windbourne

Black patchouli, tonka bean, mahogany bark, gurjum balsam, and decadent cacao absolute surrounded by two dark, feral musks and sweet sarsaparilla. This one was very strange on me. Initially, cocoa and sarsaparilla oh heck yeaaah~~ (just imagine me doing a little dance of delight), and then suddenly BAM! WOOD. MUSK. TONKA. In that order. It's like one of those old West saloons -- the sheriff and his henchgoons have just slammed open the door, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is playing, and the cocoa and sarsaparilla have fled the room, headed for the back hills. There's some of that there gurjum balsam (I think it's the bartender), too, much like the one in Mage, and just as weird on me. Then the patchouli, dark and kind of smoky, stands up from his game of cards and then there is a standoff. A really weird standoff. Nothing really drops back, but nothing comes to the forefront, either. Eventually it fades out and a hint of the cocoa comes back, but only a vague hint. I don't know. I think this might be one that grows on me, and I'm 99% sure it requires some aging for the full story to come out. It is a very brown, weird scent. There is something about it that reminds me of one of the Sakura-con scents, too? Maybe Wrestler Onogawa? I'll have to dig those out and compare.

GIANT SQUID Cannabis blossom, tonka bean, tobacco, frankincense, galangal, juniper berry, lantana, spiky aloe, green and white teas, and salty sea spray. Ufufu. Surely I am not first? ...A first, to be first. ANYWAY. SQUID. The Squid is actually rather amazing. In the bottle, it smells almost fruity, and very mellow -- a greenish-tinged scent, if you will, with splotches of amber and brown. Once on my skin, it deepens, with the tobacco blooming up and a slight gingery edge. There's a definite tea note, especially when it's wet, and some saltiness that fades after a while. After three hours or so it's become a mossy-green scent, somewhat reminiscent of seaweed, though not as oceanic. The aloe never is more than an undertone on me, and the frankincense never took over the way it sometimes does. All in all, it really reminds me of a much more mellow Sea Rat, which is AWESOME, because I love that, but I don't wear it very often because it amps like **** on me and gives people around me headaches. So this is GREAT. It seems to have a good wearlength and wonderfully mild throw. I love it, though I really wasn't expecting to. I may need a full bottle all for me. :x

Three of my favorite notes in one glorious place? Yes, please, and THANK YOU. Well, two (white rose & ambergris) and one that I usually like and often accompanies one or the other. It is, indeed, the bomb, if these things are things you also like. The heart is ambergris, salty and damp, but also warm and sexy, followed by a rich breath of dusty orris, then crowned with a very cool, but slightly over-blown white rose. It's not exactly an aggressive perfume, but it's a surprisingly big scent with a pretty solid throw. Less femme fatale and more ...idk, that gently overwhelming boss in a very sleek gray wool suit who wears pearls and is rumored to have a lot of very interesting kinks, but no one can prove a damn thing. Everyone wants to know, but no one ever wants to ask. It's not especially complex (outside of the complexity inherent in ambergris), but it is beautiful and I love it. If I were to give it a color it would be something like the inside of an oyster -- lightly shimmery pearly white to gray, perhaps with a hint of iridescence. If your skin is prone to going sour or sharp with roses and you don't like it, I'd probably skip this one. The particular combination does bring out that aspect. Throw & wear are both slightly above average on me, but the drydown is pure ambergris SN, as is almost always the case on my skin. If there's ambergris in it, that's all that remains after a few hours. Overall yeeeeeeeeessss I'll take five.

