Cold creamy ice cream, sitting in a freshly made waffle cone, with the aroma of sugar embracing you in a warm hug. It is the smell of one of my favorite ice cream places in my state. As a gourmand perfume enthusiast, unsurprisingly, I am also quite a food enthusiast. I love trying new food and conjuring them up in my kitchen. There’s only one thing I haven’t quite mastered: ice cream!
Ice cream is easily one of my favorite desserts in the whole world. There is nothing quite as satisfying to me, then the cold sensation of ice cream on my ice cream. Whether it is the artificial but nostalgic Ice Cream Sandwiches, Hand Churned artisan ice cream with innovative flavor profiles, or even just ice cream from Asia, I savor, covet, and happily gobble all ice cream. Naturally, I was drawn to perfumes that captured the scent of my favorite dessert. Here are a handful of ice cream perfumes currently waiting to be worn in my perfume wardrobe.
Astronauts Eating Ice Cream (Astronauts Doing Stuff)
Brand: Death & Floral
Notes: Vanilla bourbon butter pecan ice cream with toffee pieces and Milky Way fudge swirl
Review: Death & Floral has a very distinct chocolate accord. It’s slightly dark and creamy and is quite a highlight of this blend. Astronauts Eating Ice Cream is a very rich and chocolate heavy blend, with a hint of sugar sprinkled throughout. Underneath it, there is a syrupy quality throughout the blend. The star of the show is very clearly the milky way fudge. If you tried other blends from Death & Floral with chocolate adjacent notes specifically from the Bugs and Cake Collection. this might remind you of those blends.
While Astronauts Eating Ice Cream tackles the chocolate accord fabulously, it’s difficult for me to see this as an ice cream perfume. It lacks the creaminess of a true ice cream blend. But Astronauts Eating Ice Cream is a solid chocolate blend. My inexperience with bourbon butter pecan ice cream because of a nut allergy could be influencing this assessment, but I just wanted a hint of cream underneath.
TLDR: Chocolate
Longevity: 9 hours
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5) for Ice Cream, ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5) for general perfume enjoyment.
Banana Milk (General Catalog)
Brand: Hexannacht
Notes: Sweet milk, melted ice cream, vanilla pudding mix, banana.
Review: Banana Milk is a sweet blend, that instantly reminds me of banana-flavored snacks. As an opening accord, I get whiffs of sweet and sugary bananas. This banana is like the banana flavoring in hard candies. Slowly as the accord begins to morph there is an undercurrent of creamy milk. For a brief moment, there is a note of true fruity banana, followed by the lingering aroma of candied bananas. As the banana fades away the blend shifts completely to a creamy milk accord. It is quite a lovely accord. Hexennacht’s milk note has the inherent creaminess of condensed milk. It’s like the heightened fantasy version of milk, one that I happily indulge in. As the banana fades away, as most fruit top notes do, you are engulfed in a warm embrace of creamy milk. As the blend dries down, the familiar scent of Hexennacht’s marshmallow appears on the skin.
As an ice cream blend, Banana Milk feels more like a milkshake. It’s a very liquidly blend, and it gives rise to thoughts of banana-flavored snacks and drinks you would find in an Asian mart. But it’s exactly what’s on the tin, banana milk, and then just creamy milk. As I haven’t found a banana ice cream in stores, and only recipes of vegan banana ice cream pop up. I imagine a true banana ice cream would smell more like frozen bananas, with sugar, and maybe a drizzle of chocolate.
TLDR: Creamy Milk
Longevity: 4 Hours
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5) for Ice Cream, ★★★☆☆ (3 out of 5) for general perfume enjoyment.
Bananas Foster (General Catalog)
Brand: Hexannacht
Notes: Caramelized bananas, buttery rum sauce, vanilla ice cream.
Review: Bananas Foster opens up with an opening accord of a lush and fruity banana, drenched in rum. It uses a banana accord that is hyperrealist compared to the banana accord in Banana Milk. With time, the banana starts to morph, into a smoky banana, giving way to the caramelized bananas. The Rum returns, slightly sharp and bitter, with a hint of sweetness, most likely coming from the sweeter component. With time the rum begins to mellow down into a sticky and sweet syrup. Of all stages in this blend rum lasted the longest. Like many Hexennacht gourmands, Hexennacht’s marshmallow note reveals itself on the dropdown.
