sprout

Fairy Bites is nice for a blend with osmanthus.

I found single oil of osmanthus on Eden botanical website, quite reasonable. I'm considering an order, I think it would be even more affordable to buy and split if anyone else is interested...

La Ronde Du Sabbat

Satan Summoning his Legions

Satan Starting from Uthuriel's Speer

Pan Twardowski and the Devil

Witchcraft Scene

Mars Corotiacatus

Midnight Mass

Autumn Fancies (grass)

Autumn Coolness (grass)

Interfector

Prosperous Flowers of the Elegant Twelve Seasons

Doc Constantine

Organ Grinder

Visions of Autumn VII

Looming Spectre of Inutterable Horror

Ian

This is Your Wilderness

Streets of Detroit

Wild Indigo Duskywing

Ichabod Crane

Tatie Bogie

Cuchulain Fight with the Sea

Marche Funebre

Graveyard Dirt

Dawn: Cernnunos

Young Pine Saplings

WILF

The Christmas Tree phobia scent from 2014 Yule that I cannot spell

If you like musk, Faunalia

Bloodlust Bonbon

Memory of Primal Secrets

I'm a chic, but I do love masculine scents, especially leather, incense and wood

These are from more or less the last 5 years

Katie Fulton

Hunger Moon is my frosty Winter sky scent. No berries, mint, holiday spice or pastries. Just the smell of the cold sky with a hint of ozone.

I've tried many, many Winter scents in my quest to find that crystalline, pure sky scent like the space between the stars. This one does it for me, maybe it is what you're searching for...

Any of the BPALZ dirt blends feature a prominent petrichor note?

Blue Moon 06 was a nice pear, not sure how hard it is to find

This is an Insta bottle purchase for me.

In vitro: oranges! The oil is orange too.

Wet: sweet orange oil and zingy, effervescent tangerine!

Early dry: Each of the notes are discernable, orange/tangerine, anise, candy sweet lavender, cookies

Drydown: Father Christmas dries to slightly sweet pizzelle cookies. Lavender candies are like the Belfana note.

Final analysis: The notes are all present but combine to smell like a tray of delicious treats. This is perfect. The pizzelle cookies are dead ringers, slightly sweet with just a hint of anise. If you liked La Belfana and Sugar Cookie, this should be a no-brainer. I'd love it if the sillage was stronger, but aging could improve that. The only question I have to ask is do I need multiple bottles or not?

Pleasant Embrace, a Shunga from last year's (2015) Lupers was lovely, but hard to find, as it went out of stock before most people could test their decants.

LA Belle au bois Dormant is beautiful and easily obtained as it is general catalog, which is easily overlooked

Hi!

I'd recommend trying Antikythera mechanism, Haloes, Liz (Hellboy series) and Sachs.

For related, consider Dee, Tombstone, Le Serpent Qui Danse, Whip, Perversion, White Rider...

I tried Black Annis last night, and it is dirty, wicked sexy like a praying mantis or black widow who kills her mate after copulation. I love it.

Hmmm, I agree. Could it be the civet?

Fettered in the Shackles of the Drug comes to mind. It should not be hard to find a decant. It is better than Carnivale Diabolique but similar to my nose.

I just tested Paysage and I recommend it, but test first, if you are not sure about the mugwort. The drydown is sublime, though. It went from, "maybe I need to wash this off," to, "I think I need a bottle or two!"

Debauchery, Anathema, and Belle Epoque are all high on my list of favorites.

Finally, it may be difficult to find, but Radiance of the Opium Dream is exquisite, if tuberose isn't a deal breaker note.

Mum moon and Red Lantern are well loved and I think they're divine but the above are my off the beaten path recommendations. I had no idea how much I loved Beth's opium scents until just now!

Guess I need to track down Parliament of Monsters and Romanti_goth now...and The Snow at Dusk may be a winner, I've yet to try it but it's getting great reviews.

So, if anyone is tempted to take this deeper down the rabbit hole... here's a screenshot of how I track this stuff. Every new scent, once tested, gets logged under each note it contains, in the column that best describes my experience with it. I've found it really fun to put together and see patterns develop, not to mention very useful when trying to remember which notes I've had good experiences with. This first segment looks fairly ambiguous, but farther down the list, there are notes it's very clear that I like (Benzoin!) and dislike (Jasmine!).

 

 

No one's said it yet but I will, that spreadsheet is bloody genius!

This does not begin well, as it smelled like hairspray in the imp, but I persevered in the spirit of exploration.

Green initially while wet, an undercurrent of sweet from the amber, and hippy dippy patchouli.

