lucycat

I find Velvet, which on me is primarily sandalwood and cocoa, a very cozy scent.

I wanted to try this scent entirely for the concept: this summer I went to a local production of "Julius Caesar," and I wanted an appropriate scent to wear then (I suppose I could have worn Antony.) The rose is the most prominent note on my skin, and lasts for hours. I had hoped for a more of the myrrh and the frankincense, but eventually the myrrh does make itself known, and I get a myrrh and rose blend. After a few more hours, this dries down to a resinous skin scent, just tinged with rose. I never do smell the iris or the blood notes. I won't need more than my decant of this, since my skin amps rose and I don't love rose. Storyboard: Julius Caesar is a pretty blend, though, and I will keep the decant so I'm prepared the next time I go to see the play.

This was a frimp from the Lab. In the imp I smell that “woody, musky-weird base,” which makes me think it’s going to smell very weird on my skin, but it doesn’t. It smells like fruit salad with an extra helping of blackberries. As it dries down, it morphs to musky blackberry, very like Bewitched. I never do smell gardenia, which is a relief, because I prefer fruit notes to florals. The woodsy musky note sticks around but also stays close to the skin. This Lobster is very nice for a warm summer day.

Almost every year I try another jasmine blend, hoping it will be like Venus Genetrix: the jasmine and vanilla blend I can actually wear because the vanilla keeps the jasmine in check. La Prostitution et la Folie Dominent la Monde is not it. In the decant, this is almost pure creamy, sweet vanilla. The comparison to frosting is apt. Within moments of being applied to my skin, boom! The jasmine comes forward and dominates everything. It is a very pure, true jasmine. I do get just a little bit of star anise when I touch my nose to my skin. This is a beautiful blend. It’s for someone who truly loves jasmine, though. I was hoping for a sweet, creamy vanilla anise with just a touch of jasmine; what I got was jasmine with just a touch of everything else.

To my surprise, the white wine grape is the most easily identifiable note here. It’s the same grape note as in Bess, one of my favorite GC blends, and it really sweetens the frankincense. Frankincense can be sharp, but it isn’t in this blend. The Magi is sweet, resinous, and sparkling. I'm the first person to review The Magi in three years, and my review doesn't express how much I like this blend. See the first review on the first page, by Sarada back in 2008, which expresses, better than I can, what I like about The Magi.

The first three notes in this blend are among my favorites—and I like orris just fine; I just don’t usually get excited about it—so Desert Places was an almost guaranteed winner. It’s primarily a white tea scent, given some sweetness by the vanilla and grounded by the sandalwood. It’s light, fresh, clean, and pretty. Though this is a Yule, like most white or green tea scents, it feels like more of a warm-weather blend. I think it will really shine in the summer.

In the decant, I smell apricot and chypre most strongly. On my arm, this dries down to orange, apricot and amber, while on the back of my hand, it’s virtually identical to Aristocratic Couple, one of my favorite Lupers. On the second test, about a week after the first, the lavender is more apparent. This doesn't sound like the most enthusiastic review, but I liked Four Seasons: Winter enough to upgrade to a bottle.

This is simple, pretty, and just what the notes say: the familiar BPAL snow note and blue musk. Especially when it’s freshly applied, I get a hint of citrus. There’s no citrus listed in the notes, so I think it’s more the combination of the snow and musk giving the impression of citrus. This is very similar to Winter-Time, without the strong mint note. Here it’s just an impression of mint. For several years I’ve been looking for a snow blend to wear in hot weather, and I think Trés Riches Heures might be it.

From first sniff in the decant, this is just lovely. The amber is warm and bright. I don’t have that many blends with moss—offhand, I can only think of Whoso List to Hunt—and they give a very classic feel to the blend. I almost expect there to be a snow note here, because once it dries down a bit, there’s an almost aquatic note that I wouldn’t expect from any of the other notes. As it dries down, it feels more and more like men’s cologne, not the one I usually get from the BPAL leaf note, but a softer, almost fuzzy one. There being different batches of this blend may explain the aquatic note. I ordered my decant from Ajevie very early, and received it at the beginning of January, so this should be an early version, not a later one. The amber, while noticeable at first, is never strong, so I don’t think this is the amber-heavy version: disappointing, because I love amber. It also lasts only about half a day on my skin, while many amber blends have much better longevity.

Bright, sweet resin. Like Anne, I find different notes are prominent depending on where the oil is applied: it’s all labdanum on my arms, and myrrh on the back of my hand. I don’t smell the bourbon vanilla at all, but I have found that the Lab’s bourbon vanilla note is often not strong when fresh, and strengthens with age.

