boomtownrat

Gingerbread Goblin smells nothing like Goblin or any other gingerbread scent I have tried. There's more "bread" than "ginger" in it, and yet it doesn't actually smell like baked goods per se. It's subtly sweet. Patchouli is just a whisper and I wouldn't know it was there if I hadn't seen the notes. I can tell that black coconut is the variety that I prefer, more so in this scent than in GC Goblin. Benzoin and gingerbread are the the most prominent notes and yet neither one dominates. It's all extremely well blended. After two days, one skin test, and one full day of wear, I feel like it's still baking. Maybe with time those subtle notes will make their presence known. It smells good, but I hope for just a tiny bit more oomph with age. Even though they have no listed notes in common, Gingerbread Goblin is kind of what I wanted Hesiod's Phoenix to be. In fact, I would say there was amber and maybe some kind of vanilla in Gingerbread Goblin if I were to smell it blind. (I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote this paragraph.) On me, Gingerbread Goblin doesn't have strong throw but it lasts for at least seven hours from one application. It's warm, soft, smooth, and comforting, like I want a good skin scent to be. This will be good for times when darker, heavier scents would be inappropriate. Just by reading the notes I thought it was going to be a backup bottle purchase for sure, but now I think I'll concentrate on getting other Yules first. Because I don't go through bottles quickly, I might not need a backup. Something about it reminds me of a sophisticated perfume that my older-than-her-years best friend in high school used to wear circa 1989-90, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it was. Interestingly, GC Goblin reminds me strongly of my boyfriend from senior year of high school, just a year later. Update, 1 February 2015: It turns out I hardly ever wear this. Even more than month later it's mostly coconut and bready gingerbread, maybe a little benzoin. By now I would have expected more of the patchouli to emerge, but I only get the faintest hint of it right when I apply it. This bears zero resemblance to my beloved Goblin, unfortunately.

Every note in this should add up to near-perfection on my skin. Inexplicably, the combination of notes somehow adds up to some kind of bad animal musk with a hint of stinky pee flowers. The only note that I haven't tried in anything else is the spiced Moroccan unguents, so I'm going to assume that's the culprit. The imp is quite a few months old now and I've given it a try on several occasions, but it's always the same. Every time I've tested it, I've needed to wash it off by the time it's dry. What happened? At least this was a frimp, and I'm glad I was given the chance to experience it even though it didn't work for me. ETA: I should note that other scents in the same family usually work on me. Snake Oil and Morocco are two of the scents that work best on me. Smut is another good one. Red musk and honey are notes that I usually amp to good effect, but I don't even smell them over the animalistic funk. It's got to be the unguents.

I know Et Lux Fuit is a discontinued LE, but I got a sniffy of it that was just enough to test. Can anyone tell me what collection it was in so I know how to categorize in my list of scents I've tried? Thanks.

This is one of the most interesting scents I've tried yet. After the cotton blossom and chapapote dissipate, it's mostly cocoa and what smells for all the world like a smokey vetiver/patchouli base. Depending on where I apply it, I also get honey and copal, and if I huff I start to notice maize, which is like masa as annemathematics said. The cocoa, honey, and maize do conspire to make it an almost-foodie scent, but I don't think I smell like dessert. My sinus-congested husband said unprompted that he smelled chocolate chip cookies. It took me aback because it was just a small dab and his sense of smell is poor, but there was nothing else he could've been smelling that would fit that description. Yes, Tlazolteotl has decent throw, but it's not heady. It wafts far but gently, floating cloudlike instead of whacking you over the head with itself. To some noses it will smell foodie, but it isn't cloying. It slightly reminds me of Tezcatlipoca. Tlazolteotl is the Luper>Excolo scent that I should have blind-bought as a bottle instead of Anteros.

This smells red. It's the colour red made into a scent. There is blood orange and a little bit of salt, with a ghost of a metallic note and maybe a suggestion of musk. It's fruity but not sweet, potent but not overwhelming, and is the only salty scent I've ever been able to wear. Blood Popsicle stood up well to a hot day at an amusement park, complete with sunblock and one water ride. I thought I should give it a good durability test, and now I'm thinking of buying a backup. This would be great at any time of year as far as I'm concerned, but maybe best of all in autumn. ETA: It's funny to me that this works better on me when I'm, shall we say, hormonally changed. Before writing the review I had worn it three times, not all during hormonal turmoil. It was all metallic clove when I wore it again after posting the review, and I felt some stabby head pains threatening, so I washed it off on that occasion. On the times when I wore it during my monthly hell, it was sweeter. Not only is it the most enigmatic BPAL I own, but it's also one of the most changeable. Updated on 3/9/2015: Blood Popsicle is mellowing and blending more smoothly with age. It still smells mostly of blood orange, red musk, and clove, and I think I'm getting just a hint of cinnamon. I've never gotten any sense of freezing or cold from it, and now it feels even warmer than it did brand new. The metallic and salty components are still there, but they're not as intense as they were initially. There's still nothing else like it in my collection. I have to be in the right mood to wear Blood Popsicle, but I think it's getting even better with age.

