Lucchesa

Love this! At first it is all green grass, Abby scrabbling furiously in the middle of the lawn, grass flying everywhere until she flops over and rolls with abandon, a very bright, outdoorsy, spring-summer scent, and quite marvelous. The grass smell lasts about 45 minutes on me and then gives way to the musky cardamom. I swapped away my Bub decant but I recall it being quite foody; this is significantly less so to me. I wish it had a longer wear time; age might help with that.

I tried this yesterday, and it may not have stood a chance against Fate's Jester, which was on the other wrist and was fantastic on me. But Jongleur felt like a scent that will need a little more aging to develop properly. I got a dry frank and the star anise clearly, the clove and cinnamon faintly, and the other notes didn't really show up on my skin at all. I think they will, in a month or a year -- it didn't feel like a skin chemistry thing so much as a not-quite-ripe sort of thing. I'm keeping my decant to try again in a few months because I want that hippie street fair experience CSC is describing.

Ooh, I am loving Fate’s Jester so much! I feel like it could be a Mad Tea Party scent: it has the same sunshiny mood-lifting quality as Alice. Tangy realistic red currant with sugared lemon and just a hint of patchouli as backdrop. It has great throw on me, which is rare, and better than average wear length. After about three hours the patch becomes more prominent. A joyful scent, and definitely a bottle purchase.

Alice was the first BPAL I fell head over heels in love with, so I'm always up for a milk and honey combo. Wet, Narr is super sweet and ultra foodie, but as it dries the fig and ambrette seed contribute an earthy nuttiness that takes the edge off the sugar overload, although the buttercream lasts and lasts. I'm not always in the mood for something this sweet, but Narr is really really good on me.

I have not been having good luck with currant scents recently either, but my decanter threw in an empty of Hojojutsu with just enough oil to skin test, and I'm so glad. Wet it's a lot of juicy, sweet-tart red currant, but the creamy rice milk keeps it chill. (I really love the non-dairy blends - rice milk, almond milk, fig milk, I'm all in.) Instead of a blast of almond that fades right away, the almond blossom note is more subtle and lasting, a creamy almondy floral, and there is just a hint of white tea leaf as well. This is a skin scent on me but has really good wear length for a Shunga. Perfect for this time of year!

Wet, dark sharp pine and dry frankincense. I really wanted to try this because I love chestnut, but I'm wondering if black chestnut refers to the tree and not to the nut. At any rate, I didn't get any earthy nutty roasted chestnut, certainly no marrons glaces, but this does dry into a really beautiful unisex blend. The pine and frank soften and blend with the myrrh and it's a forest at nighttime, dark but not frightening -- a really lovely evocation of the concept.

My husband picked this one out for me, and I downgraded from bottle to imp because tea rose. When I first sniffed it, I wished I had gone with my husband's first instinct. It is beautiful. Soft honey rose with a whisper of lavender. There's some powdery amber in there too, and I guess the rosewood and benzoin are adding to the mix as well, though I couldn't really pick them out. It's a whole lot of lovely, old-fashioned and nostalgic and yet perfectly modern as well.

I haven't tried a lot of black rose blends, but on me (tested opposite Douze) it is a big, round, realistic rose that did not go sour like tea rose on my skin. I'm not getting the recognizable apricot or fig I was hoping for, just a hint of earthy fruit. It's very pretty, and a really successful rose on me, but ultimately too floral for me to need any more.

Tea rose. So lovely and delicate in the imp, and yet it almost always goes sour on my skin. Not always-always, or I would just give up trying. (Maybe; I'm an eternal optimist.) Douze is so pretty in the bottle, and then I get an hour of slightly sour rose. Not terrible, but given the glories of so much other BPAL, not anything I would bother to wear. After an hour the other notes emerge, but it's already fairly faint by then. Glad I got to try this, but I'll be passing on the imp.