In the decant, I can’t smell anything but patchouli, the strong, pencil-shaving kind. Patchouli continues to dominate once this is on my skin, though the sandalwood comes out after a little while. I can just smell the frankincense on my hand, and only there; it’s very soft. If I didn’t know the “tuft of coconut-tinged snow” was in this blend, I wouldn’t be able to identify the slight sweetness as coconut at all.

In the bottle this is primarily chocolate; there is a small amount of residue at the bottom of the bottle as there often is with chocolate scents. When first applied, this becomes chocolate paper, which is delicious. On my arms, a few minutes after application, I got a very strong greenish smell I at first thought was snowdrop or another bulb flower. I think I was associating with Picture Books in Winter, which strikes me as a cousin of this scent, but there are no flower notes in Jólabókaflóðið. I thought it was the leather, coming on strong, but now I see I'm not the only one who smelled a floral note in this. After a bit it settles into papery chocolate and leather. Yum. It’s always soft and close to the skin, but has good longevity. I am a librarian and lifelong bibliophile, so I just had to have Jólabókaflóðið. There are few things I enjoy more than a cozy winter evening spent reading a good book with a tasty sweet to snack on and a scented candle burning in the room, and this blend evokes that experience beautifully. I also love that the donations from this scent went to a charity that puts books into the hands of children. With my bottle I received a copy of Soul Catcher by Frank Herbert. I’ve never read a book by him, so this will be my first.

I ordered a bottle of Nasty Woman on principle. It didn’t arrive in time for me to wear it on Election Day, so I postponed testing till Inauguration Day (sigh), meaning my bottle has now aged a couple of months. It’s rich, sweet, chewy fig and patchouli. Fig often seems like a more sophisticated fruit smell than many others, if that makes sense, and that is definitely the case here. The patchouli is not at all the sharp, cedary kind. I’m one of the many who gets a tobacco impression from this. I think it’s really the combination of the patch and the amber. On the back of my hand, the honeyed amber oudh smells just like Hesiod’s Phoenix, one of my favorites. Incidentally, I’m very glad I didn’t know loukhoum was Turkish delight before I ordered. It would have put me off, but though Nasty Woman is a sweet-smelling blend, I don’t detect any rose in it, nor do I get the cloyingness I associate with Turkish delight.

In the decant, this is sweet vanilla cream: delicious. On second sniff, all I could think was “something from the 80s.” I can’t put my finger on what, but there was a scented toy or a dessert or something in my childhood that smelled like this. The various herbs are present beneath the vanilla, and it’s both interesting and pretty. And then…boom. The wintry musk comes forward and drowns out everything. It becomes pure laundry detergent. After a little while, I can smell a musky vanilla sandalwood on the back of my hand. If it were like that everywhere, Road to Versailles would be pretty nearly perfect, but on my arms, it remains laundry detergent. Curse you, wintry musk.

This, with Stale Sugar-Crusted Marshmallow Chick, is my first single note, and what a one it is! I’ve grown so accustomed to trying to distinguish notes in blends that it feels almost odd to be wearing and smelling a single note. This is a light, sweet sandalwood. Kit from the OLLA collection is an almost-pure sandalwood note on me; Australian Sandalwood is sweeter and lighter than that, without being at all syrupy. It’s close to the skin and has a fuzzy, snuggly feel. For a while now, I’ve been on a search for a summer sandalwood, and Australian Sandalwood turned out to be perfect for very warm weather.

Tahitian vanilla bean with a slight custard undertone. In the bottle, this is slightly plasticky, making me afraid it would turn to pure plastic when worn. That doesn’t happen. This is a pure, sweet vanilla, rich and smooth. It’s actually more spicy than creamy to my nose. French Vanilla is a slightly lighter version of my late, lamented original Body Shop vanilla and Kiehl’s vanilla oil, which is to say terrific. The creaminess emerges more with wear and on the back of my hand rather than the crook of my arm. It’s soft and close to the skin. I like French Vanilla enough that I bought backup bottles, and I rarely buy backups.

On one hand, this is just what it says on the tin: frankincense and myrrh. I wore some of my now two-year-old Midnight Mass very recently, and Clement I’s Phoenix is very similar. In much the same way that the honey in Womb Furie, one of my favorite blends, makes it smell like already-aged Snake Oil, the caramelized myrrh makes Clement I’s Phoenix smell like aged Midnight Mass. It counters the sharpness of the frankincense. This is heavenly.

