Casablanca

The Old King is sacrificed, dismembered, and returned to the earth so the land may be renewed and nourished. The death knell of the Old Order so life may begin anew: juniper and yew berry, black pine, white sage, soil, and pyre smoke. Fresh on my wrists, the Eternal King is black pine, dark juniper, and woody yew berries swirling with a ghostly sage smoke. As the blend starts to dry, I also start to smell black, hard-packed soil. And then the yew berries mostly take over, upon drydown, as they did on me in that earlier moon, Bergelmir. Eternal King dries into yew berries and black earth. The Eternal King begins with the mood of a dark mystery. It's like a found-footage reel showing nothing but a shaking view of shadows and smoke in the woods at night, with some running and panting (and falling). It's not footage that answers any next-morning investigator questions about where all the screaming kids went and what's with the burnt effigy and large footprints. I wish I were drawn to the way yew berries smell on my skin. We don't seem to quite love each other, so I think the decant will be enough. But I'll hope for sage and smoke and conifers together again sometime.

I tried a bunch of decants from a friend this weekend. I can resist bottling them all, even the ones I liked, but I can't resist this. It was just enchanting, the sort of naturalistic scent I've been loving lately. It also took me back to some of my kid years living in the Southern Cal valley. "Kid." Goats. Hehe. California lilacs wafted over woodsy sage, grasses, and other summery vegetation, all well-blended and sun-warmed. I agree with earlier comments on the lilac; it seemed to add some floral tone without going super floral at any stage. It felt like a floral with maybe some herbal/grassy tone, if that makes sense, and that tone merged into the other notes. It also seemed a bit like honey. All notes felt like they could be growing together on the same arid slope in the backyard, a treat for California bees. The blend lasted longer than most do on my skin.

Oof! A sort of red fruity-floral-metallic musk. With a side of ashy smoke. Yup. Pretty much that. A musk with red fruits and flowers and coppery metal is how I experience "blood musk." This went muted on me quickly, which is OK. Fun to test, but not my thing.

So much fruit! This was all currants and strawberries on me at first. In drydown, it developed a bit of woody coconut and sandalwood, and the fruit became a less fruit-specific, general fruitiness. Not my kind of blend, but I enjoyed trying it.

Psalm (numbers) was mostly faint and powdery benzoin on my skin. Hints of musk and vanilla. It seemed a little floral, barely, in the way that some baby powders can be. There was a little strangeness to it, too, which I'm guessing was the crystal. Usually the concept notes smell to me like what they should represent, which I enjoy, but this one just didn't seem to resolve as it should have. I think this wasn't a match for my skin.

Honeyed champaca incense. The champaca was strongest on me, followed by the honey, with incense hints. But this was well-blended overall, and only became more so the longer it sat on my skin, until the three became one. This was sultry and calm. I loved testing it and am only able to resist a bottle because of having many champaca blends.

Wet: Mm, lots of handsome patchouli, with a bare hint of tobacco. There was cologne, too, which I was not loving as much, but the patch was sure attractive. Dry: The cologne calmed down, except to just barely nuance the patchouli. From then on, I just got the patchouli, with its adult nuance. After a while, the blend turned a bit powdery on me, so it was a powdery patchouli. Loved the patch.

Wet: Tart blackberries and aquatic ozone. I'm going to guess this was the same blackberry as in Echo Azure, because that went quite tart on my skin also, but not on my friend's skin. Something about my skin makes this fruit a bit sassy. Dry: A bit of ozone-tinted, vaguely fruity powder. This faded quick. I never pick up violet. This was a fun, quirky blend, but unusually short-lived on my skin.

Pater Populi was a well-balanced Mediterranean blend. Bay and lavender were strongest on my skin, but still smoothly blended into the other notes. I also caught olive blossom and cedar, somewhat, but the background was just very nuanced and complex. I didn't notice it changing much through its stages. Recommended for a Mediterranean mood, especially for bay.

Wet: I can smell each listed note, and they smell great together. The pine and clove seem to be the stronger two of the four notes, but they're all there. This pine, which I'm really liking, is especially short-lived on me, though. And then most of the rest fades... Dry: Sadly, this turns to a sweet clove SN on me. I wanted to pounce on a bottle when this was wet, but it unfortunately lost its nuance once it dried.

I think this is the strongest-throw BPAL I've tried. One dot on one wrist turns me into a sweet citrus sillage storm. Sugary lemon icing. After a minute, it grows a hint of lemon fizz. It's always wild when a constructed note smells so close to the reals. The lemon icing smells just like lemon icing, like the sort of white dribble that has hardened over pastry.

First impressions on skin: Amber incense, ambergris, and a soft musk. I anticipated an immediate flower fusillade, but this is playing differently at first. The ambergris is adding a fair dose of salt. Drying: There they are. Queenly gardenia and tuberose sweep in and take over, throwing a pale, floral curtain over the earlier notes. Dried: Tuberose dominates, with gardenia in its shadow, on a background of the other notes. Tuberose, the grand salon blowout of florals. Unfortunately, the amped tuberose makes this a bit too big and heady for me.

Wet: Lots of red ginger, and some well-blended clove. I never pick out birch tar, only an indistinct background at this point. Dry: A quieter gingery clove blend. A soft frankincense emerges to join them. If I hunt for it, I can find a little dark smokiness from the birch tar, but it's barely showing. I have a bottle of birch tar and it's intense, but in this blend, it's almost not there. This settles into a mild, spiced frankincense blend.

