(Note: I have been moving from a blogging site to my own website so this review was written after the first week of July, not actually October. Shipping was fast from what I remember)

Today, I received my samples that I bought from Olympic Orchids. They are having a sale in July 2026 before raising their prices and I have been eyeing Night Flyer for a while because it has an interesting backstory. This perfume was developed for Zoologist Bat before that perfume was reformulated and then eventually Olympic Orchids was able to get the rights to the original perfume back and sell it again. She is also retiring from her job as a professor this summer so she will have more time for perfumes now. I am always interested in what the lives are like of indie perfumers! Since the prices of the perfumes haven’t been raised in 16 years, they are pretty cheap, plus with the sale, I was motived to buy them immediately. I got 10 samples for 20 USD exactly which is unbelievable. I don’t think I’ve bought from any other place with those kinds of prices. The samples are 1ml each and alcohol, not oil, so that does make the amount of uses from each sample less I feel like. Aside from that, this is still a lot of perfume. I split my order with a friend so the 5 I ordered were Night Flyer, Tuscan, Olympic Rainforest, Blackbird (which was delightfully black in the tube), and Elektra. Each sample came in that standard tube with the plastic dabber with a little label printed and stuck on, in a little individual baggie with a sticker of the art on it. I really like that and have never seen that before, it’s like getting the best of both worlds, a sample without an annoying tag thing and then the full-size art separately. I only tried on Night Flyer today. I was a bit nervous because of the rotting fruit notes present. 

Notes: sandalwood, olibanum wood, vetiver, furry musk accord, wet earth, damp air, mineral notes, resins, leather, figs, banana, soft tropical fruits.

In the bottle, it doesn’t smell like straight alcohol which is what I expected from an alcohol based sample. It smells like minerals, caves, and boozy fruit. On the skin, it is the same. The first thing I get is cool, mineral-rich cave water. It really nails the smell of limestone and stalactites. It is almost a bit much for me, which happens sometimes. I get a really realistic atmospheric and realize I want to smell it but I don’t want to smell like it. Luckily, the overly ripe fruit comes in and warms it, adding a sweetness that makes it more wearable for me. I thought the fruit would be like banana laffy taffy, or just rotting. Instead, its a pleasant boozy sugary fruit note, like strawberries. I don’t get a fake banana smell. I am also surprised to see that there is sandalwood in this because I don’t really like sandalwood but it might be blended well into this. This dries down into a faint fruity musk. Overall, this is super unique for me, and I have gotten plenty of atmospherics and aquatics before. This just has such a unique cave scent that I never would’ve expected to get and the fruit makes it more wearable. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten such a lush and humid air scent before but I really like this!