Arbitrary

I picked this up because I am usually a fan of the Lab's cacao note, and I thought this might be a heavy cacao, with some oud giving it a good grounding, and some juicy fruit notes lightly sweetening up a rich cacao. This is nice, but I was way off the mark. This is more of a candy-chocolate scent, rather than a cacao. In the bottle: Smells like opening a bag of chocolate-covered blueberry-acai something from Costco. Wet: It still smells like the bottle on immediate application, but the oud quickly becomes apparent. It's much more of a chocolate scent than a cacao scent to me. I wouldn't call the fruit note 'dark'; it's more like an artificial fruit flavoring added to chocolate. Dry: To be honest, the throw disappears on the dry down, as does much of everything about this scent. It's clearly on my skin, but it gets hard to identify the exact notes of the scent anymore. (Yes, I can still smell other things.) I do smell like a sweet snacc, and the dry scent sparks memories of walking into my local chocolate shop from childhood. This is a light "chocolate shop" scent. This is definitely not the cacao I was hoping for, but it's not a bad scent either. Just somewhat... ethereal, due to the light throw. Addition: Asked the spouse to try to identify the notes on the dry down. This one gave them pause, which isn't usual. "It's... vanilla? No, I guess it's... chocolate?" As I said, it sort of muddles into a light chocolate shop scent that stays close to the skin on me.

In the bottle: Dark amaretto yeasty baked good. (Not exactly bread... just 'something baked' to me.) Wet: I did not expect quite this much butter from my milk bread! This is super buttery when wet. (To me, it's like movie theater popcorn buttery.) I find the almond/star anise/cardamom combo to be well-balanced and present, especially on the tail end of a sniff. But that butter dominates, and I think it even dominates the yeasty bread aspect of the scent. This is more buttery/spicy/possibly savory than it is sweet. Dry: The butter calms down. Hurray! But so too do the spices (*sad*), and the bread aspect comes to the forefront (*hurray!*). And it's sweet now, although it's a subtle milk bread sweet and not particularly sugary. This is definitely a sweet buttery milk bread roll with the very faintest remnants of spice. Get this if you want to smell bread all the time. Honestly, I'd love to see what this smells like without the milk bread. The spice blend when it was wet was to die for, but it's mostly gone in the dry down. Addition: Even though the butter is calmer on the dry down, it is still definitely present. I keep running into it when I don't expect it. But it's calm enough, and balances well enough with the other notes, that it's not quite movie theater popcorn butter anymore.

In the bottle: a sweet, fresh bouquet of flowers. Wet: That Honey Note! (I picked this up because I adore the Lab’s honey note, and I’ve been on the lookout for something similar to the discontinued “Tiger Lily”.) Wet, this is very much what I expected: that honey note with a strong, difficult to identify floral. Maybe baby’s breath-esque? Dry: Amber comes out more on the dry down, but I’m not sure it plays well with the floral or my skin. The perfume turns into That Honey Note+some nondescript floral incense soap. When I sniff it, I feel like I’m cleaning out my mouth and nose with soap.

That is actually quite helpful, thank you! (Both the thoughts on pine-forwardness and the reminder that Epidote is more LE.)

I’m buying a gift for my husband, whose absolute favorite BPAL was Jabberwocky. (Loup Garou is his current go-to, as Jabberwocky was discontinued long ago.) He only wants one bottle if I can’t find decants, so I’m stuck guessing between Theoi Nomioi and Epidote Phoenix. Thoughts and opinions? (Thanks so much!)