Christine Daae

On me, this is primarily a sweeter version of Snake Oil! I don't think I'd necessarily even say that it's 'softer', just sweeter. I get a tiny bit of almond, but mainly whatever makes Snake Oil so singular and distinct is what I get out of this one. I had wanted a white-cotton-dress version of Snake Oil (as mentioned in one of the earlier reviews!), but I don't get enough of anything other than Snake Oil to get that impression. I do think that my skin chemistry will amplify Snake Oil over anything else in a blend - I've had similar reactions with other "Snake Oil + other stuff" scents, so that is probably what's happening here. Lesson learned!

I bought this from the lovely SueDonym, and was just thrilled to find it! Thank you! In the bottle, this is all champagne: sparkly, bubbly, a little sweeter than I usually find with champagne notes, which could be because of the rose, which is otherwise undetectable. Wet, it’s still mostly champagne - fizzy and pale golden like stars. A sweet rose note begins to unfurl underneath as it dries down, and this is heavenly. Especially when this is balanced between the two namesake notes, with neither one becoming more dominant over the other, this is just absolutely beautiful. The rose is a pale yellow or ivory color to me (although it could be the rose note + the champagne note giving it that feel to me), but it’s more velvety than translucent. It wears quite close to the skin on me, but it reminds me of starry night skies and how drinking champagne tastes like drinking those stars - and a little bit of my wedding, where prosecco and roses featured heavily! Like starry-eyed romance in a bottle. I couldn’t be happier with this!

In the bottle: A very pretty minty vanilla - not too foody or sweet, mostly a soft peppermint, very cool and fresh, like Katillac says! You know what this reminds me of, even more than candy canes? Those peppermint meltaway pillow candies - the kind that are sort of airy and dissolve in your mouth. (Oh, like these!) It’s not as bracing or as sugary as I think of peppermint candy canes as being, this is much more pillowy-soft. (Although on the end of the sniff I do get a chilly, minty sensation in my nose!) This is my first Lick It because I didn’t think I liked minty perfumes until very recently. (I was wrong!) This is so pretty and soft and a little sparkly from the mint - very wintery and beautiful! Plus, I couldn’t be happier that proceeds went to such an honorable cause. p.s. This layers beautifully with Sparkle and Glitter (and indeed makes S&G a little more sparkly)!

This was one of my quickest orders yet - the name was tailor-made for me and it sounded absolutely beautiful! In the bottle: Mostly the white chocolate, with a cooling undertone. Wet: Still mostly white chocolate; the fir and snow notes are very, very soft here. It is not very chilly! Sort of like you’re walking outside, all bundled up in a fluffy scarf and coat, drinking a milky hot chocolate while looking at Christmas lights, or picking out a Christmas tree! (Lycanthrope’s review is VERY evocative!!) This doesn’t change much from the initial application - it’s a sweet white chocolate note (my husband definitively said “hey, you smell like chocolate!” when I sat down next to him!), much stronger than in Lady Amalthea (my best experience with the lab’s white chocolate note so far), with soft fir and snow notes. The fir note does get a touch stronger as the perfume wears on, but never strong enough to change this into something less predominantly white chocolate. I believe I saw someone wondering if this would be anything like The Waltz of the Snowflakes (one of my favorites!), and I don’t find them similar at all. Waltz is much more snowy, cold, and fir-forward, and this is much sweeter. I actually was hoping this would be a little bit more snowy and cold! I tend to steer away from perfume with notes that are too foodie or sweet, so this is a bit outside my wheelhouse, but it is still quite pretty. If you like the lab’s white chocolate note, this will be a lovely festive blend for you!

This was gifted to me by the lovely and generous PrinceofcatS, who hoped I would have better luck with this, since I do enjoy the BPAL fizzy/champagne notes! In the bottle: The rose here really reminds me of the rose in Katrina Van Tassel (which is my favorite BPAL rose note), only brighter and “cleaner” because it lacks the honey and cream. Whatever the misty note is, it’s very subtle in the bottle. Wet on my skin, the “misty” note comes out - it’s cool and a little sparkly and “clean” but not soapy to me. It almost has the cold quality that a pine or menthol note often has, without actually smelling like pine or menthol - just that 'cold' smell. I get the fizzy and sparkly qualities of the champagne note, but I don't smell champagne here at all - which is okay, because it's still very beautiful! This reminds me a lot of Moon Rose, or at least how I remember it (it’s been a while since I last smelled it!): a pale rose with a misty, cool quality to it. Which is not to say that there's any moonflower note here (there's not!), but it’s in the same family, I’d say. This fades into a lovely, sweet rose after the cool misty note dissipates. It's very beautiful and I think will immediately be going into my summertime rotation!

