Little Bird

I really like Heavenly Love & Earthly Love. I've been waffling over whether or not to get a full bottle, but I probably won't ever spring for a 5ml. This is a nice scent. It's mostly sandalwood on me - dry and slightly powdery woods with hints of sweet, resinous incense at its edges. I probably won't end up buying more of it though, because it's such a subtle scent on my skin. It doesn't have much throw or very good staying power. Plus, I still love Midnight Mass a lot more than any other woody/incense blend. I'd probably reach for Midnight Mass, Cathedral, or Faustus over this blend. Heavenly Love & Earthly Love is a subtle sandalwood with hints of church-y incense and resins. I wish that it had better staying power on me. A lot of the Salon blends are very light and quick to disappear on my skin, and this is no exception.

This sounded great to me up until the brimstone and daemonorops. The Contract probably would be lovely to me without those two notes. As it is, this is okay on me, but probably not something I would reach for very much. The smoke and floral in this seem mismatched to me. The Contract has moments that I enjoy where it's hints of sultry red musk, a dry paper-y woodiness, and incense smoke. Other moments, it's mostly something like woodsmoke and soap made with sweet, half-rotten flowers. All in all, it's a bit too smoky for me, and I'm not loving the floral qualities.

I love blue lilac single note, so I was eager to try Marcilla, but I don't get any lilac from this blend at all. It's fresh, springy floral on me, citrussy from the bergamot & nectarine, with a powdery, musky-floral base from the lily & musk. I can't really pick out any particular note once it's on my skin. It just morphs into a chemical mish-mash of fakey floral notes. In the drydown, the floral starts to take on a plasticy/waxy edge that I'm guessing is from the beeswax. I love beeswax in some blends, but it doesn't feel right to me in this one. Marcilla is too floral for me to pull off. 2018 version: I definitely smell more green tea and nectarine in the new bottles of this. It's refreshing, zingy and makes me think of hard, unripe, deep green fruits. I can also pick out the beeswax in this version, adding a delicate, honeyed sweetness to that green tea. Unfortunately, it still has a heavy dose of that floral that I can't stand, though. The floral part is very sharp and perfumey and slightly soapy. It's like sitting in a garden of unripe fruits, sipping honeyed green tea, and trying to ignore the fact that your friend applied way too much of a cheap, suffocating, drugstore floral perfume.

Cinnamon, clove, vanilla, and pine sap. I love sweet clove, vanilla, and pine, but my skin has a tendency to amp up cinnamon to an obnoxious, overwhelming degree. In the bottle and for the first thirty seconds on my skin, this is sooo amazing. It's fantastic clove and gingerbread cookies. It's like the best gingerbread cookie smell ever with a great extra kick from the clove. Then the Pickled Imp quickly morphs into all cinnamon all the time on my skin. It's enough to give me a headache. Super-strong cinnamon that makes me think of red hots candies. It's just heartbreaking that it smells so good in the vial, but the cinnamon overpowers everything on my skin. Pickled Imp is crazy cinnamon single note on me

I'm really happy with how well Hay & Mead Moon are working for me. Some of the reviews were scaring me, but the oils did not disappoint. I LOVE Hay Moon, but I'm glad that I got a bottle of Mead Moon too. On me, Mead Moon starts off as loads of sugary honey and a hint of something like root beer. It's a bit too much cloying sweetness for me for the first five minutes or so. In the drydown, this smells like a snuffed out vanilla & honey candle. Waxy, sweet, and with an intriguing touch of candle smoke. It's wonderfully unique and very sexy. I thought that Honey Moon was pretty awful (herbal-floral with a drydown of sickeningly sweet, fuzzy honey), but this is so much better than Honey Moon was on me. I'm glad that this wasn't overly spicy, and that I can't pick out any lemon or rosemary.

