Little Bird
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Everything posted by Little Bird
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White Chocolate, Orange Blossom, Sugar Crystals, and Champagne
Little Bird replied to Jenjin's topic in Lupercalia
Smells very much like a dupe of Kilian's "Love, Don't Be Shy," but less complex. The orange blossom is like a sweet orange flavored syrup with hints of creamy, clean flower blossoms, made even sweeter with the extra sugar. The champagne is most noticeable in the bottle and lighter once applied. On my skin, the champagne sticks around in the background and adds a fuzzy, musty, soured undertone that I don't love. Super sweet orange blossom, breezy white floral perfume, and sour champagne. I don't smell any of the chocolate. I'm not really loving this year's box of chocolates and that makes me sad because I usually have a lot of loves in this collection. -
Cat Stealing A Fish smells like a mashup of Bath and Body Works' Ocean and their OG Sea Island Cotton fragrances. Starts out all super salty, chilly aquatic, like a cold dip in the ocean, and then a powdery, warm interpretation of driftwood and ambergris begins to take over. It makes me think of white linen on a clothesline, whipping around in the breeze, while ocean waves crash nearby. The vetiver and lichen don't come out at all to my nose, and I've worn this several times now. Powdery, clean, salty aquatic. I wish it were less powdery on me, but it's still a pleasant aquatic that doesn't turn to outright soap.
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I get zero rose, honey, plum, patchouli, or geranium. I slathered this on tonight and didn't enjoy it at all, and I normally love all of these listed notes. Amethysts is an impression of screechy, dry, sharp white floral and it strongly smells of perfumey / musky, white floral dryer sheets in its drydown. Something like a sharp tuberose and dry soap. It's intensely strong, but I unfortunately don't like the fragrance. I expected something more sensual and sweet, but it has no real complexity, sweetness, or earthiness to it.
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Starts off with a weird white chocolate cream and sharp cinnamon (my nose sniffs out the cinnamony tones in everything, maybe because I often have an allergic reaction to it and my body is just screaming at me to please stop putting it on my skin), but that phase is short lived and then it dries down to something very similar to Haus of Gloi's Ghost Puffs. It smells like gooey marshmallows and a hint of buttery popcorn. Creamy, warm, and sweet. Lasted about 4 hours for me before fading into oblivion. ETA: I wore this again about a week later and I'm getting a lot of sweetened coconut cream along with the marshmallow goo and buttered popcorn thing. This is my favorite in this year's Box of Chocolate. It is purely gourmand.
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I was hoping for jammy, sweet black currant and juicy pomegranate, but this has a very dry, tart, slightly sour interpretation of those notes. There's also an undertone that smells exactly like chalk dust. After a while, a clean, perfumey, white musky smell joins the mix and enhances that bone dry quality. I find this to be more musky and less creamy and sweet when compared to the ruby chocolate in Millennial Pink. Tart, sour, dried fruit, chalk dust, and an impression of sharp, dry white musk with a barely there hint of chocolate. Lasts about 3 hours.
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This definitely isn't as dark, powerful, or smoky as I thought it would be. In fact, it's oddly soft and clean, like baby powder and non-sweet cream with a little swish of incense cone ash mixed in. It takes about a half hour to shift at all, and then it's still powder soft and clean, but I can start to pick up the impression of singed fabric (which is still more clean and starched than it is smoky) and dried herbs, which smell of oregano and salt. It has almost no throw; I have to have my nose nearly touching my skin to smell this one at all, and it doesn't last more than 2 hours total.
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2024 version. Lyonesse has changed so much since it was first released. I used to really like the fragrance, but the sweet, creamy vanilla and subtle, golden amber are nonexistent now. It's a clean, plasticy scent to me now, a barely there sense of clean, powdery musk and an undertone of super plasticy vanilla that I don't find pleasant at all. It starts off subtle and then disappears very quickly. It's an extremely pale shadow of what it once was.
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2024 imp. No ginger or patchouli at all, but the orange blossom is more sugared and sweet than it was back in the day. There's a department store perfume quality to it, like golden jasmine and golden musk, but it's mostly a super sweet orange blossom that smells like sugared orange syrup with creamy petals along the edges. Very sweet, but also has a clean, perfumey-musky side to it.
