LiberAmoris

Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting against a backdrop of Snake Oil, Dorian, and Doc Constantine! Cake Smash is one of those scents that I wear when I really need a foody, dessert-y hit. It's absolutely red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting, against a subtle backdrop of what feels like the BPAL supernote: Dorian + Snake Oil + Doc C. It reminds me a lot of the original Beaver Moon, which I also love. I'm not in the mood for this often, but when I am, it's great. Sometimes I layer with a drop of Snake Oil or Dorian, if I want the sweets to take a back seat.

Chorion hair gloss is truly delicate, and sticks close to me when I wear it. It opens with iris and white musk, tinged with vanilla. The white patchouli and mimosa blossom are very faint, to my nose. After blow-drying, it becomes mostly iris and vanilla, with very light patchouli and white musk. It's really pretty and another gloss that I feel more than comfortable wearing to work. It layers beautifully with White Peacock and Yucca Giant-Skipper.

I'm unable to resist anything with 'animalic ambergris accord', full stop. Black Silk starts off as bourbon vanilla and that fanged ambergris accord, with white flowers swimming in the background. There's something very dark here—the patchouli and tobacco pull down the shades on everything. As it dries, the tobacco comes forward along with the immortelle and it starts to feel more grey. An hour or so after application, it feels dove grey, like a curl of light vanilla pipe smoke wrapped around my wrist. I agree that this will age magnificently!

I'm nearing the end of my bottle of Implacable Beautiful Tyrant, and can't believe I haven't reviewed this one yet! It's absolutely beautiful. A scent that I would happily also buy in perfume oil form—the frankincense and white ginger here seem to meld to create some kind of supernote that's just stunning with the amber and oude. Lovely on its own, or great with Snake Oil, Morocco, Lyonesse, or any amber or ambergris blend that I have on tap. This leans in the sexy direction, but I wear it to work all the time where I regularly receive compliments on it.

I got my Lady Fleming's Gingerbread atmo spray late-ish in the Yule season last year, and put it away so I'd have a spray to use this year while waiting for my Yule order. This proved to be a good plan, and I'm so glad I picked this one! It smells just like gingerbread, and definitely put me in the right seasonal spirit, especially since I didn't do any holiday baking this year. When I wanted a hit of baked goods, I just spritzed as needed. I've also layered this atmo with other Yule sprays in order to achieve maximum holiday goodness...it goes well with Sugar Plum and Vanilla Bean!

I travel a lot for work, and when I do, I try to pack light. So I only take one hair gloss with me, and that hair gloss is always Morocco. Morocco is perfect for every situation—not too overpowering for work, outgoing enough for going out after work, and relaxing at night when I'm trying to unwind. The musk, carnation, and sandalwood together are so gorgeous, and then there's just a touch of cassia there to add a bit of spice without being overwhelming. With so many great LE hair glosses, I feel like my love for this one doesn't get enough ink—but it's become a true staple for me and part of my away-from-home hair care routine.

Yep, The Phoenix, Having Burst Her Shell is good. The orange and tangerine are a great pairing with the patchouli and amber. The tobacco note isn't strong on me, and the white musk is hard for me to even detect, although there's something smooth and soft mellowing out the brightness of the citrus, so maybe that's it. It's like if Sin (minus the cinnamon) and Eastern Comma had a baby!

Yellow Metal With Mingled Purple Blushes is such a great capture of the inspiration. Smells like bright yellow amber and a touch of metal, plus just the barest hint of wild plum and blackcurrant. This smells very upscale and elegant somehow, and is the kind of blend I could wear anywhere...it smells warm and clean with just a touch of fruit. This smells better the longer it's on, ending as a soft amber with something fretful and complex at the very, very back of it. Another keeper from this year's Phoenixes!

