Lucchesa

I retested my tester of Imaginer this morning to decide whether or not to buy a bottle here on the forums. (My notes said only "want more!") Imaginer feels really right on my skin: a deep russet cloak to wrap around myself on a frigid day. It's dark honey and the rich amber I love so much and warm patchouli, a gorgeous warming blend for autumn and winter. I'm often anosmic to the Lab's pepper note, but the pepper and saffron seem to be contributing to the overall warmth and depth. No hippie patchouli here; this is sophisticated and work-appropriate. The throw is low, but it lasts really well on me. Want more is right!

An Incubus Leaving Two Sleeping Women is very pretty, though a little more floral than I expected. It's mainly honey-vanilla-white floral with a little patchouli for structure. I'm getting more magnolia than ylang ylang which is good, as it's the better note on me. I'm not getting much musk. This has no throw on me (which is normal for my skin) and fades quickly.

I am not a morning person, so maybe this was never going to work. The Phoenix at Dawn smells like very expensive French-milled soap on me. High-pitched citrusy floral, no patchouli or sandalwood in evidence, but I would have guessed there was white musk in here. I agree that the white wine grape is like the champagne note here, and that is not usually a success on my skin. Glad I got to try it, but I'll be passing this one on.

Singularly at Ease, which is lovely rum-infused blueberry muffin in the vial, goes tragically wrong on my skin in the exact same way that Eat Me goes tragically wrong on my skin. It was frimped to me, and I'm glad I got to test it, because it might have surprised me. Sigh. If you love Eat Me or the cakes note in general, you should definitely try this.

Amaxophobia is incredibly evocative of the description -- motor oil, artificial pine scent, right down to the stale chocolate. It was an interesting scent experience but not something I would want to smell like frequently, and my skin ate it up fairly quickly. If you enjoy trying oddball scents, you should definitely give this a try.

Obviously my Pliny's Phoenix decant is well-aged. It's a beautiful, long-lasting, warm frankincense on me, practically a single-note frank with just the tiniest hint of cinnamon. Absolutely lovely, and something to warm up a wintry season.

I didn't get any Cinq when the lupers were live because tea rose is one of the rose notes that's pretty reliably bad on me, but I was intrigued enough by the all-over-the-place reviews to swap for a decant. And it's so pretty in the imp, and after about an hour the drydown is such a pretty sugary buttery rose, like Hope with crumbs, but wet my skin makes a mess of those tea roses. Oh well, I'm delighted I had the chance to try it.

Testing blind, I, like Sangria2, thought there was cedar in this blend, which I now see was the blend of balsam and patchouli. Evergreens and leather, just a faint hint of fruit and cardamom, and I'm not getting any recognizable (i.e. indolic) oudh, just a general warmth and depth. Definitely masculine, definitely sexy. and while I like this as much as I hoped I would, I'm not madly in love with it the way I am with, say, Wulric.

I got to try a decant of Eldritch Dark, and I love it. Certain rose notes can be problematic on me, and red musk has a propensity to go all SN Red Musk, but I had a good feeling about this one. Psychodynamic Discharge worked surprisingly well on me recently, so I guess I need to look for blends where red musk is reined in by black musk. This is primarily a black musk blend on me. Leather and honey, yes, especially when wet, and a little sweet rose on drydown, but an absolutely gorgeous black musk grounds this and slow-dances with the red musk and steals the freaking show. Good throw, though the wear length is only average on me. But while it's around, it's sexy as hell.

Transeo is much more floral on me than I expected. Orange blossom and wine are the two most identifiable notes for me, and they are both problematic on my skin. So instead of the spicy woods and citrus with a little bloody wine I was hoping for, it's more blossoms and red wine and everything else is muted. This is a skin chemistry fail on me.

I'm on a roll with goat's milk recently, so when I found a few decants I'd misplaced after a recent swap, this was my immediate choice. The goat's milk was strongest when wet, and it gave Depart pour le Sabbat good wear length and throw on me, even after it became more subdued in drydown. Chewy patchouli and honey take over with a warm, pleasant grounding of oudh, which was the note I was most worried about here, but there's nothing indolic about it. Another win for goat's milk; a gorgeous, earthy-sweet fall blend.

Wow, no one has tested Masabakes for a while. I was lucky enough to find an imp, and on first application, I was not so sure about it. I got little to no black currant but lots of myrrh, something bitter (mimosa?) and something sour (mandrake?). Frankly I would generally rather have bitter than fruity, and the sour didn't last for long. Once it dries down, I get deep dark myrrh. In fact, this is the scent that most illustrates for the the line in We Three Kings: "Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom. Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone cold tomb." And it is beautiful on me. There may be a tiny bit of sweetness from the currant, but I'm really not getting any floral or greenery; the myrrh is the star here. Good throw (for me) and wear length. Obviously this has aged for a long time and may no longer correspond exactly to the initial conception, but it is still a work of art.

Sometimes BPAL oudhs are marvelous on me. Sometimes they go all poopy on my skin. This one is in the latter camp, and the beautiful amber can't save it, not even a couple hours into drydown. I may need to avoid black oudh in the future.

2018 version I can absolutely appreciate the beauty of June 23, 1868. It is a bouquet of beautiful, heady-but-not-cloying white florals, most of which I'm unfamiliar with, but it smells the way I imagine moonflower would. Lovely and ethereal. Unfortunately, I was hoping for those sepia tones of tonka, tobacco and bourbon vanilla to come dirty things up, and while I may get a touch of vanilla, I really get no tobacco at all. So it's a gorgeous floral, but I almost never wear a pure floral; it's just not me. This would be a fantastic scent for a bride in traditional long white dress and veil. If the lab ever made the reverse scent, tonka-tobacco-bourbon vanilla with a hint of moonflower, I'd be quite excited. I'm delighted I got to try this one, and if white florals ring your bells, don't miss this.