Fascinating. I love it when scents come up as heavily YMMV, even on the first page of reviews. I really loved Shortbread Snowflakes, a BPTP scent/bath oil from a while back, and this has a lot in common with that on me. Actually, it's almost identical after drydown, which puts me firmly in the category of 'all cookie, minimal rose' reviewers. I can smell the rose very strongly in the bottle, and for the first minute or so that it's on my skin. Big fluffy tea roses, plus warm, very buttery shortbread. It's pretty good! Then it dries and the roses just vanish. Once in a while if I jam my nose up to my wrist, I get a bare hint of what might have once been a petal fluttering by. I like both sets of notes just fine on their own, but I was hoping for a slightly more balanced blend. I have a mildly hilarious amount of Shortbread Snowflakes, so I'm almost regretting blind bottling this rose. Almost. It's still a delicious smelling and very foody perfume, and I really like the initial HELLO ROSE blast. :9 Moderate throw, lasts average length, fades to buttery sugar.

I often enjoy very simple blends, and this one is very simple indeed: a clean, soft honey with a gentle nibble of pink pepper. The honey is definitely dominant; I have to really huff to get any pepper on my wrist, though it's more present where I dabbed a bit on my forearm. If it had a color it would be a soft warm beigey neutral with pink tones. It's almost boring, but still somehow soothing. Except. Once in a while, I sniff at my arms and end up sneezing, and that makes me laugh. This is not the only perfume with pink pepper in it that I've had that response to and it feels especially apt here, given the inspiration. NB: If you are someone for whom certain honey notes go powdery you'll probably want to avoid it, though. It's definitely that sort of honey. Heck, it almost goes powdery on me, and I'm not prone to that sort of thing unless there's something else in there (orris, usually, or milk) also giving that impression. Light, gentle, minimal throw, lasts a few hours, fades gracefully into a lightly peppered honey on me.

SELF-PORTRAIT Magnetic particles pulled through white goo, 2012 I'll make one for you, too, mommy. With a circle head and a dress. A quiet honey musk with gentle orris, rice milk, and white gardenia. Self-Portrait First, I have to note that I love the Lab's new sticker material. It gives the art on this a somber, meditative depth that I don't think I've ever imagined in relation to magnetic particle art before. Pretty cool, guys. Next, the scent: In the bottle, the adjectives are very accurate, it is quite quiet, soft, gentle, and, while not exactly white (I find it evokes more of a cream color, almost to the buttery side, but really good butter, with no colorants added), definitely a pale scent. On the skin, oh darling. The gardenia is fairly present at the beginning, giving this an initial floral bloom on my skin, but it fades gracefully after a few moments. There is a soft honey sweetness, but more like...atomized honey particles. It feels like the honey in Door but lighter, maybe powdered? The orris is very soft and cloud-like. I like orris, even strong orris, but for those of you who don't, it's not the rootiest orris I've run across. More like orris with the texture of spun sugar. The rice milk is there, carrying the scent along and making it, well, milky. But not like dairy-milk, this is almost translucent and sweeter. The throw is minimal. This sticks very close to my skin, humming a lullaby like the one Wendy sings to the Lost Boys. Light as morning clouds and comforting as feather blankets, fades peacefully into the distance after a fairly short while. The closest thing I have to compare this with is Door, but this is much softer and less herbal.

Red, red roses, murky opoponax, drooping vetiver, and myrrh. This is a somewhat gritty rose scent, dark and viscous on the skin, with slightly smoky vetiver and myrrh that settle into your nose and the back of your throat. The roses are big and deep and heavy and definitely red and slightly punchy; they come out more as the scent dries. It goes on a rather dark oil, though it doesn't stain, and on me the throw is fairly mild, but it lasts forever. I could still smell it very faintly the next morning. In terms of imagery, it certainly suits the painting depicted on the label. ...ah, who am I kidding. OFF smells exactly like you'd expect it to. Pulling out my favorite descriptive phrase: this oil does what it says on the tin. Vetiver, resins, rose. If that sounds good to you, then you are ...well, not really set, because of the approximate rarity of this beast, but the good news is that there have been a quite a few scents in the same family and they seem to come out at regular intervals. You could achieve something pretty similar to OFF by layering any of the really strong, nearly single-note roses like Peacock Queen or Rose Red or even The Rose, though that one is lighter and damper, with something with strong vetiver and myrrh notes. The Sick Rose was, IIRC, a little like this, but less dense, as well, and Elizabeth of Bohemia was brighter with oudh instead of the darker notes, but has a similarly strong rose note. I think it's pretty great, and one of my two favorites from the entire line, but that really says less than you would think, as most of the line I found more interesting than wearable.

