Christina Huizar

Smells like an apricot turnover - buttery, flaky pastry filled with apricot jam. I LOVE IT. I just ordered two bottles of it, because I never want to run out. I think this is my favorite Yule Lad, and possibly my favorite apricot perfume ever. I even like it better than Aristocratic Couple.

There's something about this that reminds me of Southern nights sitting on the front porch, in the spring or early summer, smelling the magnolia trees and mimosa trees as the breeze wafts by. Or passing by a honeysuckle bush, maybe. It is a green scent, but also very sweet. I don't get candy from it, though -- I get sweet flowering trees or bushes. It smells like my childhood, pulling pink mimosa blossoms off the mimosa tree and burying my face in them.

I don't normally do florals or greens but the nostalgia is so strong for me that I may need a bottle of this for when I feel homesick for east Texas.

 

giniminagawunj

 

Gesundheit. What ingredient is that?

 

haha Your guess is as good as mine! I just googled it and the only thing that popped up were entries about this particular perfume. It's magical unicorn farts! I'm going with that.

I recently tried Moon of Small Spirits, which was a December lunacy from several years ago, and so far, it's my favorite winter scent ever. It's what I thought Skadi would be (Skadi is lovely, just not what I expected). The description is "Snow-blanketed wild grasses, sage, swamp tea, cedar, giniminagawunj, copal, rosehip, juniper, clover, elderberry, sweet flag, butterfly weed, wood sorrel, and pine."

It's lovely. Don't let the pine or cedar scare you off. I don't like "wood" scents very much at all, but this doesn't smell like a mothball or hope chest -- it smells exactly like a forest in winter. I love it. I don't know how hard it is to find, but if you're curious based on the notes I posted, PM me and I would happily decant a half imp tester for you to try.

I am the girliest femme you could ever imagine -- the kind of girl who never leaves the house without lipstick and eyeliner, and usually wearing a sundress, even in the winter -- but I LOVE the Lab's more masculine oils, and wear them myself. Pottaskefill will definitely join my collection of oils that are a little on the masculine side, but so dang sexy that I will rock them every day anyway.

On me, it's all soft, well-worn leather (without the sharpness that some leather blends like De Sade have - this is more the leather note from Dee) with a slight hint of cold mint or evergreen, and something giving it a tiny bit of sweetness behind the leather and cold.

I adore it! Upgrading to a bottle.

Hmmm...interesting. I don't get any lemon or sweetness at all. It was all wood on me, which I assume is the elemi and frankincense.

Finally I see why people love the Lab's chocolate perfumes. I've tried several -- Bliss, Gelt, various 13s -- and they've all left me cold, but this one I love. Warm and spicy and sexy. It's not overly foody, so I don't feel as though I'm a walking chocolate cupcake. More like I'm sipping a mug of hot cocoa in front of a fire, while someone bakes cinnamon ornaments back in the kitchen. This is truly lovely. I may have to upgrade to a bottle before the Yules come down.

This is beautiful, but has NO throw on me. At all. Like, I have to literally put my wrist against my nose to smell it. Other reviewers don't seem to have this problem, so maybe it's just me. If I could smell it from more than a centimeter away, this would definitely be a bottle purchase, because it's gorgeous. But with no throw, I guess I'll pass. Wonder if it's an aging thing. Perhaps I'll get a fresh imp from the lab and see if it has more throw than the imp I received in a trade.

The Ecstasy of Infatuation is all plumeria on me and I lurve it so much. Hard to find, though, sadly.

Smells like those strawberry hard candies that come wrapped in the strawberry wrappers -- in other words, smells like my childhood, because I ate a LOT of those candies. Very sweet, very fruity scent. Light and playful.

This is very fruity on me, and I love it. It was a frimp from a lovely forumite and I tested blindly, without even looking up the notes first, and I'm glad I did. I typically don't enjoy red musk OR roses, so I probably would have skipped this one, and that would have been a shame, because I honestly don't get either of those notes. It's all patch and pomm on me, and I'm HUGE fan of patch mixed with fruits (A shadow in the Elevator, for example, or Hellion, as other reviewers mentioned, are in the same scent family as this one, to my nose anyway, and those are two of my favorite scents evarrrrr).

(5 minutes later, the rose starts to peek its head out, but it takes a backseat to the fruit, so it's not overwhelming. I hate roses, but can still wear and love this perfume, so if you've been avoiding it due to the rose, give it a shot! You might be surprised.)

Think it's time to upgrade to a bottle for this one!

Amping the cedar like whoa. I got yummy chocolate in the initial application, but once it dried, it was alllll cedar on me. Sadness! I'm allergic to cedars in real life, so I have a negative association with the scent, so into the swap pile it goes.

Ooooh, this is lovely. Smoke and cinnamon and amber, in that order. Mmmmhmmmm. I definitely need a bottle of this. I'm a sucker for cinnamon and feel fortunate that I'm not at all sensitive to it. I'm wearing this to bed tonight so I can drift off smelling its deliciousness.

