Little Bird

I'm obsessed with clove and therefore I am obsessed with this perfume. I would guess that I own well over 100 clove dominant perfume oils and essential oils at this point because I buy anything that mentions clove. I tend to hate cinnamon, but clove is my spicy best friend. I've never actually smelled clove cigarettes, so I don't know how accurate this is to that reality. On me, this smells like someone saturated a marshmallow in sweet clove oil and then blackened it over a fire. It doesn't smell like campfire or ash or intense smokiness, but it has a light whiff of charred sugar smoke to that lovely, spicy, sweet clove. It's a simple, strong, lightly sweetened and delicately smoky clove and I love it.

There's a good amount of cocoa absolute in the bottom of my bottle and this scent really shines if I shake it up a little before applying. I love cocoa absolute because it smells like a shimmery chocolate syrup with glossy, woody undertones. It starts off quite strong and then just lends a gentle sweetness to the other notes. Haul smells like a lot of things that I love - cedar chests, dried patchouli leaves, and sweet tobacco leaves. It's dark, woody and earthy, but also very soft and warm as a fragrance. It's rare that I enjoy dry, woody scents, but I love the earthy patchouli and the sweetness of the cocoa and tobacco, and cedar is my favorite wood scent. Lovely and calming. Edit to add: I forgot to mention that I've had a couple people ask me how this compares to bpal's #occupywallstreet blend and, even though they share a similar notes list, they are nothing alike. I didn't care for #occupywallstreet because it went sour, bitter and sharply dry on me. Haul on the Bowline is what I wished #occupywallstreet was. This is sweeter, smoother, and has no sour or sharp tones. It's a very full, snuggly, sweet earthiness.

I'm starting to love florals as I get older, but I seem to either want them to be gourmand or super sexy. This one is super sexy with a thick, honeyed sweetness, so I love it to bits. The jasmine, honey and hay sugar wind up smelling a lot like honeysuckle on a humid Southern night, the red musk isn't super strong and doesn't have the wine-like fruitiness that I often associate with red musk, but it is very sexy and there's a definite muskiness here, and the carnation adds a beautiful, dry spiciness. It has a lot of beautiful depth to it that makes you want to keep smelling it and get in closer to it. If you told me that A'Rovin was a fancy vintage perfume, I would not argue. I'm so glad that I believed the well deserved hype and ordered a bottle of this beauty.

The oak has a dark, hard wood scent and the brandy and spiced rum smell like caramelized booze (butterscotch-ish) and cinnamon on me. The iron is a sharp, metallic cologne edge in the drydown. I love these idealized pirate scents, but Leave Her Johnny is my favorite for a sweetened, woody, masculine leaning pirate scent. This one is a little too spicy for me and much simpler.

I love this so deeply, especially after letting it age for a few months. It starts off like a sweetened bay rum cologne (all clove spicy and men's cologne-like) with dry wood and a tiny hint of caramelized rum sweetness. Over the hours, the sweet, warm and earthy patchouli, the creamy coconut, woody-sweet fig and an edge of salt start to come through, though, and then it's even more wonderful. I'm not sure where I get that saltiness from, but it's like dry, salt-crusted wood with spicy bay rum cologne, lots of wonderful sweet notes, and warm, cozy earthiness. I love sweetened patchouli scents and this is so unique and unusual in the best ways.

I love red musk, heavy oriental fragrances, and wine-like scents, so I had high hopes for this. It was kind of the big letdown of my Lupers orders, though. It honestly gives me a headache whenever I've tried to wear it and it's like everything that could go wrong on my skin does. It's very strong, heavy, bold and long lasting, and kind of too in-your-face for me. It's a big red rose with edges of soap and perfumey muskiness and the tobacco comes in like someone dumped an ash tray on the rose. The berries are dry and artificial, but also boozy, so they waffle between plasticy craft store froot smell and smelling like someone spilled a glass of wine on me that's gone sour and stale and a little pukey smelling. Then there's an earthiness like dead leaves and a haze of sharp smoke. And it's all of those things at once and kind of overwhelms me. I'm going to keep aging this, but it's definitely not my favorite thing right now. I mainly got this because people kept comparing it to Insects on different sites, but I don't think that this smells anything like Insects (which is a huge love for me).