I've tried A Rosy Colour Paints Her Claws With Honor a few times now, and each time I dab it on, I get that hit of musky rose and it's so nice. This is a rose-forward blend—that rose tint comes down like a pale red wash over everything it touches. It smells like a straight split between red rose, red musk, bourbon geranium, and vanilla. Bourbon geranium smells like rose with a citronellol edge—think a rosy citronella candle (better than it sounds). It's like rose if it were in the citrus family. Here it's also a bit herbaceous and it gives this phoenix some claws. A few hours into wear, this is a nuzzle-soft rose with vanilla and musk and a twang of something citrusy. Very nice.

Snow White hair gloss is so lovely! I also adore Snow White and being able to wear this in my hair when I wear the perfume makes for a fantastic layered scent experience. From my review of Snow White, the perfume oil, about 10 years ago: ...Trying to describe Snow White is like trying to describe a winter flower from a fairytale---there’s just nothing to compare it to...I pick up on the buttery floral, the gentle tropical vibe, and the pastry/almondy/coconutty edge. And yet, it seems to me one of the most elusive BPAL blends I’ve tried, changing so many times on my skin that in the end I can only imagine an expansive field of untrammeled snow, broken only by pale yellow anemones. When fairies dance in the winter, this is the smell of the flower that springs up at their feet. It's still tough to describe this scent, and it still smells like a winter flower from a fairytale. In my hair it's a gentle scent, the kind of hair gloss that sticks close. After 8 hours, it's faint but present. I get wafts of vanilla from time to time when I turn my head. So glad to have this in my glossy arsenal.

I've been delaying reviewing Pouring Strains of Sacred Song, because I kept thinking my skin chemistry must be making it wonky...it smells so foody on me! But after a few tests, I'm ready to concede that somehow it smells a bit like coconut cake, honey, flowers, and frankincense on me—and I'm not complaining. There is something almost green in this that pushes it off the foody mark, something that makes me keep going back to it to try to figure it out. I still haven't figured it out and I'm not sure I will...and I'm not sure it's quite me. But there's enough here that I like (coconut!) to merit setting it aside for a bit of aging (and I mean both me and the perfume) to see if it can work itself out.

Coquelicot Snow is so very orange! I do smell all the notes here, but they blur into an orangey melange with a soft, fluffy, creamy underlayer. At first it's a blast of tangerine and blood orange, though—a true bright spot of scent in the middle of winter. Then it's the musk, with the mimosa trailing behind sweetly. That snowy undercoat comes out in the drydown. It's powdery after a while in a way that I like, like a fine-grained orange snowcone with a bit of vanilla. The snowballs this year are all so fun and yet totally wearable. As with the others, this is wintry but would truly work year round. So glad I tried all three!

Sleeping at the Feet of the Snow Queen hair gloss is definitely well-blended—very nuanced and soft. I get no snow note or accord from this, just a sense of chilliness from the white musk. The white tea note is absolutely lovely, and the lemon rind is fresh. The oakmoss and tobacco round out the bottom and add lasting power. The juniper note is balanced, clear, and bright. It's really tough to describe because the notes sing so well together, but when I turn my head, it smells like a lovely, upscale white tea with lemon—if that tea was a fancy perfume. I think to the uninitiated this will probably smell like the remnants of the best shampoo in the world. Really wonderful, and again, this hair gloss will be just as lovely in the spring and summer as it will be this winter.

Have you tried Gobo? Gobo: Tangerine, lemon peel, sugared pink grapefruit, and vanilla cream.

The snowballs this year are all fantastic. That snow note is like a fluffy, vanilla cream underlayer in all three...so pretty and delicate. If you're on the fence because of the snow association, definitely give these a try because they don't telegraph cold and winter outright. It's very subtle and I will wear these snowballs all year long. Glaucous Snow is like a light blue cloud. I had to look up cade—apparently it's a prickly juniper? Mostly what I get from this is blue lilac and cream, with a touch of lotus and chamomile. The lilac is kind of wondrous here, bringing its fierce assertion of sweetness and spring and renewal, like a floral outlier. The creaminess underneath reminds me a bit of Lush's Snowcake, a scent that I love. Definitely in the same blue fam as Blue Moon, although also its own creature altogether. Also, this is a fantastic sleep scent. It's so soothing!

