bheansidhe

Full disclosure: I love the actual mint plant, but I dislike* mint flavor or scent mixed with anything else** (the sole exception being Andes chocolate mint wafers). Further disclosure: 99.99% of any "honey" or "beeswax" or "candle" note goes horrifically bad on me, so this skin test is legit Taking One For the Team. Sniffed, this is a 50/50 blend of cool vanilla mint and the same juicy, golden-sweet peach note from some of my favorite past Dragoncon blends. I don't get the minty blast I remember from Lick It; this seems like the softer vanilla mint note of Snowblind. It takes about 20 minutes for the marshmallow to develop. The notes stay pretty true during drydown: candied honey, warm peach, and a touch of after-dinner mint. It has a pretty low throw, and the peach reads almost like a warm skin musk, so this would be a good "up close and personal" kind of scent. It's sweet but not in-your-face foody; you'll smell like hard honey candies, not a walking dessert case. *Mint in coffee is an abomination. **I know mint plus fruit is a thing, but it makes as much sense to my nose as mint plus steak.

Rose musk, peach blossom, and vanilla cream. Emphasis on the cream and the musk (like a soft skin musk), not the rose. This smells like plush fur feels, all creamy to the nose. It is shockingly lovely and understated, and if rose in all forms did not abhor my skin, I would buy it.

A raucous, fiery glitter, all pumpkin orange with glints of vine-green. Swatched at Will Call. Definitely a fiery glitterbomb. Gold, bright orange, and red-orange glitters, accented with tiny pinpoint black and green glitters. I seem to remember a bit of a holo flare; little red holo and gold flecks, maybe? Halloween on a nail! Much brighter and more orange than the photo on the site (on my monitor, anyway). One coat was good but semi-sheer coverage, and two was solid glitter. I'm sure you could do some great layering with it, too.

The combination of the sweet Snake Oil resins and the salty nutty prank base make me think of caramel corn, which makes me think of this blend as a mashup between Snake Oil and Midway. It's been years since I smelled Midway, so I may be off base here, but there's still a jolly dark carnival vibe to the blend. I don't get any aquatics; I do get salt, but it's what I think of as the "dry salt" base of Jolly Roger (and Gingerbread Jolly Roger, one of my favorite blends!). Within the hour, though, this settles down to a lighter, nuttier, but still recognizable Snake Oil, except that Snake in a Can smells gold where straight Snake Oil smells mahogany, if that makes sense.

I love the cucumber and blue musk notes for when I want something springlike or feminine, and the bitter blackcurrant-and-tobacco tar Dead Leaves weenie was a surprise hit, so I took a chance with it. This one wants the heat of your bathwater to bloom, I think. It smells like I'm floating in the inky blue-black waters of a Roman bath in an underground hall. The almond blossom lends a touch of warmth, but it's primarily blue musk balancing the sweet mimosa and the astringent, bitter-juice blackcurrant. Think "sullen, deadly sea siren taking her beauty bath." I may sell a decant out of my bottle because I don't see myself reaching for it often enough to use it all up before the shelf life expires, but it's actually really gorgeous and unlike all of my other bath oils, which lean toward resins and warm notes.

[No additional description given.] Of the five DL blends I tried, this one one smells the most dead-leafy when wet, with a strong, bracingly bitter edge. The leaf-ness of the dark tobacco marries really well with the leaf-ness of the DL note. The blackcurrant is tart and astringent and *just* fruity enough to keep the blend balanced and wearable. This is outdoorsy and cold and wild, not tame and pipe-shop. It takes a softer, more dried-fruit aspect as it wears. I didn't expect to like this one as much as I do. ETA: bought a bottle! That's how much I liked it.

