patina

At first this smells strongly like blueberries or blackcurrant and pine. There might be some sweetness coming from the oppoponax and myrrh. My skin sweetens those. There is amber here, certainly. Quickly, it goes a bit powdery, and I almost smell lavender somehow. It's not stinky like lavender sometimes is on me. It must be the combination of the tobacco and oudh which gives it a faintly medicinal tinge. Especially in the early stages this reminds me of Odd Portents from the Weenies.

Black musk, clove, and myrrh are normally great things that go well together in my opinion. My skin does well with resins too. But I think the coconut makes everything seem more "funky,". The clove being a very smoky clove doesn't help much. The unpleasant element dies down a lot with wear and it's possible that with the way black musk ages, the whole scent will mellow and become very palatable eventually. Still, I have other black musk and clove scents I prefer.

At first sniff from the bottle I got nothing but waffles. After I put in on, however, I was reminded of hard, sugary glaze with the cream filling that comes in king cakes. I like it but I'm a little on the fence because it is Very sweet and fairly simple Edit: On further wear I also get a soft yeastiness.

Testing this one, I get real blueberries, but canned blueberries in syrup. The crust smells like gram cracker crust to me, but that may just be me. I do get cream, not much, but it's really there. It doesn't go sour like milk sometimes does on my skin. Overall this is inky, sweet and glorious, but it tends to be faint and quickly fading.

I collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting from their sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion. The workshop of filthy creation: electricity-scarred cypress beams, ancient stone slabs, damp metal, the coppery tang of coagulating blood, and ozone. First review! I think most people were too hesitant to touch this. The first thing that comes out is the cypress. It's not too harsh and it almost smells like tobacco. I'm pretty sure there's some myrrh involved somewhere. Overall there's a sleight rootbeerish smell. Ozone is very iffy for me since scents like Lightning often turn into pure soap. Metallic scents can become sharp, manly aquatic cologne. The damp metal note here is surprisingly pretty, though. It's a clean, true unisex scent that would work very well on a guy. I'm actually getting a sense of charged electricity from this one. Very pleasant, not sure I'm in love with it but it was unusual and surprising. I hesitate to compare it to Ekhidna, since Ekhidna's spicy and murky and has an almost sour note but I can't think of any scent that comes closer to this. Clean, unisex rootbeer with an electrical charge. No contents of the slaughterhouses, thankfully. Edit: With aging, the rootbeer smell mostly disappears to be replaced by cypress and metal. Still a good smell, though.

This is lovely. The pumpkin spice is soft and not harsh. The only thing is that it tends to disappear surprisingly quickly. That should be solved by aging the Snake Oil.

I like this even more than regular Perversion. The spices are soft but a lovely addition, I mostly get nutmeg and clove. The clove isn't overwhelming though. I recently tried regular Perversion and realized it's started to smell way too strongly of grapes in the final drydown. This is more of a gentle mulled wine. Not a huge change, but a good one.

I don't get oakmoss so much. Or maybe it blends in seamlessly with the patchouli right now. In either case, that's odd for me. This scent is dark and very perfumy and wafts everywhere. I would swear there's a floral here, but there isn't. The fruit is very apparent, non-foody and blends well with the Indgo musk, which I recognize from the special event version of Miss Addie. Indigo musk is a bit hard to describe, but it's inky, almost leathery. I can pick out the olibanum as well. This is one blind bottle order I don't regret at all.

This is everything I hoped it would be. A smooth dark patchouli and golden labdanum are most noticeable. It's cola sweet, but not like I spilled rootbeer on myself. Dark resin lovers who can do patchouli, try this! I'm considering a backup myself.

This is a very sweet, strongly jammy scent on me with some sugared pastry crust. My only complaint is that it doesn't have a lot of depth and disappears fairly quickly. This scent is pure foody.

This is very much a Yule scent, quite calm and still. The oleander is very subdued and well behaved though. The cypress reminds me of pencils, but thankfully it doesn't take over the scent. Soft, green, herbal, clean without being soapy. The oleander and ivy give a faintly ominous, toxic edge, but on the whole the scent is soothing and yes, cerebral. This is like a non-aquatic, non-mugwort, gently floral version The Waters of the Well of Wisdom

I wish I'd tried this before I put in my order, but I didn't think it would go well because I don't like sour scents much. But this turned out to be pleasantly tart fruit more than smoothed over by the rich resins of Schwarzer Mond and the spiced vanilla in Snake Oil. The pine is present on first application but on me it disappears into the Schwarzer Mond on drydown.

