Casablanca

Short version: My experience with Crescent Moon is similar to VetchVesper's, plus copal. Longer: I love amber and sage, but I was initially going to skip this one because copal and juniper are iffy for me. In early reviews, amber and sage seemed to be the main players, so this went on my list. But my experience has been more like later reviews, where juniper is stronger. Plus copal. Freshly applied, this shows a shimmering juniper: cool, herbal, a bit ginny, slightly blue but mostly green. It's astringent, at first bordering on medicinal, but that quality settles down soon. The coolness is whitened with sage and sweetened with amber. And, hey? I pick out a copal hint. I had thought that note would ghost. After drydown, Crescent Moon morphs on me into a copal-dominant blend. And... it's gorgeous. Copal usually smells earthy, woody, and slightly smoky to me. What I smell here is like that, but leans woody, and even reminds me just a bit of the wood blend in Magician's Wand. I'm having none of my usual trouble with copal here. I'm delighted that copal and juniper both work for me here. And I have nothing else quite like this mix. It's dualistic, with a shining, herbal, green, and fresh opening that morphs on my skin into a calm, lightly sweet, woody-brown base that's both comforting and spiritual. The juniper and sage are an initial wake-up, and then the copal shifts it to a spiritual mood. Fitting for a crescent moon.

A paean to all the Wicked Queens, Evil Stepmothers, and other misunderstood villainesses throughout history and lore. Lends an aura of majesty, refinement, strength, and a deep, brooding malice. A sophisticated, womanly scent: rich myrrh and jasmine draped in the subtlest rose. I had an imp of this lying around and just tried it on without knowing the notes. I got a dominant jasmine (but not a high-pitched one), and the warmth of a little rose, and something that seemed kind of ambery, but not quite. I also got something a bit woody and musky. The rose seemed mostly red, but also a bit pink and innocent. I read the notes and saw myrrh listed. Then I could smell myrrh! It seems to be the part I thought was amber-like. I still smell something a little woody and musky in this, at least on my skin. After drydown, the woodiness starts to smell like oudh. I like this. Think I'm good with the imp, though.

Black tea, lavender buds, Italian bergamot, and Siamese benzoin. Bagatelles opens on me as equally an herbal lavender and a black tea. There's something borderline medicinal or astringent here, without being quite either. It brings to mind a Victorian doctor with a carpet bag carrying all-for-what-ails-you. The bergamot lifts the blend somewhat, but supportively, rather than as a strong force. I never smell benzoin significantly. This is charming and pleasant, with an old-fashioned mood. ETA: This reminds me a lot of Tyrannophobia. I think it's the same black tea.

The affable fool who uses his own obtuseness and ignorance to his advantage: milk, honey, and wild fig with ambrette seed and almond buttercream. Narr opens thick and rich and sweet. It's a buttercreamy milk, heavy with almond and honeyed fig -- that's about the order of strength of the notes on my skin. At first, the ambrette is just darkening the blend a bit, its nuttiness blending into the almond. But in drydown, after the initial honey cream rush (which was pretty heady stuff), the ambrette comes into its own on my skin, building its nutty sort of musk. It reminds me a little of the ambrette in Fortuna Primigenia, which was kind of ambergris-like to me, but here it's mingling closely with almond and harder to separate. The buttercream milk and honey settle down surprisingly fast. What begins as omghoneycreamheartattack quickly mellows on my skin into a nutty, sweet ambrette with creamy and figgy qualities.

At peace with recklessness and abandon, the serenity of accepting the embrace of disorder and obliquity: pink pepper and honey. This reminds me of the honey from Fortuna Dubia, with pink pepper instead of Dubia's herbs. The honey is stronger on me than the pepper. At first I also got a little something that felt sugared, like a powdered sugar, but my skin ate it. This blend lives under two hours on my skin.

When just applied, Solstice is an intoxicating mix: slightly smoky apple wine with creamy vanilla amber. The wine isn't super boozy, but it is sweet and appley. The tobacco starts light, just a hint of a warm, chewy leaf. It grows to a stronger note in the proportions of the blend, but the whole thing goes very soft overall on me as soon as the initial burst of apple wine fades. Too soft, actually. Before an hour has passed, it's barely there. What is there is mostly warm tobacco, with a bit of vanilla apple. I'm glad I don't find copal, because I never seem to like it as much as I want to. Lovely. Sophisticated. Disappointingly brief.