I wore Blue Blankie as a sleep scent once and then lost the decant (sigh). However, I recall a potent French lavender first up. I also kept smelling hops right alongside it. I couldn’t lose the hops impression with the lavender. It reminded me of the lavender-hops pairing of Lilith’s HG and Fuck This Heat. Blended in was a pretty musk, light but without most of the powder I get from white musk. Yay, skin musk. The rose appeared in drydown and was quite potent on me. It had aquatic hints, but wasn’t at all like a few rose water notes that haven’t worked on me in other blends. I’m glad I got to test this before it wandered off, but I hope to try it later when I’m awake. :-)

The freshly applied Woodnymph carries tonka and cacao with a side of dry but greenish grass, the grass of late summer into autumn. The tonka is fairly prominent. The cacao is softer than chocolate notes often are on me, which is a relief because I have more choco-scents than I wear. It's not especially sweet and is mostly having a drying and browning effect on the blend, pushing it toward autumn. I love the sense of drying grasses to the blend. I may need to bottle this one. It's nice to pair with Harvest of the Empress, with its hay and wheat.

A mingling of sweet hay, dry grassy-grain, and light clove. There's more sweetness and weight in this than I expected, to where I wonder if there's a little lurking sweet labdanum, or something. This is not long-lived on me, but it's an appealing hay-clove combination for the fall.

Realistic Honeycrisp apples in sugary, creamy milk. I even seem to smell the skin of the apples. This blend is so autumnal, it might change color and fall to the ground by November. Lovely.

Sweet honey sticks on a background of cinnamon and a lovely sugar-dusted, mellow patchouli. Wet: The honey sticks have a candy-ish tone that makes them honey stick-y, instead of just honey. That part brings this blend well into foodie territory for me. I love every part of this mix that is not the stick part of the honey. Dry: The candy stick vibe has drifted, and this is now simply sweet, cozy, and soft, like a russet, sugary sweater. Great fall scent.

Our gilded silvery mud-puddler! His scent is of the blackberry bushes and wild lilacs in which he makes his home. Tart blackberry bushes. Freshly applied on my skin, Echo Azure smells like blackberries that are tart and dry, rather than fresh and juicy. Somehow I also get a little dried greenery impression, as though a few limbs of the plant have been cut and hung to dry, their leaves beginning to curl. Or like dried moss. As the blend dries, the lilac comes out, cushion-soft and blended into the blackberries. The initial tartness settles into a dry blackberries softened with lilacs. The dry mossy note, for its part, now makes me think of oakmoss and lichens. I'm not sure if this is just what my skin is doing to the blend -- but it's appealing, a little rustic. This blend is basically a visit to a Willamette Valley blackberry orchard in the dry part of summer. That thought is making me super nostalgic for Oregon. Echo stays in this sort of blackberry-country vibe throughout its life on me. ETA: My friend later tried this. It's not as tart on her as it is on me. On her it's just a natural blackberry. The rest of the blend is similar on her.

This is quite soft on me; from even a short distance it just smells vaguely musky and a bit powdery. Close to the skin, though, I find lots of grainy sugar over some fig, patchouli, and vanilla cream, and smidges of each other listed note. It's an immediately likable and pretty combination. The Dream has lots of potential, but I think it may need some time to age and fill out more. If it does, it'll be a bottle for me... at least one.

Meditation Buddy reminds me of Flickering Lantern (beeswax, tobacco leaf, a whiff of smoke, purple rose petals) without any of the purple, and with ... I want to call it vanilla swamp. There is a vanilla-tinged, slightly swampy aquatic note. I get a beeswax-incense rose on a background of vanilla swamp-water. I can see reasons for love here. As with Flickering Lantern, though, there's a sort of cloying quality in this rose, or perhaps in this combination, that isn't quite working for me. I love the beeswax-incense-vanilla portion, though.

Suffragium is the lovely palo santo and sandalwood-dominant blend I hoped for. All the hearts. I was introduced to palo santo as a room diffuser at a retreat this summer and ordered the essential oil when I got home. The EO smells lightly citrusy, herbal, and woody, serene and cleanly spiritual. A prominent sandalwood in the blend adds lots of incense, and I get some well-blended spice, also. There's a sweetness and a little cedar warmth (but nothing strong on me). Sometimes I get hints of sage-like dry grass, though sometimes palo santo puts that in my mind. This smells like a serenely spiced sandalwood fan. This would be a beautiful meditation scent. [hands clasped, hearts flying out of my eyeballs]

If you ever wanted to add just the Lucky Charms marshmallows to a bowl of Fruity Pebbles in sugary milk and suck it all down, but some sane adult stopped you, this one's for you.

The intuitiveness, compassion, sensuality, and creativity that nourishes and sustains Order: lavender buds and gentle bells of Lily of the Valley floating on a calm river of lychee, ylang ylang, and white magnolia. First on, The Stream is a dewy lavender lychee. Especially the lychee. I pick out the lily of the valley after a bit, but only with help from the notes list. Mostly, this is an aquatic-leaning lavender lychee in its early phase. During drydown, I get a little more lily of the valley and the first of the magnolia, but they are really paying their respects to Emperor Lychee. Once The Stream has fully dried, that up-and-coming courtly magnolia comes to her own, partnering with the lychee for a time, and then mostly taking over. Ylang ylang blends closely with her and adds to her sultry aspect. The lychee lingers for a time. The blend becomes a fresh and quirky white floral. Gradually the lychee and dewiness fade and leave a white floral. The lavender-lychee combination reminds me of the fresh quirkiness of lavender and grapefruit together, like in Sugar Phoenix. I don't see lychee growing on me as much as that combination did, but I'll enjoy the decant.

A rustic and woodsy patchouli, warmed by a little cedar and dusted with smoke. This dragon was vapor-thin and not at all sweet when it first arrived, but after several days to settle, it has filled out and developed a little sweetness. I'm especially interested in aging this one more, although I like it at this point, too.