Casablanca

On the wand: A glistening pear is strongest, followed by white musk and rice milk about equally.

 

On my skin: The pear is no longer strongest, or at least by as much. It lasts only a short time on my skin, though.

 

This smells simpler and cleaner to me than Maiko with Hair Unbound, and perhaps not as sweet. It’s also a little powdery on me, which I don’t get from Maiko. White musk sometimes goes powdery on my skin, but this might also be the rice milk powder from Moon Reflected in Every Rice Paddy HG, which has a creamy malted rice thing going on to me that I seem to be getting here.

 

Overall, the blend is delicate, ethereal.

Love this one.

 

It’s chrysanthemum incense and red carnation on me, as the notes read. The chrysanthemum smells golden-orange to me and is the stronger of the flowers during the wet phase, and red carnation comes to the front as it dries, but both are present. I think this is incense is somewhere in the champa family, but it’s less strong than the flowers on me.

I went for this decant only at the last minute. I’m down with the other notes, but not usually an opium girl. Maybe it will work here.

 

On the wand: Opium-champaca musk. Double-down on the head shop!

 

Wet on my skin: Powdery opium-champaca musk with a swatch of leather and a hint of clove. With the opium in here, this reads as even more head-shoppy to me than the champaca-heavy Keichu.

 

Dry on my skin: Mainly powdery opium, champaca, and leather. Then I have a thought that the leather is pleasantly sweet, and realize it’s paired with honey.

 

I love champaca and this honeyed leather, but the opium here just brings a little too much whoa for me.

On the wand: Smoky incense, beeswax, and antique pinkish-purple roses.

 

Wet on my skin: The same as on the wand, except the roses are softer. I really get an antique mood from this blend that reminds me of Pediophobia, even though the listed notes are different. I think I might be getting a vibe that reminds me of Pediophobia’s “white cognac and vanilla filigree,” but if so, it’s blending well into the beeswax. I’m not sure what it is. Anyway! I quite like this smoky incense and beeswax. Little roses lurk.

 

Dry on my skin: This continues as mainly smoky incense and beeswax with a few mini pinkish-purple roses sewn on. A wisp of tobacco comes and goes with the drafts of this old house.

While this is wet on my skin, it’s the chocolate blend of my dreams. A marshmallow-cocoa butter mix seems the strongest on me, followed by white chocolate and goat’s milk, and then some dripping golden honey. It’s glorious.

 

Once this dries, however, it becomes a plainer honeyed white chocolate on me.

 

I don’t wear chocolate blends often and already have more of them than I’m using, but I still want to bottle this for the wet phase. Yum.

On the wand: Rose-watered cognac! The note that seems to be the cognac is reading very funky to my nose.

 

Wet on my skin: Pink rose water and boozy cognac. And something very funky. It seems to come from the cognac note, but I can’t tell. It’s not good.

 

Dry on my skin: The funk partially settles, and I get pink rose-watered cognac. I can see how this would be a beautiful and unique scent for someone else, but although I love many rose blends, this one is not for me.

In the bottle, I get suede leather and a hint of patchouli.

 

Wet on my skin, I smell suede leather, vanilla, and at first — for the first few seconds — a hint of patchouli. Then the patchouli bows out, and the blend morphs into something like Unicorn and Ram. Cozy sweater thing! That’s the cashmere, I’m guessing. The whole blend is complex, though. I’m getting an added softness to it from the tonka, along with hints of black tea and coconut. I do pick up a wisp of patchouli on the back end, but it’s subtle, and I’m grateful. The vanilla is keeping things smooth.

 

Once dried, Hoîru is softer, even more well blended, and beautiful. The only notes I can isolate at all at this point are vanilla, suede, and cashmere. I also get something like anise.

 

This is gorgeous, and I’m glad I set aside my patchouli fear to give it a chance.

What can I add here — La Pierreuse is dark red roses soiled by a rich, chewy tobacco. But I also get a brown sugar-maple note such as what LiberAmoris mentions. It feels to me like a smoothing and blending influence between the roses and tobacco.

 

This is a heavy scent with moderate throw on me. It has a lot of depth in a way that reminds me of Peacock Queen. I feel like I’m sliding into a pit of dirty rose petals; I never quite reach the bottom, and the only way out is to stop inhaling.

 

I went back and forth about whether to get a decant of this, ended up cutting it, and then just bottling it later. I’m glad I did, as it will make a nice occasional alternative rose.

In the bottle: Aquatic? A sweet and slightly soapy floral aquatic.

 

Wet on my skin: Almost strawberryish freesia -- and a creamy, yellow floral note that seems like the daffodils -- in a dewy spring bouquet. A couple weeks ago I searched Google for "spring flowers" images for a new phone background, and the image I went with is now the visual I'm getting for this scent: lots of bright flowers, some of them tulips.