I have been wearing Candles Moon for the grim spring days so common in Seattle, but the past few days we've had sunshine! I've been wearing The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, The Gaoler's Daughter, 413 US 15 and Harper. When the lilacs start to bloom, I will be wearing Cave of Treasures and Eusapia. And spring is perfect for Mad Tea Party faves: Alice, Against Idleness and Mischief, Mouse's Long and Sad Tail, Queen of Hearts.

This is one of those creations that Beth has clearly put a lot of thought into, and there is a lot going on, so many complex notes working together in concert. And I got... rootbeer. Super pleasant, snuggly as all get-out, but I was hoping for something a little darker, more intense. I tried again today, and this time I had a little more attention to pay to the various phases. (I also didn't have Prosperous Flowers on the opposite wrist to swoon over.) So wet, yes, definitely smoky sassafras, made even sweeter and more snuggly by vanilla, but this time I noticed that it quickly became darker around the edges with vetiver and opoponax, that syrupy cola opoponax. I got the mandarin this time, so now it's a smoky orange-cola rootbeer. With vetiver. Really great, in other words. Red musk decided not to show up to the party, which is fine, because it's not always all about red musk. This is not floral on me at all, maybe a tiny bit herbal, and I honestly can't make out the fig either. But it's a major comfort scent. My aunt asked what I was wearing and said she really liked it! And that was roughly 2.5-3 hours after application. Keeper!

Baruch's Phoenix is good-not-great on me. It's mostly cedar, sandalwood and galbanum. I don't get any honey, which is too bad because it would help keep the cedar in check. The fruit notes are there but soft, in the background; no detectable almond. I love the scent descriptions for so many of the anniversary blends, and so few of them are home runs on me. Oh well, I'm happy to have smelled this one, and I keep trying...

This Wan White Humming Hive was sickly, scary honey when it first hit my skin. But quickly the overpowering sweetness of the beeswax gave way to the dry patchouli, the oceany ambergris, and a light incense around the edges. It is stranger and less straight-forward than I had imagined. This is not a bad thing; it's a beautiful, magical strangeness. Imagine your totally goth girlfriend, with the dyed black hair, the all-black wardrobe, the clove cigarettes, decided instead to wear all white, to line her eyes with white and wear white lipstick and dye her hair platinum blonde -- this is the perfume she would wear. Despite the pale quality of the notes, a little goes a long way, and there is quite a bit of throw on me.

Like the very first reviewer, I get essentially single note lavender from Love and Pain. As always, it goes on in a blast of lavender; unusually, the lavender lasts and lasts, but I really wanted to hear from the tobacco, the vanilla, the black musk...

I will try any blend with chestnut in it, but on initial application this seemed like a fail. It smelled like the rose dusting powders that elderly relatives owned in my childhood, the kind that would come in a round striped box with a pink powder puff inside. Pink powder puff = not me. But within 20 minutes or so, the warm nutty chestnut stepped in to save the day, creating a scent that is delicate and powdery while at the same time earthy and warm. I can't say I get any vetiver here at all, though it might contribute to the latter qualities. No throw but pretty decent staying power for a Shunga; this would be a good workplace scent on me.

Hmm, the Goblin Rider in my imp must be almost a decade old by now. It still smells great, still a little sharp ITI with pine and cedar. On my skin I get more opoponax, and a hint of ozone which doesn't bother me here because it's so perfect with the concept. The woods are lovely, dark and deep...

So, I thought I was getting the October 2006 13, but the label just says 13 2006, and based on the notes and reviews, I think it's the January 2006 one instead, which was this formulation. The two blends it reminds me of most strongly are Young Pine Saplings and Phantom Cow of Yerba Buena. Both were dreadful on my skin, like curdled milk. I'm not getting recognizable chocolate here, which makes me think this is a white chocolate blend, not a cocoa one. And white chocolate is not my cup of anything. I'll be frimping this out in my very next swap, and hopefully my swap partner can figure out what they're dealing with here and have better luck with it.