As it was for many of the reviewers, apricot was definitely the most dominant note on me. It's a light, sweet, fruity, beautiful scent. It will be great in the spring and summer! I don't really get much of the cardamom or vanilla, but I'm not complaining -- this is lovely.

I enjoy the herbal, berry tea scent, but there is almost no throw (on me, anyway). I have to hold my hand literally touching my nose in order to smell it. Maybe I just have a head-cold today. ha ha I like my perfumes to have a little more of a presence, so I probably won't buy a bottle of this, but I might use this imp to make a body scrub or something! It's definitely lovely, just not strong enough for my preference.

It's all cedar on me, alas. I don't get any of the amber or incense that other reviewers mention. Smells like a cedar hope chest.

This one doesn't seem to be getting much love compared to the other CP blends, which is a shame, because this is gorgeous! When I first apply it, it's very cool and green -- like irridescent Elytra beetle wing green --a little sharp. Once it dries, however, the fruits and opoponax come out to sweeten it, and the black patch and neroli give it complexity. I agree with the comparisons to expensive Dior perfumes -- specifically, this reminds me of Poison, which was popular when I was in high school, although out of my budget. I think it might be the combination of fruits and opoponax. Apparently those are notes in Poison as well. However, I think this is much more complex and subtle than Poison. Insects sends shivers down my spine when I hold my wrists to my face. It's mysterious, a little scary, and oh-so-very-sexy.

It smells very feminine to me. I think I need a backup bottle.

I have to be honest, I bought this for the name. I'm reading Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Tales, and there's a bad Norse lady named Skade (alternative spelling of Skadi) in it, and so when I saw the name, I had to hunt down a bottle. :-)

Wet, it's all mint. Like, Double-mint gum mint. Luckily the mint calms its ass down in a few moments and the pine and berries come out to play, as well as the gorgeous snow. I live in Texas where it snows once a year, if that, so I can't speak as to this perfume's resemblance to a snowy forest, but I do know that it is delicious and I will wear it all winter, even if it is 80 degrees here today.

I agree with a reviewer above who said that the mint in this reminds them in some ways of Nuclear Winter. That comparison came to my mind as well, but the berries give it a sweetness to temper the biting cold of the mint.

This one is delicious! It's almost all plumeria on me, but I adore plumeria, so that's fine by me. Light, fruity, fizzy. It has decent throw, but I echo the other reviewers who have noted that its staying power is not the best. I applied at 7AM, and by noon I couldn't smell anything at all. But, it's not the end of the world to have to reapply frequently! Yummy scent!

Smoky leather, and oh-so-delicious. I would put this on the "masculine" end of the spectrum, but I still plan to rock it, as I do so many masculine oils. On my skin, it's mostly leather and oudh, and since those are two of my favorite notes, I couldn't be happier! Is this going to be released as a bottle? If so, gimme gimme gimme.

This smelled pretty similar to Snow Bunny on me, and I love it. I was expecting more clay, and wasn't sure I would like this, but it's all snow on me, and is a light, very pretty scent.

The vetiver was overpowering when wet, but this dried into the most lovely patch and plum. Dark, velvety, mysterious, sexy. So much depth and complexity. This isn't the type of scent I usually go for, but I think I may need a bottle!

I know you'll think I'm crazy, but the plum in this even puts me in mind of Bordello, but without the light playfulness of Bordello, obviously. Bordello's dark, gothy cousin.

ETA: oh man, half an hour later, the black plums and patchouli have mellowed into a very Hellion-esque scent, and I could not be happier, as I'm nearly out of Hellion. Sweet, juicy, incensey goodness. Oh so so so good. If you've been looking for a replacement for the lovely rare Hellion, give this a try. Seriously.

I really wanted to love this -- I adore Snake Oil, and also love berries, so the combination intrigued me. However, on my skin it mostly just smelled like Robitussin. Sadness! I envy all the people for whom this scent worked out. It sounds great, if only my picky body chemistry would cooperate. :-)

I may be dating myself by making this comparison, but do any of you remember the 80s/90s perfume Skin Musk? My older sister wore it and I would frequently sneak into her room to douse myself in it as a child, until she would yell at me for using all her perfume. ha ha I had completely forgotten this memory until I tried Edith Cushing today. Holy wow, this is like an updated, more subtle and nuanced Skin Musk, and I LOVE IT. The vanilla musk was a perfect choice for Edith. To me, it smells like sun-warmed hair and skin, just a little sweaty but not dirty -- a sexuality that is budding but not yet bloomed. It is gorgeous. I am ordering a second bottle immediately. I think this one will be a popular one.

My only complaint is that I'm not getting much throw. I probably look insane because I keep sniffing my wrists and elbows. ha ha But it has nice staying power, and when I was in a hot kitchen cooking breakfast, the scent really warmed on my skin and I kept getting delicious whiffs as I moved about the room.

Definitely a keeper.

I was really hoping that the vanilla amber and rosewood would be the dominant notes on my skin, but for me, it was all white rose. It reminds me of Parlement of Foules from Lupercalia 2006. It's a sweet, pretty, innocent, feminine scent. Fans of LUSH's Ro's Argan Body Conditioner or LUSH's Rose Jam fragrance will love this one.