I love Perversion and Wild Men, so maybe we have some skin similarities? Doc Constantine (Sheer musk, cedar smoke, fir needle, chaparral, black amber and leather.) The Black Rider (Black leather, oppoponax, tobacco, and BLACK amber.) Sarah, The Mother Bear (tonka bean, soft brown leather, myrrh, white sage, gurjum balsam, Ceylon cinnamon bark, red sandalwood, sweet tobacco, and a touch of gunsmoke.) Crowley (Infernal musk, red patchouli, lilac cologne, mahogany, lemon rind, oakmoss, leather, and vanilla husk. ) Bread-and-Butterfly (Its wings are thin slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.') Kali (This perfume is a blend of the sacred blooms of cassia, hibiscus, musk rose, Himalayan wild tulip, lotus and osmanthus swirled with offertory dark chocolate, red wine, tobacco, balsam and honey.) Intrigue (Black palm with cocoa, fig, and shadowy wooded notes.) Ranger (buckskin accord with Terebinth pine, Russian birch, black ironwood, elder bark, hay, armoise, juniper, patchouli, galangal root, Spanish moss, and cabreuva.) Golden Priapus (vanilla and amber with juniper, rosewood and white pine.) LE: Phoenix and Dragon, Lupercalia 2016 (Incense-blackened oudh and bourbon vanilla with tobacco absolute and 9-year aged patchouli.) Dead Leaves and Tobacco (2015) Pan Twardowski and the Devil (2015) (Brown leather, bay leaf, tobacco leaf, lavender, and oudh.)

I love this, actually. Spanish Moss was a favorite note on my skin, while Oakmoss went sour and too masculine. Tomb Moss reads a lot like Spanish Moss with added notes of dry salt, fresh moist dirt, and what I think may (logically) be concrete. Despite the mossiness and saltiness, it's not an "aquatic" on me. It's lighter and sweeter and drier than I picture tomb moss to be. In fact, if you had told me this was really the "dead leaves" note, I'd buy it. This is more like what I expect from a dead leaf accord. Contemplating a bottle! I bet it would layer well.

LURID BONBON Dark chocolate dotted by cacao nibs, laced with black currant, Bulgarian lavender, white musk, and thick resins. Terry Pratchett invented a color called octarine, described as "alive and glowing and vibrant, and incidentally a kind of greenish purple." So, if this analogy helps at all, Lurid Bonbon smells like octarine dark chocolate to my nose. Chocolate itself is warm and fuzzy and matte, while lavender and currant and white musk are sharp and scintillating, so you would logically expect this combination to fight itself, but it doesn't at all. The resins marry the two poles beautifully. The chocolate component is dark, and has the same feel as the chocolate in Chocolate Stout Cupcake, but where that was a brutal chemistry mishap, Lurid Bonbon was a bottle purchase after I skin-tested at Will Call. This reads as a musk/resin perfume with a chocolate haze, rather than a foody-forward chocolate blend, though YMMV. Very sexy and adult, with tons of throw. One of the very few chocolate BPALs that succeeds against my weird chemistry.

Sniffed at Will Call! You know the old Warner Bros cartoons, where a character puts a seashell to their ear to hear the ocean and instead a giant wave sploooshes out and fish jump out their other ear? A Sea Ghost was like cracking the bottle to sniff and being plunged into a technicolor (well, mostly blues and greys) oil painting of a shipwreck - all salty spray and groaning dark timbers and rattling chains and wailing gales and noctilucent waves. I wanted to go back and smell it again, but there was only one bottle in stock and it sold lickety-split.

Sniffed wet: oakmoss-dominant dead leaves and lea-heh-heah-EATher. This is definitely a "wet" masculine fougere type. Oddly, even though clove's usually the 900 pound gorilla in the blend, the leather completely smothers the clove at first. Clove's a fighter, though. Eventually I smell it around the edges - at this stage it's like a hit of spicy aftershave. The bourbon vanilla may as well not be there, unless it's just the glue softening the sharp edges of everything else. Dry, I just get "clove-spiced fougere." This is too much of a dude fume for me, and the least dead-leafy of the five I tried. It's oakmoss all the way.

I don't specifically get "blackberries" at first sniff, but I do get an astringent-sweet dark berry note, crisp green leaves, and soft wet leaves. I think she may be using different DL formulas, because this one smells much more herbal and much less like the oakmoss base in DL Lavender and DL Cardamom. Here, it's the blackberries that sing. DL and Blackberries is sweeter, fruitier, and more summery than DL Blackcurrant and Tobacco Tar, but not candy-girlish. There's still a wistful feel of early autumn and of gathering a ripe final harvest before the cold sets in. It does sweeten up as it wears, but it doesn't lose the realistic berry-ness. I love this the most after several hours of wear; it's like a lingering berry lip stain of a scent.