2008 version and I'm shocked I didn't review this when I received it for the 13 Nights of Halloween swap last fall. Maybe it just seemed like the wrong season. Now is very much the right season, and this blend is so beautiful. I don't like straight florals, but carnation is my favorite floral, and this is carnation and a lush field of green grass with clover and heather and ivy, and frankly tea rose can be dreadful on me but I'm not getting any here. This is pure pastoral poetry and perfect for those overcast spring days that just make the greens seem that much greener and the pinks of blossoms that much pinker.

Pallas Athene is perfect both for the goddess herself and for the Klimt painting. I get a rich, golden amber as the principal note, backed up by saffron, gentle cedar and resins, a hint of citrus. I don't actually get any cinnamon at all, and not enough cumin to worry about. Beautiful, strong, glowing. It doesn't last long on my skin, unfortunately. ETA Gustav Klimt, Pallas Athene, 1898 Historical Museum of the City of Vienna

I didn't care for Gomorrah when it first hit my skin. It was gritty, ashen. And despite fig, date and currant (I never actually get the latter), it is not at all sweet. But as it develops, it gets interesting. I wonder if there's black pepper in here, which is a note I have trouble smelling, because there is a kind of kick to it. The fig and the date emerge, though not strongly; this is a skin scent throughout. I still don't love it, but it's very complex and I think it would be marvelous on the right skin chemistry.

I put Bestla on before heading out to work today and couldn't remember what was in it. (I think I had it confused with Audumla and was expecting streams of milk.) Well, oudh was immediately obvious. Stinky oudh, like the one in Nevertheless She Persisted. I gritted my teeth and, nevertheless, persisted. And the indolic quality only lasted about 10 minutes before it turned into the gorgeous, non-stinky oudh of, say, Cassiopeia, but with rose instead of plum. I knew there was other stuff in there, but I couldn't have said precisely what -- something chewy, that must have been the fig. And like lizabelle, about 2 hours in, I would have guessed there was a late-blooming cinnamon or cassia note, a lovely spicy quality. This is quite beautiful on me, with a little throw and good wear length.

A BPAL friend of mine described this as one of her favorite masculine-leaning blends, which surprised me since I don't think of lavender, bergamot and plum as trending in that direction. I finally got the chance to try it, and it is quite a morpher on me. It starts out with lavender and bergamot doing the me, me, no, look at ME! dance. Clean, bright, happy vibes, not hellish at all. Things start to get a little weirder when the musk comes into play. I wouldn't have been able to pick it out as green musk either, nor could I identify a specific plum note, just a hint of fruitiness. The lavender lasts longer than usual on my skin, blending with the fruity musk, and after a couple of hours it felt very much like a citrus chypre, a cologney feel to it, and I understood where my friend was coming from. Wear time was pretty good on this, and I quite liked all the phases. Keep!

I'm testing Incipient Madness on one wrist and Inextinguishable Hatred on the other (it's tax day, I'm still working on mine) and they have a similar dark, sweet, smoky tobacco thing going on. Both are sexy and perfectly unisex, maybe skewing a little towards the masculine end of the spectrum. Madness is musky rather than resiny. I'm not getting any recognizable currant, just sweetness. The patchouli is in the background, kind of structuring the scent but not dominant at all. I like both these scents but am not madly in love with them, so I think I may pass these decants along.

Inextinguishable Hatred has mellowed beautifully in the 6+ years since it was decanted (my imp is dated Dec 2011). It's not sharp or acrid at all but spicy ginger with that lovely coca-cola opoponax -- I get the ginger beer comparisons, although I wouldn't call it fizzy. Gingery sweet dark resins with a hint of tobacco and neroli. There may be a bit of bite from the pepper but I can rarely smell the pepper note in anything. Average wear length, totally gender neutral.

I love this! The gorgeous spicy earth note, smoky vetiver, grassy vetiver, something evergreen twining through it all. Believe seems to capture all the power inherent in the natural world. It has great throw, which is rare on my skin (at least for scents I like...) and is lasting very well so far.