SLAUGH Champaca, black tea, tonka bean, and sassafras. SNIFFFFFFF. Aaaaaah. Delicious. *cough* HI! Okay, so first, I should note that the label is misspelled 'Slaugh', which is unfortunate but not debilitating. ^-^ Some confusion may arise as a result, but I assure you, this is the same scent I sniffed at the Will Call. The main note of this scent is the sassafras -- sweet and rooty and, well, root-beer-like. Perfectly sassafrastastic. Under that is the mild spiciness of the tea -- it's definitely black, almost an Orange Pekoe-like scent -- and the vanillic sweetness of the tonka. It's -wonderful-. The champaca ties it together and makes it a little less herbal. The sassafras dies down after a while, leaving a mild, comforting scent on my wrist that lasts for quite a while, then fades sweetly. It's not exactly foody, but reminds me most strongly of a very high quality handmade root beer, though less creamy than most root beers are. I love it, I have a bottle of it, and I may consider buying another before they go. It's so good -- if you like root beer scents, give it a try. If you don't, but do like (or amp) champaca, give it a try anyway. Color-wise, this scent is a deep rich brown with black swirls and a very few white specks. I'd be most inclined to wear it during autumn and winter, when the earth is dark and the greenery is sparse on the trees.

This is one of those very rare perfumes that I put on and really enjoyed for about ten minutes and then something went terribly wrong and I had to wash it off. Unlike Haltija, I normally adore the smell of root beer, but Outlaw actually did make me feel nauseated. I'm not sure whether it was the root beer-leather combo, or if the cream usually turns into dust on me problem reared up and bit me, or if I'm allergic to some unlisted note, or what, but, yeah, sick to my stomach after about ten minutes. Tested it twice, and both times, no bueno. Those ten minutes are pretty good, though. Fresh sarsaparilla and a bit of leather, pretty simple and almost foodie, but not quite. Throw was solid, and I could catch whiffs just moving my hands. I'm not sad I bought it, but it's definitely off to a new home, and I'm leaving this review to remind myself that no matter how good it sounds, root beer + leather may not be my friend. I definitely see the comparisons to Le Pere Fouettard, with the complementary sweet & leather notes. ...Man, though. The mental images it brings up are stellar. Lilith in chaps with a cap gun strolling up to the bar and demanding the house reserve root beer, yyy? The dusty scent of the saloon, the smooth frothy mug slightly overflowing with strong homemade rooty brew capped off with a dollop of vanilla cream, the faint jingle of horses outside. If you breathe in deeply you can catch the scent of their saddles.... It's pretty much the best, and I wish it worked on me.

I feel really weird about writing a review that is ultimately a finger pointing up and "what they said!" but sometimes that's all there is to be done. Yep, powdered hot chocolate mix with dehydrated marshmallows. That is exactly what this smells like on me. Soft, sweet, minimal throw, but the dregs of it linger on my wrist for some time. Very slight plastic, but not nearly as bad as Bliss was on me. I'm inclined to chalk that up to the difference between the 'milk chocolate' and 'cocoa' notes, though the initial waft is somewhat similar. Got a 5 ml from Etsy recently, but I've had a decant since last year.