Is it masculine? Is it feminine? Time for..... *drumroll* tiebreaker review! However you interpret the "dead leaves" note, this blend is dominated by a sharp, chilly, medicinal lavender when wet. I can see where the previous reviewer got a cologne-y vibe from the mossy, musky base under the lavender. To me it's unisex, but there's nothing soft or feminine about it at this stage. I'd actually peg this as a lavender and oakmoss blend if I were sniffing blind. It becomes softer and more soporific as it dries. Long-wearing, too: I put some on before bed to test its sleepability, and I woke up with my arm smelling fantastic for the rest of the day. I liked it better after 12 hours of wear, honestly... and NOW it's soft and more feminine-leaning. Like many of the dead leaves-and blends, I get "expensive Anthropologie fall candle" instead of "perfume." I actually like this on my skin, but to me it begs to be poured into an oil warmer to scent my room. I also think it would be a great fall sleeping blend (if your bed partner approved). Conclusion: may not be your cup of tea for perfume, but I may buy a bottle for scenting a sleep pillow or warming in a burner. And if this ever gets released as a Post candle, I'm scraping together the coin to buy one.

Pumpkin artwork by Asenath Waite! Blackened pumpkin with clove, tobacco absolute, aged patchouli, and oakmoss. Clove, tobacco absolute, aged patchouli, and oakmoss James Earl Jones / Barry White duet in the pumpkin patch. Slightly more useful review on retest: Beautiful; woodsy, mossy, with a dry spiced pumpkin pulp in the background. Not a foody blend, nor a pumpkin-dominant one, though pumpkin lends a beautiful soft creaminess in the back. This smells like a spiced forest floor. It's masculine without reading as "cologne," and while the clove is definitely there, it doesn't seem to be stomping over everything.

Bourbon vanilla, aged patchouli, honey, and Ceylon cinnamon. It's got a base akin to the thick aged-patchouli-and-vanilla of Banshee Beat (there, I said it, let the stampede begin), but liberally cut with syrupy honey. I get almost no cinnamon. The vanilla, which is slight, smells like the woodsy, resinous vanilla from Hope and Fear Set Free. Overall this is a complex, earthy, honey-and-patchouli on me. Soft as worn leather, floats low on the skin. If these are your notes, then rundon'twalk.

I don't get any marshmallow, except as a bit of sweetness toward the end of the drydown. Unlike 99% of lilac and mist blends, this is neither soapy nor green. It's a balance between the dry white orris and the misty pale floral notes, with a touch of earthy moss. I agree with the comparison to Moonshine and Mist; it also feels very much in the Ars Moriendi line of ghostly, ethereal blends.

This is a dry, earthy, husky patchouli-and-woods blend, with ambrette lending a nutty warmth. This isn't the toothy, gnarly patch in Banshee Beat. It smells autumnal and polished. It has a very male feel to it, but it's nothing like a cologne; more like a carved and oiled wooden statutette of a forest god. I normally pass on anything with orris, but this one is beautifully done.

Peach, white sandalwood, golden amber, gurjum balsam, leather accord, and oudh. On me this was lighter and greener than I thought it would be - I suspect it wants a bit of aging to soften the balsam to my personal tastes - but on my friend it was ALL peach and leather and oudh, which was her personal idea of a Really Good Party. There's nothing dark in this scent. I get blond woods and golden resins and young fresh-cured leather, with peach keeping it juicy at the edges. Works for any gender.

Like zeezee, I picked this up and was immediately struck by its similarity to Silkybat - which I happen to still have a small amount of, lurking in my fridge. Sniffed side by side, they are kissin' cousins. Silkybat is rounder and more mellow, whereas Love Swing does have a woodsy sharpness on top that reminds me of The Antikythera Mechanism. It smells much more like either of these than it does like last year's Black Cardamom and Vanilla, which I also sniffed side-by-side with The Love Swing. I love this. It loves me back.

