Blood onmy hands

This and Queen Butterfly are the two that smell better in the bottle than on me this year. In the bottle, this is a beautiful scent of earthy patchouli and tobacco, sweetened with a baked blueberry note, warmed up with amber, and made all creamy from the coconut. On my skin, the blueberry and lilac quickly amp up and are a little too sweet for me, and the tobacco note goes smoky in the background. Blueberry candy and cigarette smoke. It also fades really fast on me and stays close to my skin with not much throw, which is strange for all of the deeper base notes.

Cabbage White is a loud, white, powdery, sweet explosion of a scent on my skin. The orris is powdery, silvery, and sweet like powdered sugar covered iris petals, the lily smells clean, but also rich, waxy, and of honeyed pollen, and the vanilla cream just furthers the sweetness. It's quite a bit like Possets' Silver Lily fragrance, only richer and heavier. I like all of these notes, but together they are almost overwhelming on me. Perhaps a bit too sweet on my skin. I do like how this is a bold, heavy fragrance with notes that I usually consider to be softer and quieter, though. It smells like a very aggressive, intense, sugar hyped lily on me, and I'm sure that there will be a time to wear this, but it'll never be an every day, casual scent to me.

I love lilacs. I have over a dozen planted in my yard now, just because I love their honeyed, creamy fragrance so much. They strike a perfect balance between sweetness and a fresh, springtime airiness. Echo Azure is mostly lilac on me, with a bit of blackberry bush peeking out from underneath as a tangy, slightly herbal, super realistic blackberry. The only thing that throws me off about this is that I associate lilac blooms with early spring and blackberries with late summer, and this scent is so realistic that it almost makes me feel lost in time (not a bad thing, just a strange-ness within me, lol). Overall, it has this dreamlike, soft, purple feel to it that I really enjoy, and is a beautiful mix of sweet and clean tones.

The El Segundo Blue butterfly is endangered, and only three colonies remain: one at Los Angeles International Airport, one at an oil refinery, and one on a tiny patch of SoCal beach. Sand and sea salt, murky beach water, a gust of peony, and a drop of petroleum. Bpal's aquatics tend to go soapy on me, and this one does too, but the sharp salt and dark, murky notes are keeping it interesting for me. I smell this and can't help but think of "Duma Key," which is my favorite Stephen King novel. It's like a haunted beach along the ocean, with a storm rolling in and the twang of sharp, salty ozone in the air. The peony, I think, adds a rich, round sweetness to the scent, sort of a juicy, heady floral in the storm. I'm actually shocked by how much I've been enjoying El Segundo Blue. I think this is my favorite bpal aquatic ever. It manages to feel beautiful, but dark and creepy, at the same time.

The Anise Swallowtail is a creature of wide open spaces. She flies through wide open spaces, over hills and through lots abandoned by humankind, dancing among dill, parsley, fennel, and wild carrots. Bourbon vanilla, star anise, cypress, juniper berry, a drop of blood orange, and bronze fennel. Anise Swallowtail reminds me of Golden Priapus with its smooth, cool evergreen notes and lots of creamy, lightly sweet vanilla. The cypress, juniper and fennel are green, frosty, slightly herbal, and slightly camphorous, without smelling like full-on menthol or mint or anything harsh. This reminds me quite a bit of Tokyo Milk's "Arsenic" fragrance as well, especially as it dries down (that one is notes of 'absinthe, vanilla salt, cut greens and crushed fennel'). Cool, green, and lots of vanilla.

Drifting low to the ground, this tiny, tough butterfly searches for nectar and mates in vacant lots and coastal flats. Orange blossom and brimstone. I love orange blossom and tend to hate ashy, soot-y, smoky fragrances. I'm really happy that this is about 90% orange blossom on me, and only 10% of a smoky scent that actually isn't that bad. Dainty Sulphur is mostly strong, beautiful orange blossom. Slightly waxy, super creamy, white floral with sweet, ripe orange. Very realistic and natural smelling, and has a tropical vibe to it, like being covered in a wreath of orange blossoms. The smokiness hides under the sweet orange and adds more of a dark, sexy growl than woodsmoke or ash. It reminds me of the way that black musk can sometimes have a smokiness to it. This is one of my favorites of this year's butterflies.

