bellumed

Good Cheer is incredibly delicious and a perfect winter scent: cozy and sweet and a little spicy. Great staying power, too! I sprayed this before I came home for the holiday, and when I got back I could immediately detect it, light but still clinging to my blankets. My room smells really, really good.

Clean, lemony rosewood and cedar with sage and a big juicy pomegranate. Clean wood, yes, but thankfully it’s not as literal as a Lemon Pledge scent, haha. The fruitiness and herbal layer save it. And it’s not what I’d call obvious, but there’s a bit of sweet vanilla softness that develops on the skin. I wavered, because this is not my typical kind of scent, but dammit, no, this is just too interesting to swap away! H&C is a complex puppy for sure. And it's oddly charming!

Nothing sinful or corrupted about Sin! If anything, this seems like a holy scent to me... all dry and dark resin. Fortunately I think it's delicious. I'll have to consider a bottle purchase of this.

Vibrant yellow petals bursting exultantly through a patch of snow. I'm no good at identifying floral notes, so I'll keep this short. Basically the description is bang on the money: a light, cool scent with a pleasant floral. Simple and pretty, no complaints here!

2010 Much as I enjoy the actual drink, wine scents really aren't my thing. But after reading the description, I was floored by how much I liked the smell of this in the imp, not grapey at all, just delicious and sweet, like cake and pomegranate candy. Sadly once it's on my skin it morphs away from that, first into an olive leaf scent and then into the grape I expected. Even that's not really bad, but I just don't care that much for grape, so this one isn't for me.

2009 version: Spiced milk, sweet and ultra-soothing. I like the way this smells, but it's extremely light and on drydown I have to put my face right up to the spot to smell anything. May be worth seeking out if you don't mind subtle blends. As for me, I'll keep my decant but don't need any more.

This is great! Ginger and frosting and mint and fruity candy. It's very light on drydown, sugary icing and soft (but present) gingerbread. This one doesn't hit you over the head, it's just subtle and sweet.

Mother Shub's lovingly hand-crafted gingerbread temples are sure to summon a little extra joy for the wee ones! Mother Shub's secret gingerbread recipe contains ritually-consecrated resins and pulped root from her own hydroponically-grown Saturnian ginger cultivar. Each temple is decorated with sweets from local candymaker Abyssal Addictions! Has a nice, somewhat sweet ginger scent. However, as others have said, it's light and fades super quickly. I like it well enough, but there are ginger(bread) blends out there with better staying power.

I wouldn't say this is a particularly sexual perfume. It is, however, all woman: no little girl stuff here. Sed Non Satiata opens up with honey, cognac and flowers but eventually becomes dominated by tuberose and geranium. This is a beautiful floral with a little darkness to ground it, and as someone who is not a fan of floral blends in general and has trouble with rose at times, I treasure the ones that work for me. Very natural. Keeping my bottle.

Nymphia smells like a spa. Lotion and cucumber slices and coconut water and tasteful flowers in vases and powdery lavender aromatherapy. Vaguely clinical though not sterile. Definitely a “white” scent.

Sweet cherry, sort of like Danish filling, though of course it is more complex than that. Almond, rose, and lemon, too. One of the better cherry scents, in my opinion... in that I can stand it. Reeeeaaaalllly not a cherry fan (it always goes to plasticky candy for me), but if you are, I'd check this one out.

Blueberry foodie goodness with a touch of cold woodsy greenery. Reminds me a lot of Lou Lou's Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake.

Super spicy ginger and clove, kinda sweet but IMO not pastry-like at all. Somehow spicy and smooth at the same time. Perhaps it's just the association, but to me this does smell a bit like brand new wood, sharp and young. This is such a perfectly BPALish scent, y'know? It smells great, but YPS is also just kinda weird! I don't ever expect to find a commercial perfume that smells like this. It's unusual, it's intriguing, and it's cool.

Rose, jasmine, and more rose? No, it is NOT a delight!!! As soon as I open it, I’m hit with a powerful wave of the familiar jasmine stank and something that smells like a chemical floral air freshener. I swiped it on for science, and it was immediately much more tolerable. Now it smells like fresh flowers. I have no desire to smell like it, but I also don’t need to run and wash it off. Predictable answer is predictable: if you like florals, you will probably enjoy this. If you don't like florals, this will not be the game-changer.

Man this STINKS! Jasmine screaming at the top of its lungs with some burning cinnamon lumped on top. Thankfully this becomes much prettier on my skin, a honey-vanilla-cinnamon that reminds me of a cinnamon roll, but the florals keep it from being actually foodie. The champaca and olive blossom are showing up a bit now; jasmine has dialed it back. While Defututa on me is an enormous improvement over the scent in the bottle, I still don't think I'm in love with it. I'll pass on this one.

Honeyish but basically well-blended: no notes in particular LEAP out. I have to agree with those who mentioned a woodsy note, as it starts off all woods and tobacco on my skin before the orange blossom honey develops more on drydown. Gotta say, the final result is a bit dull to me.

Super sweet but not candylike, just strong in the honey vanilla, which I certainly can't complain about. It's airy and delicious! The beeswax keeps it from being pedestrian, despite its hyper-femininity it's not commercial at all. The florals bloom prettily on my skin-- normally I'd mourn the loss of a more foodie scent, but no. This is femmey and alluring. I would totally wear it on a date. Wonderful stuff, so glad I have a bottle!

Very interesting in the bottle. Same family as Embalming Fluid, light and pretty aloe and citrus, with ginger giving it some spice. But on me, I get a boring-ass sandalwood and musk. Ginger chills in the background, but it's just not doing it for me.

Reminds me a little of a chocolate orange, only not nearly as sweet. It is definitely cacao we’re dealing with here, not chocolate, because it’s quite bitter. The coffee is also a strong note. Dry ebony comes out more on my skin… followed by stale tobacco, unfortunately. That nice chocolate-orange smell lives on in the background, but it is overpowered.

2011: Reminds me of old but very fine linen, once white but now a little tatty after years of washing, scented with sachets of dried flowers. Old-fashioned and, indeed, ghostly.

Pretty straightforward: sweet fruit and a little sugary booze to give it a kick. You can smell that thick, sweet, sludgy fruit at the center of the truffle. A must-have for raspberry lovers.

Deep and potent in the bottle, smells like some chocolate cocktail, but my skin eats it up til it’s just sour lime powder. Not for me I guess. Reminds me of Thunder and Blazes, of all things.

Pretty and soft orange-gold scent. A little fig is noticeable. Lovely as the notes sound and nice as it smells in the bottle, Forever is Mercy Built just doesn't work out on me. The tamarind becomes bitter and the patch is dirty, and while the result isn't terrible, it’s nothing to write home about. I'll pass my bottle along to someone who can enjoy it more.

This is the longest-lasting carbonated note I've ever tried, I'm so pleased! Bon Vivant, Fizzy Jack O'Lantern, and Gnome all went flat on me, but this one's sticking around. It's fizzy and citrus-y but overall still smooth, I guess from creamy white chocolate. I enjoyed this one far more than I ever expected to.

It feels more than smells like smoke and musk, somehow. Cloudy. What’s underneath that is quiet but feminine. On my skin, whoa, lemon just exploded! Then it's allllllllll heliotrope. This reminds me a ton of Lolita, I think I may not be such a fan of powerful heliotrope notes.