marared
-
Content Count
4,458 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by marared
-
Mallow Flower, Honeysuckle, and Vanilla Bean
marared replied to Silvertree's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
I completely forgot that I ordered this, until I went through the upper shelf while looking for scents I don't wear as often. It's had a good six months to age, which is why I think I put it up there in the first place: to let the florals calm down a little. At this stage, it's a sticky-sweet, feminine, white-gold floral. Sharp at first, but it softens over time. The honeysuckle is there, but it takes a back seat to the mallow flower and vanilla - it's too flowery to be marshmallowy to my nose, but it's definitely sweet and summery. The scent is loud on my skin, and it's got quite a lot of throw even without being activated by body heat. -
Dirty hippie scent is right up my alley! The patchouli is calm and self-possessed, not fresh and stanky, the vetiver joins the frankincense and myrrh in giving it more depth but none of the vegetal or scorch that most people hate nor any of the powderiness that the resins can leave, the labdanum perks the whole scent up with just a hint of effervescence, and then amber just kinda blurs through the whole thing adding warmth. It's a very grown up, give no fucks kind of scent. If you hate vetiver, I don't think this will change your mind, but if you're on the fence, I'd give it a try.
-
Piercingly sharp white floral, I'd classify it as almost aquatic. Mums are usually much richer than this, but the aldehyde is so harsh that it puts a damper on the flowers. The whole scent puts me on edge and not in a good way.
-
Clove tries to dominate this right out of the bottle, as it does, but wait it out - the aloeswood shows up and calms things down and it's quite lovely. If good quality Japanese incense is too pricy for you, this would be a great alternative to drip in an oil warmer. While I would classify this as quite masculine, it's honestly very atmospheric - I would love for my whole house to smell like this in its drydown stage.
-
An Aroused Prostitute From Maruyama Yukatu and a Merchant From Qing
marared replied to Seajewel's topic in Lupercalia
This smells like a Bath & Body Works candle - not a generic statement, there is a very specific scent this reminds me of and I cannot for the life of me think of what it is, but it's probably a Halloween scent, because I am totally parsing this as pumpkin rather than peach, and I have no idea why. It's loud and spicy, no cream to speak of, doesn't have a lot of depth to it - at least not so far. -
Contest of Colors, Pink Peach Blossoms and White Plum Flowers
marared replied to Seajewel's topic in Lupercalia
I originally almost posted this under Aroused Prostitute From Maruyama, because the bottles were sitting side by side and it made sense with the notes! My first impression, without checking the notes, was peach tea - it reminds me of my bag of peach oolong but less astringent. The amber comes out almost immediately and makes the peach warmer and fuzzier, and does that "expensive dryer sheets" thing that amber sometimes does, but the labdanum takes over after a few minutes and pushes the amber down. It takes a while for the other florals to peek through and they're very low-key. It's just a very warm resinous peach, and I bet this will be smashing to layer with! -
Orris root is about 85% a death note for me and I'm always a little nervous ordering something with it, but I had to give this one a shot. Loud, sweet pear, and it smells realistic at the forefront of my nose, but when I get a deeper inhale, ehhhh there's the orris root. We'll see how this develops over time. The honey, vanilla, cream, and musk are thoroughly blended and no one note really peeks out over another, it's just a very nice undercurrent to the pear. As long as I don't inhale too deeply, the orris root behaves, but I'm going to be giving this one side-eye for a while.
-
Fresh out of the mailbox: absolutely delicious honeyed vanilla with just a slight bit of effervescence from the labdanum and the pink pepper. I've never smelled bushman's candle and there's nothing in this that hints at something different from the rest of the scent. The honey is NOT overpowering or sticky, but it does develop an aspect that makes me think of vanilla flavored hard candy. It's not the same vanilla, but this is what I hoped for from Love's Philosophy back in the day - I had to sell it off because it just didn't work right with my chemistry, but this is niiice.
-
On me, this smells like cheesecake with strawberry compote. No pastry note that I can detect. I like Pomegranate better, but this is still super delicious!
-
Dirty desserty patchouli is the ODDEST thing. I think what I am parsing as dirty is the "oily" benzoin, and the marshmallow fluff definitely qualifies as sticky. No caramel here, just gooey fluff. I'm getting some kind of soil aspect to this too. It makes me think of the marshy area around a pond where I used to go hunting for tadpoles when I was a kid. I don't know. It's so weird. Not at all what I expected!
-
I am having a hard time picking out any of the actual notes except the hazelnut, but boy, this is delicious. Warm, friendly, fuzzy but not TOO fuzzy, with a little cool and bright zing from the mandarin cutting through it all. After several minutes, the "peppery" part of the musk shows up and the hazelnut and mandarin recede a bit, but it's still so so good. It's fairly strong on my wrist, but not a huge amount of throw.
-
I did not parse when I first ordered it that this was blended with Snow White. I hate Snow White on my skin. It is one of the (relatively few, thankfully) scents that goes stale/sour and requires multiple scrubs to get off. So I tried TKSnow with an awful lot of trepidation, and surprisingly, it does not behave as badly as SW does on its own. There is is a period of about ten minutes where I can smell the SW and the ick is lurking, but it gets subsumed by a cool dark vanilla. Regular TKO cycles between marshmallow and lavender on me, but this one stays mostly low-key sweet.