Honey and citrus, unfortunately, almost always reminds me of cough drops and then all I can think while smelling this is that I smell like cough medicine. The honey is thickly sweet and the orange is fresh and sharp, but to me, I just smell like medicine.

Wearing Snake Smut again today, I'm really wondering why I didn't put at least one backup bottle of this in my last Lab order. The vanillic qualities in this remind me of LUSH's American Cream and Butterball scents - that buttery, deep, slinky vanilla (or like the vanilla in Snake Oil is turned way up and more buttery, gourmand and white chocolatey), the hint of cardamom is a mellow, exotic, smooth, cool spiciness, and everything else is just dark, sensual, and so incredibly smooth on my skin. When I first got this, I could pick out the leather as a strong, separate thing, but now the dark musks, leather, and earthy patchouli just meld into a darkly sweet, incredibly sexy thing of its own. In the drydown, the deep earthiness of the patchouli is more noticeable in the background. Dark vanilla heaven with hints of cardamom and earthiness. Oof. It's amazing.

I potentially love all of these notes, but they are like versions of the notes that I don't care for (I want more vanilla cream, wish the honeysuckle smelled honeyed and sweet, wish the gardenia was the big, creamy, waxy, sweet variety, wish the cherry and plum blossom were the sort that had tart nuances of the actual fruit in them). Unfortunately, none of the florals in this lean sweet on me and I like sweet florals, not soapy, sharp, perfumey varieties. Cherry Blossom Vulva kind of melds together into one big floral perfume where I can't pick out any individual notes and it's almost scratchy smelling on my skin. Slightly soapy. I wish it had a lot more cream and sweetness to it.

I was worried that the white tea would be too dominant because it often is too astringent for me and tends to have a sharp, lemony scent to it. The white tea is nice here, though, wafting in and out of the creamy, chilled, beautiful rice milk in this clean, refreshing way. I expected the coconut husk to be more dark and woody, but I get a hint of sweet, white coconut flesh in this. The whole scent overall has this white, sheer, creamy, lightly sweet vibe that sits close on my skin in a delicate, pretty veil.

In the bottle and on my skin at first, this has a scent that reminds me of brown bread crusts where the bread smells more dry and toasted. As it settles, it reminds me of the Italian anise cake that I make that's creamy cake with a delicate anise flavor (black licorice, in a way, but more of a soft, creamy, herbal, natural black licorce and not like getting smacked in the face with Twizzlers). When I first got this, the amaretto and spices were too much for me, sharp and reminiscent of mulling spices, but those aspects have toned way down now and it's brown bread crusts, creamy Italian anise cake, and a teeny hint of sharp amaretto. It's funny how spicy this was when I first got it and how soft it is now with almost no discernible spice.

The white amber is quite powdery, the lotus gives off the sweet, pink bubblegum scent that it always has on my skin, and the vanilla cream makes the scent creamy, but not overly sweet for me. I think I wanted more gourmand vanilla & marshmallow, but this is still pretty and a keeper for me. There's something chilled about this scent that makes me think of standing out in a meadow on a brisk spring morning. It has a clean feel, but isn't soapy, and the powder and sweetness are like a woolly sweater in the cold. It reminds me of scents like The Girl and Pediophobia.

Mostly cucumber, I suppose, but it takes on a quality that reminds me of Bath & Body Works' Cucumber Melon in that it's oddly sweet and powdery. I love the smell of slicing fresh cucumbers, but this is more artificial and not as wet or green as an actual cucumber. In the drydown, it smells a lot like clean plastic and baby powder on my skin with the suggestion of cucumbers. I don't get any tomato.

This leans clean on me, but never turns outright soapy. I love dandelions and let them grow freely in my yard from early to mid-summer. My father was a stickler for removing weeds and having a perfect lawn and gardens, but I loved dandelions as a child (I think all children do) and still love them in my 30s. I try to have a mix of babied native plants and flowers and let 'weeds' and wildflowers join the mix as well. This reminds me of the aesthetic of my yard. Sunny and cheerful, with the herbal-ish bite of dandelion greens, mixed with fresh, dewy roses that are a little scrappy and holding their own. A mix of greens, 'weeds,' and hardy flowers.