Elemi gives this an almost citrus edge, with green aquatic suggestions from the? green amber and perhaps tobacco flower. Is an aquatic resin possible? The light of a smoky golden topaz, crystalized into mineral is the synesthesia I envision.

Drying, sniffing my wrist is becoming more compulsory. The tobacco flower with perhaps help from the vetiver are present as a contraposition to the crystalline elements of amber and patchouli. The ornate smoky topaz sits on a black velvet cushion.

Drydown, now this becomes exquisite. The green, aquatic edge has softened. Tobacco and patchouli are dominant but the champaca, darkened by vetiver are adding a smoky quality, without smelling of incense. The green amber is a new take on resin for this nose. It is green and vegetable but resinous and smoky at the same time. I imagine that this will age beautifully as amber and patchouli are wont to do.

I'm suspicious that this will be a sleeper hit as fresh can only suggest the magnificent olfactory glory this will likely become. I'll retest in about 3 months to get a better idea but damn the torpedoes, I'll probably need a bottle!

Black Annis is a personal favorite, if you like musk too.

Licorice whip is great too. I spray that on everything!

The Come and See series suggest the Apocalypse to me, literally:

Scales of Deprivation

Bow and Crown of Conquest

Great Sword of War

Death on a Pale Horse

Representative of the stages of the apocalypse, according to John, the Revelator.

And each one is a winner! Bow and Crown is my personal favorite.

Teak wood and blood musk perfectly melded. Initially the teak dominates, the musk on drydown. I didn't smell anything extraneous to the listed notes: no metal or blood. Teak wood is it's own thing, it smells like well polished, hard wood furniture: Slightly sharp and high end. Blood musk is less skanky than red, less citrus than black, and not high pitched like white. It strikes a balance between red and black, more like the feral musk in Baby Goat or Coyote, but slightly more mineral, and it hints of blood, like iron or red clay. It suggests these things, rather than smelling like them.

Perfect! Very bpal. Very woody. As I'm a woods and a musk girl, this is my thang. Bottle worthy.

2015 version

Wet: sugary fruit

Dry: browned sugar

I see why this is popular! I think I'll get my paws on a bottle. Sorry, I don't have any older versions to compare to this year's offering. I remember trying this many years ago and fresh, or maybe it's just this year's iteration, but my decant has more fruit and less burnt sugar than my memory of the original.

I found a 2009 version, aged til now (2015) to review, since the new update has this recurring for the 2015 Yules...so, in case you are wondering how your decant will age...

in vitro--def. a red musk blend, smells a bit foody, like caramel

wet--red musk, honey, a bit of caramel, very faint patchouli

drydown--reminds me a bit of Red Lantern in the drydown, due to the red musk, caramel, there is a trace bit of the champaca incense but only because I read the notes and know it is there. There is also a woody, balsalmic note, the "celery" note that others noticed is probably the galbanum. It almost smells like a tobacco leaf note. In this quite aged imp, the red musk is very calm and soothing, not as sexy and in your face as it can be. Wondering if I will need to get a bottle of this with the 2015 Yules? I like this quite a bit, but I have a bottle of Red Lantern and I am not sure this trumps it. It does have honey...maybe I will try layering the new decant with this aged decant and make my decision from that. If I come up with anything amazing I will report back...

In vitro: White floral, gardenia predominantly

Wet: Floral! White florals, which are not screechy or high pitched, but soft and whispy, which could be the contribution of the sandalwood.

Drying: A bit of the musk comes out, no cognac, some ambrette (musky and sweet)

Late drydown: White musk predominant with a hint of fading gardenias and ambrette. The sandalwood is evident now and it is glorious. No cognac to be sniffed.

Final thoughts: I was moving this imp to the retry pile when I noticed the drydown was the type of white musk and sandalwood I really, really like. Prior to that, I was just going to keep the imp, because I like florals, and gardenia particularly is lovely but this lacked complexity. However, I can tell by the late drydown that this will develop into the sort of skin musk I really, really like so now I have decided I will get a big bottle when I do my combined Weenie/Yule order. Aged, this will be magnificent!

ETA--this is the 2015 version

This one is hard to describe, but I'll try.

Wet, Dry, it's not much change. Initially, I got a blast of minty paste, the kind from kindergarten. It transported me back to being a school child. But then the perfume did take it's final form and it lasted. A long,long time! And I was transported instead to the late nineties, early 2000, when I wore big name perfume from department stores and floriental was the rage...

This reminds me of big, celebrity designed perfume from the nineties: Specifically, Elizabeth Arden Provocative Woman. I get the purple fruits, plum rather than grape, floral patchouli (no wood or dirt tones), plus neroli blends in with opoponax to make a blast of perfume! Citrus top,like a chypre, with a base of super sweet, resinous, heady sweet myrrh. The opoponax, patchouli and fruit merge to form a super note. It reminds me of many of the fruity chypre perfume bases from the nineties, Chanel Mademoiselle, Flowerbomb, etc. I think it is the sweet resin base combined with fruit and patchouli.