Her hair was pale and colorless in the moon's thin light. She wore a white cotton nightgown, with a high lace neck and a hem that swept the ground. Shadow sat up, entirely awake. "You are Zorya Polu . . . ," he hesitated. "The sister who was asleep." "I am Zorya Polunochnaya, yes. And you are called Shadow, yes? That was what Zorya Vechernyaya told me, when I woke." "Yes. What were you looking at, out there?" She looked at him, then she beckoned him to join her by the window. She turned her back while he pulled on his jeans. He walked over to her. It seemed a long walk, for such a small room. He could not tell her age. Her skin was unlined, her eyes were dark, her lashes were long, her hair was to her waist and white. The moonlight drained colors into ghosts of themselves. She was taller than either of her sisters. She pointed up into the night sky. "I was looking at that," she said, pointing to the Big Dipper. "See?" "Ursa Major," he said. "The Great Bear." "That is one way of looking at it," she said. "But it is not the way from where I come from. I am going to sit on the roof. Would you like to come with me?" Pale amber and ambergris, gossamer vanilla, moonflower, and white tobacco petals. This one will get a lot of love. Gossamer is the perfect word for Zorya P. I get mostly what I'm thinking of as a lunar vanilla. Moonflower, ethereal vanilla, evoking bluish-white colors for me. Everything else is too blended for me to pick anything out. I'm amazed at what seems to be the tobacco petals -- for anything tobacco-like, it's such a light touch. But there is a slight grounding influence it's giving. I keep getting a stronger floral impression than just moonflower, and I think it's that. I'm relieved not to get saltiness from the ambergris; the note comes out more on my skin as this dries. I don't smell amber but there's a fullness to the blend that I associate with it. This is gorgeous and smells to me like the signature blend of underworld's kindest ghost.

I don't know every floral note listed for 1868, but it's mostly moonflower and lily on me, with a breath of vanilla. It feels like an ethereal and vintage floral blend. Unfortunately, it was turning soapy on me soon after application, as some lilies do. Even though I feel like "Casablanca lily" should work on me. I thought it would be nice to try to fix it instead of rehoming it. So I tried it layered with Antique Lace on my arm, and they were pretty together. I used about a fifth of the 1868 bottle and added that amount of Antique Lace to it. This worked well -- no more soap, and the vintage vanilla feel of the blend is more than it was. Now the blend reminds me of a floral vintage wedding, even more than it initially did.

Red rose and rich red cedar, with a little teak and oudh coming in on drydown. Despite listing no resins, Our Hearts has something of a resinous quality to me within its rose and woods, giving it an oriental feel. Something here is reading as frankincense-like. The blend doesn't last long on my skin, though: not much more than an hour. Its balance is consistent through its life.

Freshly applied, the blend is blackberry-dominant on my wrists, but more evenly blackberry-lavender on my forearms. Either way, the two notes are a pleasant purple pairing. There's plenty of bergamot also, with its quality of seeming to lift a blend up. Beneath these, the white musk and green and tan herbal notes blend together. They don't start to seem individual to me until drydown. The musk is pale, floral, a little creamy, a little powdery. Sometimes the powder also seems to come from the herbs, as though they are the edible herbal powder you gel-cap yourself to make herbal supplements. During drydown I find lots of rosemary, and also seem to smell the fresh thyme I was breaking up for my bird to eat, and for an omelette, a few weeks ago. Sometimes I think I'm smelling a little tan herbal stalk smell that reminds me of angelica. Whatever the nature of the herbs, the blend is fresh and comforting. Periodically, I get a water impression from the blend. It comes and goes, but it definitely adds to the spring impression I get from the blend. Mummeries reminds me of early spring, fresh and herbal. But it'll come out on me during all the warm months.

This is a beautiful and quite distinct lace. Freshly applied, Emerald Lace is a sparkling green scent. It smells like sweet, sun-bright grass -- grass that's the vibrant green color of absinthe -- distilled in a tube and given a sharp aquatic and slightly opium edge. I wonder if it has galbanum in it. Within a few moments, the sharp aquatic vibe drifts off, and vanilla cognac enters the scene, spring-like with sap and a touch of mild green fig. This is a quiet orchard fig, not at all Fig Newtony. A tree fig, not an earth fig. The blend still smells green, but now it's starting to soften with the sepia of vanilla cognac lace. Once dry, the blend is a green-tinted vanilla cognac lace, only mildly sweet. I never catch any tobacco from it.

