Casablanca

Test of Strength on me is a surprisingly spicy (nearly peppery) tobacco sweetened with a light touch of honey, paired with a softer side that's mostly tonka, but with a little vanilla showing up now and then.

 

The cardamom is more potent and pepper-like than I expected, but some of the spicy thing might be coming from this specific tobacco -- they blend well.

 

This feels like a very dual-natured, yin-yang fragrance to me, with the punch from spiced tobacco paired with softer tonka-vanilla. The notes on each end blend well with each other, but don't quite come together -- yin and yang stay separate, a little bit of honey in between.

I love Moon Reflected!

 

From the notes, I thought this might be a vanilla powder bomb, but ordered it anyway because I love vanilla and rice milk. And it smells like creamy malted vanilla rice milk powder -- if there were such a thing -- without that much powder! I suppose it's like the drink has been mixed: you can smell that it came from some malted powder, but now it's smooth and vanilla and creamy.

 

The rice is subtle after it dries, and the iris keeps it from seeming foodie to me. The musk doesn't stand out at all.

Pink lemonade?

 

I get strawberries, but on my skin, I read Kamisuki as something like strawberry pink lemonade. No lemony sourness or sharpness, not even really lemony, just an overall impression. I haven't played much with lab or post cherry blossom, so maybe this is just what it does on my skin.

 

Young girlish and a bit artificial; the latter is an impression I hope more use of it will get me past. I may end up adding a little Vanilla Orchid SN and seeing what that does.

 

My favorite art of the Lupers this year.

Wet on my skin, this is dark, pine-pitchy, sappy cedar.

 

I was worried about dirt for this one, based on the description, but I smell none of the sort of microbial-rot dirt that scares me away from some other BPAL blends. Instead, I seem to get maybe a pinch of comfy garden dirt between the trees, or something that reminds me of it, and I like it quite a lot. If this is a bit of dirt I smell (and I'm not sure), it’s my kind.

 

Mostly, though, this is a woody blend, with a wisp of smoke. The cedar is right up front, edged by sticky pines and a little general woodiness that could be just oak, or oak and other woods.

 

Dried, Of Earth is similar, but develops just a tiny bit of vanilla-toned, white-floral sweetness among the woods. I didn’t expect to find the muguet at all, so this is a surprise — and it’s not soap on me! It adds a little intrigue, but mostly blends into the smell I’ve been reading as sap. It doesn't last long on me, though.

 

Later, I finally smell a little light tobacco, very light. I never find amber.

 

Like.

Fresh on my skin, this is a dreamy-soft jasmine. The lab’s general catalog jasmine blends tend to have what to me is a sharp, high-pitched, overpowering jasmine, but this is fairly muted and cushiony. It carries a light greenness. I don’t find anything wintery in the fragrance, and it reminds me of spring and early summer. The bottle sniff was simple, pure, and light, but on my skin this leans toward both a clean astringency and soap without completely reaching either.

 

After drying, the near-astringency and soapiness fade and this settles into a cloudy romantic jasmine skin scent. I like this phase.

 

Winter Jasmine lasts a couple hours on me.

In the bottle, this smells like sweet pine sap, soft cedar, white sage, dry grasses, something vanillic or benzoiny, and something like chaparral or cactus flower. Possibly with a glint of amber?

 

On my skin, it's all that, and so softly cushiony! Not weak or thin at all, as some blends come out at first, but full and soft. I also start to think I'm getting a little blue mingling of spruce-juniper in here with the rest of the forest.

 

The mood of the blend reminds me of the soft pine-sappy forest of A King Pursued by a Unicorn, but softer, sweeter, more complex, with even less camphor. I might need a backup.

This hasn't been long out of the mailbox, but it's late in the day and around 60 F outside, mild and temperate.

 

In the bottle, I smell soft resins and a hint of metal.

 

Fresh on my skin, this smells to me like the oudh from Bestla, but lightened and softened considerably. The slight fecal note in the oudh is quieter and burns off almost entirely from me in a couple minutes (Bestla's ripe phase lasts longer on me). Frankincense is there, golden-toned, and the rest is so far just a faint softness, barely showing up.