It's a power hitter, very sweet not vanilla or gourmand, but quite classic "parfum". It lasted all day, sweet and sexy, grand Dame parfum. The citrus like neroli burned off and left the base of cloying resin plus patchouli and fruit. Drydown was well over eight or nine hours!

Final thoughts- this is brilliant. I imagine it's Beth's interpretation of the fruity Oriental chypre, big name perfumes popular at the turn of the century. As in Y2K. I for one loved it! I'm not sure it reminds me of insects. But, it is big, powerful, sweet, fruity, patchouli resin following a neroli top note. Since it reminds me so much of a BPAL version of my favorite Elizabeth Arden perfume- Provocative Woman, which I wore frequently before my conversation to BPAL, I'll have to have a bottle.

In vitro- leather, cinnamon.

Wet- ouch, I'm getting weals. This disappeared shortly after I applied so I slathered. My skin is red. So this is the cinnamon reaction? Cinnamon and leather mainly. Cardamom lends a spicy edge.

Dry- First, cinnamon, leather, soft skin musk, and woody cypress. Cardamon does the spice note thing. It disappears again.

Late drydown-My skin is tingling again. Up close, I smell soft leather, like suede, and cinnamon plus cardamom. These are my favorite spice notes. The musk is soft, it isn't the soapy or high pitched white note that I fear. This has very little throw. I really have to put my nose close to find the scent.

Analysis- I almost bought a bottle of this without smelling the decant first, as they had me at "Ceylon cinnamon." However, I tested first because leather can be problematic for my skin and white musk can be soapy. I really want to like this but my skin swallowed it. I'll age the imp and retest. The lack of sillage will hopefully improve with age because the notes combine well and the composition is complex, sweet, leathery, and spicy. Cypress combined well with the leather and spices. Genius combination of notes, if only my skin didn't eat it.

In vitro- leather!, spice?

Wet- Serious leather, take no prisoners leather. Perhaps I amp it? Lavender and bay leaf contribute spicy and peppery energy. The tobacco wraps around the edges. It is mellow, dried tobacco, not smoky or burnt. Oudh is well blended, as in I don't detect it, unless it's lending a woody base, blended with the tobacco.

Dry- Lavender reappears, over a cozy and masculine base of leather and tobacco. Agreed, this is worn, saddle leather, not the sharp black leather of a new jacket.

Drydown- Sweet, leather and tobacco with a floral lavender. Woody oudh is finally apparent.

Final thoughts- A complex composition with herbal elements, soft and well worn leather, woody oudh and tobacco. This is mostly base notes and wonderfully resinous and masculine. I may need a bottle upgrade, as the Quincey Morris comparison is quite right. This is lovely now, I am excited to imagine it aged!

In vitro- citrus, honey, spicy and sweet

Wet - Mainly honey, carnations, and the red clover which is astringent and citrus like.

Drying- Like Alice, but more vanilla and an almost lemon flavor. Creamy, floral with carnation forward, backed by vanilla'd honey. This stage is magnificent. The reviewer who noted lemon tarts has it right, with vanilla tea flavored by cream and honey, displayed next to a vase of fragrant carnations.

Drydown- my nemesis rose emerges, and this goes to powder. Sweet, rosy, powder, but nevertheless not good. My skin amps rose and unfortunately, the honey and cream can't compete. Of course this phase lasts.

Final thoughts- I'm very tempted to buy a bottle but I'd have to use a scent locket. I think I'd rather try layering a lemon scent with Alice in an attempt to replicate the scent. If roses behave on your skin, this is sublime, a creamy, honeyed floral with bright, citrus like clover,that is different from Alice. Sadly, my skin ruins this for me, but that leaves more for the rest of you to love.

In vitro- smoky DBR, vanilla like tonka

Wet- DBR is smoky incense, tonka is a sweet, soft counterpoint and there's a hint of woodsmoke. Oak is presumed, from the notes, I don't think I'd have identified it otherwise.

Drying - tonka predominantly with DBR adding a smoky incense quality. DBR can go either powdery, as it does here, or sweet, syrup like and floral. The oak note is a lovely wood base, the tonka fuzzy like a baby blanket. The patchouli is present, woody rather than dirty, but subdued.

Final thoughts- Fuzzy, incense, cuddly and slightly sweet without being foody or burnt. Not quite my jam, I prefer my incense sweeter or with spice, woodier or earthier. This is too airy and pure, but I'll bet it has it's admirers.