeks, the house typically tends to be on the tail end of the stated 3 weeks. Interestingly enough, I had actually written about my frustration at Moonalisa's Facebook updates rather than reaching out directly last time on their Spring release, but was pleasantly surprised this time around when I found an email in my inbox actually telling me about the processing time and when I could expect my order to be shipped (it ended up being a few days over the 3 week mark) due to some processing issues, and I really appreciated that. I'm not sure if this was a response to my experience and my review specifically, but either way, it's a welcomed and appreciated change, especially in terms of communication. I sometimes camp out in my inbox waiting for shipping notifications, so this works. 

I received my order quite quickly considering the shipping issues (NSW's postal system is working overtime at the moment due to the huge influx of online orders under lockdown), which took around two weeks and a half. As always, Moonalisa's packaging is exquisite. Although I personally prefer the pastel pink color theme of the spring release, and was definitely surprised at how they had changed the aesthetic for summer, but it's a nice change! The Summer release is all about the rich teals and purples of an island summer. The box came with the usual stuffing, but this time we got some cute seaweed stamps, paper sea animals and a variety of tiny rubber fruits slices (the ones they use for nails?) and some mermaid and shell glitter. Honestly, it's such a delight to be able to unbox this - especially since they change it for the seasons. I really just love how nice the packaging is. 

I'd never actually seen any of the other perfume bottles with the different labels either - so they don't quite all go together (label color wise). I'm undecided about how I feel about this since I really like things all lined up the same, but the different labels also make them feel more special and themed (which I do really like) but like, the text on the labels are honestly a bit hard to read (Do I have awful vision? Or is anyone else experiencing this too?). I also noticed that these rollerballs seems a smidge leakier than the Spring ones - they roll on very generously and I'm afraid to store them horizontally. I can actually smell the scents even without having to unscrew the cap, which is probably not a great thing. 

Scents:

Bongo Poppy Cake: Delicious, lemon poppy seed cake, drowned in an unhealthy dose of lightly spiced cream cheese icing dripping all over it! Does contain real essential and fragrance oils. Due to the heavy use of vanilla in this one, this scent does discolor soaps and scrubs after time.

This was actually part of the Spring collection but I wasn't sure about it the first time around (I was taken in by the cupcakes, but let down) - but after umming and ahhing over some reddit reviews, I saw that this was highly recommended by most people. I am here to report: this doesn't disappoint! This feels like a gorgeous elevated, chic older sibling of Lemon Sugar Cookie (Moonalisa), which takes that gorgeous lemon note but pairs with with a soft spongey cake base, resulting in this lemon cake, lemon icing and pound cake perfection. This is truly delectable - I'm also not getting any cream cheese, which I don't mind, although I'd love to get more poppy seed from this. That said, I get the hype. Fantastic content. 

Grape Pop: Super juiced grape, soda pop effervescent goodness!! 

This is like getting hit in the face with nostalgia - it perfectly captures the exact scent of grape flavored Hubba Bubba chewing gum tape that I used to love as a child. It's like, candy sweet artificial purple grape notes, or like any soft chewy grape candy, or maybe candy floss popping candy grape? Just think of grape candy, this is basically it. Unfortunately, I don't quite get the fizzy note, and I tend to not get any 'fizz' from most Moonalisa scents, but the actual grape note is so nice I don't mind. 

Jello Shots: Strawberry, Rhubarb, Tangerine EO, Passion Fruit and Guava. 

Shots aside, fruit jelly is one of the best things in life. Coconut jelly with fruit flavors in a fruit tea? Please. So yeah this is just a lil mocktail of fruity sweet perfection! To me, I can pick out the tartness of the passionfruit and tangerine, and the rest of the fruity notes are a bit more of a complimentary lift to the scent. This has a real punch of sweetness especially from the tangerine edge (which is a bit more bitter than orange) which makes it a bit more like jelly and sweets than a typical fruit tea and jelly treat for me, but like, it's good. It's what I wanted. 

Lemon Cola: Real Lemon EO blended with cola and other effervescent components to make this light, zesty and refreshing!

This is actually my first time trying a cola scent and I was super impressed! I used to really love cola, especially before work but you know. Health. That said, every so often I'll have a lemon cola - when I was growing up, my mom would make me hot lemon cola whenever I was a bit sick and they honestly just taste fantastic. This scent smells a bit more like sour cola candy, another huge dose of nostalgia for me - the lemon is the top note on first application with a nice punch of lemon zest, but mellows out into a tart sweet cola scent. I really like this - it's really nice. 

Midnight Margarita: Zesty, salty, and delicious!!! A realistic mouth puckering rendition of a real Margarita, real EOs and absolutes are used in unison with fragrance oils to give it the nuances of alcohol, and citrus, and that salty rim we all love, with a twist of Mexican Lime eo!