 

Once this dries it fills out nicely. The oudh abides, like the Dude. It's only a little stronger on my skin than the frank, and there's a vanillic golden impression that reminds me of benzoin. Iris I find at first only from hunting around: it starts out more or less on the outskirts of the blend, adding a little powdery femininity, but after some dry-time it comes out more. There's also a grey metallic background that brings Ganymede to mind.

 

Nevertheless' wet phase underwhelms for now, but I think its full life on my skin will likely improve with age.

 

I like it already, though.

I’ve wanted to try this one for a while, so, yay!

 

On the wand, this doesn’t smell as expected. I’ve enjoyed blackberry in other blends, like Lady Una and Bewitched, and I liked the heather in Carlin. But this just smells… weird. Thin, perfumey, and purple.

 

On my skin, this smells perfumey, lightly purple, and breezily aquatic. It doesn’t smell like berries or heather specifically, but instead like a sort of artificial perfume of purpleness and sea spray. It’s even a tiny bit salty.

 

This dries into a sweet, slightly heathery, green aquatic on me.

 

This one isn’t for me.

On the wand, I smell each note in the exact order of their listing. Wacky. This is pretty, but I fear that neroli and verbena will take over on my skin.

 

On my skin, this turns to a sort of washed-out, herbal lemon dish soap smell. It doesn’t smell like skin soap — just that sort of watery, slightly waxy lemon scent of dish soap, plus herbs, and a pinch of frank.

 

In early drydown, neroli blooms open and takes over, with lemon verbena second in command. I do smell a little frank, which is pretty, but neroli and verbena dominate. I barely smell any lavender now, and no rosemary. By the time this dries, it’s all lemon-tinted neroli, all the time.

 

I guess that kinda went as I thought it would.

I don’t usually buy blends that list no notes, but I have this frimp, so let’s see what happens.

 

On the wand, this smells like some sort of sandalwood incense, lightly sweet with something floral and something like honey. And maybe some other wood: sometimes I think of the Himalayan cedar in Kathmandu, and sometimes of the blondewood in Dragon’s Bone. Either way, this is summery and soft.

 

Wet on my skin, it smells like a sweet vanilla-sandalwood incense, maybe with Himalayan cedar. Dreamy and pleasant, and plain.

 

This gains some strength on me as it dries. Lots of sweet vanilla now! Vanilla has taken charge, with woody incense secondary. Pretty. Time will tell if I need a bottle.

On the wand, dragon’s blood, a pale, dry sandalwood, and a white-smelling orris, in that order. I like this sandalwood.

 

Wet on my skin, this begins as that red, sweet, cherry-like floral thing that is the lab’s dragon’s blood, with a little sandalwood beneath. And then, abruptly, the sweet cherry tone burns off, and the blend turns a bit sour.

 

As Bone dries, the sandalwood grows. I start picking out a wood blending into it that’s really nice, and realize that some of what I’m liking so much as sandalwood is probably the blondewood mixed with it. The two are lovely together.

 

Unfortunately dragon’s blood and this faint sour note aren’t quite my thing.

On the wand, sweet cherry almond marzipan sort of stuff.

 

When I apply this, I don’t even need to raise my arm to sniff. I’m getting a blast of syrupy cherry almond already. Except… there’s red rose, too. So I sniff. Cherry-vanilla amaretto red rose, and maybe a backup flower or two. It feels like rose might not be the only flower in town here. And, once it dries, some amber or labdanum? Something resinous, anyway.

 

This one isn’t my game.

On the wand, eucalyptus, lavender, anise. Maybe a bit of rosemary, too — or this is a really herbal lavender.

 

Fresh on my skin, a bold, herbal lavender is strongest. This reminds me of the lavender in 2016 Pere Noel, but maybe that’s just because I wore that last night. And maybe because they both seem to have lavender and anise together. There’s an attractive anise-eucalyptus thing going on behind the lavender here, but the eucalyptus is much milder than it had been on the wand. Not so medicinal.

