LiberAmoris

Here's the thing: Snake Oil is just so delightful that it mixes well with others and pumpkin spice is no exception. This is a spicier Snake Oil on me that somehow manages to smell and feel 'lighter' than it does in its usual incarnation. I imagine this will do well with some aging, and I look forward to pulling out the bottle next fall for some more wear.

I love Perversion, and Pumpkin Spice Perversion is a nice twist on a BPAL classic. Wet, the pumpkin spice is evident, but this dries down to a slightly richer Perversion on me, a heady mix of rum and tobacco and leather and tonka with a bit of oaky chardonnay.

I wish I could buy a whole bottle of Silence. The gardenia fights the cedar a bit in the beginning when wet, but it calms down pretty quickly into gardenia and woods, with lavender filling in the cracks. It's an unexpected combo, but very relaxing. Somehow these notes conjure up a phantom note of white coconut, and I get drifts of that as the day goes on. The gardenia is GORGEOUS. Super calming, a perfect scent to release at this time of year when the holidays make life a bit stressful. I'm glad I have my imp of Silence to take things down a notch at the end of the day!

Dead Leaves, Bourbon, Black Cherry, and an Orange Twist = Dead Leaves Old Fashioned! This is a dead-on, dead leaves version of an Old Fashioned cocktail. Boozy scents aren't always my friends but the bourbon here is restrained. It has a caramel edge that's really nice. The black cherry and orange twist aren't too loud either, and the dead leaves note, which can run bitter on my skin, smells like a suggestion of dead leaves rather than a leaf pile that's buried the other notes. Well-balanced, just like a good cocktail. I'll really enjoy this one.

Wow, yes, this is a red musk-heavy scent. Everything else flows in around the red musk. The most prominent sub-notes on me are the vegetal black musk and opoponax, followed by lavender and orris. The tuberose, white pepper, and ambergris round this out but don't assert themselves. It's one of those scents that's so well-blended that everything sort of melds. This is a musky fun mix, in the vein of Smut. I love red musk, so this is going to get a lot of wear from me!

Krampus Lace is festive red musk goodness. This starts out honey-sweet red musk with tobacco and leather on me and dries down to red musk with vanilla cream. It reminds me of a 'Yule red' version of Creeper Dragon, as it has that same vibe with leather, red musk, honey, and cream merrily intersecting. I'm really glad a nabbed a bottle!

The sufganiyots are always a good Yule investment. Blackcurrant Sufganiyot pairs the yummy pastry note with blackcurrant filling, which to me smells like a mix of blackcurrant and other black berries. It's so mouth-wateringly delicious, and the pastry-fruit balance remains evenly split, through wet and drydown on me.

A very pretty iris—stately, slightly powdery, and dry. Definitely get both the rooty element of iris as well as the blossom. Nice on its own, but I'm sure it will also be great layered.

Daybreak from this year's Liliths just made it into the ranks of my fave bedtime scents!! Don't know what I will wear to bed if that girl ever outgrows lavender! <3

 

Me too! It's so relaxing and pretty...I love dotting some on a couple of hours before bed to help me start winding down for the evening.

Clown White would also have been great, I think! It smells like greasepaint, reminiscent of oil paint.

Cafe du Monde, all the way. I got Mornings in New Orleans in 2014 and wear it sometimes on Sunday mornings because it reminds me of when I lived in NOLA. Sniffing my wrists isn't as evocative as enjoying the sillage that floats up as chicory coffee with milk and a hint of beignet. The pastry note is less forward than the coffee, which is perfect for me. After a while, a slightly salty floral note emerges which always surprises me. I like it, it reminds me of the city as well—smells almost as if a few drops of New Orleans (the BPAL scent) was added.

 

Bumping to say that White Fir single note (still available as of this post!) is just beautiful. It smells like crushed fir needles and a bit of pitch, and has the warmth of the wood notes as well. Totally sates my need for an evergreen single note in my collection.

 

 

how does it compare to the irresponsibly unwatered christmas tree?

 

 

I've never smelled that one! Perhaps someone else can chime in with their thoughts.

 

Bumping to say that White Fir single note (still available as of this post!) is just beautiful. It smells like crushed fir needles and a bit of pitch, and has the warmth of the wood notes as well. Totally sates my need for an evergreen single note in my collection.

 

I have to say I'd sort of planned to skip this one because of so many evergreen blends I love, but with this endorsement, I had to give it a try! Thanks for the bump!