So I used to obsess over coconut things when I was a kid, and this included buying raw coconuts, drilling holes in them to drain the milk, then smashing them with hammers in the garage and gobbling up the meat as best I could with my grimy little kid fingers. And that's what this smells like to me. =^.^=

HAPPY BABY IN A LONG DRESS Washable acrylic on economy craft paper, 2012 This is a happy baby in a long dress. Lemon sugar and lavender buds. Happy Baby in a Long Dress ...Lemon-Scented Sticky Bat + lavender buds. Absolutely does what it says on the tin. It will almost certainly remind some people of hand-soap or washing goo or laundry softener or other cleaning objects, because those products are often scented in lemon or lavender or rarely, both, and that is a strong association. For me, the sugar lifts it out of that a bit and it reminds me more of heavily over-sweetened lavender lemonade. Interestingly, though, the notes take turns being prominent. First the sugary lemon, then the lavender -- which is, somehow a slightly smaller, gentler lavender than many that show up, definitely buds rather than a full stalk or field of the stuff -- and then the lemony sugar and then the flowers again. I like it, but I also am not entirely certain where or when I might feel like wearing it. It might make a really nice room scent, however.

My bottle of EDS is a jellyish (semi-translucent, vs. a totally opaque creme) marine blue base absolutely full of chunky holo sparkle. Rainbow shimmer everywhere, with a lot of depth from the jelly base. It twinkles. The formula was very thick, usable, but would be improved with a little thinner. It dried extremely quickly, and semi-matte. You'd definitely want a topcoat to bring out the full shiny. I used three coats -- first coat was electric blue and streaky, the second was reasonably full-coverage but not quite the color of the bottle, but the third was perfect. It's a bit more green-tinted in person than this image -- it was taken with my phone, so color accuracy isn't 100% perfect -- but overall absolutely gorgeous. Seriously, though, it was touchably dry, even with three coats, after about two minutes, I was stunned. I was expecting to need my hardcore fast dry topcoat, but instead I just used one of my usual ones. A half-hour later, if I press really hard I can dent it slightly with a nail, but I'm not worried about waking up with sheet marks.

Love me some beeswax! I don't get new car at all (that scent makes me feel nauseated pretty rapidly, so I'm glad!) I just get dusty wax both in bottle and on my skin, the scent of the drippings on a candlestick that wasn't cleaned before it was put away. To compare it to a couple of other waxy nearly-SNs: VS The Light of Men's Lives -- DAMW is a lot darker. The wax in TLoML is very clean and bright, the candles still burning, and the scent as a whole is warmer and lighter. VS Hanerot Halelu -- That one is a little more sour and smoky, more reminiscent being in a room with freshly extinguished candles. It also has an interesting tang to it that I attribute to the olive oil. DAMW is sweeter. All of them are fairly strong and last quite a long time, but this one has a slightly beefier throw and better longevity than the other two, though. I wore it at a convention, applying it in the morning, and could still smell it very clearly on my wrists when I passed out around 5 am. Overall, if beeswax is your thing, or you're trying to figure out if it's your thing, and you don't mind a hint of dust, grab at least a decant of this one asap. If neither of these things appeal to you, well...don't. :3 It does exactly what it says on the package.

I actually like Bjugnakrækir more than Perilous Parlor, though I do perceive some sweatiness in the overall scent from the castoreum. It's a really lovely pear! My all-time favorite is The Vine. PP was too dusty on me, both versions. I love skin chemistry.

Warm golden ginger, wild fig, and vanilla cream spiced with saffron, limu amani, nutmeg, coriander, and angelica. You know what this really reminds me of at first? Mother Ginger. It's a bit more herbal and less sweet, but the ginger note is definitely the same, warm, golden, and rooty, with a pleasant creamy undertone. The drydown is very different, however. This is not really a foody perfume. As it dries, the lime pops up and does a hilarious little boogie, assisted by the pleasantly green fig and abetted by the nutmeg and angelica. During this phase, the ginger settles back a bit, but only for a short time. After a while, the other notes fade out and the ginger reappears with a triumphant fanfare of roots and fizz. Late drydown consists of a soft gingery haze with a subtle, almost fruity undertone. It ends up feeling something like a ginger-lime soda with cream and crushed herbs. I like this a great deal and might make it my plane perfume of choice, as it has almost no throw (on me, at least), has a moderate wear-time, and the ginger settles my nerves, even with screeching children sitting near me. It was a pretty good call for rampaging around Disneyland, too. :3 Stomach wibbles? Ha! Not this time, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad! Not this time. Overall, I find this to be a light golden-green scent of moderate strength and longevity, very slightly furry and thoroughly adorable. Give it a try if you like rooty ginger, especially the sort found in Mother Ginger or even Prosperity of a Country. As a special aside, the full name on the label is "Vespertilio Proterus Kuhl". The more you know, the easier it is to google for cute pictures of bats. ;D (Not technically true in this case; it's easier just to look for "evening bat", "vesper bat", or even "little brown bat" for a zillion adorable pictures. I mean, provided that you like bats.)

