Lycanthrope

Well... I think we're falling into the categories of getting beautiful subtle notes, and then the opposite getting surprisingly potent, off, husky, strong aspects of the notes.

 

I'm with gentle-twig and Little Bird, in theory these notes should be gloriously beautiful on me, but when this touches my skin, it's like this interchange:

 

Skin: Oh hai, I iz wanting the rich sweet burnished perfume?

Oil: I am made of win please to apply

Skin: OK then

Oil: I am sekrit russian walrus and lounging on your skin all like barbed and with whiskers and much more potency than expected

Skin: Oh no I am betrayed! Darn you and your baleful espionage!

Oil/Walrus: *chortling like a walrus* *chortle* *jiggle* *chortle*

 

Immediately the top notes for me are truly skatole-ish, and not in a good way for me. Over time the scent does round out, and on me goes towards a dry more black patchouli. I suspect the culprits for me would be tobacco if it's a variable or different tobacco note, and oudh generally is good but maybe parts of it didn't play well together for my skin chemistry. This is definitely one to try a decant first. I think I may be able to deal with the drydown, but I'm kind of scared that others may smell the ferocious skatole-like opener and it may linger more or be more apparently freshly encountering someone. I'll let it age and see what happens.

This perfume is very much fresh, melty chocolate as a top note from the bottle. It's definitely not a very dark chocolate, but I'm getting the milk/white or cocoa butter vibe from the initial blast. This reminds me very much of the No One Heard Her But the Sparrows atmosphere spray and this shouldn't be a surprise as it contains similar notes of white chocolate, iris, and grey amber! I'm actually not getting too much peony, which is sad. This reads to me, as a slightly dusty, foody chocolate-floral blend, very much like the atmosphere spray. This is wonderful, as it's a very nice spray, and now I can smell like it!

Whoa. This is a little weird from the bottle, definitely spicy, and peppery. I definitely get a potent black pepper vibe, like black pepper essential oil. The chocolate is a dusky, dusty dark cocoa thing, definitely not sugary sweet! On my skin the pepper and cloves bloom immediately into a cloud of potent heat, with the cocoa riding along. After a few minutes, the immediate spiciness recedes, leaving a very sexy gourmand, cocoa-kissed incensy resin. I'm still getting a good deal of clove, kissed with depth with the amber and vanilla, which are not front and center. The cocoa always remains a slight foody twang on an otherwise beautifully sensual spice blend. Over a bit more time, this actually is veering towards Gelt (but like, sexier?)

Grandma's handing out fake coin candies but watch out! She's dangerous (and in lingerie).

I like this! I'll have to give it a few wears, but I do have my single bottle now lol. #blindbottlelifeyolo

Hrm. Interesting.

 

My favorite honeysuckle blend of all time is Liaidan and Curithir, probably because of its salty-aquatic ocean honeysuckle. I've really enjoyed BPAL's honeysuckle, and have been really disappointed when I've tried to pick up fragrance oils to try to en masse honeysuckle all the things. This is most definitely a sweet, yellow honeysuckle, for sure, when smelled from the bottle. On the skin, whoa baby, golden, singing, bees up in your grill honeysuckle.

 

I remember Asphodel itself from the GC when it existed and for some reason that always read to me as 'wisteria,' although not quite. Hyacinth has also been a tulip-y, watery scent, although I can't really place what that smells like by itself. So, basically this is to my nose a very slightly snow-touched (extremely light!) wet lighter floral that is mostly honeysuckle. I think there's a little hint of sweet smoke but I'm not really getting too much vetiver, even with drydown. I think my skin takes the sweet honeysuckle note and runs with it. I think the honey is contributing to the sweetness but it's by no means really that apparent, not to me at least. My skin also tends to take honey and change it into a potentially sweet hot mess, and that's not happening (yet).

 

As a guy, I don't really know if this is something I can get away with wearing a lot of, but it'll be a nice honeysuckle alternative as I nurse my last drops of Liaidan.

I'm a sucker for aquatics. I, however, have had terrible fortune with Carrot Seed blends. I don't know what it is (possibly a run-in with the carrot seed CO2 extract when I was a younger wolf).