I excitedly ordered two bottles of Hay Moon, hoping for a wearable honeyed-hay concept. Then the reviews started rolling in talking about lemons, bug spray, and soap, and I literally cried (I've been pretty fragile for the past month, lol). I love the artwork, love the concept, love the list of notes. But I tend to hate lemon scents, and I don't want to smell like bugspray. I shouldn't have worried, though, because Hay Moon is fabulous on me. I'm actually sad that I could only afford two bottles. When people say that something smells like lemon Pledge or lemon wood polish to them, it normally smells like sharp, harsh, sour, unbearable lemon to me. I love lemon pledge. I've loved that soft, sweet lemony smell ever since I was a little girl. I've polished furniture for fun my entire life, because the cleaning and that smell relaxes me. Hay Moon has that sunny, sweet, soft lemon and clean, polished wood smell. Soft, sweet, and comforting to me. The amber and other notes all mingle together to give this a sunny, relaxed, lazy feel. It's exactly what I wanted. The smell of hay and barns is nice, but not something that I would want to wear. This gives off an impression of lazing about in sunny, hay-filled barns and sunbeam filled rooms of polished country wood furniture. A bit dry grassy, a bit sun-touched wood, a bit of lemon wood polish, and just the right touches of sweetness. After about an hour, this is still going strong and getting better and better, and it smells dead-on like dry hay on my skin, but with other notes making it wearable and so summery and gorgeous. Hay Moon reminds me of being younger & living in Missouri. It's a great, sunny summer scent.

In the vial, Marguerite is like a swift floral kick to the face. It screams ROSE first and foremost, but there's also an elegant, perfumey, extra dose of serious floral underneath the rose. I pretty much cannot ever pull off ylang ylang or tuberose. Gardenia is also troublesome. I do *love* a lot of the lab's rose blends though (The Peacock Queen & Parlement of Foules being my two main favorites). The rose in Marguerite reminds me of the rich, deep rose that's in Whip. Almost a bit of a spicy rose (spicy floral, not spice like cinnamon or anything of the sort), and almost a bit wet smelling (not wet like green stems or Rose Red, but wet like freshy crushed, deep red rose petals). It's also a rose that has a bit of sweetness to it, and I love that. It's not quite as sweet as The Peacock Queen; it's darker, deeper, and more serious/elegant. I can't pick out any of the notes that were worrying me. This is like pure rose. It's like Whip minus the leather on me. All rose, and a truly gorgeous rose... I'll be getting a full bottle of Marguerite before the carnaval leaves town

In the vial, this is sweet soap. On my skin at first, this actually is a pretty nice soapy scent. I normally hate anything that smells soapy, but this has an interesting sweetness to it that I like. The jasmine and honeysuckle both seem more subdued than usual, putting forth a sweet floral-ness. Unfortunately, in the drydown, something in this turns to serious baby powder and the florals sharpen just enough to start bothering me. Baby powder and creamy floral bar soap. Parthenope isn't a scent for me.

In the vial, this smells weird. It actually smells at first like nothing and then I'm hit with a sudden whiff of something like rotten bananas and earthy woodiness On my skin, I'm not sure what in this smells so awful on me, though it might be the mahogany (some darker wood notes like teak go dank and funky to my nose). It's rotten bananas, a hint of rotting fish, and bland wood... After fifteen minutes, this is a lot better, thankfully, though it's still not very good on me. It's mostly clean smelling, perfumey floral on me with a hint of sharp, soured fruits. I might be able to pick out some bitter pomegranate, but mostly this is blending together into something unappealing for me. This isn't the sweet, dark, fruity blend I was expecting. It's not sweet or juicy at all. It's sharp and a bit suffocating, really. Clean, sharp, perfumey, dry floral and a bit of sour, unripe, hard, unidentifiable fruitiness? I'm glad I resisted a full bottle of this and went with a decant first, because it's not working for me.

Peach, patchouli, and cocoa are three of my most favorite scents, so I was super excited to try Eisheth. I wanted dark, foodie, earthy peach. Unfortunately, this is clean, musky, plasticy peach on me. In the bottle, this smells peachy-fresh. Like a juicy, clean smelling peach. On my skin, hello ambergris and peach. I've never had a problem with any of the lab's peach notes before, but this smells like plastic with a clean muskiness to it. In the drydown, waxy plastic, a hint of sweet peach, and musky ambergris I catch hints of an earthy cocoa every once in a while, suffocating underneath the plasticy, musky tones. Over time, the musk sharpens & becomes very perfumey, and this starts to give me a headache.