In the bottle: In the bottle this is primarily neroli, which smells less sweet to me than the lab’s orange blossom note. Wet: Neroli and soft, powdery snow. This is the “soft, powder snow” note that I find in Snow White rather than a piney or minty snow note as in some of the other snowy blends. (I love all of the Lab’s snow notes, honestly.) Contributing to the powdery feel is the orange blossom note, which often has a soft, powdered-sugar sweetness to it on me, and the sweet velvetiness of the gardenia note. This was my absolute favorite of my considerable Yule order. It’s strange, I remember feeling when I first tried this (in December) that it was a bit green and springy for a winter snow scent, and now that I’m trying it in the late springtime, it strikes me as quite snowy! I think it ended up perfect for the sweet spot of late February and early March. I never reviewed this back when I first got it, though I absolutely loved it, because I decided fairly quickly that I would put it away to wear on my honeymoon. Today is the first day that I’ve worn it since my honeymoon three months ago and it does bring back some not-so-distant memories already. <3 Instead of sitting at my desk at work, I’m waking up in a sunsoaked hotel room and getting ready for a day full of magic! I don’t want to break that association by wearing it to too many days at work (plus, I think this might end up being a white floral for winter wear for me), but it’s been a beautiful pick-me-up on a day I really needed one. <3 This is a soft, sweet, and magical winter-white floral. It very much evokes the first stunning rays of dawn after a nighttime winter snowstorm: golden-pink and white. I have since passed along my bottle of Snow at Dusk to a dear friend, but if that blend is the purple dusky twilight just before a nighttime snowstorm, this is the morning after that snowstorm.

In the imp: CUCUMBER! Very much a cucumber and fresh-cut grass scent, with a floral note that I can’t quite pinpoint. Wet: A pretty, floral-grassy cucumber scent. This smells SO MUCH like fresh-cut cucumber, with a hint of floral and some newly-mown grass in the background. It’s extremely “wet” and juicy smelling - you know, like cucumber is - and very green and fresh. I don’t know that I can pick out the particular floral note but there’s definitely something floral here along with the cucumber. I don’t get any melon, which is good for me as I don’t love cucumber and melon together (I was in middle school in the late 90s!). I want to say that the floral here is something in sweet-greenish sort of family, maybe lily of the valley? I swear I saw someone recommend this with regards to a honeysuckle note in the recommendations forum, which is why I picked this up to begin with. As it is, it's primarily concerned with being a cucumber scent, but the floral does blossom (ha!!!) a little as the scent dries down, and the juiciness of the cucumber does evaporate a little. This also lasts a surprisingly long time for such a cool, green, fresh scent. I imagine it will be gorgeous in hot, humid weather too.

2016 version. Note: I never tried the original version. In the bottle: Honestly, I mostly smell Snake Oil with a very sheer overlay of lighter flowers. (If I set the open bottle down away from me I get just the flowers, strangely.) Wet: Snake Oil! A lighter version, but still - the iconic Snake Oil scent with again a very sheer overlay of flowers. Up close, this is ALL Snake Oil on me: patchouli, vanilla, some kind of musk.. It’s only in the throw that I actually get any of the flowers - very polleny lilies and narcissus, very springy. Linden blossom is a little bit delicate compared to the other notes here so I don’t know that I get much of it. Oh wait, no, I do get the linden blossom a little: that very sheer, sweet, slightly honeyed note. I can’t particularly detect any of the fruity passion flower, though. The throw is quite pretty at this stage, and the thick sticky sweet patchouli-vanilla of Snake Oil stays close to the skin. This dries down to just Snake Oil on me, much to my dismay. A thick, patchouli-y vanilla, no flowers to be seen. (The vanilla is so nice but I have such a low tolerance for patchouli these days!) I do wonder if aging this will bring the flowers or the patchouli out more - I suppose sticking it in a “cellar” and aging it for a bit can’t hurt anything. Snake Oil is decidedly Too Much for me these days (due to both taste and skin chemistry changes) so I was hoping that all the pretty pretty flowers would make this a wearable version for me. The jury is still out on that; the sticky sweet resin of Snake Oil is the predominant scent on me at this point so it’s not all that different. It’s a shame, I love all these flowers so much and used to quite like Snake Oil!

Fall under the spell of our Green Fairy! An intoxicating blend containing wormwood essence, light mints, cardamom, anise, hyssop, and the barest hint of lemon. Imp: green + licorice-y anise Wet: so green! So licoricey! This is quite strong! A little sugary, the anise and mint blend together and are quite strong, a tiny bit of lemon. The lemon isn’t bothering me the way it usually does but it’s probably that I don’t particularly love the rest of what’s going on here (plus the lemon disappears pretty quickly)! It reminds me a lot of Throat Coat tea with lemon, to the point where I can almost taste that in the back of my throat. I like anise/licorice as a flavor but not so much as a scent, I guess! I think this is really evocative of absinthe, though I’ve never tried it myself, so mainly going by what it looks like and what it evokes: glowy and green and licoricey. It’s not really something I need to smell like, personally. This does last quite a long time and has a decent amount of throw, so if you're in the market for an absinthe scent I can imagine this would be perfect!