Everything that Eve is in the film is what Beth has managed to pour into Eve the scent. She is worldly, exotically elegant, sensuous, soft, and wise, and she comes from a land of much deeper nights than I have ever seen. I can't even adequately describe all the notes as they are so exquisitely blended, except to say that I get more of a sweet spice than rose. It doesn't take much Eve to make an impression and yet I must resist the urge to slather and just revel in this beauty. The fact that I have just one bottle and it's sold out means that Eve is automatically a special occasion scent.

Palus Nebularum could be right up your alley, as it's a mysterious, watery, mossy, musky green scent: weedy green musk, three boggy mosses, water lettuce, and water hyacinth against a backdrop of glittering moon rocks. At least one person on here has mentioned getting floral notes from it. I'm not sure how hard it will be to find, since it just came down a few days ago. The Clive Barker scent called Imaginer is beautiful: honeyed patchouli, Madagascan black pepper, fossilized amber oil, beeswax absolute, massoia bark, Egyptian myrrh, and a thin thread of blood-red saffron.

This is still just a day off the mail truck, but I want to make a note that I get no white florals from Palus Nebularum at all, thank the gods. On me, it is very much a wet vegetation scent with a lot of musk. Although it's a little masculine, the musky moss is pleasing. With just a little dab on one wrist, its throw is on the high side of moderate. I'm not sure about its lifespan because I went to bed last night only about an hour and a half after applying it, and I needed to take a shower about an hour or so after putting it on today. It showed no signs of dying down after an hour and a half, for what it's worth. White florals are a one-way ticket to Migrainesville for me and I wasn't sure about the hyacinth or moon rocks, but it was worth the risk for me to buy the bottle unsniffed because it's my birthday moon and I love the poem. There was nothing like this in my collection, so I decided to give it a whirl. This isn't something I'm likely to wear extremely often, but in certain moods. Maybe it will be best when I'm wearing green, or at home. It could be good for Halloween -- something about the mossiness is Halloweeny to me. I'm going to see if my husband will give it a try, because he's also a Taurus and I think it will smell good on him. I just hope that as it ages, Palus Nebularum will continue to be free from white floral notes.

Thanks, Balame and JasminDreams2010! You each mentioned a couple of scents I already like, so I think you're both on the right track.

This thread has intrigued me for a long time and I've finally decided to give it a try. Sorry I wrote a novel! I'm 40 years old, married, owned by five cats, child-free, and a copywriter. By night, I write mostly poetry and some fiction. My MBTI type is INFJ and my Enneagram type is 4w5. My sun sign is Taurus, my rising sign is Sagittarius, and my moon sign is Libra. All of my life I've been considered a daydreamer, and those who don't know me well would say that I'm shy. The word I would use instead is reserved, because I can be bold once I feel comfortable. My moods are as fleeting as summer thunderstorms, and I can often be simultaneously elated and irritable. Anxiety and melancholy have plagued me since early childhood. (I have bipolar disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.) My mind is obsessive, indecisive yet occasionally impulsive, suspicious, fanciful, sentimental, easily amused, easily crashed into despair, easily hurt, resilient, sometimes spinning in place. I've been called weird often, which I like. People have called me insightful, witty, intelligent, and resilient. On the other hand, I've also been described as lazy, self-indulgent, temperamental, and naive. All of that is probably true. When I need to escape my tangle of worries, I call on my Inner Spock, the imaginary Vulcan who lives in my head and reminds me when it's time to get logical. I'm always looking to balance my darkness with as many cute, sparkly, happy things as possible, like plush toys, drag queens, and My Little Pony. My sense of humour is extremely British, even though I've lived in North Carolina all of my life. Tragedies and mysteries fascinate me even though it's probably unhealthy. I enjoy the beauty of abandoned and decaying places. In my twenties I went out all the time, but the next migraine is always around the corner, so I try not to overdo it. Some of my favourite things include cats, birds, Doctor Who, RuPaul's Drag Race, post-punk, '80s alternative music, indulging in nostalgia, documentaries, British TV shows, Halloween, Christmas trees, cheesecake, chocolate, pizza, coffee, black tea, red velvet cake, falafel, and sandwiches.