Another wonderful duet and one that I will be reaching for a lot once the weather cools off again. It's a little powdery and warm, has a bit of that dark cola scent to it (that I usually get from sweet myrrh), and it's a lot of toasty, warm amber. The yeasty, toasty and slightly spicy aspects of the amber come out more in the drydown, mixing with the sugar. It reminds me of those cake-like donuts with a little spice in them that are rolled in a layer of crunchy sugar. After a half hour of wear, I smell very much like a donut shop full of warm, sugary baked goods. I own a ton of amber scents, but this still manages to be very unique, even though it's so simple. Fall donuts vibes.

I was a little mad when I first got this in the mail because the wisteria completely overpowered the honeysuckle and came off all aggressive, sharp and clean smelling. It just needed a couple weeks to settle from the shock of its international travel, though. Now it's bursting with the sweet, creamy, vanilla & honey goodness of honeysuckle. The wisteria, I think, just lends a cold, airy note and a hint of green stem under the creamy, sweet floral. It reminds me of sipping on honeysuckle flowers by the creek as a child. Sweet and gourmand-esque. It reminds me of my beloved Honeyed Honeysuckle atmosphere spray, which is wonderful.

I think this is my favorite single note / simple mix ever (next to my hoard of Bulgarian and French Tobaccos, of course). I love it so much that I ordered two backup bottles already. When I first got it in the mail, the mango had a delicate, clean scent to it that reminded me of sweet mango scented shampoo and luscious, lightly sweet, super creamy rice milk. After letting it settle for a couple weeks, though, it has lost that shampoo edge and is sticky, ripe, juicy mango slices swimming in a chilled, sweet, creamy dream. The other bpal blends I've had with rice milk, the rice milk faded fast under other, heavier notes, but this is strong rice milk and ripe mango. I don't usually enjoy fruity scents unless they're very creamy and vanillic, but this is all sorts of sweet, juicy and creamy. It's wonderful and feels like you're smelling an actual dessert; it has a natural and refreshing vibe to it. It's been a summer staple for me.

UNE FOLLE ENTREPRISE A mélange of silvery musk, iris, licorice root, black currant, apple blossom, patchouli root, violet, heliotrope, anise, and tonka bean. Un mélange: musc argenté, iris, racine de réglisse, cassis, fleur de pommier, racine de patchouli, violette, héliotrope, anis, et fève tonka. The musk is the star player for me here, but it's not a sharp or perfumey sort of musk, thankfully. This blend actually reminds me of Candy Phoenix (a more subdued and gentle Candy Phoenix, perhaps). First on, this is comforting, fuzzy-furry, slightly powdery, sweet musk. A gentle sweetness. I can pick out hints of anise if I really look for it, but it doesn't scream black licorice at all, and the anise disappears entirely on me after about fifteen minutes. There's a hint of patchouli and vanilla-y heliotrope at first that also doesn't last into the drydown on me. In the drydown, this is still mostly musk, but there's a candied black currant (like berry candy) that comes forth pretty strongly (and reminds me even more of Candy Phoenix) and a pale, cool, sweet violet. Une Folle Entreprise is rather light on me, clinging close to the skin and only lasting about 3 hours, but I do find this very pleasant and comforting. This is the sort of scent that I'd wear just for myself, or for a quiet night cuddled up with someone. A candied, gentle musk.

It was getting late. He was hungry, and when he realized how hungry he really was, he pulled off at the next exit and drove into the town of Nottamun (pop. 1301). He filled the gas tank at the Amoco and asked the bored woman at the cash register where he could get something to eat. Jacks Crocodile Bar, she told him. Its west on County Road N. Crocodile Bar? Yeah. Jack says they add character. She drew him a map on the back of a mauve flyer, which advertised a chicken roast for the benefit of a young girl who needed a new kidney. Hes got a couple of crocodiles, a snake, one a them big lizard things. An iguana? Thats him. Through the town, over a bridge, on for a couple of miles, and he stopped at a low, rectangular building with an illuminated Pabst sign. The parking lot was half empty. Inside the air was thick with smoke and Walking After Midnight was playing on the jukebox. Shadow looked around for the crocodiles, but could not see them. He wondered if the woman in the gas station had been pulling his leg. Cedar shavings, a swirl of booze, a flattened French fry, and barbeque sauce. I expected this to smell like the lab's one variety of vetiver that always stinks like smoky mesquite bbq and cedar planks, and this does have a little of that scent to it, but mostly I'm getting a really lovely cedar from this atmo. This smells like the spicy, woody, natural scent of dry cedar, like the kind used in old cedar chests and hamster bedding. I've always enjoyed that scent. The booziness adds a dark, slinky, smooth, masculine touch that makes me think of black leather jackets. The sweet bbq scent is strong at first, but settles into just a touch of a sweet, spicy note after a couple minutes. I'd recommend this if you want a sweet & spicy, dry cedar with hints of sweetness and that dark, masculine edge. I just recently had the pleasure of staying in an old, well-kept, wooden cabin full of wooden furniture out in the country, and this atmo smells a lot like walking into that home. It's very much a cozy cabin in the woods, where you've gone to just sit around the lake and drink with good friends.