A child of summer, the woodnymph sips moisture from the sand and flits through grasses and wild buckwheat. Hay and grasses with two eyespots of cacao and tonka. Great Basin Woodnymph is lovely, and I can pick out all four of the listed notes. I enjoy green grass fragrances, but they are difficult for me to wear, as they usually take on a too green, slightly sour, sharp edge. The toasty hay with its soft, lemony scent and the sweet creaminess of the tonka and cocoa are wonderful, though, and take the sharpness out of the green grass. I always get this lemony scent from bpal's hay notes, like in Hay Moon. The toasty notes, lemon and vanilla-ish tonka swirl together and smell like having a decadent little lemon cream tart on a bed of dying grasses. I like the fresh, outdoorsy gourmand feel.

Russet amber and orange blossom honey, red labdanum and wild plum, golden musk and a rustle of patchouli root. Mostly orange blossom honey and patchouli in the bottle, and it's a lovely, creamy, sweet orange blossom and dry patchouli. I wish that this is the scent that showed up on my skin, but that's not to be. On my skin, this actually gets sweeter (a bit cloying) and more powdery than I would like, and the patchouli instantly disappears and never returns. There's a weird, slightly funky soapiness that makes me think of rest room soap, and I think that's the honey note going a bit urine-like on me, and the orange blossom trying to clean it up. The amber and musk form a powdery, perfumey cloud around the intensely sweet honey and slight funkiness. No plum or patchouli for me, unfortunately.

I don't like plain Snake Oil at all (aged or fresh), but I love most of the Snake Oil blends (why? some sort of magic), and I loooove patchouli and Dragon's Milk, so I snagged two bottles of this heavenly creature. Dragon-Smooched reminds me of Schwarzer Mond, the original MMe Moriarty, and a bit of Banshee Beat. I feel like they would all hang out and be extremely close, loyal friends who share clothes and take swigs out of the same bottle. Smooched is like Schwarzer Mond's amazingly dark, plush, resins with that cola-like sweetness, and the patchouli turned waaaay up. Then the drydown has the sensual vanilla of Snake Oil/Mme Moriarty, along with the red dragon's blood going all sultry and red-fruity-ish on my skin. The patchouli is gorgeous all the way through. It's dark, earthy, slightly spicy patchouli that's so rich and perfect. A lot of patchouli blends lately have felt flat, too dry, or sour to my nose, but this one is bold and beautiful. It smells like an elegant, sensual, oriental perfume. I would have guessed at red musk, vanilla, patchouli, and a hint of honey if I were smelling this blindly. It is fantastic on my skin. I was trying to be nice by only buying two bottles of this and leaving some for everyone else, but now I wish I had not cared . Smooched has already shot up into my bpal top 10, and I love that the label is a picture of itself. I don't know why I find that so amusing.

On me, this smells like a little dish of rose scented hand soaps next to a dish of old, dusty, cinnamon potpourri. The rose comes off as very sharp, sour, perfumey, and soapy, mixed with very dusty, dry spices. This is a scrubber for me.

I like the GC blend The Knave of Hearts a lot more than this one (for red roses and a pastry scent). I don't really smell anything gourmand, buttery or cookie-ish in Cinq. On me, Cinq smells like a mix of fresh, dewy rose and a sweet-ish rose dusting powder. More and more powdery on me over time. Pleasant and simple, but I don't need more than the decant.

The almond in this smells like that maraschino cherry/almond extract type of almond, which I really don't care for. It starts off all almond extract, but finally starts to fade after about a half hour (which is too long for me), and then I can smell red rose and a hint of sharp black leather. The rose goes slightly soapy on me in the drydown. I prefer Whip in the GC for a black leather & red rose fragrance. I think that Whip is a lot stronger than Six and doesn't have the almond extract or soapy thing happening in it.

Quatre smells awful on me, like someone took a chocolate scented marker and scribbled over a single rose, stem and leaves and all. Chemical chocolate, sour greenery, and sharp rose. Surprisingly sharp and chemical. The chocolate note in this is not agreeing with me, but I usually don't like milk/dark chocolate + rose fragrances (rose and vanilla forever!).

I like orris, but I don't smell any of its sweet, powdery tones in this. Trois is all about rose and ambergris. Bpal's ambergris always smells a bit like hints of clean, salty aquatic mixed into a golden, slightly spicy amber to me. I'm picking up on the ambergris and a dewy, but slightly sharp, musky, and perfumey rose. My favorite roses tend to be very creamy and sweet, and I don't know if this one is quite sweet enough for me. Still, very pretty.

A lot of my favorite scents are vanilla-rose or candied-rose, so I was excited for this one, but I honestly don't smell anything like vanilla or cotton candy here. It's not as sweet as LUSH's Rose Jam is to me either. It's more of a fresh, fruity rose scent on my skin, like rosewater and citrus-y berries mixed into a red rose perfume.