TLDR: Sharp Rum
Longevity: 2 Hours
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5 )for Ice Cream , ★★★☆☆ (3 out of 5) for general perfume enjoyment.
Butterbrü (Formely Butterbeer)
Brand: Hexannacht
Notes: Sweet, golden, drippy butterscotch, rich vanilla ice cream, hot buttered rum
Review: Butterbrü opens up with bucket loads of butter, and shifts to a slightly candied note. The candy reminds me of butter and sugar, cooked into a light syrup. I definitely get a hint of hard candy. Underneath there is a tinge of another accord, what is most likely the rum note. The rum note in this is much more subtle, almost giving a licorice-like note. It’s sweet, with the slightest tinge of bitterness. The blend immediately returns back to the buttery notes, and then quickly returns to a subtle hard candy. The hard candy note seems to be the dominant stage for this perfume.
I feel like this is the underdeveloped version of Wouldst Thou Like The Taste Of Butter? Butterbrü doesn’t have the beautiful shifts or that creamy caramel note that I have sniffed in Wouldst Thou Like The Taste Of Butter? As an ice cream blend, it leaves much to be desired, I don’t really get butterscotch ice cream. The aroma is closer to butterscotch hard candies. As a perfume, I find it a bit too simplistic for my tastes. Although it’s a perfectly composed perfume.
TLDR: Hard Candy
Longevity: 6 Hours
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5) for Ice Cream, ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5) for general perfume enjoyment.
Cookie Cat (Past customs)
Brand: Death & Floral
Notes: A swirling blend of vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate ice cream sandwich with a frozen chill
Review: You can’t get more spot-on than this. I have eaten tons of Neapolitan Ice cream sandwiches, and smelling Cookie Cat felt like unraveling an ice cream sandwich from a vending machine or ice cream truck. It has the ice cream sandwich base, chocolatey, but soft and chewy, a whiff of chocolate, and the creamy artificial strawberry ice cream. If you are more into organic ice cream, the strawberry is slightly floral and very sweet. As the blend shifts, huffs of the cookie sandwich return. This blend spends the majority of the time with its strawberry ice cream accord. As it dries down lingering whiffs of artificial strawberry remain, but they feel more like an abstract impression of the accord.
If you can’t get your hands on Cookie Cat, or if it is ever discontinued Andromeda’s Curse seasonal blend Neapolitan Ice Cream is practically a dupe of this blend. They smell almost exactly like.
TLDR: This is exactly what a Neapolitan sandwich smells like
Longevity: 6 Hours
Rating: ★★★★★ for Ice Cream , ★★★★★ for general perfume enjoyment.
Coy
Brand: Alphamusk
Notes: Cotton candy ice cream in a sugar waffle cone and a coy babe wearing the perfect skin musk gardenia perfume
Review: Coy opens up with a milky cream. There a subtle hint of cotton candy, with a hint of white floral trailing behind it. The white floral takes over the blend. It’s a candied white floral, with the cotton candy whiffs swirling in the background. The cotton candy swirls will occasionally rise up and overtake the blend. Coy dries down as cotton candy. It’s definitely a dreamy and traditionally feminine perfume. As an ice cream perfume, it leans too pretty for a straightforward ice cream blend. When I’m looking for an ice cream blend, I want a milky or creamy undertone and want to taste the ice cream. This is a much more successful gourmand perfume than a foodie ice cream perfume.
TLDR: Milky cream, Cotton candy, with a hint of white floral. More gourmand than foodie.
Longevity: 6 Hours
Rating: ★★★☆☆ for Ice Cream, ★★★★☆ for general perfume enjoyment.
Bananas Foster, Butterbeer, Dole Whip
Dole Whip (General Catalog)
Brand: Colornoise
Notes: Frozen pineapples & mangoes, fresh orange juice, lemon zest, Ice cold coconut milk
Review: Colornoise is quite well known for its single-note blends being realistic, and simple. Dole Whip fits the bill perfectly. Dole Whip opens up with sweet juicy mango. There is slightly soapy quality to the mango accord. it’s quite an enjoyable mango accord. The mango is fresh and sweet, but quick to melt away. For the majority of the wear, I got chilled fresh pineapple. It’s reminded me of the type of pineapple you would find in the freezer aisle. At no point was the coconut milk or fresh orange juice detectable on my skin.
