ramblingrambler

I've worn this the last several days and each day I feel differently about it. This is a delicious gourmand, but sometimes it makes me hungry, and other times it makes me... nauseated. BPAL's caramel note usually gives me an immediate need to wretch, so I assume there must be some caramel somewhere in here. Outside of that, however, it's delightful and smells like a cake on days I don't get the caramel component.

This would be SO GOOD without the geranium. I mean, it’s still good, but the geranium is VERY prominent. Maybe a little aging will do the trick. The rest of the notes are standout exemplars of their own accords. If you’re into any of the listed notes, definitely try this out, as it may be amazing on you.

I get no marshmallow in this, but it is exceptionally effervescent and fizzy. It is straight up sugary soda on me. And I’m not complaining.

This is the gummy bears, bubble gum, and Snake Oil Motherhood fragrance sans gummy bears. It’s Lilith’s bubblegum, and Beth’s Snake Oil. Innocent and lovely dries to mysterious and enchanting. I definitely see the two of them here, and I can see Lilith becoming her own woman in the eyes of Beth here.

My nose feels like it licked the outside of a pink peep and couldn’t catch a break on the lingering sugar-high. Damn, this is some sweet stuff. It’s not marshmallowy at all on me, but it’s like the pink sugar crust outside the peep piled on a table. I’m going to let this age some because I think it could be quite nice with a little time on its side, mellowing it out and giving it a sweet, cutesy pink vibe rather than a HO-MY-GAWD, SWEET bite.

Well, this stinks (literally, I guess, too). I was hoping for toasted marshmallow graham s’mores, but all I get seems to be... vetiver? I can tell there’s something else trying to poke out, but it’s sweet and amorphous at the moment. Maybe a little aging will do the trick, but if it IS vetiver giving off the smokiness, I’m pretty sure that’s all I’ll ever get. If you can’t do vetiver, I would try this only as a decant, and then maybe graduate to a bottle if you get the other notes.

Mmmmmmm. Two of my most favorite chocolate scents from the catalogue are present fully in this blend: Chad + Baby’s First Con Panel = this glorious perfume. WOW. This is chocolate chip cookies, pretzels, and hot cocoa on me. I’m glad I don’t get the soda (though I’m happy to smell like soda!) since I think it would throw it off some. To me, this is perfection in a bottle, all gooey-crunchy goodness.

[Described in forum announcement as "a toasted oat and chocolate marshmallow cereal scent".] So I was a bad girl and applied directly from mail; I will go back and edit my comment accordingly once I’ve rested and retested. This is like opening a box of your favorite chocolate-with-marshmallows cereal. I haven’t eaten cereal since I was a teenager since I can’t have grains, but it’s every bit as good as I remember popping open the bag and having the scent explode everywhere before pouring. And it is realistic to boot. It’s not overpowering on the chocolate nor the grains (oats), and the marshmallow is more of a cream, but a skin-scent. This is quite light and almost delicate, airy. Things will likely change as it rests, but I couldn’t wait to try it. I totally forgot I had backed the Kickstarter until this box (discreet and mysteriously packaged with tiny labels and eight zillion stamps!) showed up at my door. Usually my anxiety would kick in to get a weirdly packaged box like this, but it came with another perfume order from another house, so I figured why not dig in and die happy if it came down to it.

Orris root, French lavender, white sandalwood, pink peony, and white honey. I almost don’t want to review, as I’ve never been first before. Let me preface with this: I am not a lavender fan, and most everything that contains it gets passed on to someone who loves it. I only tested this as a skin moisturizer before bed last night, as that is the only time I can stomach lavender (for sleep). Luckily, the lavender is only featured for the first five minutes, at which point it fades into a smooth, sweet, powdery scent. I can barely tell which notes are which once it begins to quiet down on lavender—but even then, it is not too floral (in the sense that each note can be distinguished). This reminds me of the scent of a newborn for some reason. (I don’t have kids and am rarely around them, so take that as you will!) Although this isn’t my usual scent profile, I would likely use as a body moisturizer before sleep until I emptied the bottle.