Chalk me up for having weird skin chemistry, but this one, on drydown, smells like a very strong, heady, dirty incense. For the first minute or two, it's distinctively red patchouli with a soft honey note, and in the vial I can clearly identify the goat milk and other notes, but after that BAM. Incense. Incense and a little smoke. And maybe something sweet underneath. I can't remember having had a perfume morph quite this aggressively on me before; it really smells completely different on me than it does as a liquid. But. It's incredible and I need a full bottle. O_O Like, yesterday. I smell like the mosh pit at the Siouxsie & the Banshees concert I saw in 1995. I can't think of another BPAL I've tried that has achieved quite the same balance of sweet, smoke, and filth. *insert assortment of delighted cursing here*

A base of bitter dark chocolate with thirteen baneful and beneficial bits including pimento berry, pink pepper, tolu balsam, bergamot, golden honey, tobacco absolute, champaca flower, and paprika. Woo! A new 13! The last three were terrible on me, but this one stands a good chance of supplanting the June 08 as my new favorite. The bottle is lovely, too; instead of just being a colored label with a number, it has a very nice vintage 'dance with Death' image. As for the scent: In the bottle, it's quite bitter and spicy, definite peppery and balsamic notes. (On a bad day, or with a slightly less sweetened base, it could almost smell like salad dressing. :} ) It becomes much sweeter once it's on the skin, with the honey and chocolate kicking it up. There's a nearly waxy aspect to it as well which I find pleasing. As it dries, it goes through a tooth-achingly sharp-and-sweet phase where the spices completely disappear on me. They come back after a while, though, and this ends up a pleasingly spicy honey with only a tiny bit of chocolate. This is possibly the -least chocolatey- 13 I've ever tried, and I'm completely fine with that. Throw is significant, and it seems as though this will have some decent staying power. Nom. ETA: Latelate drydown, the tobacco and champaca really pop up and start throwing out waves of deliciousness. This is very lovely, though not something I'll be able to wear to work.

THE WRESTLER ONOGAWA KISABURO BLOWING SMOKE AT A ONE-EYED MONSTER Peru balsam, Mysore sandalwood, bodark bark, tupelo gum, black pepper, tobacco absolute, and white honey. This one's very...strange. It's dark and woody and sweet and peppery and I can't figure out whether I like it or not? There's a licorice-y aspect that I like, but a citrussy one I don't. The pepper and tobacco are -very- peppery and tobacco-y, but unlike a lot of scents, on my skin they don't go crazy and beat everything else up; they stay restrained and just add a rather lovely dark undertone. It's got a sweet vanilla-like note (the basalm, probably) that I really like, but....it's just so -weird-, and not in way I think suits me. In the bottle, I get a lot of sandalwood and pepper. On my skin, it veers all over the place and doesn't seem to want to settle down; (see above. ) different things vie for Biggest And Best in rapid succession, which is an experience I haven't had since Delirium. It didn't last that long on my skin, either, maybe a couple of hours, and the throw wasn't excessive. Noticeable, but not violent or loud. ...I still can't make up my mind. I'm really looking forward to seeing more reviews of these, and this one in particular.

