Mountaingrrl00

This is pretty much summer in a bottle. The strawberry dominates at first, true and tart-sweet, then recedes into an ethereal green scent. I got a bottle of this and it's a great winter pick-me-up as well as a fitting light scent in summer.

I can't believe I haven't reviewed this yet! It's one of my all-time favorites. The mead note is very true, yummy and rich. The way it mixes with the lemon and spices and gruit smells warm and festive and never fails to put me in a good mood.

This had promise. I love incense scents, and I like the syrupy aspect to this one, but something about it consistently made me sneeze. Had to swap it away.

I keep trying different things on, but my place smells definitively of Goblin of Yuletide Present.

This smells like bright copper at first, and it reminds me more than a bit of Copper Phoenix. I agree with filigree_shadow that it is fruity and bright and happy, too. The peach and citrus distinguish themselves first. The floral notes are subtle and spring-like. I can't really pick out the cypress or hemp, and I only know the dragon's blood is there because of the metal association. This is a nice mood-booster of a scent.

I love it. The strong cardamom and nutmeg give it an assertiveness and brightness that gradually melds into the richness of the leather, coffee, hazelnut and tobacco. This is heady stuff, quite sexy, and yummy without being overtly foodie.

Spicy plastic leather? I think it's the dragon's blood that's behaving oddly on me, although I don't have this reaction to Dragon's Milk. I usually love the Lab's spice scents, but this one doesn't work for me.

Does anyone have recs for spicy scents that aren't predominantly clove/cinnamon? As much as I love the spicy sweetness, I'm currently in the mood for something a bit more... dark and savoury, I guess? Saffron, cardamom, pepper and the like.

 

I had very high hopes for Scherezade, but that was pure red musk on me, and I was completely in love with the saffron/black musk combo in Khandita until it got swallowed by the rose. Any recs for something of that ilk would be wonderful!

 

The Arabian Dance (from the 2010 Yules) is cardamom-spicy and smoky with coffee, tobacco and hazelnut. It's rich but not sweet.

This is an amazingly nostalgic scent for me. It reminds me of baking with my grandmother. She used to make these light, creamy cookies scented with ginger and vanilla and orange extracts. Mother Ginger is like being in that kitchen and stirring the batter and having the ingredients wafting around. The marshmallow is there too -- the same cozy note that's in TKO. The strong natural ginger fades after a few hours, and I'm left with the marshmallow and French vanilla and a very light, creamy orange.

First impressions: citrus, clean, green, fresh, sparkly, gender-neutral. No particular note dominates. The teas are definitely present but they balance each other out, so the black tea isn't too astringent and the green tea isn't too powdery. In some ways this smells light and summery, but there's also a deeper scent underneath that's herbal and earthy.

Wet on skin: there's more sweetness from the mandarin and violet now, and at the same time the sharpness of the tea comes forward. I still have a strong "fresh, sparkly" impression.

Dry on skin: I love that the slight bit of fruitiness is still lingering. I think that may be the wormwood as well as or instead of the king mandarin. It's both citrusy and green, in the way litsea cubeba is. The green tea is soft. There's a slightly bitter earthiness that blends in with everything else in a way I like.

It lingers as an earthy tea for a long time. Some of the complexity fades, but not the refreshing quality.

At first sniff, this is chilly and almost ozone-like, as BPAL pomegranate often is to me. It warms up quickly on my skin, though, and morphs into a beautiful bittersweet scent that's like chocolate oranges, but lighter and with a bit of a perfume edge. It's yummy but not too foody. There's something that's almost like orange zest in the drydown. I like this a lot -- it's very cheerful in a grown-up way. It doesn't have much throw, but it does last a long time.

Not available as a lab imp, but if you can get a decant of The Unsteady Governess from swaps, it's a wonderful tea scent - just white tea and violet leaf.

Wet: Very true to the scent of a horse chestnut. I can smell the glossy wood of the husk as well as the nutty meat. The honey is like a flavor-enhancer, bringing the smell forward.

 

Dry: More muted. Sweet, but in a softer way. A little greener and less nutty.

 

After eight hours: It has faded completely from the back of my hand, but is still a soft honey on my wrists.

Thank goodness Baitu frimped me this, because I never would have thought to try it based on the scary description. (I'm sure I'm unusual here, but the birch scared me the most after my experience with it in Vinland.) I even hesitated to try it on, as the pine was so strong in the vial. But as soon as it goes on my skin, it smells lovely! The musky notes become soft and snuggly, the pine is recognizable but blends and mellows, and there's a nice herbal thing going on in the background. It stays pretty close to the skin and becomes faint pretty quickly, but the last faint phase lasts a long time. I'm very glad I came across this, and expect I'll be wearing it a lot this winter.

Is anyone else getting a nutty smell in the wet phase? I know cherries can sometimes read as almonds and vice-versa, but I'm not even getting almond at first -- it's like a rich mixture of hazelnuts and chestnuts, with a buttery sweetness. Then it dries down and I get the fruit, strawberries and cherries and yeah, graham cracker crust. Then it gets really soft, lightly sweet with a fruit undertone and a kind of powdery quality I associate with amber, though I never smelled amber. I really like this final powdery phase and wish it had more throw at this point. It's a really pretty gourmand scent for when I'm in that kind of mood. Makes me terribly hungry, though.

Halloween: Los Angeles deserves mention in this thread.

Gingerbread Poppet today to go with all the other foodie smells of the day.

2010 Version:

 

It's a light, thin amber in the vial. It blooms quickly on my skin. The amber becomes richer and a bit sweeter, and there are also smoky and leathery notes as it dries down. I remember previous versions being more citrusy. This version is more resiny, spicier and sexier. It doesn't have a lot of throw, but lasts a long time and is wonderful for sniffing my wrists throughout the day.

ladyjc frimped me this, and her loss turned out to be my gain. This isn't a scent I'd wear every day, but as a special-occasion scent I think it's amazing. The opium tar is the strongest note, and the scent as a whole is very smoky and musky, with just very subtle floral and fruit things going on way in the background. It reminds me of the heady perfumes I associated with sophisticated older women when I was a kid. I'll be rationing my decant for the best winter parties, I think.

I'm sad this one didn't work for me. It smells surprisingly food-like to me -- like melted vanilla ice cream and waffle cones, or maybe malted milk balls without the chocolate coating. I love the honey in Mead Moon and I love the musks in Smut, so in theory I should love The Infernal Lover, but the creaminess seems to override everything else.

Evening Cicadas and Red Peppers from last year's Yule LEs is a nice one.

 

"Frost-limned, ice-bejeweled branches, scattered blood-red maple leaves, a few camellia petals, red peppers, and nacreous, multi-colored musks that shimmer like gently-beating cicada wings."

 

The ice reads as rain to my nose.

It's almost single-note honey on me, a sweet but sharp honey with just a hint of something dark and herbal underneath. It hardly morphs at all, and lasts a long time. This would be good for layering, I think.

This is so clean, fresh and elegant. It's like a scented tea -- I get the Earl Grey association too. There's a gentle green zing when it's wet. When it dries down I get a little bit more soft violet, but it's not at all sweet or cloying. The tea still predominates and blends with the violet for an overall refreshing effect. The throw is medium to low (seems to die down as it dries down) and the wear length is fairly short. I anticipate carrying this around for reapplication, especially in the summer.

I love the Lab's mead note in Mead Moon and Hellcat. Any recommendations for other mead scents to try?

There's also Bonfire Night and Mnemosyne: Los Angeles.