I got to try a decant of the original Saw-Scaled Viper via a swap with a marvelous forumite, and after applying I had to check the site to make sure it was indeed a Snake Oil blend. Unusually, it took a long time for the SO to assert itself; instead, this was like Chimera (which I love) with vanilla. I didn't get nearly as much ginger as I did cinnamon and cassia. While most of the Snake Oil blends I have tried sooner or later turn into Snake Oil, this one never did; the warm sweet spices remained its primary identity. What I did get and appreciate, though, was Snake Oil throw. This is lovely on me and may well warrant a bottle purchase.

Like a Girl is mostly sweet bourbon vanilla and skin musk on me, and it's lovely. I get a little sandalwood but nothing that I recognize as frankincense. This is a skin scent on me (I rarely get much throw from anything), much more vanilla than boozy, absolutely work appropriate. I think it would also be quite a nice scent for a preteen girl, but it's not obnoxiously girly, just pretty in an unobtrusive way.

The Carousel is the kind of scent I used to avoid because of too much going on. But after loving OLLA Eve, I thought I would give this one a whirl, and I'm super glad I did. This actually reminds me somewhat of Eve, both in terms of the ambitious scope and complexity of the scent and in the fact that both have an undercurrent of a rose that works on me. I do not smell a lot of cinnamon here, and I swapped with dementia_divine for this decant, so it's there, it's just my nose or my chemistry that is masking it. Instead, the first notes I get are ozone with a kind of green meadow scent. The ozone doesn't stick around on me at all, and I start to get sweet incense, green honey amber, earth and moss, the aforementioned rose... And surprisingly for such a jumble of notes, it works. It dries down to a skin scent but lasts a good while, and on me I would say it leans to the feminine side of unisex.

My decant of The Mahogany Tree is also old now, but I do get a hint of redcurrant and wine along with the mahogany and amber. The amber-dominated drydown smells really classically BPAL to me, lovely and warm. I'm not getting the snow note, which is fine with me. This wears close to the skin on me, but so do most things.

On me, An Excerpt is all about the vetiver. The forest notes form a backdrop to the smoky charge of vetiver, with soft myrrh playing around the edges, and everything softens together as it dries down. Definitely on the more manly end of unisex, and a great forcefield scent on days when you need a little extra personal power. Once it's dry, there's not a lot of throw on me (which is typical of my skin), but very good wear length. If smoky forest is your jam, this is hard to beat.

Having enjoyed My Baby and a Baby Goat tremendously, I decided I should test the other goat's milk scent in my stash, Nonae Caprotina. It is definitely the same goat's milk note, earthy, a little more pungent than cow's milk. Here it's sweetened by the similarly earthy fig instead of honey, and it's a marvelous combination. The myrrh is very soft and light on me. It doesn't have quite the throw and wear length of My Baby, but it is lovely as a very natural-seeming skin scent.

I was curious about Kaidan because of the rosehips. The only other rosehip blend I've tried was Allegory of Chastity, which was not a standout on me. Kaidan is not my usual sort of scent, but it's very pretty. It starts out delicate spring blossom on me, with just a hint of plum. As it dries down, I get sandalwood incense along with the blossoms, the plum becomes a bit more pronounced, and there is a tangy note that must be the rosehip. It's definitely more interesting in this phase, and I agree with achildoftime that it has more gravitas than Kitsune-Tsuki -- Kaidan works better on me than that blend.

Wet, Alone was cinnamon and patchouli (had to look at the notes to see that this was actually supposed to be cardamom. Hmm.) I didn't get to drydown because within moments my skin had started to burn and itch. Just FYI, the only other BPALs I have reacted to have been Inferno, Alice's Evidence, Baron Samedi, Nostrum Remedium and Greed. Not a lot of consistency there.

My skin chemistry mucked this one up. I had forgotten what was in it except for coffee, and when I smelled the imp, it was all luscious black musk with a little bit of sweet coffee. Mmm. On my skin it has terrific throw and wear length and smells exactly like strong, musky root beer. I have no idea why coffee would go to root beer on me. It's not unpleasant, and if I didn't have a couple of sarsaparilla scents I like, I would be keeping it, but it isn't what I was hoping for!

The Forest of the Empress goes on in a clarion blast of all the evergreens. I won't pretend to be able to differentiate silver fir from Douglas fir, or actually fir, spruce, cedar and cypress from pine, hemlock and redwoods, but this is very Christmas tree farm in summer, and I love it. While it does feel warm, not snowy, it is also lush, not dry, like a forest in the Pacific Northwest. The initial rush of needly greenery softens on my skin and within an hour has morphed into a much softer and sweeter evergreen scent, with the moss and oak apparent. This is not unlike the drydown of Theoi Nomioi on me. Lovely!

The Emperor's Throne is lovely but really quiet on me. The cedar and ambergris are the most prominent notes when wet. Usually tobacco leaf can be kind of screechy on me; here it's subdued, but so are the cedar and ambergris. In drydown they all meld together with the benzoin, and it really smells good if I put my nose right up to my wrist, but I feel like my skin is muting this. I'm going to age the imp a couple of months but if it doesn't develop any more oomph on me, I will let someone else try it.