 

Dried: The creamy yellow floral is strongest on me when Qui Aime has dried, but it blends seamlessly into a subtle, pale grounding note -- I really love the "blonde woods," whatever they are, and how they work in this scent. The pale honey is also barely there for me, and a blending influence between other notes.

 

Lovely spring scent.

Creamy vanilla jasmine has been in the sweet zone for me lately, as I recently picked up Peach VIII (2014) and now La Prostitution. Both are lovely.

 

La Prostitution has a softer jasmine than Peach VIII, reminding me of the jasmine from Winter Jasmine SN -- that softer jasmine family. Peach VIII had a likable but high-pitched jasmine for me, while this one shows a soft restraint. Peach VIII also gave more of a whipped cream impression with its cream note, while La Prostitution is a gentle, creamy swirl, and a bit sugared rather than peach flowery.

 

I get a hint of anise beginning in drydown and continuing through dry phase. It stays subtle on me.

 

Gorgeous.

On the wand: A lightly honeyed green tea with a hint of wasabi around the edges.

 

Wet on my skin: About the same. The wasabi comes out a little more. Sometimes wasabi is mainly just a little grainy texture in my nose, but this one smells like a green wasabi. It's strongest during this phase but doesn't dominate the blend.

 

Dried: The wasabi mostly recedes, just lingering a bit. This settles into a lightly honeyed green tea and at this point reminds me of the green tea note left mostly alone (but smelling a little honeyed) when Jinbari has been dry for a while.

 

Fades to a faint skin scent on me in an hour. I like this, but I don't know that I'll go beyond the decant.

I had thought: This one is weird, and I don't know how these notes will work together, but there aren't many non-chocolate bath oils for the Lupers, so let's try it. Maybe it will make sense when I smell it.

 

In the bottle, it just smells bad. Disjointed, nothing going together. It took a while for me to try it on.

 

On my skin, it's a wet-green cucumber with lightly warm-toned flowers and some black currant. Yup, it's weird. The notes feel pretty random to me.

 

Once it dries it settles down into... I guess sort of a watery-green spa skin scent. There's a little floral left but the currants don't hang, which is for the best because it reduces the noise. It's OK at this phase. I'll keep this since I like the bath oils, but it's not what I'd hoped for.

Bright, sharp strawberries rolling around on a mallow pillow.

 

This is sharper than I expected. It smells kind of like the sharp bergamot from I Too Beneath Your Moon, or maybe a petitgrain like in Road to Versailles -- something like that blended into the strawberry. I dig this sort of sharpness sometimes, and love strawberries, so this is a sweet spot. Speaking of sweet, I pick up the sugar, but it's not as powdered sugar on me as I feared it would be.

 

The sharpness fades out like a top note as this dries, leaving a soft strawberry-mallow mix. This isn't a fluffy-sticky-candy mallow for me, so I can see how it's a blossom. Regardless, it makes me think of a fluffy scented pillow I'd like to lie on.

This opens on me as creamy, honeyed lilac with just an eetty beetty nip of cardamom warming its edge.

 

I was thinking when I first read the notes that cardamom and lilac was an odd combo, but the cardamom is so subtle on me that it works out OK. It's not as natural a spicy floral as the eugenol/clove thing in carnation, but the spice is pretty delicate on me here. The cardamom also works well with the honeyed part of the blend.

 

Anyway, I think this is dreamy. It doesn't change much on me during its life. Too bad it lasts under two hours for me.

On the wand, this smells like lush, creamy apple with a bright, higher-pitched bergamot. I get a little lavender nearly hidden between them.

 

Wet on my skin, it’s the same, except a lovely lavender like that in Pere Noel wafts out. Surprisingly, this goes initially lavender-dominant on my skin, brightened with bergamot, with a creamy apple in the background. The high pitch of this bergamot reminds me of some jasmines.

 

As it dries, the blend becomes mostly a high-pitched, almost medicinal mix on me for a while, not objectionable, but something to be in the mood for. I wish I were getting more of the creamy apple, and the white patchouli has made no appearance.

 

Once the blend has completely dried, its medicinal vibe fades and the creamy apple comes back out to play, with just a hint of white patchouli.

 

It lasts under two hours on me, but I like it.

On the wand, this is primarily a woody lichen blend, with a little ivy, and reminds me of Robin Goodfellow. But there’s a smoother, darker Sleepy-Hollow-woods mood to it.

 

On my skin, this is barely detectable at first, but comes across as a dark green ivy-mossy-lichen blend with a little benzoin vanillic sweetness that grows during drydown. There’s a dark woody background.

 

Lovely for a dark and green woodsy mood.