TLDR: Predominantly Pineapple
Longevity: 4 Hours
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5) for Ice Cream, ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5) for general perfume enjoyment.
No Bullshit Waffle Cone (Unlisted Scents)
Brand: Death & Floral
Notes: True waffle cone with slight hints of caramel and dusted brown sugar cinnamon
Review: No Bullshit Waffle Cone, stood little a chance against my assessment. I expected a lot out of this blend. Death & Floral is a perfume house, that in my experience is one of the few houses that completely nails single notes. Every gourmand single note I have tried for them has been spot on. But No Bullshit Waffle Cone was a little lackluster. When I imagine the aroma of waffle cones, it’s freshly baked cone, warm, sweet with hints of vanilla, and slightly dry.
I hadn’t been expecting this blend to smell exactly like Boba balls.
Boba balls or pearls are the sugary brown-colored Jello balls at the bottom of Pearl Milk Tea drinks, also known as Boba and Bubble Tea outside of Taiwan.
But No Bullshit Waffle Cone absolutely does smell like Boba. There’s a wet syrupy sugary quality that can’t escape my nose. I was absolutely enamored by this surprise. Sure it wasn’t the end of my waffle cone journey, but having a Boba scent was cool. There are very few Asian gourmands out in the fragrance world, there is even fewer hyperrealist Boba blends out there. Stereoplasm’s Asian Snacks is one of the few collections that come to mind. To accidentally stumble upon a Boba fragrance, was such a happy accident! I’m glad for this blend.
Longevity: 6 Hours
TLDR: Boba Balls/Pearls
Rating: ★ ★☆☆☆ (2 out of 3) for Ice Cream, ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5) for general perfume enjoyment.
Pumpkin Ice Cream (Pumpkin Patch Collection, 2019)
Brand: Haus of Gloi
Notes: Homemade custard-style pumpkin ice cream.
Review: I will abstain from including my rating about Pumpkin Ice Cream accuracy to its real life counterpart , predominantly because I do not eat enough pumpkin-flavored things to determine the accuracy. I have definitely never tried pumpkin ice cream, so this will be solely based on my experience with other pumpkin gourmand/foodie blends. As for the blend itself, it’s a very simple and straightforward blend. I get whiffs of lightly spiced pumpkin, similar to those in other perfumes. On previous wear, I got predominantly butter caramel, but this time I get no whiffs of caramel.
Longevity: 7 Hours
Rating: ★★★☆☆ for Ice Cream, ★★★★☆ for general perfume enjoyment.
Sugar Waffle Cone
Brand: Alphamusk
Notes: No notes listed.
Review: Sugar Waffle Cone is almost cavity inducing with its sweetness. At Sugar Waffle Cone‘s core is a sweet sugary candy blend. The sweetness is paired with an undercurrent of a fruity note. If you sniff carefully, you can almost catch a whiff of strawberry. I cannot separate my associations with candy when I sniff the perfume. If you’ve tried an Alpha Musk perfume with a sugar accord, it’s very similar to those other blends. As more time passes, I get a slight hint of sugared milk from the previous inclusion of sugar.
TLDR: Sweet and sugary gourmand, not plasticky, but not very interesting.
Longevity: 6 Hours
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5) for Ice Cream,★★★★☆ (4 out of 5) for general perfume enjoyment.
The Taste of Almost Summer (Discontinued General Catalog Scents)
Brand: Death & Floral
Notes: Orange dreamsicle ice cream and soft tuberose blended with pink cotton candy and lavender
Review: The Taste of Almost Summer was a part of Death and Floral’s original general catalog when they first launched and uses their original base. It’s a bright and summery blend, with a swatch of bright and happy sweetness underlying the blend. It can best be described as a dreamy candy blend. It opens up with a distinct orange zest, notes of sweet cream float into the air, and there is an underlying sweet white floral. The floral is completely sugared, reminding me of a floral candy. There’s a lot to like about this blend, it’s very pretty, and leans more into a bright and fresh summery scent than a true ice cream scent. While it doesn’t have that creaminess an ice cream has, nor does it immediately remind me of any true-to-life counterparts, if you are looking for a summer gourmand, it’s a great choice.
TLDR: Fun and pretty summer gourmand! Orange cream, and candied white floral.
Longevity: 6 Hours
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5) for Ice Cream, ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5) for general perfume enjoyment.
Sapphic Siren's Treasure Box 