patina

Big lemony florals, reminding me of Devil's Trumpet SN. There are some dark green tropical leaves like those in Isle of Demons and maybe black musk? This is a warm, close, sweet scent. Very sultry. Maybe good for winter if you want to pretend to be in a sweltering jungle or hothouse. Rawr. Edit: on drydown becomes more intensely green and dark. It's not a pine or other conifer but it has that feel to it. There may be patchouli somewhere.

Delicious in an El Dia Los Reyes sort of way. It does have a vanilla powder element and sometimes is not as deep or rich as I'd like but overall a really good coffee scent. Maybe there's cinnamon sprinkled on top of the tiramisu? Because I get just a tiny bit of that.

Sadly the reed pings my scent memory as window cleaner. It's green and the most prominent part before the drydown. As it dries, I get more dusty papyrus and that smear of vanilla cake frosting. It's as though someone smeared an old papyrus scroll with cake and used windex to get it off. A memorable scent story, but not something I need a bottle of. For those who don't have the same scent associations this might smell like vanilla frosting, dust and green cologne.

Black licorice and rusted musk with tobacco absolute and myrrh. Sniffing, lid shut: Some kind of fusty musk. Not good. Sniffing, lid open: Smooth, vanilla licorice, nothing else. On: Tobacco. Orange and vanilla flavored tobacco. And licorice. It's hard to tell where the tobacco stops and the licorice begins. The orange isn't sharp. Maybe it's the 'rusty musk' in the scent description? I know tobacco isn't supposed to be foody but I get a faint cloud of warm vanilla tobacco wafting around me and I want to eat my arm right now. So. Good. Not recommended for people who hate licorice, but if you really like tobacco and don't mind licorice (or you're actually a licorice fan like me), this is excellent. Edit: on the drydown, I'm starting to think the orange might all have been in my head, but it did smell very much like a light orange note mixed in with the tobacco.

Isidore's Phonenix has more floral and isn't grapey at all but otherwise it's not bad. LE but maybe you could find it on the sales page. Feathers of deep plum and wild violet darkly gleaming with myrrh, black amber, and benzoin.

I tried the original, and I seem to remember it was heavily opium and floral, very perfumy. This one immediately starts out smelling like dirty hippie patchouli, tobacco and red berries. Somehow it smells like spicy red berries. After the drydown, the patchouli starts behaving itself and quiets down to a whisper. There really isn't a lot of throw with this one, but occasionally I get a lovely waft of florals. Slinky, feminine, close to the skin.

This is a really pretty fruity floral. I get glimpses of the gardenia underneath the apple. The snake oil is present but not in a very obvious way. Sadly the orange and lemon peel are just awful on my skin and I can't do citrus.

I have a very aged bottle of the original and I wanted to see if this stacked up. The almond, snake oil, and fizzy myrrh are the same, but the orange smells a little lighter, tarter, more orange-y. I have no idea if this is due to the different notes or to the effects of aging. Still, this is my favorite of the snakes and to my tastes, none of them stack up to this one. The snake oil and almond smell like cake, the orange acts like a cake glaze and the myrrh deepens it and prevents the whole scent from being too cloying.

Odd. A sweet fruity coffee bean similar to Destructive Vagina of the Fox Woman. There's the same undertone of incense, only here it is more of an undertone. The myrrh blooms after application, but that's just on my skin. Your results may vary depending on how you do myrrh. The vetiver is there, but there's no whoa!bacon vetiver. It's warm, dry and cuddly, something like a relative of Palmyria. Or of Death Adder without the Snake Oil and coconut.

Druid from the RPG line fades rather quickly on some people and smells like wool as well as forest but it's one of the truest damp forest scents I've smelled. It's not piney so no floor-cleaner worries.

Grass juice! Beautiful, warm, sunny. If it was a color it would probably be kelly green.

This would probably do better with some aging, but I get very, very rich dark clove musk and patchouli that I originally misidentified as tobacco, probably because of the smoke. I was worried about the "scorched" bit but while there's some faint smoke it doesn't make the whole thing smell like a bonfire at all. Like clove and base notes? Try this. It's like a less woody Smiling Spider.