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2024 imp. Tlazolteotl is very smoky and has a pitch black feel to it. I don't think that I would pick out the cocoa or maize at all if I didn't know that they were supposed to be in here. It smells like black musk, the rich and slightly earthy copal resin from El Dorado, and clean laundry have been set on fire and are giving off billowing clouds of harsh, gritty, black smoke. I love what is underneath the smoke, but the smoke itself is way too strong and suffocating to me.
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I wish that I could find a scent that smells like real marigolds because I love their spicy, herbal, green smell. This doesn't smell like true marigold, though it is floral. The overall scent is a dry, perfumey floral in a room full of smoky copal incense. I get an undertone of slightly overripe fruitiness (mango at first and then purple grapes?). I love oakmoss, but I don't pick up on it here either, just a dry quality to the floral, I think. An old offering of dried flowers, incense smoke, and fruit. I like this, but I wish it were stronger on my skin. I can barely smell it at the one hour mark, and La Ofrenda doesn't have much throw on me, no matter how much I slather.
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Bayou is one of my all time favorite bpal fragrances and Eldena Ruin is like the softer, more feminine version of Bayou. It's like they're in the same family, but Eldena Ruin fronts as a proper Southern belle with more floral and an elegant, powdery undertone, while secretly being a swamp witch in her heart. I swear I can smell a blue-green water and Spanish moss in this that I also get from Bayou, though the mossiness here is turned down. Eldena Ruin has a swampy, warm, humid quality to it, like Southern greenery and heady blossoms covered in a sheen of moisture, the heavy heat causing them to give off huge wafts of romantic floral and what smells like a mossy greenery and smooth, slightly darker ivy note to me. I get blue-green water, smooth greenery, a delicately sweet and humidly floral olive blossom, and powdery amber. Or perhaps that's the olive blossom giving off that soft, powdery quality, because it doesn't really smell like fossilized amber to me. I usually get a smoky quality and hint of evergreen from that type of amber, and this isn't smoky or pine-y at all. I don't know. I do know that I love this and I've been wearing it a lot. It smells like my dreams of moving permanently to Florida.
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The only pumpkin flavored thing that I enjoy is the Salted Caramel Pumpkin Pie concrete from Culver's. In the bottle, this smells just like that ice cream + a plate of gingerbread cookies. Sweet, creamy, and spicy. I will probably wind up using this more in an oil warmer than as a perfume because it's so much better in the bottle than it is on my skin. First applied, this immediately becomes a drier, spicier scent. Dry pumpkin spice seasoning blend poured over the gingerbread cookies. There's a hint of creaminess and richly sweet caramel, but they're already on the way to fading out entirely. After a half hour, still lots of spices and the caramel is oddly starting to smell more like honey. The creaminess is gone, but I feel like I can smell hints of astringent black tea, earthy tobacco, and crunchy dead leaves along with the heavy spice. As it fully dries down, it's very much in pumpkin spice candle territory and the sharp, dry spice isn't something that I care for.
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I really miss the Lab's discontinued blend "The Hamptons," but Syngenesophobia has a similar feel to it (and it's currently available on the Lab's etsy page, which is where I got my bottle ). I don't really smell the aftershave at all, but I do get a hint of earthy, sweet chewing tobacco that is more present in the bottle than it is on my skin. Once it's applied, this is all gin and red wine, in pretty much equal measure. It isn't as sweet as The Hamptons, but the red wine has a pleasant sweetness and red fruitiness, sidling up to the crisp gin. I adore the Lab's gin blends and I wish that the gin GCs had stayed around more. It's like a crisp, clear, chilled booze (minus the alcoholic burn) infused with melting snow and evergreen/juniper. Very boozy, but I really enjoy the Lab's red wine and their gin notes, so this is a win for me.
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Syrupy, dark molasses sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, over a warm, slightly woody, slightly powdery, amber glow (with a hint of cola-like resin to it in the drydown). It's the scent of a country wafflehouse where the whole room and the furniture is made of wood and you can smell all of the decadent sugar, butter, & syrup drenched breakfast items. Cinnamon tends to amp on my skin, but it stays subtle here, and I like how the molasses is syrupy and sweet, but still darker in scent profile and not sickly sweet like mapke syrup. A pancake type of scent that I can actually wear and that I don't find cloying.