Red Devil was a frimp with an order that I got late last year. I remember it being sharper and headier when it was fresh, and strong enough that I had to wash it off after a while. Now the scent has softened to a point where I might be able to wear it without getting a headache, if I'm having a good day. This is not one of those days, sadly, so I'm going to wash it off again after I write this review because I'm feeling the migraine-warning tingles in my head. At first there's a strong citrus top note, maybe grapefruit, but unfortunately it dissipates even before the oil is dry. There are some florals in here, but they're not too heady; if I had to guess, I'd say that there's jasmine in here somewhere. Something warm and slightly powdery is holding everything together. The powder could be a rose and the warmth might be cinnamon or cassia. I do get a whiff of Big Red Gum, like Dani87. After the oil dries, I can't really smell it unless I bring my wrist within a few inches of my nose. Maybe if I hadn't kept huffing my arm to figure out the notes, I wouldn't have needed to wash it off today. It's a pretty scent, but Red Devil wouldn't have the intended effect on me or on my husband. Floral scents don't do it for me, and it's hard to feel sexy if I'm afraid I might get a headache. As for my husband, when I had him smell my wrist, he liked it well enough but his reaction was fairly mild compared to something like Snake Oil or Playful Wooden Mallets, the two he loves the most on me. He has a weak sense of smell anyway, so 99% of the time I'm wearing scents purely for myself. I don't know if it's worth hanging on to the imp for a third try try. It might work when I haven't been exposed to any migraine triggers in the last few days, but I have many other scents I really love that don't require the wind to be blowing the right way, the moon to be in the right phase, my shirt to be the right colour, the geese to be flying south, etc.

The first time I tested Baron Samedi was the same day it arrived as a frimp. I got lots of booze and cherry, with an underpinning of something manly, a little smoky. That was lovely and I'd like to wear that version of the scent again. A few days later I tested it again, in the same spot on my wrist, and it turned into a man's shaving cream. This wouldn't be a bad thing on the right person, but I don't really want to smell that way myself. It's worth mentioning that the second test was just a couple of days after my monthly hormonal wackiness. I'll see how it goes on a third test, but this might end up going to a friend who loves bay rum and might appreciate it because of the mythology.

My hair turned silver in my 30s (I'm 40 now), and I favour sweet, woody, musky, foodie, resinous, and spicy scents. I'm mostly an anti-floral type because I get migraines from a lot of them, but there are some darker florals that I can wear without icepick head pain. No violet, ever! Before I went silver, my hair was sort of auburn/chestnut but I often dyed it black or burgundy. I used to wear Obsession (for women or for men, I loved both) or amber essential oil in my 20s, and in high school I was all about fruity drugstore perfumes and some tea rose scent whose name I can't recall.

The 2014 Womb Furie reminds me a lot of the 2011 version when it was fresh. I get deep, sweet, subtly spiced honey that doesn't morph and lasts all day. Snake Oil is kind of the grandmother of Womb Furie, in that you can tell it's in the genetic makeup but the resemblance is not pronounced. I've worn this Womb Furie three times over the last four days since I got it, if that gives you an idea of how I feel about it. Even when it was fresh off the mail truck, it glowed golden-orange and wrapped me up in its comfort. On a day when even my two-year-old bottle of Snake Oil smelled wrong to me, this new Womb Furie sailed through with flying colours. I'm tempted to order a second bottle before Lupers leave.

It makes me sad that I get very little, if any, red musk or patchouli. Those notes and the cinnamon-dusted cacao were the reasons I bought this bottle. At first it's all semi-sweet cacao, no cinnamon that I notice. Minutes later a sour sweetness emerges and I guess it's ylang ylang, but I'm still not that experienced with that note. Myrrh is in there, too. For hours and hours, the cacao diminishes and that sour sweetness takes over. The next morning, that's all there is and it's still pretty strong. Ylang ylang has just made onto my list of iffy notes and it could go either way, depending on how this ages. Unfortunately, I don't feel this is the least bit sexy even though red musk and patchouli tend to make for the most sensual fragrances on my skin. Maybe with time, I'll get more red musk and patchouli. After all, I've only had the bottle for four days and I've just tested it twice. I'll update this review if anything changes.

Never mind. I heard back from customer service and it's being sorted.