Pepper smells prettier in the bottle than she does on my skin. In the bottle, this smells wonderfully complex, sweet and exotic - a swirl of juicy fruits, sweet florals, honeyed vanilla, & hints of sassy spice. On my skin, this is watered down orange juice with honey added in. It's not bad, but it's not really interesting or great either, and I have a lot of other orange blends that work a lot better for me. And Pepper is such a light scent on me; it disappears entirely after about twenty light minutes. I wish it smelled as nice on me as it does in the bottle...

Violet Ray goes rather powdery on me, but I still kind of like it. It smells sort of like violet dusting powder with a rich muskiness (though the musk is a bit too sharp and overpowering on me at times) and a grounding, powdery sandalwood holding it all together. This is a light and subtle scent on my skin. I was intrigued by the lavender moss, but all I can pick out is the musk, violet, and sandalwood, and perhaps a metallic sharpness from the ylang ylang every once in a while. I'll probably keep my imp for days when I want a light, powdery, musky violet, but I doubt I'll need to upgrade to a full bottle.

I hate a lot of the mainstream men's cologne that you find in department stores lately. Most of the cologne available now is sort of sickly sweet and not really manly or masculine to my nose, but more sweetly, cleanly unisex. Torture Queen reminds me of that type of fragrance, and I'm not really fond of it. On my skin, it's like that, but also starts going very soapy. Bright, cologney metallic with a squirt of dish soap. Torture Queen reminds me of the last time I went to the mall and tried to find a good cologne for my hubby, only to realize that most of the fragrances smelled the same and had this weird, girly sweetness to them. The Torture Queen smells like that for me... like men's cologne for the man who wants to smell soapy-clean and not particularly masculine? This one isn't a keeper for me.

For some reason, I had hoped that The Blockhead would be like Mechanical Phoenix with a smooth, sweet pink bubblegum added in. I wanted a masculine pink bubblegum, lol. I really don't care for The Blockhead though, because the rust note smells really awful to me. In the bottle, it's smoky leather, powdery pink bubblegum, and something oddly like spearmint gum. On me, it morphs into smoky leather, a hint of bubblegum sweetness, and an awful, decayed, rotten smell that just gets stronger the longer that it's on my skin. It does smell slightly like rust, if I try to imagine what that smells like, sort of metallic and decayed. I keep thinking that it smells rotten and off. After fifteen minutes, the rust is the strongest note and it makes me a little nauseous

I don't like any of the notes in this, but it is an interesting scent. Interesting, but not something that I'd ever wear. The blood and metal gives it a sort of metallic, rusty twang that sweetens up in the drydown on my skin. The vetiver and bonfire smoke combine to give me an impression of charred wood, dry grass, & suffocating woodsmoke. It's a hot, charred, dark, gritty sort of scent on me. The Heretic's Fork fades pretty quickly on me though, so that a half hour later I'm left with just a hint of smoky sweetness on my wrists (I think that the blood smell is almost like red musk or red wine with a metallic edge, so perhaps that's the sweeter bit I get in the drydown). It's not a keeper for me, but I never really like smoky scents.

I've been dabbing this on for the past four days since it arrived at my house. I was hoping for mostly chocolate, apple, and a tiny pinch of spice, with the sandalwood, tonka, and tea sort of smoothing everything out. Unfortunately, this smells pretty cheap on me so far. It's cheap and artificial in the way that yankee candles smell to me. Like yankee candles, this would be a lovely home scent once in a while, but I don't want it on my skin. In the bottle, this smells like lots of spice, a bit of plastic-y, buttery apple, and something like caramel or butterscotch or some sort of burnt sugar. It's very much 'fall candle' to me. On my skin, it's pretty much the same while wet. I sniff it and my brain immediately jumps to "candle fragrance" and "a good candle fragrance for fall." It's like a warm, spicy apple scent that would be very comforting when the leaves start to change and the air gets crisp. And it's much better in the bottle than it is on me in the drydown, when the apple gets sharper and the honeysuckle adds a weird floral perfuminess in the otherwise spicy fall mix. It turns into a weird, gross scent that I don't enjoy at all. Too much spice, sharp/cheap/plasticy apple (and I normally LOVE bpal's apple notes, so I don't know what goes wrong here), perfumey floral warmth, and a horrible, cloying undertone of burnt sugar. This is strong and pretty bad on me. I'm going to give it a chance to age, because pink label Thirteen improved greatly with some aging. I'm not really hopeful for this one though...