For some reason, we're just going through memory lane here but I'm gonna lean into it. Me and my friend's go-to drinks used to be these fantastic frozen margaritas (with beetroot chips!) although they had them also in peach and strawberry flavors. Like alcoholic slushies. Great stuff. This definitely is very much that sharp punch of lime and salt like a margarita, which I really like! At some points, this also reminds me a lot of Strawberry Ginger Fizz (Haus of Gloi), which has a heavy fizzy ginger punch, although that was a little too sweet for me, but this scent is where I want it to be. I think this feels both like a margarita, but also a ginger ale? A ginger ale based margarita maybe. This also is weirdly slightly fizzy to me despite having no fizz listed, but yknow, I really like this one. 

Tiki Room Paradise: Coconut, natural oils of Raspberry, Orange and Mango! A deliciously decadent juicy fruit paradise in a scent!

Well my hit rate with Moonalisa had to end somewhere - a 100% hit rate would be way too successful, and even dangerous (for my self control and wallet). 

This is... not good. It's not too bad sniffing from the vial, but once it hits my skin it is horrific. The coconut in this scent isn't too bad - it's got a rich, desiccated coconut scent to it, and reminds me a little of anzac biscuits, which is fine on it's own, although not my favorite coconut angle. But the fruit notes in this are absolutely horrible - the clash of the orange, mango and raspberry give me a really bitter strange edge. Paired with the coconut here, it's an absolutely travesty. It's veering into scrubber territory for me, sorry lads. 

Twisted Ginger: Oh, those Redheads. Watch out she may bite!! This one is another maniacal cotton candy scent with toasted coconut spun sugar delight, garnished with fresh & candied ginger!

So after my disappointing run with Cotton Candy Cupcakes (in which the culprit was probably the cupcake note), I thought I might give the cupcakes another go. This was, uh, not it? It's a softer scent, and when I first blind tested this I thought this was a cupcake or a funnel note scent with butter before actually looking at the notes and realizing I was nowhere near what was listed. There's a real yeasty savoury richness to the coconut (I suppose like a macaroon) although the cotton candy sweetness is nice. The ginger is mostly if not completely absent for me. I guess this is nice? But I don't think I'd recommend this. 

Wanderlust: The Twisted Carnival is back in town offering their sinfully delicious Funnel cakes, gooey toppings & cotton candy. You can also detect a hint of their sinister magic with a whiff of smoky resins all on a bed fairground hay. 

Mmmmmm! A nice prelude to Autumn this is. It's definitely on the heavier side (compared to the lighter summer sweets) with all the funnel cakes. I honestly have still never tried a funnel cake (they're just not a thing here?) but I have tried ENOUGH FUNNEL CAKE SCENTS TO KNOW. I honestly have no idea how much of the atmospheric we're supposed to get but this is more food dominant to me (good stuff, just the way I like it). This reminds me a bit of Gateau e Carnevale (Kyse) without all the soapy sandalwood qualities, which is fantastic, although compared to Funnel Cake (Sixteen92) this seems more savoury and yeasty, whereas Funnel Cake is a bit more like sweet yellow cake. 

Halloween Sample: 

Shadowed: Walking alone you can smell the air after rain falls on moist coastal woods soil. Breathing in the natural intense warm, resinous, earthy-woody nuances you feel a tingle as you quicken your pace and look behind you. You can’t help but feel in this overcast, Autumnal foggy early morn that someone is following. Feeling a bit more at ease as you smell in the distance, the lingering embers of a campfire, hoping if you move fast enough you may meet up with others. The hope of comfort comes to you as you detect toasted marshmallows, melted chocolate, and graham crackers. You now breathe easier in the warm, soul-soothing aroma of a hot apple ciders and chai tea with a dash of cinnamon, brown sugar, and vanilla. But just before you reach the campers, you feel a cold dread touch your spine as a Ghostly chill embraces you.

This is honestly one of those descriptions which I wish had a scent listing - I can't tell how much of this is supposed to be an atmospheric and how much of this is just an immersive description of a gourmand. On my skin, I get a hit of apple, cinnamon and clove with a dusting of cocoa powder on woodsmoke. This is a real Halloween autumn scent, this honestly just screams AMERICAN AUTUMN to me (full disclosure, never experienced one), but it's impressively evocative. The scent is overall really well blended, in the sense that the notes are all quite shifty and layered and it does take a bit of work to pick out all the notes, but it has a very smokey, grounded wood base with little dots and dabs of gourmand foodie sweetness sprinkled on top (is it funnel cake? is it pancakes?). To be honest, I'm really impressed with this scent, despite it not being a type of scent I'd see myself wearing often, it is honestly really gorgeous. I'd probably love this in a candle. Also this one is extremely potent - just a dab on my skin and I could still smell it everywhere?? Magic. 

Disclaimer: I am unfortunately 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.