Unsweetened chocolate polished with vanilla and faint amber until it's just sweet enough. The slightly bubblegum-ish floral pink pepper is amping on me and while this is certainly spicy, it doesn't make me feel like something is poking my nose, like some black pepper scents have. Delicious.Gorgeous.

This would be perfect sweet violet with a touch of greenery, but the white sandalwood is a little too dusty for my tastes, as in real, actual dust. The decant goes off to swaps.

This really wasn't what I expected, although I did get the snow-white-ish snow as well as lots of honeysuckle and some well behaved vetiver. No, this was nice but it reminded me of a honeysuckle and ginger hand cream I had once. Somehow the mint in the snow must be lending its bite to the rooty vetiver and making it smell like that ginger. (It doesn't smell like the lab's ginger at all.) This is nice, but I can't get over the associations, off to sales.

Worm moon's a good springtime dirt scent.

"Blood" is one of my favorite scents since it has my favorite balance of notes: resinous, sweet, dark, a little spicy. This is very similar, except far less cherry. It's more like dried blood. The labdanum is keeping the dragon's blood in check on the drydown, though I don't suggest this if you absolutely hate dragon's blood. It's so dark and resinous and just a touch spicy. Lovely.

This is a lot like Morganeuse, except less powdery and smoky. It's a very perfumy scent like it's made with some kind of night blooming flower. It's not especially dark, though the myrrh and amber underneath try to do their part. The plum here is vaguely medicinal sometimes, occasionally like fake cherries, except with plums. This doesn't have quite the vanilla and red musk depth of Mme Moriarty, though I could see a comparison to the new scent that has blackcurrant. Edit: On the drydown, the resins come out. The plum becomes less medicinal and powdery and the whole thing gets fainter.

I got the vanilla snow from Snow White plus tart red berries and allspice. Huh. I guess I can wear Bay Rum. This smells cold and hot by turns on me before the drydown. This is amazing. The spices are gorgeous. Why do I love almost all of the SP scents I've tried?

Dark, sweet, well-blended, perfumy, tart. This is dark, but ever so smooth. I almost think I can smell plums here. I can pick out the swirling tobacco flower but that's about all. I get no soap, no strong vetiver. On the drydown, whoever said this smelled like smoked topaz was correct. Lucille Sharpe had garnets, silk and old roses, this is smoky topaz and tobacco flower.

The black current makes this a much lighter scent. It's kind of helpful because in the original I had to suffer through a cherry cough syrup stage before drydown. However, this scent is just not as deep as the original. Who knows what aging will do to it though. This scent always reminds me of deep, dirty, sexy cotton candy. I swear. It's even more pronounced in this version because the blackcurrant could be the blue flavor, the pomegranate could be the pink. Very appropriate for a circus scent.

For such a dark scent, this is fairly gentle. It's amazing how it manages to be both sophisticated conventional perfume and something decadent. It's seductive and slightly deranged, but well-mannered enough for most situations and not too forward. "Aristocratic" nails it. Most of the scent is black silk and fading roses, but the garnet note stands out quite a bit. It's just so dead on. A wine-dark, cold crystal. There's not a huge throw, but this lasts. Notes remind me of both Skadi and Black Lily.

I'm powerfully reminded of certain candies that come in strawberry-like wrappers. I smell those along with the suggestion of other unspecified candies, lilies and violets. This is crazy strong and lasts a good while. Occasionally the cypress and candy charcoal peek out too. Festive. This one lasts forever on me, it's a little intimidating.

This smells like frost and cold somehow- lots of black ice with lichen and salt and a little licorice. It's a bit like The Country of Eternal Light.

So, I could swear this musk is based on red patchouli. It's smoky and it's trying to do the usual sour/ sharp thing that red patchouli does on my skin. It's failing though. I do detect plenty of clove peeping out and the saffron adds interest, a bit of polish.