I had hoped that I would love most of The Wunderkammer so that I could purchase a set and get the Screaming Mandragora, but none of my decants have worked out very well on me so far. Licwiglunga unfortunately doesn't break my losing streak either. First on, I get pomegranate, which almost always smells awful to me. It's like bitter sweet tarts with an extra dose of sour. I also get a bit of sour lemon from the verbena, which isn't helping to mellow things out for me at all. In the drydown, an herbal quality starts to come through and makes me think of spice racks. It pitches between smelling green & herbal to smelling just strange, dry, and unpleasantly herbal. I was hopeful for the frankincense, lavender, and anise to smooth out and darken this blend, but I can't pick out any of those notes, and Licwiglunga is just too tart & sour for me. Herbal blends often fail to catch my interest, and the addition of the tart pomegranate here doesn't help me any.

I like red musk, but I tend to amp it like mad. I hoped that The Grindhouse would be a base of red musk, made creamier with the vanilla bean, spiced with clove, and with a touch of gentle, creamy floral. Unfortunately, I also amp & hate bpal's iris notes. Iris on me is like the worst of sharp, cheap, white floral perfumes. It has such a high pitched sharpness on my skin. On me, this blend is like a war between heated, sexy red musk and perfumey, sharp iris. I can't really pick out any of the other notes. The result is a blend that is far too perfumey/musky/sharp for my tastes. I love red musk, but it needs to be tamed with something else (like the gorgeous blend, Marianne, where the ultra sexy red musk was the main player, but softened with hints of juicy orchid, foresty patchouli, and dark fruity notes). The iris plus red musk just makes this blend heavy, suffocating, and sharp on me. Iris ruined Zarita the Doll Girl for me earlier in the carnaval, and now it has returned to ruin The Grindhouse

In the bottle, this screams CARAMEL with a hint of crisp apple-y goodness. On my skin at first, all of the notes start struggling with each other, but not in a bad way. The caramel continues to dominate with a silky sweetness, the apple blossom adds a tiny hint of refreshing apple (that I wish was stronger), and the skin musk makes the scent a bit perfumey overall. Every once in a while, I catch a whiff of teak that I don't enjoy. Teak smells sort of like rotting, dank, dark wood on my skin. In the drydown, this starts to smell a little bit like one of the old apple scents from Bath & Body Works (country apple, is that you?). Perfumey, musky apple with the added sweetness of a creamy caramel that almost smells a bit salty at times. I really want to love this, but I honestly think it's too musky/perfumey/unnatural for me to pull off. I feel like I slathered on musky country apple lotion and dabbed on a tiny bit of caramel perfume oil that is fading fast. It just gets too sharp for my tastes as the caramel disappears (and I get a hint of something like burnt rubber every once in a while that I'm not loving either).

I was super-excited to try Daiyu after the comparisons to Dorian (and I loved the berry smell in Australian Copperhead). In the decant, this smelled kind of like generic fruity-floral perfume to me. That almost soapy, sickly sweet floral & nondescript fruit smell that reminds me of a lot of popular perfumes that I don't understand on the mainstream market right now. It's exactly the sort of thing that gives me a floral perfoom induced headache. On me, I think the tea leaf and white musk give this a very clean feel that's not awful. However, as it dries down, it smells like jasmine tea with a side of cloying rotten fruit, in a room full of women wearing a disgusting, suffocating, cheap, fruity-floral perfume. I, uh, don't really care for Daiyu, as an understatement. It has that awful sweetness that just smells rotten to me. The longer I wear this, the more it makes me think of rotten fruit with a vase full of rotten jasmine flowers on the side. I couldn't stand the smell of this anymore after about an hour and a half, and the lovely tartness of the acai was just starting to make its presence known. But I had to take something for my headache and scrub this off, sorry acai berry. Ick. This is nothing like Dorian on me, and it's definitely going to my swap pile.