In the bottle: rich buttery milk, frothy with cream; a little coconut that reminds me of the creaminess in Goblin's coconut; plain rice milk; a very soft, almost spiceless carnation and... a lil white honey? I don't usually describe bottle sniffs because they're so closed in, but this is lovely and I'm reluctant to put it on my skin and have it change.

 

Ah, yeah, no change. I need to wear this with Young Man with Long Hair HG, because the two would be gorgeous together.

 

I get more sugar at first as this dries down, and then the sugar and carnation both drift away, and it settles into a simpler buttery coconut cream and rice milk.

 

Glorious while wet, more comforting when dry.

Definitely golden incense! This champaca is ready and willing.

 

I get a golden incense textured with sandalwood like an incense stick, maybe filled out with a lil amber, edged in flakes of white coconut, and lying on soft leather. I also get musk coming out in the drydown. This is headshoppy for the office, but I love it.

 

As others have said, champaca is the queen player.

I'm having a half glass of blueberry wine before an almost-spring blizzard. There's no better companion scent for the scenario.

 

I get a rich blueberry musk and pink lotus blooms tucked right in, like hidden charms. Is this blue musk? Of course it is. Blueberry and blue musk and lotus? It's lovely and fun and well-matched. This is the second perfume I have that strongly evokes blue and pink colors in my head, and I love both blends. (The other's the 2015 Midnight on the Midway.)

 

Behind these is a splash of green tea, which seems to have something like white honey in it, coming out in drydown. The blueberry and lotus are so forward and vibrant, though, the (white honeyed?) green tea falls to the background. Also in drydown, the lotus fades. I get a little less blueberry and a little more blue musk. It reminds me of Tres Riches Heures without the snow. Our local clouds will provide the snow shortly...

 

This is some goodness.

Peach VIII’s jasmine appears to be a high-pitched variety, rather than soft like Winter Jasmine, but for all that I still like it, especially in this blend. The jasmine dominates a beautiful whipped vanilla cream dolloped on a non-pulpy peach. Lovely. I don’t pick out vanilla orchid by itself, but there’s a nice blending from the edge of the jasmine through the peach flower that seems like it includes one or two other flowers. I only get the very faintest ghost of frankincense.

 

This blend (mainly its jasmine) has a life of several hours on me. It hits a sweet spot for my taste this spring and makes a great alternative to my favorite peach, Peach I (2016).

This is mostly the lab's minty snow note. Enough that I decided to wear Winter Landscape with it, which is also mostly the lab's minty snow note.

It's lightly sweetened with a pale honey -- definitely a white honey, rather than something like O's main note. I get a little sweet floral, but it's barely there for me, and I wouldn't have guessed which type of flower it is.

I'm a lousy judge of dedicated florals. It's been my least-connecting and most neglected category, but for this spring I've been craving more flowers, and I've been liking the Butterfly Garden atmo.

 

I smell mainly wisteria here, with a playful but short-lived touch of lotus. The rest of my impression is just of other flowers in the background, with a note in the mix that reminds me of creamy gardenia, but not quite. Not sure if that's the tuberose, Queen of the Night, or something else.

 

I'm happy with this: wisteria is one of the good flowers for me. It always smells light blue-purple to me, with a dreamy airiness that keeps it away from cloying, and that's happening here. I wish I got a little more lotus, because it's another one I love, but this is a good spring blend.

Red maple!

 

This skin test takes me right back to October Dusk bath oil, but without the sweet honey. There is still a sweetness in this, like a maple-syrup sweetness, but it's quieter. Other trees are just perceptible through the maples, and there's a hint of smoke in this forest air, but a sort of maple wood-syrup-russet leaf smell dominates. While I can pick out subdued mosses, like mosses in the shadows of trees, this mostly feels like warm red woody-sweet leaves.

 

This really puts autumn in my mind. It's beautiful, so I might wear this one day, and then cellar it until fall!

Vagina Treasure on my skin is the wanton love child of Hair Loosened and Soiled in Mid Orgies HG and a slightly more clovey Morocco -- and better than either.

Really. It smells to me like those two got together and made a greater sum.

Golden honey-dominant, but with a nearly equal part of spicy carnation when fresh on. The spicy carnation settles quite a bit once this dries; at first it calls a lot of attention to itself. This has a lot of golden, sweet fullness, which is mostly honey, but I think amber is adding to it.

I don't get standout notes of tea or ginger at any point, but I have a pleasant sense of Other Nice Things Happening in the Background.

Lush, sexy brew.

Oo, woody black coconut and vanilla!

 

The image accompanying this blend for me is a wooden beach house I stayed in with some friends in Costa Rica, but with a stray wisp of moist tobacco smoke added in. The black coconut and vanilla blend well together, as do the nutty woods, with a pinch of lush tobacco alongside.

 

Quite like this one.