Casablanca

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.

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...

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

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.

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.

From the 2018 restock:

 

"Sheer vanilla musk" is the perfect summary of Ava's dominant note on me. It has a shimmery quality, pale and a bit warm, like cream-colored lingerie in candlelight.

 

Surprisingly, the tuberose and almond, both of which often take the lead for me, are quiet and restrained. I get a little more tuberose than almond, but they're both mild and well-blended into the vanilla musk.

 

I love working with red mandarin in making soaps and lip balms, so I looked for it specifically here. It's present, especially in the early phase, but also faint and well-blended.

 

Mostly this is sheer vanilla musk on me. I'd guess that in a few months, the other notes will be rounding things out a bit more.

 

Love it.

Frank & rose are great. I forgot to put Sept on my list. A new fra nk + rose delight :-).

 

Agreed! Sept is my current frankenfave.

My laundry but better, Wensleydale is a breezy, pale floral, cottony scent. I get an aquatic hint, like a little clean water. He has none of the cheap or powdery qualities of dryer-sheet smells.

 

I love to wear this next to Cottonmouth on my arm. Cottonmouth's linden blossom, calla lily, passion flower, and narcissus seem to have something in kind with the floral aspect of this blend.

 

I've tried Dirty and Boober, and prefer this one's classy-but-comfy vibe.

In the bottle, Velvet Cthulhu just smells green and strange. But it's been one of those blends that changes a lot in the open air.

 

Freshly applied, this Cthulhu is still green, but more pleasant and nuanced. Green tea, grainy-green with wasabi and slightly spicy-sweet, comes out first. Along with a coriander hint, I get a gingery impression. A few minutes in, I catch a little sugary spearmint tea, a Moroccan mint: the Tuareg tea. This seems now to have been the source of the early sweetness.

 

The spearmint grows for a bit, becoming the strongest note. It's soft and fresh, with the green tea and a little sage, and a faint base of frankincense when I look for it. I don't catch any myrrh or vetiver.

 

Eventually, the mint subsides and this becomes a soft and complex green tea until it fades.

 

On my friend, this blend was far less layered -- mainly spearmint, with a little green tea, throughout its life.

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.

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.

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.

I've been craving herb (and especially mugwort) fragrances lately, so I opted to try this. I'm so glad I did.

 

Freshly applied on me, the motherwort, bergamot, and a mild jasmine are out in front, combining beautifully, with hints of tea, ambrette, and cedar behind. This probably sounds like an odd combination, but it works.

 

I looked up motherwort and it's not mugwort, but this still smells like the Lab's mugwort notes I've tried before. It's quite potent in this blend on my skin, and that's just what I sought. The motherwort and bergamot are the strongest initial notes on my skin, the first note feeling gentle and healing, and the second uplifting.

 

This soft ambrette, which grows in drydown, smells very close to the Lab's ambergris to me, but without the ambergris saltiness. Its nutty aspect comes out on me in time, but I thought it was ambergris at first. The cedar also warms the blend more after a while; by that time, I've lost the bergamot and most of the motherwort.

 

I only get a hint of peony, a little pinkness, like the newborn theme.

 

This is a calming, comforting, and mood-lifting blend.

Globe didn't blip on my radar at first, but I went for it from reviews.

 

On my skin it begins as a woody, spicy cologne in front of a patchouli that's soft and a bit sweet, and a hint of dark tea. This doesn't read as a rough or dirty patchouli at all, and it's lovely.

 

I keep smelling a cardamom spiciness that reminds me of Unicorn and Ram. Actually, there's a cozy, warm-sweater mood to Globe that reminds me very much of both Unicorn and Ram (woolly musk, soft leather, cashmere, cardamom, leather oudh) and Hoiru (bourbon vanilla, suede leather, tonka, patchouli, pale amber, blackened tea leaf, coconut husk, cashmere). This feels to me like a cologne version of them.

 

After this dries, as others have mentioned, the cologne part steps back. I seem to amp some spice in this, and drydown leaves me a well-blended spicy, woody patchouli.

 

Sophisticated and mature.

Gardenia and champaca reign as the benevolent, yet mildly intoxicating, queens of this garden. There's a sense of other flowers, but these two stand out for me.

 

I agree that this smells like pale, waxy flowers among carved blonde woods. I can catch a little oakmoss, and a faint, warm, golden breath of tobacco. But before I looked back at the notes, I thought instead of blonde woods.

 

The tobacco increases a bit once the blend dries, but remains light and restrained.

 

The flowers, on the other hand, are more lush and heady. This is the champaca from Fortuna Tranquilla, I think. It's decadent.

 

I'm pleased with this.

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.

Another pretty and golden scent today!

 

On the wand, Progressus is a woodsy, saffron-threaded amber.

 

Coming out onto the skin, the oil is a lovely amber color. It warms up and blooms on my skin immediately, with more throw than I expected. It throws out even more saffron, along with the lovely amber, and now the cedar and a light honeyed and floral sweetness. The cedar adds a bit of a rustic quality, but the blend is polish-smooth.

 

This is really balsamic, and solar, and I love it.

I loved Hanerot Halalu. I was concerned about the olive oil, but it blends in wonderfully, and adds some richness and spirituality. (To me, HH feels like a more spiritual scent than Lights of Men's Lives or Flickering Lantern, but it's hard to write that for a recommendation, because it's so personal and varies with everyone...)

 

The 2018 Luper Dalliances by Candlelight reminds me a lot of Hanerot Halalu, but more honey-saucy and sexy than spiritual. In its opening, it's my current favorite beeswax-honey blend! I wish that phase lasted longer on me.

Does anyone know of any scents similar to Zorya P? I am absolutely in love with the blueness of the vanilla.

I tried Pediophobia and I think the tobacco gave me similar impressions, but it just wasn't "blue" enough, if that makes sense?

 

While I don't mostly think of it as a vanilla scent, the overall moods of Lullaby and Zorya P feel very similar to me. Lullaby is more lavender to me than vanilla, though it does list vanilla orchid. I think the mood comes from the moonflower-vanilla combination that they share. I get such a gossamer, night-fairy feeling from it.

 

I wonder if that would be worth playing with?

Sept is gorgeous, a rose blend for those who love golden scents.

 

Sept gives a first impression of creamy, warm, golden frankincense, the height of ancient world elegance. The vanilla bean and pale rose open up, too, but very blended in. The frankincense, with its texture that sometimes reminds me of lightly encrusted gold jewelry, is the star.

 

The vanilla bean is beany and the rose seems yellow-white, and the three listed notes blur into one another.

 

This smells like the warmth and rich, gold-suffused light of a late-afternoon summer sun.

Oh, this is so lovely.

 

Polished, white, pearly, creamy, soft, sophisticated, elegant, educated.

 

Besides the amber cream, and a tasteful mahogany, there's a blend in it that reminds me some of orris butter, some of a soft white vanilla, and some of blonde woods. I take it these are the tortoiseshell and ivory. Whatever they are, I'm in love.