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The scent of TKO whipped into coconut custard and poured into a buttery pie crust (no spices in the pie crust). There's no sunscreen coconut to be found; this is deliciously gourmand and ultra creamy all the way through. TKO itself is usually too strong and sweet for me, but all of the cool creaminess in this scent really mellows it out beautifully. I'm not even a huge fan of lavender in general, but the Lavender Kitchen series has really surprised me. Everything about Lavender Coconut Cream Pie just works for me and I don't think that I own anything else like this where it's a tropical, creamy lavender with buttery pie crust undertones. I love it.
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Sugar Cookies & Bourbon, in the bottle and on my skin at first, smells like bitter cough syrup lightly sweetened with a hint of cherry. The bourbon part is downright awful to my nose - harsh, heavy, bitter, and medicinal. Thankfully, the bourbon disappears as the oil sinks in to the skin (only about 5-10 minutes for me) and then the delicious cookie part comes through in full force. Buttery, sweet, vanilla-y sugar cookies that are a little well done on the edges, just enough to add a darker, caramelized tone to the sugar cookies. It's really strong and has great throw on me, which is sometimes hard to find in a cookie perfume oil. It turns into a satisfying, sweet gourmand if I just suffer through the bourbon opening.
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I've given Gingerbread Snek plenty of time to rest and I've worn it several times now and it just doesn't smell right to me. I should love this, but it turns very sour and dry. For the gingerbread part, I only smell sharp, dry spices (like an intensely sharp cinnamon and nutmeg more than ginger), and I'm not getting anything that I normally associate with Snake Oil. There's an earthy, woody, sour, patchouli-ish note that dries down like pencil shavings and there's a dirty, sweaty, quality to it that really bothers me, but neither of those components smell like the patchouli or musk that I associate with Snake Oil. Pencil shavings, sweaty musk, and sharp, dry, powdered spice.
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I only bought Witch Milk to finish my Monster Milk collection, but it was the milk that I was least excited about trying. This is great on me, though. A tasty currant with sweet honey and creamy milk, like a variation of Eat Me that feels a little fresher and darker. As it dries down, the incense smoke, black pepper, and dry herbs form this dark, witchy, earthy undercurrent that's also amazing. The darker notes give off this suspicious, maybe poisoned edge to your red berry and honeyed milk drink. I've worn this twice now and the first time the currant and milk were stronger and the second time, the darker notes were stronger (but could still smell all of the elements together in both wears). Either way, I love this. Very kitchen witchy.
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This is going to be a multiple bottle hoarding situation for me. Gorgeous, well-worn, soft, black leather and the balsam/woods note that I adore in Wolf Moon '24. It's wearing a leather jacket in woodshop, enveloped in this perfect black leather note while smelling the caramelized and lightly smoky scent of sawing through wood. It's so very smooth and lightly sweet, almost like a hint of vanilla.
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This year's Lunar New Year blend is a mix of super fruity & sweet with sensual florals. In the bottle, Wooden Dragon smells like a homemade tropical punch with a generous splash of citrus juice and a background of pine needles, like you're sitting outside at a summer party in someone's backyard and they happened to plant a big pine tree and you're sitting in its shade while you sip this fancy punch. It's not a strong pine, but a natural one that floats softly in the background. The pine doesn't survive at all on my skin, though. First applied, this immediately launches into gummi worms candy and sharp floral perfume that's sort of dewy and sensual rather than being offputting. Gummi candy trying to be a mature lady's perfume, in the best way possible. It's really fun and candied for about a half hour, and then the drydown is just amazing. The gummi candy impression fades, but it's still a very sweet, tropical lychee juice with hints of cheery, sharper citrus cutting through the sweetness, and I just adore the way the florals and dragon's blood are swirling together in this year's blend. The plum blossom, peach blossom, and peony combo in this is gorgeous. I smell actual plum fruit and the florals are sharp and threatening to go soapy, which I would normally hate, but mixed with the sweeter notes, they smell elegant and rich. The dragon's blood makes it even more sensual, darkening the florals and giving off a red, glowy impression. This might be my favorite Lunar New Year scent yet.
