Little Bird

Quatre smells awful on me, like someone took a chocolate scented marker and scribbled over a single rose, stem and leaves and all. Chemical chocolate, sour greenery, and sharp rose. Surprisingly sharp and chemical. The chocolate note in this is not agreeing with me, but I usually don't like milk/dark chocolate + rose fragrances (rose and vanilla forever!).

I like orris, but I don't smell any of its sweet, powdery tones in this. Trois is all about rose and ambergris. Bpal's ambergris always smells a bit like hints of clean, salty aquatic mixed into a golden, slightly spicy amber to me. I'm picking up on the ambergris and a dewy, but slightly sharp, musky, and perfumey rose. My favorite roses tend to be very creamy and sweet, and I don't know if this one is quite sweet enough for me. Still, very pretty.

A lot of my favorite scents are vanilla-rose or candied-rose, so I was excited for this one, but I honestly don't smell anything like vanilla or cotton candy here. It's not as sweet as LUSH's Rose Jam is to me either. It's more of a fresh, fruity rose scent on my skin, like rosewater and citrus-y berries mixed into a red rose perfume.

Fortuna Mala is simple and enjoyable to me. The vetiver isn't that charred, smoky bbq variety, and it melds into the patchouli to form a dry, warm, earthy scent that makes me think of dried out potting soil and dead grass. It smells like a dry black patchouli. Earthy and dry, lightly sweet, with the clove coming out more and more in the drydown. It's a sweet, spicy, warm clove that isn't turning to cinnamon on me (a lot of bpal's latest clove blends read more as cinnamon on me for some reason). An hour in, a smokiness has curled up from the scent, and it reminds me of smoky clove cigarettes and spicy dead leaves over an earthy base. Strong on me for about three hours and then fades quickly after that. If I hadn't recently stocked up on tons of clove oils from various companies, I might consider a full bottle of this one.

I have a few bacon scents that I enjoy (bpal's Milk Chocolate, Cassia and Bacon truffle is wonderful, and Possets' Tricky is yummy too), but I think they have to be mixed with sweeter notes to be tolerable as an actual perfume. This is charred, super smoky, burnt bacon and a strange, greasy, oily smell. Dries down like artificial bacon bits (dry, salty, strange) and smoke. Pretty similar to the Bacon oil from Indigo Fragrances.

Sweet, dark brown, slightly earthy tobacco that has a chocolate-y quality on my skin. I just wish that the jasmine note were sweeter and not a sour, soapy variety. The tobacco reminds me a bit of a less spicy Bulgarian Tobacco, which I love, but the jasmine isn't working for me.

Bpal's oud and red patchouli both tend to go funky on me (the first smelling like fecal matter and the latter smelling like sweaty men), and there's enough of both in this to make this smell dirty and wrong on my skin. Other than that, I'm getting perfumey, sharp red rose and the fruity/red wine and slight spiciness of the blood musk.

Another fail from my luper order. It's a kind of animalic/poopy smelling musk, tons of baby powder, and a nag champa incense smell. Headshoppy, too powdery, and has a strange, plasticy edge like walking into a craft store and smelling hints of sharp cinnamon potpourri and the plasticy-clean scent of lots of fake, plastic flowers and wreaths. Strangely clean and way too powdery for me, and the clove is coming off as sharp, dry cinnamon to my nose. I was hoping for sweet, dark resins and Snake Charmer coconut with clove, but this is intensely powdery, clean, and off smelling to me. Very strong and gave me a headache after about a half hour, at which point I just scrubbed it off and gave up. I'm going to be giving away my bottle of this.

I find King Cake to be really cloying and unpleasant. It is one of those very simple foodie scents that make me think of walking into a Yankee Candle store. I was drawn in by the promise of cream cheese frosting, but I'm not smelling that at all. I was worried about the almond, but I don't smell any almond either. This smells like maple syrup, butter and brown sugar. It's too sweet and has a waxy edge to it in the drydown that makes it seem even more like a candle scent. Smells like maple syrup, butter and brown sugar, but waxy and artificial. I love gourmand scents, but this one is just unwearable for me.

This goes very wrong and headache-inducing on my skin, with a sharp, perfumey, soapy white floral and hints of sour, green grass. Nothing like vanilla, woods or cereal for me, just amped up perfume floral.

Powdery, golden amber, a cold and chilly sort of metallic note, and a cold, creamy, clean, aquatic-floral, green stem scent that I'm guessing is the olive blossom. Like a clean, crisp, metallic cologne mixed with a woman's frosty floral perfume and powdery finish. Makes me think of lilies, waterplants, and gleaming, shiny, silver metal. Just slightly soapy and with a slight honeyed note as it dries down. It does give off a powerful, womanly feel to me. I usually hate powdery amber, but the powder isn't overwhelming everything else here. Floral, clean, metallic, pretty, lightly honeyed...