I really enjoy the Lab’s pomegranate note, but it’s not well-represented in my collection, so I wanted to give September Midnight a try. There are two strands here: the rich, sweet juicy pomegranate, and the myrrh-amber-chypre, which combine to smell like a classic perfume. Very pretty and feminine. Also very similar to Second Spring, with which it shares many notes. I already have a bottle of Second Spring, so I’m not sure if I need more than a decant of September Midnight.

In the decant the teak is dominant, though I can smell the licorice underneath. It has a not unpleasant, but slightly sour quality, that when applied, smells briefly like raw dough. Fortunately that phase passes as the oil warms on my skin, and A Kneeling Child…becomes spicy licorice, grounded and strengthened by the teak. I love the scent of licorice—I chose Absinthe as part of my very first imp pack—but it’s such a light and airy scent it often just floats away after a very short time. I hoped that the teak would prevent that from happening in this blend, especially since my skin amps wood notes, and so far that seems to be the case.

Apple X is the one apple blend of this year’s Weenies that I wanted to try. Sweet apple and non-gritty patchouli. This is not the patchouli that smells like pencil shavings, nor is it earthy. I think it may be the vanilla cream that’s softening it. It’s reminiscent of what I think of as the patchouli-plus blends, things like Goblin and Imp, that are patchouli and a fruit or food note.

In the decant, this smells exactly like walking into an old English church, with the incense and a very light touch of smoke, and the roses. The rose becomes more prominent as the oil warms on my skin, but it never becomes overpowering, I think because the oak is keeping it in check: my skin amps wood notes even more than it does rose notes. Though I’m not usually a fan of rose blends because they become overwhelming on me, Heavenly Spark is a gentle rose incense. I had to try it just because of the description: like Beth, I love Westminster Abbey and Poet’s Corner in particular. I also appreciate the use of the symbolically English rose and oak notes.

In the decant, I smell the swirl of fruits. Lime is the strongest, as was also the case with Bitches Love Unicorns. In the background of that, there’s a woodsy vanilla. Wet: Much the same, with the lime remaining prominent. I get a slight whiff of frankincense, especially on my hand. After only a couple of hours, this is quite faint. I still get a sugary fruit smell backed by a sweet warm vanilla that is indeed fuzzy, like yarn. As a knitter, I liked the idea of another knitting scent--I already have Autumn Overlooked My Knitting--but the fruit notes here are very similar to those in Bitches Love Unicorns, of which I already have a bottle, and I don’t know how many sweet fruit scents I realistically need.

In the imp I can smell only the lavender. It’s bright and fresh, but not harsh. This continues to be an almost-pure lavender on my skin at first. The amber takes a little while to come forward. When it does, it’s very pretty and creamy, balancing the freshness of the lavender. This blend feels somehow wholesome and old-fashioned, I think because it’s more herbal than perfumey. Very soft and close to the skin. I don’t usually wear perfume to bed, but I could see myself wearing this to bed.

In the imp, the sarsaparilla and the vanilla cream combine to smell like a delicious root beer float. Once the oil has dried on my skin, there’s a brief stage where it smells salty. I think this is the leather coming forward. Then it all blends together beautifully. This is like drinking a root beer float while wearing a worn-in leather jacket—soft brown leather. Outlaw is a very brown-and-cream blend. Tombstone and Stimulating Sassafras Strengthener are two of my favorite GC blends, so it’s almost a given that I would like Outlaw. It’s very reminiscent of Tombstone, with the same Old West vibe, only with leather in addition to wood.

In the bottle: SWEET fruity candy, like melted Skittles. All the fruits are present, but the lime is most prominent. Wet: For a few moments when first applied, all the citrus notes together are so strong that they suggest…tea tree oil? That’s a very brief phase, though, and it passes. Bitches Love Unicorns settles down to a light, fruity scent: candy or fruit punch or Kool-Aid. The lime and other citrus notes remain most identifiable on my skin, but this is a rainbow of fruit. I agree that this is very nostalgic and reminiscent of my childhood in the 80s (boomtownrat’s “portal to 1984” description is spot-on, and, like her, I had that pen that turned into a bracelet; mine was yellow) when everything seemed to be brightly rainbow-colored. At least, that was my aesthetic as an eight and nine-year-old girl. In fact, because of that sweet candy quality, Bitches Love Unicorns feels almost like a Lilith scent. This will be a wonderful scent for days I need some cheering up.