This is essentially L’Estate on me. The moment I first smelled it, I knew I had its cousin—a high-end scent—somewhere on my stash, a fragrance only pulled out for special occasions (since it cost a pretty penny on second market!). It is warm and glowing in the same way L’Estate reads on me; except for the minor changes in supporting notes, the overall profile remains the same, and it smells delightful. My only problem now is that I’ve begun to amp amber, so we’ll see whether this and L’Estate will remain wearable in the future.

I was hoping the tobacco would not be front-and-center in this blend, but alas, on me, as any fragrance containing this note, it is all tobacco, all the time. The plum-oudh makes it bearable along with the usual Lace suspects (sans tobacco), but I simply cannot wear tobacco blends anymore it seems. For anyone who amps this note and/or is not a fan, stay far away. Otherwise, this will be absolutely beautiful on you, and I highly encourage you to get it.

Kabuki is good stuff. It’s a blast of red musk and cherry wet, but it dries into a lovely anise-cherry with the musk giving it an almost incense feel. I’ve unfortunately become recently allergic to the Lab’s red musk note and cannot stop sneezing, so this is no longer something I can wear. It’s too bad, too, because I loved it. I hope to pass this beauty on to someone who will also love it.

Snake Oil Jelly Donut, Strawberry Sufganiyot, and Beaver Moon walked into a bar... ...and had a ménage à trois. Folks, this ain’t no joke. I repeat: this is not a joke. You MUST get thee to a BPAL dispensary. (Trust me, if you’re into ANY of these fragrances, pick this up as soon as you see it come available from anyone’s destash.)

This would be the PERFECT scent if it did not include honey. Waaaaah. I stashed for a bit of aging, hoping the sweetness would recede, but it didn’t. Smells like a beautiful, deep smoked patchouli (with perhaps the faintest hint of vetiver), but the honey note throws it off on me. So, so sad.

Low throw, short wear, but one of the only apple scents I would contemplate keeping around, as the apple is not the main event. Booberry cereal is the showstopper. It’s like I’ve doused myself in it for about twenty minutes, and then it fades into a whisper of a creamy, berry scent. Wish it lasted longer, but it is *dreamy* for a hot minute.

Hmmm. I’ve had this for some time but can’t find my review, so I will post one now while wearing before I forget—excuse if second time! This is a tart, effervescent, green fragrance—not quite as green as, say, Thrice Plowed Field, but the dandelion is just as prominent as the champagne (or oaky wine, in the vein of Chardonnay) note. It isn’t as sharp or fizzy as Bon Vivant, so it is definitely a more subdued alcoholic beverage... I guess faeries can’t hold their liquor . This is pleasant and nice for late spring, early summer, but this is the only time I personally could wear it.

Ow. I want to love this because it smells so friggin good, but my entire arm is a red stinging mess right now. I scrubbed it off with a regular soap and a surfactant and applied some carrier oils to area, but it is still red and stings bloody well bad an hour later. Just a warning to anyone with cinnamon or cassia sensitivities! (I only recently got these sensitivities, and I felt emboldened by my last test of Loved To Death which only gave me the smallest tinge of redness and stinging directly where applied. This one was all out hellfire on my whole arm—either because it traveled while wet or because my skin hated it, not sure!) BUT!!!! It does smell great . It’s a yummy angel food cake with coconut, cocoa, and cinnamon (cassia) frosting. Too bad I can’t wear this, but yay for someone else!

Cinnamon used to be one of my favorite notes until I developed a sensitivity just recently, which is why I have this bottle. Totally forgot cinnamon was a note and didn’t sniff before I applied—but magically it went on without too much redness. (It was a little pink and stung at first, but it wasn’t too bad overall!) I’m glad I applied today because I forgot how beautiful this is. It’s a dark, chewy vanilla foremost with hints of beeswax and cinnamon and clove. Honestly, wet it smells like a blonde-brownie on me, and then it transforms into a gloriously seductive blend that I can’t quite place. The only issue I have with it is that it fades into clove/cinnamon before it completely wears off, and though my BF is into it in all its stages, he does say this smells a little like potpourri before it’s gone. Totally worth the potpourri at the end.

