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Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Haul Post: Alchimia Apothecary + Cold Sniff Reviews

EDIT: I have had a bad customer service experience and so did some of my friends, so I personally will avoid them now. This will probably cause some controversy, but I feel that I need to put this out there.  There's also some owner sketchiness. Here's some public sketchiness, here's some I got privately. I'm also not a fan of her tone with people who give not so great reviews of her brand.


22 days ago, my favourite reddit enabler /u/ashhole613, posted about an Alchimia Manic Monday deal. With 3 full size bottles, you get 5 samplers! That sounds awesome!

Of course I had to go shop...

This is what I got:

Full Sizes:

  • Dangerous Dreams
  • Freezia
  • Gimme S'more


Sample Sizes:

  • Juju Monster
  • Myriad
  • Native


Free Manic Monday Samples:


  • ...And Candy Bar Dreams
  • First in Show
  • Picnic
  • Shaman
  • Gladius
Additional freebies:

  • Sniffer Sticker sample
  • A dropper
  • Candy!

The goods.

I need to give it to Alchimia, the Sniffer Sticker sample is just so adorable! It's cute but it must have been a pain to fill these up. I definitely appreciate the effort. Look how cute it is!

With my eye for scale

Customer Service


I have to rave about their customer service. Being the idiot that I am, I got the time difference wrong and ordered on Monday my time, which is still Sunday in the US. I freaked out and messaged Alchimia, and Erin replied just moments later.  She still gave me the deal!





I LOVE YOU ERIN!!!


Packaging Review


Alchimia's perfumes come with safety seals so that's great. The full sizes just comes in this bottle, with no rollerball though.

Safety seals are awesome
I'll describe their full-size packaging as purely functional and no frills.

Meanwhile, I'm in LOVE with their sample bottles. It comes with a mini rollerball! Look!
So adorable!

They're so cute! I love them! Will Alchemia hate me if I ask them to send me my perfumes in these sample bottles? The sample sizes came in bottles that were leaking, but Alchimia is aware of this and the issue's been fixed.



If you've gotten the new sample bottles, let me know how you find them! I personally think the old bottles are cuter, so I've emailed Erin asking if she can sell them to me if she has leftovers. They'll be perfect for creating travel-size versions of my full sizes.

Turnaround Time


Ordered: May 12
Shipped: May 20
Received: June 3

I did order during a sale, so her TAT may have gotten longer.


Cold Sniff Scent Review


Now for the scents. I don't have the time or enough arms for a full review yet, so I'm just doing a cold sniff review from the bottles. I don't want to check out the notes before I do the review since that may influence what I smell, so I won't put the scent descriptions here.

Here's a quick cold sniff review of the scents:

...And Candy Bar Dreams: Sweet earth. It's definitely a really sweet smell, but I also smell a very earthy smell which could be a very strong dark chocolate smell. Not a fan.


Dangerous Dreams: A box of fresh donuts in a brand new office. This scent makes me nostalgic and I can't figure out why. It definitely smells like an brand new office but I can't place what place or moment in time this reminds me of. Yes, I love the smell of brand new offices. No idea why.

First in Show: Powdery snow and brand new sheafs of paper. It's weird but I definitely get the new paper smell. Love this!

Freezia: Springtime rain on a flower garden. I want to prance around like a bloody unicorn! 

Gimme S'more: I was expecting s'mores but somehow got Indonesian coffee. As in coffee the way the locals drink it -drowned in sugar. We're famous globally for our coffee but we prefer drinking them in the form of milky-brown coloured sugared water with a coffee smell. On the fence.

Gladius: Leather and ice. All I smelt was leather at first, and then a cool scent emerges. This is such a sexy scent. When my bf's back in town, he's going to be forced into wearing this. 


Juju Monster: A candy store with old school candies -the colourful gum drops, pixie sticks, jawbreakers, etc. I'm very impressed with this smell. A lot of candy smells end up having that hollow, cheap and artificial smell, but this smells like an actual candy store. The smell's so delicious!

Myriad: Tropical fruits and smoke. And I really mean smoke. The smell almost makes my throat itch instinctively. Not sure how I feel about this one.

Native: Springtime, soap and a hint of sweet fruits. The smell strongly reminds me of Midsummer Dreams Apothecary's Rapunzel, only this has something sweet in it. I love it.

Picnic: Grass, dirt and a yellow flower smell. I'm still trying to place this. I really like it. 

Shaman: Betadine. Yes, Betadine, the iodine solution they put on your gauze when you get cut.


Just a tl;dr:


Love!


  • Dangerous Dreams
  • First in Show
  • Freezia
  • Gladius
  • Juju Monster
  • Native
  • Picnic


Ok...


  • Gimme S'more
  • Myriad



Ewww.


  • ...And Candy Bar Dreams
  • Shaman

Looking at my long list of loves, I'm off to a great start with Alchimia!

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