Oh good, I hope you love it!

No matter how many chocolate scents I try from the Lab, I always want more. Chad smells like hot chocolate, specifically a packet of instant hot chocolate. I have plenty of happy memories of instant hot chocolate from camping and early winter morning lifeguarding shifts, so this works for me.

Blóðughadda is so much lighter than I expected. The strongest notes are amber and clove. The fig, oud, patch, and saffron trail. It's a really beautiful mix, drying down quickly to a clovey figgy amber. There's almost no throw on me, but it's a nice close skin scent. My favorite of the new Carnavals!

Daybreak is just as described—a downy blend of lavender, vanilla, and coconut. The coconut is really subtle. Like TKO, this would be a great sleep scent. I think it would also make a great 'stay in my PJs until the afternoon' scent, as it's just so mellow and lovely.

I've never seen (or smelled) a Bluebonnet in the wild, but the single note is beautiful. I'm getting a watery blue floral and some of the green of the stem and leaves. I'm not good at describing floral notes, but this smells to me like if a less sweet honeysuckle was crossed with freesia. It's very pretty.

White Fir SN smells like crushed fir needles and a bit of pitch, and has the warmth of the wood notes as well. It does have a natural sweetness to it, the way pine resin or sap has a natural sweetness. The smell of evergreens is really relaxing to me, so I can imagine dotting this on to unwind or bumping up Yule or other scents with a bit of evergreen oomph.

Bumping to say that White Fir single note (still available as of this post!) is just beautiful. It smells like crushed fir needles and a bit of pitch, and has the warmth of the wood notes as well. Totally sates my need for an evergreen single note in my collection.

 

Wearing My Little Grotesque tonight because I wanted something dessert-y for my post-work BPAL scent. I love this one as much as Cake Smash, and wear it when I want a good dose of cardamom and yellow cake. This is the most cardamom-forward BPAL scent I've ever tried, and it makes me want to seek out even more scents with the note. I get vanilla frosting on the drydown...heavenly.

Ugh, I love coconut and my only wish is that I'd stocked up on The Poem of the Pillow. The coconut and bergamot together is so simple and so lovely—coconut-forward on my skin but the bergamot definitely tempers it for the first hour or so. Foodie but also very wearable for me, and makes a fantastic summer scent. Vacation in a bottle!

Eat the Strawberries is SUPER STRAWBERRY. Like a strawberry with a cape. I genuinely enjoy the purity of this, but I have to be ready for the fabulously strawberry day that I will have if I dot this on in the morning. Strawberries and sugar, like the filling for a pie. Delicious, but opt-in is required.

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I didn't order Buck Moon when it was first released in 2005, and I was so sorry I didn't because the reviews sounded like something I would love. I was quicker on the draw this time around, and I'm so glad! This is just lovely. An amplification of one's natural musk, indeed. This is a skin scent on me, one that melds almost immediately and radiates a kind of comforting warmth. It's a golden musk on my skin, and the rest of the notes trail like suggestions. I do get a bit of forest herbs and pine pitch. The deer fur note is practically downy. And the warm evening air and crystalline spark—there like a halo.

 

This scent reminds me of my birthday last year in Napa Valley. I was celebrating a delayed 40th (couldn't get away the year before), and my husband and I went to a very lovely, super private place in the hills. It was June, sunny, warm, and dry. The deer roamed the hills and crossed in front of our cabin at dawn and dusk. On my birthday, I put on zero makeup and wore a low-cut, pinot-colored dress. I swanned around on the deck drinking wine, watching the sun set, and feeling so happy I could die. This smells like that sun, the deer, the scrubby pines dotting the hillside, and the simplicity of a bare face.

I was really hoping I'd love Fuck You, Said the Raven—the notes sounded right up my alley. And I do love it! This might be my favorite dark violet blend from the Lab yet. It smells more smooth than gravelly on me, although I get a bit of an asphalt note on the drydown (that totally might be my overactive imagination). I love violets, but often they skew a little too strong or too sweet on me...here, they're plunged into a shadowy vat of resiny blurring agents that keep them from being too much. The myrrh and resiny-myrrh-y opoponax bring a gently herbal-sweet, almost hay-like and pitchy set of notes, and the black patchouli gives everything a coating of a dark, opaque sheen. The oak leaf is light on me, just a bit of that leafy tang.

 

Overall, this smells like dark purple, softly violet incense on me, and it's got strong projection and lasting power...just a small dab or two needed.