ryuk

I'm not really into super foody scents, but I recently got my hands on Red Lantern, and I love it. Now I'm wondering if perhaps I've been missing out on other caramel blends. Perhaps someone with more experience could compare and contrast Red Lantern with Kill-Devil and Tiresias for me... Are they different enough from one another that I should bother trying them?

They aren't identical, but Pirate Moon is much like Hellfire for girls...

I was so scared of this. I always want to like aquatics, but they don't often work on me. They usually either turn scarily artificial, go ozone like whoa, or disappear after 2 minutes. I'd never tried lime, but citrus had a similar history as well - lemon and orange are both either nothing at all or awful on my skin most of the time. Snake Oil is nice, but not my favorite. Dragon's Blood is eww icky sticky sweetness. "Salt crusted wood" and "gunpowder?" Well, those sound cool, but potentially rather smelly. So, with all of this yuckiness and uncertainty, why would I even try it? Well... I have a thing for pirates and the label was pretty. Besides, I am constantly on the lookout for aquatics that actually work on me. Imagine my shock when all of this yuckiness and uncertainty combined to form... MY PERFECT AQUATIC! I don't know how it happened, but this stuff is beautiful! Its like a dream of the ocean - like everything I always wanted in an aquatic perfume. It's clear, bright, tangy, salty, and somehow deep. Like a boat on a sunny day with a thunderstorm on the horizon. This is what I wanted Jolly Roger and Olokun and Cthulhu and Yha'nthlei and so many others to smell like None of them worked, this does. I am so very grateful.

I was especially excited about Pirate Moon because it had several notes in common with my most beloved of all beloveds Hellfire, and there certainly is a certain similarity between the two. Pirate Moon is by far the gentler blend - the leather and tobacco are softer. The ambergris adds a lovely crystalline darkness which I adore. And the musk fuzzes the edges of the blend. I don't really get the coconut or date in this at all, except maybe as a slight sweetness in the background. The woods and grass are there, but very quiet and gentle. I do get a faint hint of sea air from this, but I have the strange sneaking suspicion that it might actually be the lime confusing my nose. I know I've said "gentle" and "soft" alot in this review, and Pirate Moon is that and is also very "pretty" But there's darkness to it as well, and I'm not sure I've accurately described how utterly lovely Pirate Moon is.