Blind Faith: a SmellyYeti perfume review

Fullsize Queen of the Damned and sample size Buffybot perfumes.

Sometimes life takes some blind faith. It takes courage to really believe in things you can't confirm properly. Like yetis. Or, more often, like buying a fullsize indie perfume you've never smelled before in your life, from a store that has just opened, so you can't rely on reviews either, but you believe with all the blind faith in the world that it will smell good. That's the sort of crazy faith one could only have while drunk.

Good for me I had a couple of ciders the same day SmellyYeti Perfume opened their online doors.



I ended up ordering a fullsize Queen of the Damned despite never having actually watched Buffy (I mean to though, and I need to, which I even commented on Reddit, and Abby noticed and wrote to me "Now watch Buffy!!" on my invoice, ehe) and I also ordered one of the extra dropper bottles, to round out my order and because I am pleased to have an extra dropper around for my indie perfumes that don't have any.

Sadly, the USPS and/or Tuli decided my dropper bottle should become a dropped bottle.

This was the only piece left in-tact! Hooray for weird miracles.
(Don't worry, I unscrewed it from the broken neck piece before I used it, I promise Mom. And I cleaned it several times to get any small glass particles outta there.)

I have no idea what the hell happened because everything else arrived 100% ship-shape and all of the items were packed in a neat cocoon of bubble wrap to begin with, so this is like one of those locked door murder mysteries.

I emailed Yeti about it this morning Finnish time (so they're probably still sleeping, if they're normal people) mostly because I want to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else. Especially because it didn't just break but it was shattered to the point where there was little glass splinters and dust inside the tissue paper that fell out as I slowly unveiled the massacre. It sounded like a broken Christmas ornament!

So if anyone else out there ordered a "blank" too, I beg you to be careful unwrapping it, just in case! Glass is not fun when broken, obviously.

That aside, the envelope smelled like lovely, lovely flowers. It made me sing because yes! My faith was tested and proven! This smelled exactly like the perfume I hoped for.

Queen of the Damned is described as "[having] among the more traditional bouquet of roses is a mélange of darker, cooler notes of cabbage, cedarwood, tuberose moss, dewy grass, and damp earth. The overall effect is one of flowers in a graveyard. Feminine."

This is the perfume of my weird witchy dreams. Out of the vial and upon application it's very wet, you can smell damp earth and leaves and flowers so clearly it's like being in a garden. Then it dries down to something softer and floral still with a slight cool note to it. It's rose, but not in the terrible heady or old lady perfume way. It's a lovely soft and damp floral. For some reason it reminds me of like...my aunt's bathroom when I go there on a holiday? Like nice rose candles and soft towels. That combined with when you walk into a florist. The throw of it at first is quite decent, but when it fades down it's a lot softer and I have to get right to my skin to smell it properly.

If you like florals or garden scents, get this one. You will not disappoint. This isn't Queen of the Damned, it's Queen of the Daaaaaamn You Smell Fantastic.

Buffybot was the free teensy cute sample vial I got with my order! It's described as "slightly singed wire, motor oil, ozone, and a smooth metallic finish, this perfume calls to mind warm electronics." I would never have ordered this on my own probably, though I do love that "computer lab" smell, but I'm glad I got it! In the vial it's very sharp and floor cleaner-ish at first, the sourness reminds me of the lime in DC's Harpy. Once on the skin that very quickly gives way to what does, yes, smell somewhat like warm electronics and dust and plastic, but in a weirdly nice way. 

After that I find it fades down to a very subtle sweetness that reminds me of those scented plastic toys you'd get as a kid, like the play fruit or whatever? It smells like the toybox after you've thrown those in and then you open it up and get this faint sweetness with plastic mixed in. Personally that's a scent I enjoy, and this perfume sits very close to the skin and stays very subtle. I can't even really smell it unless I put my nose right to the spot on the back of my hand where I dabbed it.

It's definitely a unique perfume, and I'd highly suggest getting a sample if it intrigues you. It's a lot more wearable than it sounds, and quite subtly and sweet. 

For size ref.
(I look like a giant with that tiny Buffybot sample. I struggled to get the cap off the tiny thing with my huge hands, but patience made me fruitful after some screwing around with it. Pun intended.)

Overall I'm super pleased with this order. It arrived today, on Halloween, along with two Airhead candies, a dinosaur tattoo (super rad) and a mini plastic dino. My girlfriend hadn't seen or tried Airheads before, so I had fun eating them with her, and it made everything feel a little more Halloween-y to my nostalgic American heart.

My only real complaint is that the plastic dino does not know how to behave.

Sie sind das Essen und wir sind die Perfumer.

Dino, no. That's not for you. 

Smelly Yeti perfumes are available here at their charming website. 

It's $15 USD for a fullsize, or $12 USD for a pack of five samples of scents of your choice. Also available on the site is an actual live yeti for $ 6,666,666,666,666.52 USD, in case you are just so over the perfume thing.