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Wolf Moon 2024 is soooo good. It has a smooth musk and greenery that reminds me of the original Buck Moon at first. It's crisp night air (a creamy white musk?) and a sky full of twinkling stars, rolling in a bed of tulips and smelling the scent of their smushed stems, green and cool, with the sandalwood and balsam giving off a mix of dry, slightly powdery sandalwood and the scent of freshly cut trees pulled into a woodshop where furniture is being made. The beeswax gives everything a beautiful, creamy, vanilla-y beeswax sweetness at the edges and makes the scent something of a woody gourmand over time. After about an hour, the green part mostly fades away and it leaves behind the warm, smooth woods blend with creamy sweetness and still that airy, cool, nighttime impression. My brother is a carpenter and there's an edge to the wood that's caramelized and just a teensy bit smoky, which reminded me of him making furniture in the garage and the scent of wood when it's heated and cut. I expected something darker and heavier out of Wolf Moon '24, but this is bright, cuddly, and cheerful while still making me think of roaming around in the night, and I love that there's nothing sharp or overwhelming about it. "Smooth" is the word that comes into my head every time that I smell it. I also love how the duets are being done this year, taking notes from the Lunacy blend and mixing it with a new note. I ordered Balsam & Leather with the Moon because bpal's leather is a safe bet for me, but now I want Grass & Midnight Dew and the Lupine Musk and Ambrette Seed hair gloss as well, and maybe the Beeswax & Pine Needle. I think it's so cool that you could love a note within a blend, go back for a variation of that note, and layer it with the original blend to amp up certain qualities. An all around awesome idea that I'm definitely going to be addicted to, lol.
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Hard Luck Lollipop smells like an orange cream lollipop with a hint of fizzy orange soda on my skin for the first half hour. It reminds me of those trees of fancy flavored, swirled lollipops that pop up randomly at the check out lane in stores. After a while, though, this smells just like cotton candy, very sugary and floofy yet still with that hard candy quality, and it still has a hint of fizzy orange soda. I don't smell any of the grit, petrichor, or incense; just delicious, candied elements. It's a light scent on me that only lasts about 3 hours with low throw, but it's a pleasant, fun, sugary hard candy. I like it enough that I think I'll turn it into a spray, which always helps the fragrance have better throw.
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In the bottle and for the first few minutes on my skin, this is a powdery, sharp floral with hints of sweet, fruity-floral, tropical tones. Fresh and slightly soapy. The drydown shifts into what is very much a sharp floral laundry soap powder type of fragrance. After an hour, I'm left with mostly a baby powder-ish scent with an undertone of masculine soapiness. I don't recognize the floral as jasmine; it's more nondescript, and I don't get the discernable resins that other reviewers noted either. Just laundry soap and powder, which I don't enjoy.
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I was almost scared off by the mention of almond (I hate the cherry scent of almond extract), but I'm so glad that I got a bottle of Lavender Plum Galette because it is stunning and I get no almond at all from it. The lavender is a little herbal, a little creamy, a little sweet, and very airy and spa-like. The plum has an edge of sugarplum to it, but it's also very dark and sensual. I agree with doomsday_disco that it is like the plum in Snake Charmer, but the plum here is the star of the scent and it's so amazing. The lavender starts out strong, but the plum takes over in the drydown, and it turns into mostly that gorgeous plum note with hints of airy lavender spa and a square of warm, gooey caramel. I want to order multiple bottles of this.
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I seem to be the odd one out, but I only smell sharp gingerbread spices and no milk. My skin tends to amp spices and this one irritates my skin a little (slight redness where applied). Mostly this is a sharp, powdery cinnamon and nutmeg type of scent on me and it never changes and the milk never shows up. I wish it were an overdose of milk, but it never gets there for me. Three Witches, Pickled Imp, and The Wild Men of Jezirat Al Tennyn are some of my go tos for spicy scents. I will probably wind up rehoming Gingerbread Milk.