Something containing creosote, coal, and industrial waste sounds terrifying as a fragrance, in all honesty. When the Lab sent me Smokestack as a frimp, I couldn't resist giving it a test once it had settled down from shipping, but I expected I'd be washing it off within five minutes. Maybe it could work as a way to enable my husband, I thought. Then Smokestack surprised me. It doesn't take much at all -- the imp spit out a little drop onto my hand when I opened it, so I swiped that onto my other wrist. This stuff has a lot of throw, but after about a minute it mellows into a more pleasant version of Bonfire Night. Vetiver might be in there, but I couldn't say for sure. Once it's been on my skin for about half an hour, it makes me think of my dad's workshop in my childhood home, a place where I would often go to be alone. It's a nostalgic scent. "Manly, yes, but I like it too!" comes to mind. My city is in the midst of an historic winter storm, the kind we get maybe once a decade, and it turns out Smokestack was the right scent to wear on a day when I'm bundled away, safe from the snow and ice. Assuming it doesn't change much with age, I could see myself wearing this if I were going to see an industrial band play a gig, or maybe for a costume. I think the trick will be to wear it only sparingly, and probably only on my wrists. The imp will probably be enough, but I think I'll continue to wear it when I'm in the mood.

This was a frimp with my most recent order. It's not something I would have sought out, and sadly the way it dries down on my skin means I will be unlikely to test it again. The juicy, delicious burst of grapefruit that it is while wet only sticks around for about a minute, giving way to a sickly floral dryer sheet scent that I had to wash off minutes later.

My bottle arrived today and as soon as I had a sniff, I needed to put it on immediately. In the bottle Imaginer is honeyhoneyhoneyamberwoods. On my skin the honeyed patchouli emerges in a sweet embrace with the woods. So far I can't pick out any of the other individual notes besides a general impression of lightly spiced wood, maybe because it's just that well blended. It's the woodsier sibling of Feed Me and Fill Me with Pleasure. If Imaginer is this magnificent fresh off the mail truck, while I'm hormonal, then I can only imagine its future fabulous beauty. Too bad I had to fall in love with such a rare scent, but that will just make it all the more precious.

On me, Kabuki is predominantly anise to the point that I've been letting it age for months in the hopes that I can smell the red musk, which is normally a note that my skin amplifies. I mean it screams anise on me. The reviews show that a lot of people mostly get red musk or cherries, so your mileage may vary.

I've found a chocolatey BPAL that rivals Black Temple Burlesque Troupe 2012 for my dearest affections. In the bottle, El Dia De Los Reyes (2013) is the richest hot cafe mocha with a touch of chocolate liqueur. On the skin it's almost exactly the same, but as it dries I swear I get a muskiness from it. This sticks around for a good six hours or more, unlike the short lifespan that Bliss has on my skin. It even smells delicious when I'm riding the hormonal roller coaster. El Dia De Los Reyes is blended extremely well and is one of those scents that should prompt people to say you smell wonderful, not your perfume. P.S. You can layer it with Gingerbread Snake for outrageous deliciousness, but of course it's damned delectable on its own.

Snake Oil is the scent that always feels like it's part of me. It can be sultry and it can be comforting. Fresh or aged, I love it beyond the telling of it. Gingerbread Snake is like that, but with the bonus element of making me feel like a saucy Gingerbread Woman. Yes, that's a thing now, and it's a wonderful one. She is the temptress who will seduce the innocent Gingerbread Man with her warm and spicy charms. I will need backup bottles.

Dia de Los Muertos 2012 has been my scent of choice for today's post-Halloween shopping, but now that I need to settle down and write, I might put on some Sugar Skull 2012.

Well, I was such a mess trying to scramble and get into costume for work that I forgot to pick out a bottle, so I'm wearing good old Snake Oil. I think that's appropriate enough for a Fairy Gothmother, don't you?

Hello and welcome, first of all. I haven't tried Sprinklecake, but the notes look similar enough that you might want to try Eat Me from the Mad Tea Party collection. The notes are three white cakes, vanilla, and red and black currants. It might be a little deeper than Sprinklecake because of the currants, but you could always try an imp first. Eat Me is a little dark and sweetly spicy on me, but very much a cake scent. ETA: Oh, and another one to consider is Cockaigne from the Wanderlust collection (down at the bottom of the page under The Phantom Islands): milk and honey, sweet cakes and wine. I can't personally give you any thoughts on it because I haven't tried it yet, but the reviews make it sound really delicious for cake scent fans.