This is immediately salty-aquatic like Pool of Tears aquatic, with a swiftly apparent sweetness. I think possibly that's the blue musk with the top notes of laudanum (cistus). There is frankincense here and it's probably adding to the first sparkle. It's combining well with the wry twist of salty aquatic and giving it a bit of a complementary high smoke, incense note. I'm probably getting champaca, as an equally higher toned white-yellow floral note, as parts of me are going Khajuraho? What? And that's likely the influence of that note. I love Khajuraho, for its sultry-sweet over the top exotic note.

I'm not getting too much carrot seed directly, although I'm sure with all these high notes, it's layering and helping to ground something here. The labdanum / cistus is also providing some depth and grounding.

This scent is a very nice aquatic, slightly different from aquatics I have. It reads more light and top-note-ish, and I think because of less purely rich grounding notes, it burns off on me pretty fast. But, it seems light, inoffensive, very beautiful. I think extremely wearable for work.

Rich, rich, loamy in the bottle. Definitely can get a bit of drier rose in the background, but this is a gritty, husky rose. These are dried, crushed rose petals.

I feel like I've sunk my face into a pot of soil. Over a few moments, what's a bit odd is that the scent starts migrating towards... spicy? While the rose doesn't amp, I'm getting an odd, but very fitting and pleasant swirling smoke. It's not vetiver, but, it's quite... oh! Yeah, that's a nice, beautiful smoky cedarwood. Not cedar or pencil shavings, but like the good essential oil of cedarwood. Deeply rich, very grounding, quite rooty. I have a bottle of Himalayan Cedarwood (Deodara) and this is immediately pushing buttons for it. I may be nose hallucinating, but it lends this blend a very true woodsy depth that is frankly amazing. Is there a bit of a white patchouli in here as well?

The rose plays quietly in the background, and on me never really has a diva moment (this is a good thing). I would classify this as environmental, still wearable but probably special circumstance. Over time the loam and soil note fades and this is a rose-kissed light golden woods blend. Starts heavy, ends on a nice thrummy middle note.

This is very nice. Each year with the Yules I generally find one or two blends that I stock up mightily upon, and this is one of the two (the other being Unmanageable Snowdrift).

 

Wet, this definitely has a strong aquatic tone, and a similar 'icy' note as Moon of Ice, Cold Moon, in that it has a quasi-eucalyptoid topnote. On the skin, I do get a little bit of a green-tinged subtle jasmine, but what I'm reading is a kiss of blue lotus absolute (?!) as the main floral component. The jasmine does not arise to the surface like a diva, but the kind of lightly sweet but extremely hypnotic florals must be a more subtle, smoky blend. Agree that violet leaf is always a gritty green, slightly resinous type of scent as opposed to my favorite floral, violet (the voluptuous heady purple type), and it's really not terribly potent in this blend either.

 

Over time, the aquatic note burns down and this turns into a very pleasant, close-to-the-skin subtle incense, without too much in terms of jasmine petal. You can still tell that it's a light floral incense, hugging close to the skin. I may be biased by the description but this is a blue smoke. I think a little bit of japanese koh incense, a single spiral of blue-tinted smoke risking from a charcoal burner.

Whoa. I mean, I should have known, my archnemesis mugwort would be here, all twirling her mustache like 'yeah, I have a mustache, what of it?' while looking down over the top of her wire rim glasses. Her nineteen-point-three cats are milling about, all enjoying the musty stagnancy that is mugwort on Lycanthrope's skin. So, as most of the mugwort blends, please take with a grain of salt - it's like rose, amps to crazy high heaven on me, while browsing for Braun beard razors through amazon.com.

 

I really wanted to find some of the other notes in this blend, so I let the oil sit on my skin for a good thirty minutes. There's so much promise in the note list. I love tuberose, and bourbon vanilla usually drives scents into enough of a sweet-foody category that I'll love it regardless of whatever else is in the blend. I actually don't get very much smokiness, contrary to what you'd think from the tobacco and opium notes. What's even weirder is that I don't get any fruit/plum notes, which usually also at least give notes a brisk fruity kick.

 

I have a feeling that Paysage is remarkably well blended but deceptively smooth given the many 'spiky' or potentially potent notes. Over a bit of time, even through the muddy butt that is mugwort on my skin, and bear with me, it's like the quietest components of each of the notes whispers. Like a purple sigh of plum rind. The quiet waxiness of tuberose. Vanilla dust. Even the smoke notes are like extinguished incense. After thirty minutes, it's like the resonance of a fragrance remains in the air.