Each of Eternal Virgin's listed notes is a win with my chemistry, so I had no worries with this one. The balance is different from what I pictured before putting it on, and it intrigues and lures me in... First on, the cardamom is queen. Whee, I didn't expect so much cardamom up front. This is refreshing. With the cardamom, I keep getting a slight ginger impression, too, though none's listed. But under those, carnation and honeyed milk! Yum. My skin likes milk and cream notes, and loves when they're combined with a floral. During drydown, though, that ginger impression grows. And takes over. Where's this coming from? I know I can amp ginger something ridiculous, so while I like it in food, I tend to avoid it in fragrance. Come back, honeyed milk and other friends! OK, it's dry and settling down. Whew. Now back to just a little gingery whiff, mostly hidden back in the cardamom. This is a pleasant spice balance, with now much softer carnation and honey-sweet milk behind it. I loved the initial wet phase, and the fully dry one is nice. I'll see how this one settles. ETA: I thought I would actually update this. It's been about a month since I got this, and that initial shrieking ginger has calmed down into a balanced chai blend. I'm quite good with this. Yay!

Hello, jasmine dear. On first application, The Night Priestess is as jasmine-dominant as it pleases jasmine to be, with just a trace of cool, moonlit whiteness. This jasmine initially seems like a cousin of the one in Mare Vaporum (white sandalwood, smoky oudh, golden amber, bourbon vanilla, black jasmine), but it's a little rounder, less sharp, and it turns soft and pillowy in drydown. But back to the wet phase: Seconds after putting the blend on, vanilla orchid blooms out of the cool whiteness, as the blend warms on my skin. The whiteness resolves into a moonflower impression that brings Lullaby to mind (moonflower, iris root, French lavender, tuberose, white sandalwood, night-blooming gardenia, vanilla orchid, moss). The Night Priestess and Lullaby aren't much alike to me, other than that orchid-moonflower portion. This is jasmine, vanilla orchid, moonflower. It feels like soft, white night-flowers. The priestess doesn't bring out her spice on me until after drydown: a very mild clove joins the night bouquet. The clove adds interest, without intruding. I don't sense cardamom, but I expect both spices will increase a little with age, and I might notice it later. Lovely moonlight-themed floral.

A jester’s balloon, a vagabond’s pack. The riddle and the punch line. The Consequence, the Mystery, the Untapped Collective Knowledge of All Mankind. Jasmine petals tumbled with a panoply of spices, suffused with incense smoke. The Bindle offers a jasmine-dominant blend with a dreamy, summery, honeyed quality, like there's a hidden honeysuckle in it. My first thought was actually that I smelled honeysuckle, and then jasmine, and I thought of Eostre of the Dawn, one of my favorites. It's a lovely jasmine, full rather than high-pitched, and closer to Winter Jasmine SN than a jasmine from some of the GCs I've tried. Freshly applied on me, The Bindle reads as mostly this jasmine and honeysuckle with a diffuse waft of gentle, calming incense smoke. This isn't the strong incense of walking into a shop where it's burning in the same room, but rather of incense burning from the next open door or two down the street. It's a mellow incense, like frankincense sleeping in a hammock, or like some sticks I would've bought in a Saturday market to burn years ago. I don't catch any spices from this until it dries, and even then they are barely there and seem part of the incense. This is a surprise for me, as I often amp spices, but something here is giving the dried Bindle a more exotic air, reminding me of India. The flowers have settled down by this point, leaving a really lovely exotic skin scent. Unfortunately, I'll probably want a backup of this.

I received The Mountebank as a birthday gift. It had been on my list and I cut it with regret, and someone knew that. Wonderful gift! I put it on remembering only that it had lavender and leather. I could smell those, but also thought, "Resinous beeswax vanilla? What is that?" All the thieves' rosins. Ambery, and balsamic with... well, some sweet balsam. After drydown, I find a trace of white sandalwood, but it's not a big player on my skin. The blend also has a bit of that dust note from Quintessence of Dust. In Quintessence, the note overwhelmed me, and I had to rehome the blend. Here it's restrained and not troublesome. The Mountebank is Rogue++, a travel-wise rogue with a lavender edge. I've gone from cutting it -- out of some try at fiscal responsibility -- to wondering if one bottle will be enough. ETA the dust note. Forgot about it. Dusty brain...

The Storyteller is initially campfire smoke-dominant on me. It's a cozy, rustic smoke of cindery wood, with just a hint of dark leather. The combination gives a roadside, night-stop, itinerant-fire mood. The leather note grows on me after drydown. I don't catch any beeswax from the blend until it has lived for hours on my skin. Then a surprise golden-brown sweetness emerges. It's quiet, and a little caramel-toned, as beeswax notes sometimes smell to me. It reminds me of the beeswax in Dalliances by Candlelight (beeswax, white patchouli, honey). I've wanted a great campfire blend for a while, and this is my fave to date. It has settled a couple days, and I'm curious how a couple months will develop it.