I never picked up Eldritch Dark as a perfume oil, so my first experience with the scent is the hair gloss. It's so fun! Whip-smart leather, honey, black rose, and those musks. The leather is really strong, followed by the rose and then the honeyed musks. A few sprays in my hair yesterday and it lasted all day. When I took a shower this morning, I shampooed twice to get it all out my hair—that's some serious staying power! I think it's the first gloss to last that long on me. This layers beautifully with Psychodynamic Discharge, and I'm sure it also would play well with Whip...and of course, Eldritch Dark! It's so delightfully naughty that I might not wear it into work, but if I worked somewhere cooler, I certainly would.

Bumping this to add both A Lady in White and Some Strangeness in the Proportion to this conversation. I still think Velvet and Sin are my favorite BPAL sandalwoods—it's tough to beat the classics!

Vetiver is not a note that I generally love, but I've recently found two reasons to continue testing perfumes when I see it listed: The Tumultuous Vultures of Stern Passion (vetiver tar) and Psychodynamic Discharge (Haitian vetiver). The vetiver is really beautiful and perfectly balanced in both of them, and if I'd passed them by due to the V-word, I'd have missed two new favorites! Are there any other recommendations for either vetiver-strong or vetiver-soft scents?

Necrobumping this topic...Those who love orange, definitely try Coquelicot Snow: Snowballs of poppy-red musk, tangerine, blood orange, and mimosa blossom. This is the orange-est perfume I've worn in a long time (since maybe Orange itself?), and it's lovely.

Winter lily and sugarcane hair gloss is simple and pure: just sweet white lilies with a dusting of snow. There's something luminous about the lilies—they almost have a glow. Dry and hours later, my hair smells faintly of lilies and something clean (must be the snow note). Although it's delicate, the scent has good staying power. I plan to layer this with some of my Yule scents this winter, but will also look forward to using it in spring. This smells like winter thawing and the first brave flowers pushing through.

Aged Velvet is also phenomenal. I have a 10ml from maybe 2004 or 2005 and at this point, it's like the smoothest myrrh ever. So good.

Have you already tried Velvet and Chimera? Neither of those go churchy on me, and they're both great. Myrrh isn't the most dominant note—but I think they both showcase it well.

Black tea! I love that note, so Spirit Board was a must-try. For sure, this the smell of a proper Victorian life gone a bit off the rails. I love the redwood note here—I'm not sure I've tried a blend with that note before. The rich redwood lasts all the way through the drydown, twining with the rosewood to give this staying power. A notch above, the black tea gives a sheen of refinement—and then it's a profusion of white lilac and pink rose at the top that the woods help to drag back down to earth. Ends as flowers and woods, with the black tea giving just a bit of edge. Very pretty and wearable.

Chocolate Stout Cupcake is definitely one of the blends that needs to be thoroughly rolled before application. Wet, it smells just like chocolate cupcake batter and buttercream frosting—the chocolate stout is in the background on me and there's just a hint. Where Bliss is pure, unadulterated melted chocolate, Chocolate Stout Cupcake is a melange—there's chocolate, but also vanilla and a gentle beer note (a bit like roasted barley) in play. As it dries, the chocolate lifts a bit and drifts into a murky, boozy vanilla. Vanilla is one of the notes that can smell artificial on my skin, and this is dancing on that edge but stays on the right side. I think it will benefit from a little aging, as Bliss does. Fun!

A Lady Tall and White offers an elegant twist on the snow note with vanilla and sandalwood. The sandalwood is particularly nice here and comes forward beautifully on the drydown. I'm someone who really amps the snow note so have to be careful about wearing it on my skin, but I'm going to hang on to this and see if aging mellows it out a bit—the combination of notes is really pretty. If you love the snowy blends, definitely try this one!