Indie Friday | Review: Wiggle Perfume's Mathilde | Hello Pretty Bird! - A beauty and not-so-glamorous lifestyle blog

28 November, 2014

Indie Friday | Review: Wiggle Perfume's Mathilde

Bought It

Happy shopping madness day, everyone! :P I thought I'd take a moment away from the insanity of holiday shopping to write about one of my favorite indie fragrances: Wiggle Perfume and Sundries' Mathilde.

Wiggle Perfume and Sundries Mathilde 5ml rollerball

First of all, let me say that I really, really love Wiggle's scents in general. I wrote a review of a bunch of samples I picked up about a year ago, and I ended up buying half of the scents I sampled in full sizes—they're just that good. If you like florals or scents that have an "old-fashioned" feel (without being too grandmotherly) then Wiggle is 100% worth checking out. Unfortunately the owner decided to discontinue some of her scents earlier this year—I can understand why (having an inventory with dozens of handmade products is complicated, man), but I was a bit bummed that some of my favorites went away. Luckily Mathilde is one of the scents that's sticking around though, and it's being reformulated with more natural ingredients—it's not in stock at the moment, but I received a sample of the reformulation with my last order so I'm sure it will pop up in the shop at some point. The natural perfume oils that are currently available are priced at $24 for 5ml, so I'm assuming this one will be in a similar price range.

Aaaaanyway, let's talk about how it smells!


Shop description:
"A heavy pour of lavender essential oil, a dash of vanilla, a big wallop of black pepper, a splash of blood orange essential oil, and a drop of cardamon later… Mathilde was born."


"A heavy pour of lavender" is right—this scent is has a very prominent, almost sharp lavender note upon initial application. If you love lavender, you'll probably love this! And if you hate lavender... well.. you can probably take this off your wishlist right now. As it dries down the scent softens a bit and the vanilla becomes more noticeable. It's hard for me to really pick up on the cardamom, but the pepper is definitely noticeable and becomes more pronounced the longer I wear it. Surprisingly, the citrus note has some lasting power as well—I feel like fruity notes tend to disappear quickly on me, but not in this case.

This has moderate to strong sillage (don't wear it on a long car ride with other people!) and above-average lasting power (maybe 5 or 6 hours on me?) I haven't tested the reformulation sample as extensively so I'm not sure if those factors would chance substantially, but the overall fragrance itself smells pretty much the same to me.

I love Mathilde because it's kind of unusual... I would expect lavender and blood orange to smell like ass together, but the meld together in a way that's really fresh and exotic and sort of sexy. If you hate super-powdery florals it's worth trying!

I'm not sure when the reformulation will be in the Etsy shop, but the owner posts shop updates on her Facebook page so I'd follow there if you want to keep tabs. At the time of writing this Lila (one of my other Wiggle faves - reviewed here) is in stock and on sale for $11, so maybe consider throwing that in your cart if you want to add a little indie to your Black Friday shopping mania. :)


Are you buying any indie/handmade stuff this holiday season? Do you go nuts and stock up when one of your favorite fragrances is discontinued?

4 comments:

  1. That sounds interesting, I wish you could smell things through the internet!
    I love Etsy and finding handmade gifts. I've bought one of my friends some handmade candles this year which have scents inspired by Harry Potter.

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  2. That is so much fun! I've definitely seen fandom-themed cosmetics on Etsy, but never fandom candles! Too fun.

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  3. I bought a bunch of those knot hair ties with fun prints on them. I bought myself a few a while back and loved them, so I'm handing out some to my friends this year so they can enjoy the goodness too! ;) I also bought a few sugar lip scrubs that were highly discounted. Feels great to support some etsy sellers AND cross some items off my Christmas list.

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  4. I love those types of hair ties! I'm sure your friends will enjoy them. Etsy is really the best for unique gifts and stocking stuffers.

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