marared

Aged a year: This is all sparkly sugar plum. There's a little bit of stickiness from the marshmallow, but I wouldn't be able to tell you this had lavender if I didn't already know. It makes me think of Extreme Sour Warheads, with that sour powder coating and sweet candy inside.

I got this a week ago and it was so powerful in the bottle I couldn't even try it on, I had to put it in a drawer to calm down a little. It's still pretty loud even now. Many of the Dead Leaves scents mention a bell pepper scent, which I had never personally smelled. This is not a Dead Leaves scent, but sniffing the bottle, it's almost all bell pepper. Once I convinced my nose to get past that impression, I mostly smell the black pepper and charred wood, and just a little bit of the vetiver and amber. On my skin, it changes dramatically. The wood is now at the forefront and no bell pepper, but it's a little weird. Peppery wood, but there's still a slightly vegetal zing to it and I don't like that. I let it sit for about ten minutes and that vegetal zing has faded, thankfully, and it has now morphed into smoky, scorched vetiver with an undercurrent of wood and amber. I have not been able to pick out the clove and nutmeg at all, the vetiver, pepper, and wood are so strong that they're just overwhelmed. This is not a gentle scent at all. The throw is not quite as intense as it was in the bottle when I first got it, but people are gonna smell you coming.

The end result is spicy fruit, waaaay more spicy than fruit, and it's quite a ride to get there. It reminds me a little of the Tajin-spiced fruit gummies, without the lime. In the bottle, fresh off the doorstep: it's dry cacao with chili - not sweet at all. There's a little bit of fig and a little bit of honey hiding underneath. Immediately on the skin: at first there is a hesitant bit of fruit, and then BAM chili peppers. The cacao is there too, but the chili peppers dominate this. It's like walking into a kitchen in New Mexico. It holds strong for a good ten minutes before the peach finally makes an appearance, and then it sweetens up a little, but the chilis are still there grabbing you by the nose hairs. The cacao has now mostly faded. I'm impressed by how much punch the chilis still have, though. I was a little worried about the fig because BPAL fig frequently doesn't play nice with my chemistry, but it is buried at the bottom of the fruit basket being generally inoffensive. The peach fades quickly into a more generic fruit aroma, nothing that I could say was pomegranate. This is such an interesting scent!

So just from the bottle, I get why people describe it as vinegar. It is definitely acrid, with the woodsmoke right behind it. Immediately on my skin, there's the barbecue sauce. (I'm an Eastern Carolina vinegar girl, myself.) It takes about ten minutes for the barbecue to fade, leaving behind the woodsmoke, and at this point the brown musk comes out to play. The labdanum is barely noticeable; all it really does add a little of its signature effervescence, making the scent less dark as the smoke note recedes into the background. This isn't something I would describe as animalic or feral or unhygienic. It's warm and fuzzy, but it's a dark warm and fuzzy.

Really old imp, at least several years. Dark and sweet. The vetiver has aged to the point of being smooth and mellow - the only smoke here comes from the sandalwood. The lemon rind initially made this smell like high class hand soap in a pump, but it faded very quickly, as did the vetiver, and after about 5 minutes I'm left with a slightly sweet sandalwood. Very pretty.

I've had this bottle of Bast for four years, and it is FINALLY aged enough to be wearable. I don't quite know what the deal was - something always turned sharp and weird on my skin after only a few minutes. But after sitting on my wall mostly untouched except being tested once a year or so, it's become something really nice. It is bone-dry myrrh and amber - shockingly not powdery - with just a touch of sweetness from the honey underneath. The vanilla blends with the honey, and the cacao and cardamom aren't even detectable. After about ten minutes, the honey comes forward, but still dominated by myrrh. And just now I got a tiny whiff of the cacao and cardamom, but just barely. I was afraid I was going to have to sell this, but I'm glad that it finally works on me!

In the bottle, this smells like delicious strawberry chocolate tea - and strangely enough, I clearly smell those three scents in that order almost every time I sniff the bottle. On the skin, the gloom description really comes into play. The chocolate and tea recede, and the laudanum accord, champaca, incense, and musk step up. They're almost two completely different scents within minutes. It's in the same general scent family as B&BW's Dark Kiss, but more complex and adult. The laudanum is the lynchpin to the overall feel of the blend. It's the smell of a low-lit room where you've indulged in some mind-altering substances. It's not really what I'd call ominous - it's dark, it's relaxed, it's a weighted blanket muffling the world around you for a little while. This will probably be pretty potent with body heat, but right now it's low to medium throw. And other than the immediate difference between skin and bottle, this hasn't morphed much. I may reach more for it in the fall, but this is definitely a winner of a scent!