Dead Blonde makes me think of Tippi Hendren and her life in film (and being subjected to so much abuse by Alfred Hitchcock, yet still coming out so strong and speaking her truth). I admire her a lot. Dead Blonde smells like a strong, empowering scent to me. I love bpal's tea rose and white rose because they smell like being in a garden full of the most perfect, fresh, slightly dewy roses. Nothing sharp or musky, just the sweet, dewy character of real roses. And I especially love those rose notes when they're paired with some sweet notes. I was a little worried about the lip gloss and suntan lotion in the description because I don't tend to enjoy a waxy or oily scent and that artificial coconut in suntan lotion is one of my least favorite smells. I don't get that artificial quality from this scent at all, though. The honey and coconut add a creamy sweetness to the roses, but don't really scream honey or coconut. After a couple hours, the honey (I think) goes a little powdery, like a bouquet of beautiful white roses dusted in honey powder. I think that this is a beautiful, sophisticated scent.

I enjoy this fragrance so much! It doesn't remind me of Fruity Pebbles at all because its not that sweet, artificial or simple smelling to me, and it doesn't have that citrusy sweetness of Fruity Pebbles or Froot Loops. I think that it might be similar to Crunchberries (but more natural and not as sweet), but it's been a long time since I was around Captain Crunch, so I'm not sure how accurate that memory is. It reminds me a bit of Villainess's old Birth Rite fragrance as well, which was berry frosting over a light spice cake and some resins (this is like that light berry/vanilla frosting and a softer bakery/grain note). The strawberry, cream and milk in this are so lovely, not overly sweet or sugary, and the cereal adds this nice, warm, airy grain scent. It's like fresh strawberries sliced into whole milk with puffed cereal. Delicately sweet and very natural smelling on my skin. I love milky scents and this one is just so good. Dies Patribus is my favorite bpal release of this year so far.

Smucker's strawberry jam with the strawberry overcooked and way too much sugar added in, with a hint of milk chocolate scented markers that's strong for about ten minutes and then it disappears. I don't get an impression of cheesecake, ice cream or florals (a little breezy, cool, floral bluebonnet in the bottle, but none on my skin). Sugary, artificial smelling strawberry jam.

This was my favorite of this year's Lupercalia blends and the only bottle that I'm keeping from my orders. A Vision smells surprisingly mainstream, like a fluffy, pretty, sweet, pink fruity-floral and vanilla celeb scent from a department store. There's something pink, almost fruity, and vanillic about it, and something like a cuddly, slightly powdery, creamy, vanilla musk scent. It smells a lot like bpal's Pediophobia as well (one of my favorites). I wonder if they share a similar tobacco note that doesn't exactly smell anything like tobacco, lol. It has a warm, spicy quality to it as well without smelling exactly like clove or cinnamon or anything of the sort. A sophisticated yet comforting scent that I really like for the current chilly fall weather. Pink florals and a hint of sweet, pink fruitiness with creamy-powdery vanilla musk. A bit reminiscent of cosmetic powders.

I normally love every note in this, but this is a musty, powdery, heavy and gloomy scent to me. It makes me think of heavy, dust colored drapes and mildew. There's a hazy, sort of white smokiness that reminds me of sharp opium incense. I get no hint of anything like rice milk, rice flower or frangipani. The drydown has an odd spiciness.

I always want to try anything that lists vanilla and patchouli, but the heavy and baby powdery sandalwood ruins this one for me. It's cloying, sickly sweet vanilla with a hint of earthiness from the patchouli, and tons of powdery, warm, heavy sandalwood. Very dry, slightly dusty smelling.