 

It's actually pretty beautiful but I can't do the mugwort, and what does dry down is sumptuous rich, like the kind of sumptuousity that I don't really reach for. Like a velvet pillow embroidered with a cat and a Braun logo (free with purchase of beard trimmer, special discount for mustachio'd supervillainesses).

This is pretty similar to one of the Frankenstein releases a few years back, The Country of Eternal Light, with a few differences.

 

Whereas the Country of Eternal Light was still a sweet, bracing, bright mint with the sweetness of peppermint and a similar drydown, it had a little bit of rockiness and 'lichen,' lending a tiny gray-green twinge. I love it, of course, and have stockpiled so much of that, but I had to go ahead and get more of Unmanageable Snowdrift.

 

It has a similar sweet, very bright mint (mostly peppermint, but probably some spearmint too). It dries down as Little Bird mentions into something like Lick It with much less vanilla or sugar. It's still herbal sweet, not sugary or foodie sweet, which is fine by me!

For some reason, when I spray this, I get an awesome, blood-red painted rich music box, like made of mahogany, that has dried rose petals in it. The initial blast has a bit more of the fruit, but this mellows out into an extremely sexy, woodsy, voluptuous rose. It's super sexy. The red patchouli drips with a beautiful huskiness, and the rose petals don't overpower. It's still quite floral, though, so take that into account!

I really like this one!

From the sprayer and spritzer it's a very buttery chocolate. I get actually a bit more milk chocolate, but not sure if it's because of the slight smoky sandalwood. I get a chocolatey violet, like a fine French confection. Sprayed in the air it definitely is a blast of foody, buttery vanilla-chocolate, with a dusty but violet/orris powderiness. I think there's definitely a bit of grounding from the sandalwood but by no means is it a very powerful woodsiness. The amber probably makes this glitter a bit, but I recall the grey amber being uber-smooth, and not terribly sweet. This reads as a slightly floral gourmand, in the violet-chocolate family. I kind of love it.

Backups, plox.

I always tend to be a bit spastic with violet scents. My favorites would be orris-y/violet-y blends like The Darkling Thrush, and Sybaris, scents that really bring out the powdery, sweet and candy-like aspects of the flower. There are a few violet blends that seem to be a more forceful, less floral type of violet. Brusque Violet comes to mind, since the resinous opoponax turns it from being sweet and delicate into a much deeper, darker thing, but then turns woefully on my skin into a sourness that I can't get away with. Certain times resinous violet works such as in Nothing But Death, but I think that was tempered with some more sweet fruits.

 

This plum I get is definitely dark, dry, like a prune, and the benzoin resin must be driving this into the more sharp and dirty category. I can tell there is amber but it's not glittering like in some amber blends. Overall on my skin this does have a faint top violet note, but reads more as a deep slightly sour resin. The plum again gives it a rindy quality I just can't quite sit with.

 

I don't think this is one of my violet successes, but that's ok! So much more to try

Wow.

 

This frankincense sparkles. It's a beautiful, crisp, soaring frankincense. I love how it glitters. Meanwhile, the ambergris makes it rounder and grounds the glitter. I'm trying to figure out the misty florals... I wonder if it's a touch of tuberose, maybe, because I'm getting a similar feel to this tuberose-winter scent (A Cold, Clear Winter's Day?). It gets a little bit sugary near the end, so not sure if that's the ambergris doing what it does on me like a sweet musk.

 

I like it. I'm not sure I'll wear too much because on dry down, like most top notes in perfumes, this goes to me like a sweet soft floral (not my style!) but I think I'd love to slather it when it's snowy out, or foggy.

From the bottle this is a soft, unobtrusive, downy lavender. On the skin it immediately blooms with a bit of woods, and a little grittiness from the moss. By no means is this very powerful in terms of grassy or herbal. The orris is probably keeping this mix dry, as it dries I can get a little bit more of the lavender returning as like those fresh crushed florets between the fingers... like a hint of green, spike lavender, or something... With time the lavender settles and then this whole mix of 'white night florals' sidles up all like 'hey, babe. I'm a hot chick in a wedding dress. It's all like, sultry and stuff. Even though you're in a onesie pajama, let's do this.'

So I get a slightly woodsy, rich, dry and moderately dusty sweet lavender supported by a chorus of white floral.

It's nice! I'll have to try this as a sleep blend. It's very relaxing and reads like a Somnus blend.