I ordered this to support the cause, but I do love me a nice briney olive. This is actually quite pretty. It's noticeably olive-y but without the tartness. It's bright and refreshing and warm green, way more of the leaf than of the branch. With a little bit of time on the skin, it picks up a salty undertone that verges on aquatic - bracingly Aegean. I'd classify this as slightly masculine-leaning.

TLDR: Goth Lolita Strawberry Shortcake. Dark but cute. This is plastic strawberry bathed in cool, sweet musk. This is not a realistic fruity scent, nor is it the sugary gourmand I think some people might have been hoping for - the vanilla and the marshmallow are very low key, and while the Snake Oil is detectable, it is also not very strong. The scent sits close to my skin and remains sweet strawberry musk even 15 minutes later. I feel like this would layer well with a wood-scent like hinoki or ho. Because this IS a Snake Oil blend, odds are pretty good this is going to morph with time and become smoother and richer. A comparable scent would be A Portrait from Fatherhood 2022, with more musk than patchouli.

Woo loud patchouli and honey. Incredible throw. The amber lends a creamy powderiness under it all, but it is very aggressive patch and honey. It's very delicious, but people will smell you coming down the street! I had a good 8-10 hours out of it, too.

Testing an old decant. First impression is soil, which gives way to musk. The vetiver is only there if I sniff really deeply, otherwise it's melded with the oud to the point that I can't tell them apart. No rose, no honeysuckle - the two have also melded to the point that I can tell there USED to be heady florals, but they've faded into the background. Nothing fetid from the oud, either; after 3.5 years it's aged out of the barnyard stank. Extremely low throw; I have to put my nose to my skin to get any hint of the scent. With a bit of time, the florals start to appear more strongly, but they're still not distinctively rose or honeysuckle anymore, just sweet flowers, and I can detect the green thorns/vines now as well.

Well, after 3.5 years this has aged into ... resin with funk. Only the icy bit is left of the grape, the lemon smells very slightly candied, and the white musk makes the whole thing smell like an aldehyde. It's a little off-putting at first, but given a few minutes to merge with my skin chemistry, it gets better - there's still that slightly funky note, though, that gives the "disembodied" part of the description, and it is not particularly working for me.

This is an aged decant that I found in my ammo box while I was looking for something else and decided I wanted to try it. I love orange blossom, but it can turn pretty obnoxious on my skin so I tend to be a little cautious of them, Straight out of the imp, this is thin but effervescent ginger, which is presumably the champagne and diamonds - which I feel must include some kind of labdanum. The ginger gets stronger with time, but then so do the blossoms - but they're slightly powdery (as orange blossom does), especially on a deep inhale. I think I caught a hint of the peach early on, but it quickly goes away. At this point it smells like Mediterranean Tourist Shop Soap, and not really my thing.

I ordered this because I felt like it would be a sister to Dionysia, with leather instead of mahogany. The opening salvo is mild and sweet leather, with vanilla and labdanum on a really deep inhale, and the saffron starts to bloom after a few minutes on the skin. I can detect the plum if I really think about it, and it reminds me mostly of the note in Marshmallow & Black Plum but not as noticeable. The cardamom and myrrh lend a warm glow to the overall scent, and the patchouli isn't really even detectable. It does not have much throw (although I have not tested this with body heat), and I have to put my nose very close to my skin to get past the leather, but it's very lovely once it has a chance to warm up. I would classify this as a warm and cozy scent, even appropriate for canoodling.

I've been trying to figure out how I feel about this blend for months. The leather is pretty scary when it's fresh if you're not a fan of that note. But now that I've had it for 4-5 months, it's finally calmed down a little and let some of the other notes out to play, primarily the sugar and the nag champa. The patchouli is almost nonexistent, and the clove just barely there. The sugar is the questionable note for me now, and I'm not sure if it's turning a little bit on my skin - I can't wear Sugar Skull for that reason - or if I'm just not a fan. Otherwise it's a nice, calm, gothy scent.