DedCool Sample Set Review

[unpaid/purchase/affiliate] I’ve been obsessed with getting hold of this US brand’s Milk fragrance so my lovely friend Kelly picked this sample set from DedCool up while she was in New York. It’s not yet widely available in the UK but is at Sephora stores stateside, so I am keeping my fingers crossed. There’s just something about this brand that I feel very drawn to – I love milky, soft and skin-like scents so Milk has been calling my name for some time.

I’ve been trying the set one fragrance at a time over the past week, making little notes as I go along. So, I’ll go in the order that you can see them, starting with Fragrance 3 Blonde. It’s initially sharp and spicy but a recurring theme with all of these fragrances is that they mellow on the skin. The brand describes it as ‘narcotic, dewy and dark’ but in fact, I found it quite bright – I picked out the ‘spice’ which is saffron (very pleased with myself for that!) but ‘black violet’ is a mystery still. It softens down to something a bit tobacco-ish or leathery. There is a floral element but I’d never have picked violet of any colour. Next up is Red Dakota – wow! It’s so hard to describe because it’s not a note combination I have come across before – there’s citrus in the form of clementine, there is amber and then wild berries. The citrus is almost bitter like the peel rather than the fruit and the berries are sharp – it plays with your nose to be honest because all the notes hit at once – and yet, there is something sweet running through it.

On to Fragrance 1, Taunt, which is much less complex as a sweet but dewy floral. Notes are bergamot, cassis, ‘floral’, amber and vanilla so there is a bit of weight to it. Once Taunt has mellowed, it’s smooth and fruity and an easy, happy wear. Milk is just delicious. It’s the fragrance you want to wear to bed because the over-riding thing about it is that it smells like warm skin. It’s comforting, soft and velvety and is described as a ‘universal musk’ . The notes are bergamot, white musk and amber but really, it just smells like clean skin. It’s interesting that Milk has amplifiers (in case you want to smell even more like skin) but it’s the one that you stop being able to smell on yourself the most quickly. I think if you opted for Milk it would be for the enjoyment of others. I am happy picking up the first spritzes but can see I might get through a bottle very quickly. Fragrance 2 (no name) is the most traditionally masculine – I swear I get a bit of licorice from it but I think that may be the sharpness of juniper. Notes are juniper, sheer woods, patchouli, green floral and amber. It’s the one I least resonate with but I think I’d like it on someone else. Finally, Madonna Lilly – the brand says ‘we bottled a power suit’ and I think that is a brilliant way to describe the magnitude of this peppery, ambery concoction. Notes are sandalwood, black pepper, amber, exotic woods, moss and cardamom.

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To sum up – what an experience! I have loved trying all of the samples from the set – DedCool feels like a brand doing things very differently. Mainstream US fragrances tend to run sweet and vanilla-ish but that’s not the case here at all. If anything, DedCool favours sharp and woody. The sample set is £30 – the website is showing me the price in £s so I will assume that they ship to the UK. There’s a small body collection at FreePeople HERE, and a small selection on Revolve in which they have Milk Detergent, £35 HERE, and I have no idea, having just seen it, how long I will be able to hold out from buying it.