GLITTER-SHOT CRÈME An impertinent charmer, sugar-dusted, electric mint. Juke Joint is the glitter turquoise vinyl upholstering the booths at your favorite bowling alley - the one that wasn't retro-new but really truly built in the 50s, but it was in that little town your grandmother lived in that you hated to go visit in the summer, because there was nothing to do but watch TV and bowl, and it was only years later when you were a grownup and the alley was long gone that you realized how amazingly cool it had been. Speaking of your grandmother, the crelly base is the same turquoise as the vintage atomic-print formica on her kitchen counters, and the flat silver glitter in this polish is the same dull metal sheen as the counter's metal edge banding (that snagged sweater cuffs and caught toast crumbs until everyone gave up trying to clean the cracks out). And floating in this turquoise crelly base with its flat silver sand-scatter are pinpoint aqua sparks: a bloom of insouciant aqua jellyfish: gorgeous and deadly in this Aegean-blue surf-tumble, so that you don't dare go in the water, but you look and look and look at it. So if you want to paint your claws with vintage 50s glitter vinyl, your grandmother's formica, and luminous jellyfish, with a smooth and workable formula to boot, Juke Joint will make you a happy camper.

Golden peach, tobacco absolute, tonka bean, and honey with a squirt of red musk. Fresh in the bottle: peach and tobacco and red musk. There's a heady nose to it, like 80 proof liquor. Wet on the skin: at first it's intensely peach and red musk. And then tonka and tobacco roar up like a slow-motion fireball, obliterating all other scents in their path. For a few minutes peach is completely subsumed. Then it bobs back up, and there's this sinuous wrestling-in-a-sack thing where Peach is intensely juicy and female and Tonka/Tobacco are very masculine and between them they make a scent as androgynous as Tiresias, which is to say not gender-neutral at all, but rather a fierce yin/yang whirl of woodsy and juicey. Somewhere in here things start to heat up and become *really* good, if you know what I mean, like a gorgeous low warm haze on the skin. ...and then my nemesis, honey, arrives in a rain of fulminated cat pee. *sigh* Twelve hours later, there is still a noticeable whiff of peach-tinged tobacco on the skin. Drydown never smells *dry* per se; it's peach-soaked to the bone. There is the *perfect* amount of peach in this one. And tobacco makes peach's butt look amazing. Peach and/or Tobacco fans without my peculiar chemistry may wish to beg, borrow or steal decants. Red musk fans may be sad, as it's never prominent in the blend for me.

#54 Wet: Weathered woods and pungent vetiver. Dried: Woods, softened vetiver, and something balsamic or benzoic in the back. Actually quite pleasant if you like vetiver. Gender-neutral, but would probably smell better on a guy.

157: A strong blast of a sweet spiced booze note, like buttered rum or hard cider, and tons of burnt-sugar fruitcake. The fruits are earthy complex ones, like dried plums and figs and mincemeat, dusted with cardamom and allspice. It feels very Victorian Christmas Dessert. In fact, it's like Christmas Pudding, Butter Rum Cookie, and Hard Cider Cake had a three-way love child. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Like clove, white sandalwood will usually dominate the top, middle, and bottom notes on my skin. True to form, this dries down to 90% powdery vanilla / white sandalwood and 10% green musk. It's like a green-tinted Paladin, which is nicely ironic given this is the dragon and not the knight, but I already have Paladin. Clean, slightly soapy, but mostly powdery. Oh well.

Spun-sugar peaches! This is peach and aprioct and nectar and peach liqueur and simple syrup. I was expecting a tooth-jarring sugar explosion. This is sweet, but more like fruit distilled down to the essence of its own sweetness. This *literally* smells like a delicious peach nectar beverage, possibly German, that I would guzzle by the dozen from my hotel mini-bar and pay 15, euros per bottle for and NOT CARE because it tasted that damn good. And then I would pour vodka in it. Lots of vodka. Where was I? Lacking vodka, trying not to drink the atmo. Peach Candyfloss smells a lighter, brighter version of last year's Sugared Peach Bath Oil. All sweet peachy goodness.