-
Fruity and cheerful! It reminds me very much of Invisible Gingerbread Man without the gingerbread and I am assuming it must be the same lemon note. BPAL's blackberry can be really loud, but here it's pretty well tamed under the lemon, and I can't even pick out the blackcurrant. It's a delightful lemon soda, something I will enjoy wearing in the spring or even just as a pick-me-up.
-
Kind of a cranberry Crayola crayon, at first sniff. It's cooler than I expected - skin musk is usually very warm, but the cranberries are cold. It's a bit of okay, nothing exciting, will need to stash it for a while and see if it improves with time as musk often does.
-
This one is a bit odd and I've had a hard time putting my finger on it, even after letting it sit for a few weeks. It is definitely cool blue and airy, but I don't really get the ozone or the opoponax. Vanilla is there, yes - this particular vanilla reminds me a bit of Ghosts of Aldershot without the mint. I think "medicinal" is the right description here, but I've never gotten that from benzoin, so maybe it's the tobacco giving that particular impression on my skin? After about 10-15 minutes or so, there's the tobacco - it gets darker and more masculine, but there's still that creepy blue zing underneath.
-
2022 version: The pomegranate incense is what makes this for me. It's not very strong, but it's there, and it really elevates the blend. The pumpkin and leather are the strongest right off the bat, and the patchouli is an undercurrent, not too loud. After 20-30 minutes, it's mostly patchouli and leather, with a bit of butteriness from the pumpkin and the incense.
-
If you like the original Oblivion, you definitely want this. Apples really elevate this into something beautiful. It's almost like a high end craft cider - smooth, not too sweet, no effervesence, just really good apples. I've been waiting it out to see if the apple turns funky at all, and thankfully so far it does not. The apple has receded after a few minutes and the wood and spices peek out. The whole scent fades quite a bit 10-15 minutes in, but it's still lovely even close to the skin. I gotta run back to the Lab and order a couple more.
-
Green Cardamom, Irish Fern, and Hinoki
marared replied to Silvertree's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
I like this one a lot. In the bottle, it's very green and almost swampy with the fern (in a fresh sort of way). On my skin, it's heavy on the cardamom to start, but the wood comes out and the two are in pretty equal balance after half an hour or so, but the fern disappears almost entirely after a few minutes. Medium to low throw - it is not nearly as pungent as Green Cardamom, Oakmoss, and Patchouli, that's for sure (which I also like, but boy you can smell me comin' from across the room). -
Frottle! I normally have trouble with fig, as it turns kinda chewy and nasty on my skin, but it behaves nicely here (after 15 years of aging!) I mostly get olive oil and a somewhat smoky amber, with a hint of honey and a hint of pastry. The fruit has mostly vanished from the scent, so I layered it with Pomegranate Sufganiyot for some extra yum.
-
This is my favorite of the Liliths this year. It's a bright, happy, and fresh floral, definitely golden as the description says. There was a camphoric aspect to the lavender and chamomile that seems to have settled down in the few days since I got the box. The lavender is there, but the chamomile is definitely the stronger note. The cream, amber, and pear blossoms wash through the whole scent and give it warmth. It's really lovely.
-
The first time I tried this, I couldn't smell the blackberries at all. I smell them now in the bottle, loud and fruity as they are in the summer BPALs. On my skin, the blackberry vanishes right away and leaves a vaguely nail polish funk that I think is the cade plus the ylang ylang. I am not familiar with cade, but is described as being phenolic. It's not as frightening as oud can sometimes be, but you do have to ride it out for a little while. The patchouli is in there , the vanilla and labdanum not so much. I think this is a blend that will really benefit from aging, give everything a chance to settle and meld for 6-12 months.
-
I often amp rose blends, and unfortunately this is one of them. It's a pretty rose - a touch of floral powderiness, but otherwise smells quite natural - it's just so LOUD on my skin that I have a hard time picking out anything else in the blend. If I really inhale and think about it, the pepperberry is there lending a slightly fruity tang way down underneath it all, and there's a tiny bit of labdanum bringing up the back end, but no vanilla, no patchouli, just ROSE.
-
This is a nice, uncomplicated scent. Very definitely wildflower honey - it's got that rich tang to it that isn't in clover, orange blossom, etc. The labdanum does its usual fizzy soda thing, and the vanilla is not particularly noticeable. It's thick and sweet, but not overpoweringly so.
-
I was really interested in this and it's not at ALL what I expected. I was hoping for a nice zingy citrus whoosh with the musk, but it's a harsh orange blossom on my skin. I let it sit for a while, hoping that more subtleties would develop, but alas, this is going straight to the NOPE pile.
-
This is, basically, strawberry scented incense. There's no floral aspect that I can detect at all, the patchouli is there but very gentle, the labdanum is not fizzy, and the strawberry is more jammy than fresh, but it doesn't smell artificial and it's not too sweet. I kinda like it.