ETA: Over time I get a really weird association with LUSH's Alkmaar line. No clue why.

Super tropical!

I get mostly a brown, furry, fuzzy musk (of course!) and it's very heavily tinted with a tropical coconut. It's definitely a meatier, creamier coconut (so, like truly an oil, as opposed to fakey artificial sunblock smell). I get the verbena and lemon as a bright sunny tone, and since it's not on my skin it doesn't amp. The citrus lends a very tropical drink feel, so it's like a colada (but no pina?) The clove makes everything cuddlier, and I think it's the slight smoky sweetness I get at the end of the musk. Carnation is probably there, but I'm not reading that as forwards. I like this very much. It'd be perfect for early spring, summer...

NATCH.

Whoa. Like, this was totally unexpected for a Halloween update. I was thinking, beaches, pumpkins, blood, musk, yeah, Weenies!

This instead is like a sprayable spring storm in the mountains. It seems light but there's a lot of complexity. Right off the bat from the nozzle it reminds me a touch of something piney, tree-like, resinous. In a way it's like Fae Forest but not nearly as lush, it's more the snap of lightning and rain spray over pine needles. The oak is not overpowering but it lends a very true forest-y feel to the spray. Moss is detectable as a roughness around the stormy rain. There's an element like Danube or Amsterdam in the moist aquatic tones. The violet is present, but it's not a violet-forward scent. They peek around, and with the moss and oak, really lend this a wild feel. I let it sit around in my bedroom for about half an hour, and it remains a complicated, airy, but extremely evocative outdoors scent. It lingers in the air like mist after tumultuous weather.

Good god. I just bought four more. I haven't done that since Snow Bunny.

If you love Fae Forest, Arkham, lighter versions of Black Forest, etc... you owe yourself this spray!

This is similar to Jailbait and 'Lilith's Bubblegum and Roses' but has a much more fruit-forward tone to it. Definitely the top impressions are a wet, juicy, genuine Bazooka Joe like bubblegum. I think there's maybe a touch of a strawberry feel to it but I mostly get the uber-pink type, and I'm not getting much of the fleshy drydown in things like Strawberry Moon(s) of past. This has a little less spice to it but it still has the traditional bubblegum/tutti-frutti mild cinnamon vibe, but I don't think it's true cinnamon. Not getting burning.

I'm really looking for wind or ozone, but I'm not finding it very prominent in Pop!. This is a magnificent candy/gum scent, and I love the picture (I wonder who the lady next to Lil is... she has been immortalized onto perfume!). I'll be satisfied with my stash of Lilith's Bubblegum and Roses, but this is also a charming alternative.

So, um, I don't know if I maybe I'm just weird, but it smells like cucumber and the airy/sappy 'green' part of a leaf, then on me it's slightly sweet, then ziploc bags / freshly crinkled saran wrap, then... fades... to something slightly powdery sweet, with a little sappiness still left behind.

 

It really does smell like plastic, maybe a little of that note in Torn Candy Bag bath oil?

 

It's a little, on me at least, stomach turning, but only because it's smells so genuinely like tiny wisps of stretchy plastic.

 

My curiosity got the better of me on this one! I'll keep it though, because, HOARDING

Whoa...

 

So, when I first got my bottle of Candy Butcher, it was very thin, and had an alcohol-like smell to it. Also almost no staying power. I was curious if I had a true 'oil' (it evaporated off my skin like alcohol). This was the original release. What I did get was a buttery rich vanilla-cocoa, definitely like a candy bar, and I loved it, but thought I may have had a weird bottle. Then it got discontinued and all hope of getting original CB was lost.

 

This release is definitely a darker chocolate, and then when it's on, for me it reads very husky, deep, earthy, downright evil. Not sure what makes it turn that way. Maybe the 'bittersweet' enabled some very creepy dark notes to creep in. It is very much like The Other Hot Chocolate (deep gritty, chocolate) but this one... I put it on today and I'm going to a LAN party later, and I'm thinking of scrubbing it off just because it has plenty of throw, and I smell so... ferocious. Purry, like, sex kitten ferocious. Whoops.

 

It's nice. A little will go a long way. It's not a replacement for what I think the original CB was, at least for me, but it's its own scent.