In the imp: Sweet appley grapefruit! Wet: Apple blossom + grapefruit! Sweet and sparkly! Oh wow, this is beautiful! I had this in my cart because I’ve fallen in love with grapefruit scents lately, and most of the notes appealed to me, but I took it out at the last minute because I was afraid of the ginger. (And also to cull down my order, which had gotten expensive!) I shouldn’t have been - I get very little ginger here, it’s possible that it’s just contributing to the brightness of the scent. I don’t really get any heat from it, anyway. This is mostly the other three notes, heavy on the grapefruit and apple blossom. Wow wow wow, this is REALLY pretty! The intense prettiness and effervescence of the apple blossom and grapefruit notes do fade a little bit within about a half an hour, but even after it’s faded, it’s still lovely, and this gentler, more floral-and-tea version of the blend lasts quite a while on me. I am SO GLAD I got this as a frimp! I know I would have tried it eventually but I am so pleased to have this for the summertime! This is going straight into the rotation with Sea of Glass and Muse and my other light, sparkly florals!

In the imp: Soapy! Which makes sense, I’ve avoided this until now because sweet pea can go soapy on me. My interest in a honeysuckle scent outweighed the worry though! Wet: Yes, that’s a bit soapy indeed! It’s not the “oh I can taste this in the back of my throat” soapy that I get from some other notes, though (peony, anything vaguely lemony). After that, though, it’s a beautiful clean, green floral. I get mostly lilies with a “clean” hint of sweet pea, and the heliotrope tempering the soapiness of sweet pea with its vanillic qualities. I don’t get much pear, unless the pear is lending the “green” note I’m getting here - in other words, it’s not a sweet or syrupy pear. It is a little green and "clean" smelling but mostly just pretty, and it's clean in a nice way that I think will wear well in hot weather! It’s not the honeysuckle scent of my dreams, but it’s quite pretty and I’m glad I gave it a chance.

My two absolute favorite gardenias are GC! Euphrosyne (Gardenia, tea rose, vanilla and jasmine) Beautiful sweetened white floral with a very prominent creamy gardenia scent! Eternal (Stephanotis, cyclamen, heliotrope, white rose and gardenia) Stunning, classic white floral with a beautiful gardenia note. Looking through the gardenia tag on the Lab's site, I also love Lullaby (Moonflower and iris root with French lavender, tuberose, white sandalwood, night-blooming gardenia, vanilla orchid, and moss) but find it more moonflower and lavender with undertones of night-blooming white flowers, and I adore The Snow at Dawn (Snow afire with the morning’s first rays of orange blossom, neroli, and rose gardenia) and think it's a gorgeous gardenia & orange blossom scent but I think the orange blossom stands out a bit more.

Just off the very tippytop of my head: Vasilissa Alice Mouse's Long & Sad Tale Jailbait Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo Lucy's Kiss (this gives me an "antique rose" feeling specifically!) Pink Snowballs Maiden (really pale pastel pink here)

In the vial: honey and floral sweetness! Wet: This reminds me SO MUCH of Lights of Men’s Lives! The white honey here and (what I think of as) the beeswax in Lights must have something in common. Honey can do really weird awful things on my skin but in this one it doesn’t, thankfully. The biggest difference from Lights is the acacia/mimosa blossom scent, which adds a beautiful, sweet, comforting floral tone to this along with the skin musk and the light honey/beeswax notes. I really love Lights, but I think I love this one better, honestly! This dries down to the most beautiful, subtle, lightly floral skin scent. It is perfect for layering with just about anything else (including alcohol-based perfumes, which is what I’m doing today!), and also really beautiful on its own. It has wonderful staying power and exactly the right amount of throw: enough that I catch wafts of it throughout the day, but not so much that it’s overpowering or announcing my presence before I enter a room. I wish there were more mimosa/acacia in the BPAL catalog, but I will cherish this blend.

I was gifted this imp by a friend who knew I liked BPAL’s champagne note! <3 In the vial: I can see where people get a soapy impression from the champagne note, it definitely has a clean edge, at least in the vial! Wet: Initial blast of champagne (a dry, sparkly, unsweet grapey note) and pear. Eventually the plumeria starts to come out as well - a soft, pretty, understated white floral note more along the lines of magnolia rather than a loud tuberose or a sugary sweet orange blossom. The champagne note keeps this dry and fizzy-bubbly rather than syrupy sweet. This is very linear from bottle to drydown - other than the plumeria note coming out more strongly as it dries down, the scent changes very little. It’s a sparkly bright floral, really beautiful - the plumeria note is prominent but not overly loud, and the pear isn’t too sweet, probably thanks to the dry sparkliness of the champagne note. This will be beautiful for summertime!