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Warm, smoky resins and vanilla, swirled with red fruity wine. (2016 version) This a complex, gorgeous blend. It's elegant, yet comfortable and easy to wear. The wet phase is challenging. In the bottle, it's a sour red wine and doesn't get much better on the skin. It's the same red wine in Black Tower, though the two scents are completely different. Thankfully the 'too much wine' phase is very brief. As it dries, wow, it blooms into a soft, smooth, warm resin. It's smoky, lightly spiced, even a bit 'snowy', giving it a holiday feel. There's a hint of red fruitedness, sophisticated like fine wine. It's magical. It morphs toward vanilla as it fades. So pretty. This may be in my top ten. The Magi took me by total surprise.

Orange cream pastry. Zarita is a yummy buttered orange cream pastry dessert, not too sweet. There's a light vanilla note that reminds me of Lyonesse, but this is foodier. It falls into the same category of scents as Eat Me, but it's pastry instead of cake. There's a touch of spicy carnation, a bit like the carnation-y cream in Alice (and thankfully doesn't turn to play-doh vinyl like Alice does on my skin). The orange fades and a creamy buttered sweetness remains. The wear length is decent, a few hours. No iris or berries that I can detect. Really nice.

Cherried minty-sage vetiver. Instant love because it smells so much like Blackcurrant sage 'Hot Lips' (Salvia microphylla): https://goo.gl/photos/nTiER98emU1KcDiB8 Maybe not the prettiest plant, but it smells so good, like a sweet cherried mint. It's cheerful, happy, and full of summer. The oil is pinkish. I'm guessing there's dragon's blood in here, which can turn plasticky on me, but doesn't in this blend. There's just a bit of vetiver, enough to give it a plant-like, garden earth (but not dirt) feel, to keep it grounded. It stays pretty as it fades. Oh I like this very much.

Honeyed cocoa vetiver. Queen is an odd scent. It starts as a confusing cacophony of notes that don't seem to blend well. It's dirty, astringent, woody, sour, complex. Chocolate-minty-forest honey? Gah -- what is it? Honey can be trouble and go musty on my skin. Except for the honey, Queen isn't bad. As it dries, vetiver intensifies and tones down the honey. The notes smooth together in the end. Still, it's weird, like listening to a song that's off-key and I can't quite catch the tune. Unsure if this scent wants to be sweet or bold, silly or serious. It's an odd (but not unpleasant) combination. I might reach for it again, more out of curiosity of its effects than for the actual scent. For chocolaty mint, Wulric the Wolfman is really good. For vetiver, I prefer French Love or The Old Goblin.

Clean, slightly sweet skin. It seems so light and unobtrusive that I'm tempted to put on more than the usual micro-dot. But I resist. Neutral intensifies on drying, disappears, then reappears again stronger. It has a powerful throw that I sometimes can't quite smell, but can sense, like a force field from my wrist. It's almost eye watering. By mid-day, my nose is burning, my throat is sore ... I think I'm sensitive to something in this. The scent itself is so friendly, likable, fresh. I want to wear it! But no. There's a scent component called ISO E Super and I think I detect it here (or a close cousin of it). It's really popular, for good reason: it smells great. It has a large molecule size that blocks scent receptors, so it wafts in and out as your nose tires of it, then recovers. Some perfume brands wayy overuse it ... which is why I like BPAL so much: these scents almost never give me 'chemical burn' (like other perfumes do). Neutral is a rare exception.

Warm, soft, powdered spice. This is very smooth, well blended, and beautiful. I get a color association of 'pinkish red'. Maybe it's the sandalwood-cinnamon, but it's so gentle here. As it dries, it turns into a soft Arabian desert perfume with something very comforting underneath. It evokes Johnson's Baby Oil, but with greater depth. I love this. It's tender, like lullabies and rocking chairs, telling stories of distant lands.

Soft coconut leather. It's warm, comforting, lightly spiced. Not sure why I get coconut milk, but there it is. It's fuzzy, cuddly ... it reminds me most of Brown Jenkins. This is Brown Jenkins with leather instead of wood. The overall effect is softer, but just as cozy. I love this. It's a scent for rainy days with cups of milky tea, wrapped in warm blankets.

Sweet, powdered musk with a sour note. It smells instantly familiar: Jicky. This is so much like Guerlain's Jicky that I dug out a sample and dabbed it on the other wrist. Yup, that's it. I won't call it a dead ringer, but it's close. Both scents have a powdered sweet musk with a touch of fancy bergamot-lavender -- and both go 'diapery' on me in the same way. It's a skin chemistry thing, and so unfortunate. I put Jicky on a man once and about fell over in awe at the swoon worthy scent: elegant and utterly gorgeous. The Convocation is actually better on my skin than Jicky, which picks up a 'bad breath' note in addition to 'diaper'. Convocation also has a bit of leather, which is nice. An hour later, the bad notes have burned off and the sweet, powdery (yes, swanky) musk remains. It's good now, but the journey here was too rough. This isn't a scent I can wear, but I'm impressed.

Ultimate cinnamon spice: hot, red, and peppery. Wild Men of Jezirat al Tennyn comes in a scary bottle with glowing eyed demons on the label. Its description is just as terrifying. But there's nothing 'evil' about this scent. Dark maybe, and exotic. It's hot, spiced, amber goodness and utterly amazing. Cinnamon is not listed, but that's how my nose reads it. There's clove and nutmeg, cookie spices, over a deep base scent that might be interpreted as 'masculine'. To me, it adds a fancy depth and I can't get enough of it. If there's any vanilla, it's very light and faint. This scent is not sweet at all, which sets it apart. This is what I wanted Mama-ji to be. But Mama-ji (and Bengal, a chai spiced scent) had a mothball note I couldn't get past. Chimera is cinnamony and over-the-top sweet, like red hots candy, with a youthful girly feel. Priala '15 is a sexy grown-up cinnamon (and has her charms!), but without the moss which makes Wild Men so wild and wonderful. This is one of my favorite spice scents. It has a lot of throw, it's sizzling, sexy, (and not at all office appropriate!).

Root beer barrels! It opens with a sweet candy burst, fizzy and medicinal. Yum! As the root beer fades, I get a hint of something like bubble gum before it settles down into a pale fig. I barely detect smoke. It fades quickly, but a sugar sweetness remains on the skin a long time. In summary, it's simple root beer candy. For a root beer scent, I prefer Morocco (which leans more towards cream soda) or Tombstone. Tombstone has less sassafras, and more leather vanilla. Sissy with Tombstone might be a good combination.

Exotic, plum-sweetened, smoky leaf. It has a mentholated vibe like something used in fresh tobacco. Gorgeous scent: the notes swirl around each other in a holy dance. If it were a color, it would be deep red, purple, and black. As it fades, a soft vanilla comes forward, along with the red musk. Red musk is iffy on my skin (Scherezade! so bad on me). But here it blends perfectly, sweetened with vanilla and purple fruit. The patchouli-tobacco leaf turns quiet and mystical. Something about this leaf is both dirty and clean ... and compelling; I can't stop sniffing. Mme. Moriarty is, to me, a masterpiece.