This is just as I remembered it, even as a reformulation. It reads as a slightly lightning-kissed (without the sharpness of Lightning), atmospheric, sweet night floral (more... phlox and moonflower, not jasmine-heavy!) with a wisp of smoke. A smoky, hazy floral. When I first encountered Act I, I only bought one bottle, then I think the original was discontinued and I had been hoarding my lonely half bottle. I like this a lot, and those with the original will also find it extremely similar (at least on my skin!)

The number on my floral is 76.

 

Wet: I've... smelled this before... it's very familiar. It doesn't smell like flowers.

On skin: APPLE BLOSSOM, and a fresh, fleshy apple fruit.

A little later: Oh, yeah, that's a bit of jasmine. Please don't amp!

About twenty minutes: Oh, yeah... it's jasmine. Not a bad one, but I turn jasmine into single notes. It still has a hint of apple. So, like an exotic apple jasmine. Although the apple is really faint, I keep thinking of cutting open an apple and smelling the core, but sitting by a big jasmine bush.

 

Very tropical. Sultry.

 

What a random thing! I would usually never pick this type of scent.

Bottle sniff: Wet, definitely a tiny hint of the mugwort (frightening for me, since... mudbutt, on my skin chemistry). I smell more green, leafy things, and probably a little sharpness from the palmarosa.

On skin: Oh, yeah, mugwort, but then it segues into the bay, and then the usual muddled dirtiness of mugwort lifts, and I'm getting more of the freshness of tea. The herbalness when wet is very much the clary sage. There's probably a hint of sweetness from the lotus but it is not bubblegum sweet.

As it dries: I can feel and sense more of the myrrh that does ground a lot of the airy / ethereal notes. There's still a very nice but extremely herbal nature - definitely mystical, melded herbs.

Over time, it stays predominantly a green-ish, leafy, herbal, bay/gritty mugwort blend on me with a nice ground of resin with the styrax and myrrh. It's much less smooth (at this point fresh from the Lab) than the other Blue Moon incarnations I've tried before, and definitely smells magical. It is not my favorite of the Blues, and for me does not smell Blue, but it is very nice and reminds me of a TAL type blend.

I used to have a Yankee Candle named 'Roses of Cliff Walk,' and that was very close to what I remember. It's very hard for any traditional rose scent to hit that because it's... um, a more grassy, slightly more upturned (? I can't describe it any other way) rose, lighter for sure, slightly spicy, but also the salt air made it smell a touch ozonic... But it never read to me as 'lush' or 'creamy.' So maybe trying to stay away from the pure Red Rose note Beth uses (that one is beautiful, but I always think of traditional roses when I smell them), and anything described as 'creamy.'

 

Um... hrm...

 

The sad thing is Yankee hasn't made that scent for a while, and I think my mother may have given away one of my old ones (the nightmare of a hoarder - let one thing go and then you crave it forever).

 

I like Maiden, but that is a very carnation-y blend, however on me it's the lightest and least 'lush' rose possible. So, sorry I can't be more help. /rambling/

 

 

 

I wonder if you were to layer 'The Rose' with 'Cthulhu' or even 'A Fit of Artistic Enthusiasm' (more The Rose, less the following) if that would get the salty light rose going.

Sweet, sweet on the skin off the bat. Vanilla leather. This is a deeper more fleshy leather. Then, very rich black musk. I amp black musk on my skin. I can tell this would be a very potent, musky leather cloud around my hair. I am terrible at identifying ambergris in any scent (even the ones with it like listed as the third ingredient of three items), but I guess that would add a waxy richness and slight saltiness (I do get that but it's not bad). In the end, a rich, black musk vanilla with maybe a twist of spanked leather and sweat-salt. I could probably as a guy get away with this but I would feel like this would go on a more ravishing gentleman than mild-mannered me.

Oh! That's a lot going on all at once on my hair/skin. I guess I get a small hint of sweet red musk, a kiss of it like in Fenris Wolf and Scheherezade, but that disappears really fast under an upswell of ALL THE NOTES off the bat. I get a smoky amber that combined with the peppery gunpowder rises as a spicy, fiery resin. Rum is apparent as a hint of the Grog (but without butter), supported by a sweet sugar from the rum and the honey. I get the vanilla as more of a quiet supporter rather than a primary note. The red musk is lurking in the background, and this remains fiery, red, fierce. It's definitely not completely sweet though, since the spices keep it in the rich and complicated territory. I do like this. I may have to get another, although with short hair, and other competing hair glosses, one bottle may be enough!

... ETA: I bought another one.