In the vial, this smells white and clean, with a bit of a powdery vanilla edge. I can definitely pick out the smooth woodiness of the white sandalwood. On my skin, this continues to smell clean and subtle. I get dry, cool woods with a tiny hint of vanilla sweetening things up and an edge of something herbal-floral. After about fifteen minutes on my skin, all I can smell are subtle, dry, slightly powdery woods. And it completely disappears after an hour, no matter how much I slather on. I have sandalwood blends that I like much more, so I doubt I'll be keeping my decant of Cytherea or buying more of this one. It's just a rather soft and boring scent on me.

I just got a decant of The Chapel, because I was pretty sure that it wasn't going to work on me (wine & brimstone are not favorites, and I even have trouble with certain blood and incense notes). This scent actually smells worse on me than I thought it would though. Something about this smells very harsh and chemical-like (almost like rubbing alcohol, but darker) on my skin, especially at first. Then there's a dank, gritty smokiness from the brimstone, followed up by a sour, sickly, rotten fruit sort of smell from the wine. It's a dark and gritty scent on me. Reading over the other reviews, I suppose I can also pick out a dark earthiness that might be vetiver. The Chapel is sort of the worst of all its parts on me. The brimstone is gritty and dirty smelling, the wine is sour, sickly, and rotten, and something else adds an extra flavor of dark, smoky harshness. It's probably an appropriate scent for its story & artwork, but it's not something I could actually wear as a personal scent.

I was pretty excited about trying this. I love a lot of the lab's rose blends, and I'm fond of lilac. I was hoping for a sweet, sugared rose with a background of absinthe. I think I was envisioning La Fee Verte with sweet tea rose & extra sugar. Unfortunately, the rose in this goes pretty sour on my skin (which surprised me, I figured rose water would be a softer, lighter smelling rose). It's almost like sour lemon and sharp rose, with an extra cut of white sharpness from the opium. There's a sharp smokiness to this that gets a bit stronger in the drydown, and I don't really like it at all. L'Heure Verte is pretty much just sharp, tart, smoky, soured rose on my skin. It's the sort of scent that gives me a headache if I sniff at it for too long. I *love* the artwork for this blend though.

I like the sandalwood in this at first, but not much else about this blend. It smells powdery, but not baby powdery - a nice, dry, soft, wood sort of smell. I'm not sure about the rot or rotting linen. A few of the haunted house themed blends smelled sort of dank and rotten to me. With this, I get maybe a hint of dank, molding fabric that reminds me of moldy curtains I once came across. In the drydown, I get a weird, moldy-damp smell mixed with the dry dustiness over the base of grounding sandalwood. However, the longer it's on my skin, the more it starts to give me an impression of baby powder and dust. It's dry and strange on me, and I probably wouldn't wear it again.

Some of bpal's pine/green notes smell sharp and awful on me, but Ice Prince seems to have that soft, sweet, dark green, smooth pine-y-ness that makes me think of the blend Mistletoe (which is one of my favorites). In the bath, it smells like Mistletoe with a hint of sweet plum. Mistletoe meets Midwinter's Eve? On my skin afterwards, it starts to smell a little funky. A bit of powdery lily joins the drydown and the fruity aspects seem to turn almost rotten and sickly on me. Still, the pine is holding it all together for me and keeping it from just being powder and sickly fruit. Oddly, this doesn't smell icy or snowy to me at all, and it doesn't strike me as having a menthol or eucalyptus smell to it either. I love taking a bath in this, because it's sort of like bathing in Mistletoe I like, but don't love, the scent that it leaves on my skin afterwards though. I've already used up all of my decants of this one, and I'd be tempted to buy a full bottle if it comes back next Yule.