This has aged well over the years I’ve had it. Typically I’m not an apple fan, but wet is the only time I really smell APPLE. Dry, it becomes a honeyed fruit—the platonic ideal of apple is in there somewhere, but the honey stands out most. I appreciate its softness in all aspects: this is definitely “kindness” in a bottle.

A burst of apricot silk, blood orange musk, French lavender, and red benzoin chypre in a gilded sledge of amber. Oh, wow. This smells beautiful. When I first got it in a blind swap, I didnt think it would work for me, as all I smelled was lavender. I tested it out today and powered through, and I am so glad I did. The lavender, though still there, is but a whisper and recedes far into the backgroundfar enough to let the blood orange and apricot dominate with amber as support... the lavender gives it a surprise twist, I guess. Usually I cant do anything with any lavender, but this works. Thanks for sending in our blind swap, aphrodite! <3 ETA: I spoke too soon. Seems like the lavender sticks around until way after the other notes wear away. Ill see what my BF or mother thinks of it before swapping it away because it really is so beautiful if someone can deal with lavender.

No jokes here: who wouldn’t love a heart-shaped hot tub? A bubbling vat of red musk, sweet red wine, benzoin, red oudh, and lush magnolia. This is JUICY in the best way. Benzoin gives it the crackling pop of fizziness you might expect from a hot tub (though I always think soda when I think benzoin), and the red musk and magnolia blend together to make it velvety smooth with a hint of trailing smoke from the oudh. Ultimately, this is a candied (red wine note), fizzy musk, and I loves it, my precious.

Resurrected: Bottled Snake Charmer is what I wish applied Snake Charmer would smell like. It’s like the best components of Snake Oil, Morocco, Scherehezade, and Madame Moriarty. It smells incredible. On, it isn’t bad at all. My boyfriend loves it. Each of the aforementioned fragrances are still profiled in this blend. That said, this does what Crucifixion does on me and turns into baby diapers. If you check out my review of Crucifixian, you’ll see that I low-key love the baby diaper scent though, so it’s NBD. My boyfriend thinks I’m crazy because he doesn’t smell diapers at all, or if he does, he says they’re the most magnificent diapers in the world. It’s okay. I’ll take it. Whatever this blend actually smells like, it doesn’t matter to me. What does matter is that I like it and my boyfriend likes it, and it seems like random passersby also like it. This means it is a TO KEEP bottle.

Raw patchouli, oakmoss, cassis bud, bergamot, and blackcurrant. Smokey, earthy goodness. The oakmoss tethers everything together, I think, and makes it entirely coherent. I slathered this all over my arms as well as my hair in hopes this would last all day on me—and it did. This is a beautiful, beautiful scent, and not my usual fragrance profile. I need about a dozen bottles of this.

2011 Version from a blind swap: In bottle, it smelled... interesting, to say the least. I couldn't begin to describe what scent was occupying my nose, but it wasn't a good or bad one---it just was. Wet, I thought it was horrible. I was SO SAD that this blind swap didn't work out for me in the slightest (it was a four-bottle blind swap, and none of them seemed to work! Dems da breaks with a blind swap though!). I decided to keep it on just to see if it would dry down into something better. Not gonna lie, wet it smelled like an old, musty, urine-filled parking garage stairwell, and I wanted to immediately remove it. Persevering was a good call because fifteen minutes later (an interminable fifteen minutes though....), this ungodly scent morphed into full bloom. I still don't LIKE it---it's not my type of fragrance profile---but it isn't a "bad perfume." Tl;Dr: This is a musky lavender with some copaiba and myrrh. I get no orange blossom at any point in wear. Not bad but not good (on me. You might have a completely different, heavenly experience. ).

Snagged Kit during the re-release, and I’m glad I did. I’ll probably buy a second bottle so my boyfriend and I can each have one. Kit is cozy and warm and full of memories over a long life. It literally smells like the life of the mind, and a well-lived one at that. On me, Kit is mostly a soft, woody (but not pencil-shavings!) fragrance. It’s the feeling of an older gentleman up late at night at his writing desk in a packed-to-the-brim, dimly-lit home library. Honestly, I don’t know how to describe the blend outside the feelings it elicits... which is snuggly—like being wrapped in a cozy sherpa blanket. Lovely.