Mint, grapefruit, cucumber, and wet snow. Or something.

Red rose, Siamese benzoin, and blood orange. I wore this to work today and got compliments from two people. It's pretty and smells mostly as expected for the listed notes. The Siamese benzoin surprised me a bit -- before I looked back at the notes, I thought I was smelling some sort of resinous-leaning sandalwood. But maybe it's a sandalwood-leaning resin? The benzoin (or something else in this that's not listed) actually has a sandalwood-like texture to me. It grounds the scent, while being a touch exotic, and I quite like it.

This is gorgeous, sweeter and with more resinous vanilla than I had imagined from its description. I think Magician's Wand reminds me most of Harper, and a little of Antikythera Mechanism. As from Harper, I get a woody, resinous vanilla musk, but with an additional warm sweetness that brings to mind a bit of toasted marshmallow. I think of wooden sticks still sticky with a little sweet goo after you've removed most of the toasted treat. I don't smell any campfire per se (that's all in the Storyteller!): just this sweet toasted quality alongside woods and vanilla musk. I can sense a lovely oak in the blend, but no other specific woods. The Wand's balance is consistent on my skin through most of its life. Delighted with this.

I have some June 23, 1968 that was going a little soapy on me, but was otherwise a pretty, vintage floral. I added some of my Antique Lace to it (maybe around 1/5 of the bottle) and that seems to have removed the soapiness and added the vintage vanilla. It feels like a wedding blend to me now.

As I was carrying Lilith around the San Diego comic con, people would stop us and ask to take a photo of her cosplaying Wonder Woman. As I set her down, a change would come over her: she would light up, engage the person, and charm the hell out of them while the photo was being taken. She would be so charismatic and charming, and then would then come back to me, this shining, happy little kid, and ask to be picked up all over again. I was so proud of her, and I love my lil Themysciran princess. Rich, sweet, valiant amber, coconut milk, honeyed saffron, gleaming gold-gilded leather, and sweet olive blossom. In the bottle, there's the textured, golden scent of saffron over the top of an ambery blend. The way saffron feels in my nose often makes me think of the color and texture of dried calendula flowers, like how they might feel rolled between my fingers if I got some. That texture passes over amber and a hint of coconut. On my skin, the honey blooms instead, a golden-ambered honey. I get a little olive flower sliding underneath, sleek as oil, and a scarce ghost of coconut milk lingers. As the blend dries, the olive blooms in full. It was the one note I was iffy on, and I don't think I really love it here. This is a mild blend on me: not a puissant, bold Wonder Woman, but a soft, understated presence. I'll see what more settling does.

Honeyed amber, teakwood, almond, and coconut. Sweet coconut-speckled amaretto! Lab almonds tend to turn to amaretto on me: not boozy, but the almond syrup sense of an amaretto. This becomes a buttery amaretto swirled with freshly shredded coconut. The honeyed amber is also a player, adding a lot of smooth, almost creamy warmth. Even in the top phase I get a hint -- a grounding influence -- of the teak I love. This is a tropical beach vacation scent: a novel almondy drink served in a coconut shell under a frond-thatched, teakwood bar.

Perilous Fortune A hymn to avert misfortune and danger: honey infused with protective herbs and hope preserved in pale amber. Fortuna Dubia immediately reminds me of having a cold. It reminds me so, so strongly of an herbal tea I might make and then gooey up with honey for comfort when I'm feeling germy. As long as I can still sort of smell anything, I think I would reach for this, and also for Audumla (herbal milks), to help me feel better. And a hot toddy. Herbal honey, smoothed with amber.

Eyes Skyward goes on me as an airy, grassy-green lemongrass and sugary-sweet lemon on a cloudy coconut. When I go looking, I find a little golden frankincense, but no sandalwood or vanilla, though the coconut has a creaminess that might be vanilla's handiwork. The blend is on the short-lived side, present only as a faint powder after an hour and a half, but its first hour is fun. It's a whimsical summer scent. Tropical beaches, Thai restaurants.

From the 2018 restock: I'm a jasmine fan. I agree with Roseus that Hal's flower smells a lot like the jasmine in Mare Vaporum. Mare is a blend I enjoy; I like to wear it for supermoons. I'm liking this one, too. Hal opens as this jasmine single note on me but, after a few minutes, I start to get some warm, hay-like woodiness, too. A breath of hay, with indistinct woods. After drydown, a little smooth honey comes out. Hal remains this woody, hay-rustic, and slightly honeyed jasmine throughout the rest of its life on my skin.