I am getting a bit of Revenant Rhythm and The Antikythera Mechanism. Except the whole thing seems to be sweetened by the root beer-ish birch tar and the tonka bean. Plus the oakmoss lends an earthy element to the tobacco. I get the feeling of a stone fireplace with cedar logs. This smells like something sacred, protective and comforting. Edit: It's just getting better and better. The vanilla patchouli, wood, and caramelized tobacco are extremely cozy.

Vetiver! But not brown vetiver, this smells black, like charred ivy leaves that crumble to the touch. The vanilla and patchouli smooth things over a bit even in the beginning stages when I can't pick them out. Very cozy on a winter's day. I'm not sure about a bottle but I'm happy to have a decant.

Sniffing: A strong green aquatic and stone. I usually can't pick out stone notes but I can here. On: Incense comes out more than anything else. It's sweet, maybe a little lemony. I have a sense of crystalline amber even though this doesn't do the amber-powder thing at all. Like Stormclouds On the Midway this is sweet and intriguing but faint when not smelled up close.

Sniffing: Gentle white florals and burnt soap? On: Better than that sounds though it does smell like Ivory soap and I'll forever have an association between soap and sandalwood. I think the "burnt" part is more like incense ashes. Must be the resins + sandalwood. This would work well as a Halloweenie scent.

It's a bit like Snow White, but not nearly as much as Cotton Phoenix was like Snow White. I actually compare it more to Peppermint Buttercream Frosted Red Velvet Cupcake or The Waltz of the Snowflakes. The mint does give a slightly watered down effect to the Snake Oil, but Snake Oil is such a warm scent to me that that impression dominates. On drydown, I can understand the "Snake Oil snuggled in Snow White" comparison better. Edit: After some aging this may now rival the old Asp Viper for my favorite Snake Oil version. The mint keeps the Snake Oil from being overwhelming in hot weather and it's just perfect, plus a lot more work safe. It's hard to overstate how much I like this.

Immediately I get a blast of the sweet, mellow, fizzy aquatic citrus from the GC Sundew. As this dries down it gets a bit greener and a bit of rotting wood pokes out. Oddly for a moss scent, the moss doesn't dominate. It's a bayou scent for sure though. I'd also compare this to Adoration of the Mi-Go.

Oh nice. A healthy dose of snake oil and almond with snow white with just a touch of cotton for that "clean sheets" smell. Too good. Too pure. Edit: I think a lot of people will love this, but on me the cotton smells unpleasantly soapy. Boo.

It starts out really sweet, almost a medicinal grape syrup. That soon settles down into something nice and the cologney, leaf-moldy leaves come out, before stepping back. I think I smell mint somehow. On the final drydown, it smells like soft violet candy with the occasional faint whiff of something woody. I've never smelled pastilles in my life but I'm pretty sure this is how they would smell. My only reservation is that this scent goes very faint and close to the skin after only a few hours.

It goes on a bit bubblegummy. Must be the cherry and rose. There's a faint picklejuice note that goes away. I'm weirdly reminded of frankincense here. Maybe that's why some people get a church incense note? Not too spicy, I can pick out all the notes. A bit girly and very nice.

I think dragon's blood would go with those scents, but some people might find it overwhelming and altogether too sharp with the other elements. Scents with other strong resins might work also.

Light and fresh with sage grounding it, giving it a very slightly smoky earthy tinge. But only slightly. I feel tingly and it isn't scalp allergies. Kind of astringent, energizing. It's funny, I prefer dark perfume oils but the only hair oils I've liked have been fresh and bright. EDIT 2021: I keep coming back to this decant even though hair oil weighs down my hair. This scent does really go with anything and it's an amazing tea.

Chaotic, Good, and Lawful?

As someone who is a dark resin lover, I think this is awesome. Myrrh and labdanum happen to be my two favorite scents so there you go. Only drawback is that the poplar pitch can be a little close to pine tar and very very slightly like gasoline. It makes the scent less sweet than it would otherwise be. If you liked Schwarzer Mond, Streets of Detroit, or Schlaflos Frage Und Antwort you probably would like this. I think I prefer those scents, but this is still a good evocation of darkness with a pale corona of light.