So this has been tickling the back of my brain since I got it. It just smells so familiar, somehow. And yesterday I was cleaning out my closet and finally nailed it. I have this black lace mourning outfit that I got in high school. It's definitely vintage and possibly handmade, and the bodice is lined with silk. It's not in great shape anymore because I wore the heck out of it at every possible goth event that I could between 1996 and 2003, when it got packed into a box during a move. But it smells exactly like this. So, I suppose, on me, this perfume smells like aged lace and silk and a touch of smoke and old sweat. Crazy evocative, at least for me. Takes me right back to summoning up the nerve to wear it for the first time. Wearing it in the rain, in the club (when I was old enough), in a graveyard that one hilariously predictable time with that one guy. Yep. If I think of it in a more analytical way, it starts out patch, sandalwood, and tobacco, then melds down with the immortelle and ambergris to make a smooth, smoky slip of a perfume. The vanilla cream is a little dusty on me, as cream notes often are. It's pretty strong, but doesn't have a huge throw, and it lasts for quite a long time. Late drydown is all ambergris, because that's what always sticks on me whenever it's involved in the slightest. The sandalwood tries real hard to add something to it, but it's still pretty one note. Yay, my chemistry? Anyway, it's beautiful, and I feel pretty lucky to have located a bottle. :3

If you loved Lily Savon or Ghost (LE shower gel with the same scent), give Lily Witch a try. The opening is different what with the almond and lime and all, but the drydown (and throw, which is MIGHTY, holy heck!) is almost all creamy lily.

First: I have a real hard time with copal. I was hoping that black copal would perhaps not so closely resemble a particular flea shampoo on me, but I WAS MISTAKEN. So, with that in mind, here is my review. This would be freaking amazing on someone who is not me. The apple is warm and sweet, the galbanum and orange are a complex and delicious undertone (if you're scared of galbanum because it's weird and green, nah, don't be. It's a very small part of the scent. Miniscule, even.) There's some myrrh being all...myrrhine or something. It's a little sexy and a little foodie-ish, and will probably remind a few people of candles, because it's that kind of fragrance. But on me, all these things fade under this intense tidal wave of copal, which we have established is not a great note for me. I have got to stop buying things with copal, even if all the rest of it looks great. I found it to be annoyingly long lasting, with a very apple-y throw that was juuuuust nice enough to make me want to sniff my wrist, only to pull back with a nose wrinkle. It held up under me attempting to wash it off twice. I could sort of feel it laughing at me. So yeah. Fruity, resinous, sweet. Copal. ._.

*chinhands* Do you miss Spanked (whip leather, cardamom, patchouli and bourbon)? Never got a bottle, used up your bottle, maybe had a decant, always wanted to try it? This is really, really similar. It's a little less spicy, a wee bit smoky (at least in the initial wet stages; the tobacco and birch tar completely disappear once it's dry), and a tad warmer, but the leather note is very similar, and the drydown, at least on me, is practically identical. It reminds me of going to the goth club Back In The Day -- warm leather, sweet alcohol on everyone's breath, and a hint of clove smoke because everyone loved Djarum Blacks. Dark and saucy, with perhaps the implication of an invitation for sexy shenanigans later, maybe. Or now. Who can say? I ...this sort of scent is the sort I always want to adore and end up sniffing for a while, nodding appreciatively, then setting aside and never wearing. If you're the sort of person who likes wearing these sexy leather-and-spices-with-a-hint-of-booze scents all the time and cannot get enough, then you should stomp around until you get a bottle of one of these. But really, unless you only like the way they smell when absolutely fresh, you probably don't need both. tl;dr: Spanked Part Two: Electric Boogaloo.

Shub-Niggurath seems like a cop out answer, but it seems not unsuitable. I can see Ginger (or Ginger-like characters) wearing gingery things. Maybe Jailbait, Three Witches, or Pepper, as other suggestions. One of the Blood Moons might also work, especially '05.

Cool and definitely cologne-like. The eucalyptus burns off almost immediately and I'm left with mostly a white musk and white ginger scent. It reminds me a little of Spider, but less...mmm, friendly, I guess? Harsh, a little bitter, and not as Ice-like as I might have expected. It's also a little headache-inducing for me.