First on, it's blueberry pancake syrup and butterscotch sauce. Super sweet. Dries down like gooey cherry filled donuts with the rum adding a warm, gooey, caramelized glaze. Sickly-sweet and I rarely enjoy cherry fragrances, but it's very much a cherry pastry scent, if you are looking for that. Reminds me a lot of Toothsome Banketstaaf, actually.

I was hoping that this would be like White Pumpkin Extrait, which I still miss, and which was a buttery pumpkin, creamy vanilla and sort of a real, gooey apple pie smell. So warm, vanilla-y and comforting. White Pumpkin Floss isn't really buttery or creamy to me, and it has a huge punch of cinnamon on my skin. Lots of cinnamon with a little bit of creamy and slightly powdery white chocolate/marshmallow scent. Smells dry rather than the decadent, creamy, butteriness of the White Pumpkin Extrait.

On me, this is a dusty, bland, flat clove with black peppery tones and a hot, sour, perfumey something that I think is the rose. I don't get any vanilla, patchouli, cocoa or cherry *at all.* It's strange. Fades quickly to a black peppery, dusty, woody clove scent that is barely there on my skin. No sweetness.

Goes on smelling like tart, berry-citrus flavored pixie stix candy powdery mixed with perfumey Sun-Ripened Raspberry lotion from Bath & Body Works, and an undertone of fluffy popcorn and salty butter. The lotion and popcorn reminds me of watching movies with my sister when I was in high school and she wore B&BW lotion religiously. It's nostalgic. Dries down to that perfumey-berry lotion, spot-on, and popcorn flavored jelly beans, with an edge of tart candy powder. It's tart, perfumey, a little soapy, and very artificial (fake berries, fake candy, fake butter scent) in a way that turns my stomach after a while. I like the initial whiff for the nostalgia, but it's not really a wearable fragrance at all to me.

I expected this to be dark, slinky, and resinous from the Snake Oil and Schwarzer Mond, but I can't really smell either of those blends here. As others have mentioned, this starts off with a chilly, mentholic pine and a very tart pomegranate. Bpal's pom mostly turn to a sour sweet tarts smell on my skin, and that's what I get from this. As it dries down, the currant, I think, is making it more of a sweet berry smell. It reminds me a little of Kool-Aid or Jello, but with a waxy undertone. Goes powdery on me after about the 45 minute mark - sweet, waxy berries and powder. Snake Oil can go powdery on my skin, so that might be the SO coming out. Fades quickly past this point.

Sharp, dry cinnamon and hints of a smooth, golden, sweet frankincense. Too much cinnamon for me. It does remind me of a more cinnamon-y Faustus.

Plasticy peach and that cranberry jelly scent of Mason & Jenkin's. As the fruits fade, the cigar smoke comes out more and more, and smells warm and sweetly smoky, with a hint of ashes. Not much throw and fades very quickly on me, after the initial, intense burst of fruitiness.

I don't get any pie crust notes and wish that this were sweeter, but it's like a sharp, cinnamon-spiced apple with a hint of sour, green grass on my skin. Mulled apple cider, maybe, with sour green grass. It ventures into holiday spice candle territory on me.

I was hoping for lots of leather, a little cocoa, and little to no gin, but this is the opposite of that. It's tons of gin (that kind of fizzy, kind of evergreen-ish, kind of juniper-berry-y smell) and a hint of stale, waxy chocolate with no leather. I'm not really enjoying the fizzy chocolate scent.

No patchouli or vanilla for me. This is a big blast of smoky, overwhelming, heavy, black vetiver, smelling like charred bbq. I don't like this kind of sharp, heavy smokiness with nothing to soften it.

Cotton Phoenix reminds me more of Dana O'Shee than Snow White or Snake Oil. It has that creamy, sweet, honeyed almond thing to my nose, but this also turns rather soapy on me, I guess from the 'cotton blossom musk.' It's like Dana O'Shee and soapy laundry. Fades very quickly on me, gone by the half hour mark.

A very dry, spicy carnation scent with not much patchouli to my nose (unless that's the extra bit of dry, dusty earthiness to the carnation). I don't smell corn chips either, but there's something of a soapy, perfumey edge to the carnation. More elegantly old fashioned and perfumey (almost a little sour and chypre-ish - dry and mossy) than a sweet or fresh carnation.

Soapy lavender and a hint of sweet strawberry that dries down to a sort of powdery pink bubblegum scent on my skin. The drydown reminds me a lot of the bpal blend 'Motherhood.' Fades very quickly on me.

The cinnamon in this caused a bad reaction on my skin, so there's definitely a good dose of cinnamon in that sparkling apple cider. The sparkling cider dominates and is like a slightly soapy gingerale or champagne note. Cake-y, vanilla-y notes hang out in the background at first, and turn into a sweet, baked apple aroma in the middle stage, with sugar and spice. Dries down to a sharp cinnamon and soapy champagne scent on me, with the vanilla and cake notes pulling a disappearing act.