Soupy Twist

A blend of citrus and the Lab's snow note in the bottle, which gets a little more aquatic on the wrist. This is beautiful!

Opens as a good lemon cough drop, dries as hard lemon candy, gone in 30 minutes, leaving a not-particularly-pleasant orange/lemon/citrus floor cleaner note. erg.

2017 Decant: Alas, whatever the Lab is using for this spice blend doesn't work on me. It's the same "dried cinnamon in the dregs of a mug of something" note I've gotten in several Weenies this year.

Creamy frosting in the bottle. Goes on as a marvelous cinnamon cake, and quickly develops a cream cheese frosting. I would love to eat this, but I don't know if I want to smell like it. The cinnamon starts to do that weird dry-dregs thing the Lab's cinnamon spice sometimes does on my skin, like in Apple Butter Rum, although that finally fades in the drydown. Totally dry it's back to the cinnamon cake note, but there's almost zero throw. Sweet Epiphanies has a good point: This is like the base spice combination from The Witches.

Buttery rum in the bottle. Goes on as too much dry cinnamon on cream. Dries as the dregs in the bottom of a glass of apple cider. A wee bit sickly sweet. Very heavy spice, although the apple comes out eventually. As Lady_Pandora notes, this is substantially similar to Yule 2016's Hot Buttered Whiskey (which went to Rum Cake on me). Apparently the Lab's "spice + rum" combination doesn't work on me; Spiced Rum Buttercream Coffee was the same "rum and spice dregs." But Elegba, which is "sweet sugared rum," is one of my favorites because it's got the brûlée thing going on. Skin chemistry is so weird!

This is wonderful — like biting into a fresh, crisp Cortland. Not too tart, but not too sweet either. It's very fresh. Not as dark as Pure Applesauce; there's a lighter, more perfumy note that the Lab has been using as a sweetener lately which is just divine. It definitely does make it more like "apple perfume" or "apple-scented soap/wash" as noted above than like actual apple juice. I'll have to match it up against Poisoned Apple; I think this is just a touch sweeter. I have several bottles of pure apple note, so I don't think I'll need this one, but if you don't, this is the one to get. ETA as the day goes on, it becomes lighter and cleaner, with less apple and something almost resembling the Lab's snow note. This might be a bottle after all!

Honeydew or something fresh in the bottle. Goes on as a green, planty note which slowly becomes a clean wood as it dries, but this develops into a generic freesia and I'm so done. Not my jam.

Okay, so I have to share the origin story of this bottle: My sister was able to get tix for NYCC, so I asked if she could stop by the Lab's booth to fairy for me. My sister is incredibly allergic to perfumes — I can't wear any kind of scent when I go visit her. But bless her, she agreed to hold her breath long enough to get a bottle of this for me. She said she got a headache 10 feet away from the booth, but she braved the whole scent cloud to pick this up. Sweetie, it was worth it. Holy shazbot. Sweet, apple-tinged fizzy ginger ale in the bottle. Goes on as a lovely sweet ginger ale. As it dries, there's a candy apple note coming in which in no way detracts from or overwhelms the ginger ale. This sweetens into caramel, almost like the candied apple got baked. Just a breath of spices develops. The gingery fizz and caramel sweetness remain and remain and remain, frak me. This is positively AMAZEBALLS and I need backups now. :wub3:

Aquatic in the bottle, which goes on as green. Wet it's a sweet grass note, very similar to Sagittarius 2007 and Nothing Gold Can Stay. It sours a bit with the moss and lime as it dries, but those notes fade and it comes back to a beautiful cool blue-green aquatic. This is gorgeous. I can't believe I found two Lilith hits in a row! Liliths never work for me.

A gorgeous slightly aquatic lily of the valley — the same note from the Wild Honeysuckle. This might be a bottle.

