Today, I am reviewing The Ancient Waters of Venus from Sorce’s special order collection. This is an oil perfume I bought as a decant from Ajevie. Sorce should be opening their special orders in June and I want to try a bunch of special order samples before then since that will be my chance to full size anything! I have a few on the way from the most recent Ajevie preorder so I can’t wait to try those too. [Edit: The special order format has since been changed. According to their FAQ, this perfume will be for sale in May and during the full special order weekends.]

The notes directly from Sorce’s website are The Ancient Waters of Venus: An opening of bright, sugared lychee with a hint of almond softens to a delicate blend of pink lotus absolute, peony, siam wood, cool water and rising mist.

I have heard this is a light, sweet aquatic and I wanted to try more aquatics. I also love lychee as a note and I don’t find it too common. I am unfamiliar with siam wood and pink lotus.

Onto the review: Wow, this is a LOT of very juicy lychee candy. The lychee is sugary and reminds me a bit of a berry/blackcurrant note that is common in many perfumes. It is definitely the most overwhelming note but I will say that the light, aquatic part tempers it and keeps it from being too syrupy. This is still a very sweet perfume. Somehow, this stayed the same pretty much the entire way through, which is surprising, because I feel like fruity notes like this usually dissipate pretty quickly. I didn’t get any almond really but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is blending in with the sweetness of the fruit. This perfume kind of reminds me of department store perfumes and Nest Indigo. If this perfume was a color, it would be light blue but with bits of light pink. I don’t have much experience with aquatics but this has a very pleasant, mild and generally appealing scent, like a fresh watery scent that I assume aquatics are supposed to be. I can also definitely smell peonies with the lychee which give a nice floral, fruity smell. I think this is a pretty safe, generally appealing, fruity scent. I like it but I think I would like to try it a bit more and see if I can pick up more complexity. 

I feel like this perfume definitely matches the vibe of how Claude Monet paints water lilies. (This painting is Water Lilies, 1906). It is aquatic, juicy, and floral.