Soupy Twist

holy crap. I tried this fresh out of the mailbox and I was hoping it would settle a bit but I was very wrong. Sour marigold in the bottle. Goes on as an eye-watering sour "deadhead" kind of marigold scent. Turned my stomach; had to wash it off immediately. Off to someone who will appreciate it more!

Seconding Sherlock Holmes. A beautiful high tobacco note.

Meh. dried apricots. I don't even get the bite of booze. Pass.

This is just gorgeous. Sweet apple juice (other posters above are right; it's a honeycrisp) in the bottle and on application. It's a very light and floral honey, almost perfumy but in a good way. It's definitely not a beeswax kind of right-out-of-the-comb honey (I like the Lab's beeswax note, but this is not it). The apple juice and floral honey notes cycle with each other as it dries down. The mix is wonderful. A perfect "warm September day" scent. Six or seven hours later, this is still a rich but not cloying floral honey, with lots of staying power. I can't stop huffing my arm. holy cats. ETA I had put on a jacket about half an hour after applying it, and two days later the jacket is still faintly scented. So glad I managed to snag a bottle.

A generic, vaguely pretty floral, kind of reminiscent of TAL's White Light. Absolutely not marigold in any way, shape, or form. And it's gone in 45 minutes.

Candy cane in the bottle, not too sharp. Burns immediately on application, although it reduces after a moment. I see why this is "Discreetly"; it's a subdued candy cane. The sugar drops away as it dries, leaving a too-strong single note of peppermint oil. Never any vanilla at all in this one. The entire thing is nearly gone after half an hour, with just a little burn as a reminder.

Just cucumber. That's it. Almost too much. No tea (not a surprise) or mint (which is). I might death-match this with Squirting Cucumber, although I think that's DC too now. Fades quickly.

An uncomfortably strange blend for me. Cocoa and nuts in the bottle — I have high hopes. Goes on as cocoa and pine, which soon start to battle for dominance. It becomes... a sweet pine? It's weird. It starts to turn "perfumy," and not in a good way. I like all the notes in this, but wow, did it not work for me. The "touches" overwhelmed whatever else was supposed to be in it, and those two notes don't play well together on my skin.

This is just "Tag at the Tobacconist's" on me. Heavy tobacco leaves in the bottle and on application, like the French Tobacco single note (which I did not care for). That's pretty much it. A little smoke, a two-second juicy currant note, but primarily heavy, monotone tobacco leaves. Maybe I just amp tobacco, or this particular tobacco formulation, to the exclusion of everything else. Thank the gods above and below for decanters.

Apple Jolly Rancher in the bottle (which is a good scent). Goes on as apple plus gin. The gin disappears for a bit and there's only Granny Smith juice — basically identical to Pure Applesauce. But give it a moment; the gin comes back, muscling the apple out of the way altogether. It's not fizzy like Twenty-One, but it's definitely that gin note. Not as heavy as Twenty-One, I think, and it suffers a bit for obliterating the apple. After maybe half an hour the Jolly Rancher note kicks out the booze, and in an hour the entire thing is gone.

The Lab's awful jasmine stamen note in the bottle, but fortunately that doesn't reach my wrist. Goes on as a nice lily. It starts becoming a little powdery, though, and then vagues out into a more generic floral. It's pretty, but I think Lilium Inter Spinas is a better lily note.

I should have known. It has tea and citrus in it; why did I expect it to last? Juicy honeydew in the bottle and on application, and then 15 seconds later I get a tiny wee burst of lime as it vanishes completely. That might be a new record for disappearing time, though.

Coffee and... apple? apple juice? I can't put my finger on it. It's sweet, and juicy, but I can't identify the note. Mostly cheap bitter black coffee — I see why everyone is saying "Turkish," because the family resemblance is there. The cinnamon shows up eventually, but it's the weird off kind. Fades soon.

Cookies in the bottle. Goes on as unsweetened bergamot (this is definitely Earl Grey). For about a minute there's some horrible sharp note — smoke? pepper? — which finally fades. Then it starts to cycle between a more subdued cookie note, bergamot tea, cream, and an unfortunately unpleasant honey, in sequence. I will never understand how morphers work and they are so bloody fascinating.

Coffee and wet cake in the bottle (which is absolutely tiramisu). Goes on as coffee. But the strong coffee almost immediately starts to recede into something sweet, maybe floral? with a little cinnamon. Definitely becoming more floral as it dries. Where did my coffee note go? The more it dries, the more it's turning into a soapy, powdery floral. What, are these the flowers on the restaurant table? ooh, gross, rose. WTF? Okay, I'm done. crap, I really had high hopes for this.

A pure single-note cassia cinnamon. No honey at all, but maybe the honey is sweetening the cinnamon and rounding it out so it's not dusty. No skin burn, which is unusual because Inferno leaves welts. I like this a lot.

Um. Salt water? with a little pine? ozone? My stomach is turning.

In the bottle it's the inside of a candy cane. Goes on as more mint and less sugar, and not really any vanilla in this one. Definitely a sinus-clearer, and oop! there's the light burn after about two minutes. Like One More Time minus any powdered sugar note. Damn, the burn gets fierce as it dries. This is almost straight-up peppermint oil without any of the sugar or vanilla of other years, although it's not bitter.

A pretty if generic aquatic floral. No ginger. Like Sea of Glass's younger cousin.

Chocolate in the bottle. Goes on as that pepper/tar note from Pottaskefill. Some chocolate works its way back in briefly, and then it's back to pepper. This starts to morph into clove, which isn't so bad, but the amber shows up and I'm done.

2011 version: Sugar and cream in the bottle. Goes on as a clear mixture of all three notes. I get sugar crystals, like it wants to be the Lab's brûlée note but it's softer, not quite as caramelized. The cotton note becomes stronger for a bit — I was getting more "clean linen," which is a nice scent but doesn't work with the food. This soon departs, and it dries into creamy sweetness with just a hint of the caramel note. Hours later, the cloth scent comes back — this is starting to remind me of Stekkjarstaur. If you liked him, you'll like this, but I didn't care for him.

There's an entire Dead Leaves line you can explore, which may be added to this year whenever Weenies drop. Other than that, I'm not sure what an "autumn spice" is which doesn't involve "cinnamon/food scents."

Honey in the bottle. Goes on as chamomile, but this soon becomes a fake kind of honey. It continues into an artificial, candy-like cough drop kind of honey which eventually becomes more realistic but not amazing. An hour later: I've changed my verdict. This is a really nice honey note. Floral overtones.

hah! this is perfectly apt for me. Vanilla with some vile plastic scent in the bottle — maybe whatever's in my chemistry is so aggressive it doesn't even wait for the skin test. Seriously, I recoiled from the bottle, wondering if it had spoiled somehow. Goes on as vanilla ice cream for about three seconds, and then some horrific cheap plastic note smothers everything. I had to scrub it off before it even finished drying. I've done fine with most other BPAL vanillas, so I wonder what went wrong here. This is similar to whatever is in French Vanilla.

I'm probably lucky that the Lab's site is down right now, because I would have bought this in the first half-hour of wearing it and then really regretted it. Goes on as a perfect fizzy root beer float. This gets smoother and rounder as it dries but is still the exact experience of root beer and vanilla ice cream. But the final drydown turns into a sour, musky plastic. It really wants to be the vanilla marshmallow of Stekkjarstaur, but it's missing. Damn.