 

The anise grows stronger as this dries. This is a light and pretty combination.

 

I’m happy to stow this vial with the other lavenders at my bedside.

Freshly applied, King mandarin is king of this golden-orange blend. I smell the neroli, but other elements keep it from getting too orange lollipop on me — I think the mandarin lays over it strongly enough to temper it. The result is a sweet orange-mandarin on a sweet honeyed floral background. I catch a hint of amber at the start of drydown. Overall this blend is quite bright, and I don’t get any vanilla or saffron sense while it’s wet.

 

As drydown progresses, a little creaminess sneaks in, subtly. We’re getting some creamsicle creep now. Hi, vanilla!

 

Once dried, Flashing of Light is more vanilla-forward. The saffron seems much lighter to me than it was in Love’s Philosophy, but the initial flash of yellow-orange has also mellowed a lot. On me this becomes an orange-tinted creamy vanilla skin scent.

This is a bright reddish carmine fluid.

Fresh on my skin, Bestla starts strong: primarily as a dark red rose, with some dark weirdness mingled in. I realize it’s the oud, but it’s different from usual. It’s strange. But it’s a strong oud! From the notes list, I realize it’s the black fig that’s giving the earthy-woody oud the weirdness I’m getting, which is a darkly sweet fruit-fleshiness. The black fig blends almost into oneness with the oud, darkening and sweetening it, a part of it. Soft amber lives in the background.

Once Bestla has dried, she fully blends: a dark, potent rose oud with tones of black fig and soft background resin creating fullness.

I don’t have anything quite like this. It’s close to what I’d wanted Daruma Doll to be, from last year’s Lupers, without the Doll’s red musk that did so poorly on my skin. A keeper.

Sweet milk mayhem! Fresh on my skin, this is a lovely white honeyed milk over frankincense. The milks are most potent at first, with a pale honey that reminds me of my White Bees Swarming hair gloss decant. There’s also an herbal tone, and I can pick out angelica (which I love) in the second breath, alongside another herb that reminds me of my early twenties, when I used to buy herb powder for sleeping and sit endlessly stuffing it into gel caps. That was valerian powder and it stunk badly, and this smells mild and pleasant, but it has a dusty, herbal quality that still takes me back. It must be the mugwort.

 

In drydown, the honey and milks partly fade, but linger on in the background. The mugwort-angelica comes to the fore. The frankincense is subtle and textured, like the grainy wooden floor of a hut where jugs of honeyed milk settle and herbs hang to dry.

 

In drydown the scent loses the fullness it had when wet, quickly becoming thin and simple – almost more the scent of someone working with honey, milk, and herbs all day than a concept perfume of it. After drying, this takes on a slight soapy note on my skin. In about an hour, I make out only a faint sweet and dusty herbal milk tone on my skin.

 

I still like it. The wet phase is gorgeous to me.

Wet on my skin, this begins as so close to 2016 Pere Noel, with the orange-lavender-vanilla vibe, but more elegant and less playful. Blood orange has the edge on me when first applied, with apricot close behind, and then lavender and a creamy vanilla similar to that in Pere Noel, but less strong here. As this starts to dry, the apricot overtakes the blood orange, but both are still potent, and I don't really find the line between them; they blur together with each other and with the musk. The sense of them together with musk reminds me of... gosh what was it. The early stage of Allegory of Winter, before it morphed.

 

Freshly dried, lavender comes out more on me, but the apricot-blood orange musk is still having a party. I jusssst start to pick up hints of amber. I get a background sense of sophistication and solidness from the chypre. Nothing from it stands out to me, except that maybe bergamot is adding to the orangeness. So pretty.

 

I had initially wanted a decant of this, cut it to save $, and then ended up blind bottling it from reviews. Pleased to have done so.

Chilly green wood. Starts spicy-toned, but that fades, and it settles into chilly green wood.

 

Christmassy, but not overwhelmingly so. I feel it would fit in just about anytime except daytime in the depth of summer. Glad to have bottled it.

It is what it says it is.

 

Lavender-dominant, and it's my favorite sort of lavender, rich and herbal as Annemathematics said, with a shadowy, intimate backup note of oudh.