When I was, I dunno, 10 maybe, I had a little cylinder of solid perfume — basically Chapstick, but scent — which was lily of the valley. This is exactly that scent. It's very pretty, a little green, a little waxy, and I like it a lot, but absolutely lily of the valley and not honeysuckle.

turns out I don't. A nice raspberry ice cream in the bottle and on application, but the artificial lip gloss roars in and blots out everything else. Too much for me. my kiddo pronounced it "Gummy bears! YUM!" and insisted on adding it to her collection. So I suppose we have one up and one down vote.

wow, this is a disappointment. Bitter coffee grounds and rum dregs. There's a little spice, but it's sickly-sweet. I must have gotten the bottom of the pot and the bottle.

Vanilla ice cream with a little snow in the bottle. I had forgotten that the Lab's vanilla ice cream note has gone funky on me the last few times I tried it, so I was seized with apprehension, but forth Eorlingas and all that. Goes on as snow and ozone. The vanilla ice cream note flickers weirdly for a few seconds but then vanishes, to my relief. As it dries, it becomes less "snow" and more of a menthol/ozone blend. Very much like a Halls menthol cough drop without the hard edges. By the time it dries completely it's settled as a menthol-tinged white fir. I just got a bottle of White Fir, so I don't think I'll need this. Not as bad as I feared; not as good as I hoped.

A perfect dusty fir. Ranges from sweet to dry, never quite sour. Not much throw but it's really lovely. It doesn't feel super cool now but I bet this will be spectacular in December.

I am your absolute scent opposite, so I'mma check my "WOW did I not like this" list for your loves: Cathode (Ambergris, Spanish Moss, oakmoss and three electric mints.) Rumpelstilzchen (Firewood and ash with an oddly otherworldly blend of patchouli, cardamom, nutmeg, black pepper, tonka, vetiver, and myrrh.) Black Rider (Black leather, opoponax, tobacco, and black amber) Black Tower (white sandalwood, ambergris, wet ozone, galbanum and leather with ebony, teak, burnt grasses, English ivy and a hint of red wine.) Pottaskefill (Salt licorice, birch tar, black pepper, and leather.) Dracul (Black musk, tobacco, fir, balsam of peru, cumin, bitter clove, crushed mint, and orange blossom) Hatta (Copaiba balsam, battered brown leather, and Ceylon cinnamon.) The Avenue (Dark chocolate and clove bud with smoked amber, bourbon vanilla tar, and black and pink peppers.)

I love all these! Chaos would be grape soda (to parallel Hardison's orange), sweat, ozone, and cheap aftershave. For Eliot I'm thinking leather, hay, whiskey, steel, citrus, basil, and tomato leaf. A cowboy in a chef's hat. "You hold a knife like this, it cuts through an onion. You hold a knife like this, it cuts through, like... eight Yakuza in four seconds."

try reading the reviews of Strangler Fig and look for something with similar notes, or see if anyone says "if you like this, you'll love X."

Ginger in the bottle. Goes on as a somewhat promising white tea and ginger, but then a sour floral comes in — the iris, maybe? — and I'm done. Disappointing.

Increases the chance of successfully picking pockets by 25%. All woods. No beeswax. yuck.

Goes on as a floral cream, which is interesting for a minute or so, but the cream fades, the floral remains, and then it turns to rose and I'm done.

Slightly spicy Play-Doh. This is the scent of the playroom in the Wild West section of the amusement park, where you'd send your kids while you and your friends dress up in "Old West" costumes to take a silly sepia photo with pretend money, bottles of "hooch," and fake cigars.

Oh, I like this. Why does it have to be DC?! this is a perfect rosemary and juniper blend. It's fantastic.

Thirding Dana O'Shee, and also Almond Blossom.

Sea of Glass (perfect hyacinth) White Light, although that's technically TAL (pretty white floral) Grief (perfect hyacinth) Titania (fruits and lily of the valley) Humanite (florals, neroli, vanilla, hyacinth) Katharina (apricot and neroli)