 

I've been hoarding the last of my TKO massage oil but I like this as much as it. Maybe more.

 

Goes great with Ganymede's lavender oudh for those of a mind to layer things.

I hoped and hoped for a roasted chestnuts-strong perfume in the Yules, but this was the only place I found the note.

 

I like it. Oranges and apples are strongest on me at first, followed by a warm, gooey fig, candied apricot brandy, and finally chestnut. The whole is suffused with spices (including allspice? I think).

 

It's a warm, old fashioned Christmas occasion scent. In that mood, it reminds me a lot of Mr. Fezziwig's Ball. It's foodie, but my brain classifies it as Christmas mood over food, if that makes sense.

 

It also lasts an unusually long time in my hair, which makes me happy, because my hair eats things.

Anise or black licorice darkens wood and leather. The whole blend together makes me think: Spiced, rustic engine oil.

 

It also reminds me of A Kneeling Child and Then There Was a Longer Name That Followed It That I've Forgotten from the recent Weenies. So I put that on and they go well together.

 

I like how this pairs well with a perfume oil I have, but I'm not sure it's quite enough liking for a bottle. I like this, but it's not very me.

I love this one.

 

On me it's a coppery-warm and soft, chewy-tobacco cedar. Cedar is the noun and operative word there; it's in charge and the other notes just contribute to its nature.

 

This takes me back to winter vacations in mountain cabins as a kid, when I would lie staring up at exposed wooden beams in the kids' room, too excited to sleep. It gives me the same cozy feeling I get from Bow and Crown of Conquest, so I immediately put that on, too. They go wonderfully together.

Number 50 (L), so right before Numanoid!

 

This one had little smell in my skin test at first, just the faintest resins, so I've let it sit a couple weeks or something.

 

It's still quite mild, when first sprayed in my arm, in what appears to be a complete absence of top notes. It's barely there. Resins lurk, though... #50 is resinous. It seems like mainly frankincense and Other Lurking Base Notes on me at first. I smell no champaca or nag champa for the incense. I actually don't smell any incense while this is wet, or even for a while after it first dries. There's not much to it really.

 

After 15 minutes, it starts to become a warm-toned incense-resin skin scent. Something is adding warmth beyond what these notes usually do on me, but it's just not showing clearly on my skin. Maybe with aging.

 

On my hair, it starts out a little stronger and prettier: I want to say frankincense incense, with sandalwood or some other wood, and a hint of some spice, like clove? But it's so small. Sometimes I also get a slight impression of buttery golden rum and sometimes of a little sweet vanilla.

 

This sounds so delicious, but it's all faint, and I might be imagining things. I need to see what this one does with some age. It could become precious.

I didn’t smell much from this when it first arrived, so it has rested a few days.

 

A light brown sugar dominates the blend when it’s wet on my skin, a little caramelly. It’s picking up a bit of clove spice from the carnation, but I don’t smell the floral part of the carnation yet. There’s a secondary vanilla floral, though. The freesia’s got a strawberry tone, almost candy-like, but the way it’s connecting with the vanilla reminds me of tiare flowers.

 

Dried, the freesia has drifted off and the carnation has come in, but it’s more subdued than I expected based on earlier reviews. Sugared vanilla is stronger on me than the carnation. I’m still getting a little sense of tiare, though, and wonder if there’s a dot of it in here unlisted. It blends right into the sugared vanilla, so maybe it’s just a combo of things reminding me of it.

 

I like this and hope the carnation comes out more with age.

On the wand, I smell a mild-mannered, grainy gingerbread, and a blended sense of the other notes.

 

But on my skin, this is whoa gingerbread. It’s still damply grainy-textured in the nose. Behind it I get orange, and a little red patchouli and champaca.

 

Somehow the gingerbread gets even stronger as this dries. The orange subsides and champaca blooms. I’m a champaca fiend, so I like this development, but I feel like the gingerbread damply cakes up in my nose when I smell it.

 

This one isn't for me, but I'm also not a foodie scent lover. Wanted to try some, though.