ladymeag

If you can pumpkin, Pumpkin Latte (2010, I believe) was a pretty good coffee scent. It was too sweet for me, so was swapped away in 2011 but most of the pumpkin scents are too sweet for me. The Ta-Ta is great if you don't amp florals (which I do) and like leather (which I do.) It smelled great on my spouse, on me it was all carnation all the time and spiked a migraine. Miskatonic University is very good, if a little sweet. I second the request for pie, chocolate, pastry, cake, milk, and so forth -free coffee scents! I want black coffee in a leather chair reading a book. Or black coffee on crunchy-leaved fall day. Though, to other people I probably already always smell like coffee, I drink enough of the stuff.

The patchouli in this reminds me very much of Banshee Beat. Unfortunately for me, without the creamy vanilla of Banshee Beat, this isn't balanced enough for my patchouli-amping skin. In the bottle: Sweet patchouli On the skin: A dirty, sexy, rooty patchouli with a little sweetness. Honey notes usually go very powdery on me and this one somehow doesn't but it doesn't quite sweeten up the patchouli enough for my liking. This would be wonderful on someone that either didn't amp patchouli or did amp the other notes. Banshee Beat and patchouli lovers, rejoice - and buy back up bottles. EDITED TO ADD: Holy smokes, y'all. The next day and two showers later? I'm still wearing this. I'm not a slathering kind of person (unless it's Antikythera Mechanism ) and only tested this with a single, careful touch of a clean glass wand. Staying power, this has it.

In the bottle - Coconut and something... green. Can't quite put my nose on it but it's definitely green. On the skin - Warm coconut vanilla creme. It's definitely creamy. The throw on this seems to largely be coconut but when you get close-in you can smell the warm musk and amber. The patchouli isn't here at all, which means it should age into wonderfulness and show up in about year, in my general BPAL experience. I was expecting more green-peppery-spice with the 'green cardamom pod' but it's not here. Perhaps it will age in? I'm very happy with it as it stands, though, a warm coconut creamy vanilla-amber scent, less sweet than Elegba. On my spouse - Warm coconut caramels. No, really that's it. Or as he described it, slightly toasted classic Samoas cookie (what is now known as a Caramel deLite.) AS ABOVE and SO BELOW layered together: Warm, creamy, leather with a little bit of coconut sweetness and almond warmth. The complexities of As Above really add to So Below's warmth making for a complex and wonderful perfume - I highly recommend layering them. If you like this try: Elegba, Perversion

In the bottle - Soapy leather. Not really blown away with hope here - the first Haute Macabre scent was all cherry chapstick on me and I'm getting a whiff of that, too, so I'm kind of thinking that this will be a soapy-floral-fail. On the skin - Slightly jasmine leather. This may be breaking my no-florals rule, it's not sharp and doesn't seem to be causing a headache. The almond is warming up a bit and losing the cherry chapstick feel it had in the bottle. Patchouli completely absent here and never seems to make an appearance. The vanilla and almond are playing very nicely together, not cloying, not foody, not plastic. At full dry-down this has some serious sillage and amazing staying power, I was still wearing it after taking a shower. On my spouse - Smoky, sweet, hints of sasparilla. Oak bark with vanilla and almond are adding up to a woodsy root beer barrel. AS ABOVE and SO BELOW layered together: Warm, creamy, leather with a little bit of coconut sweetness and almond warmth. The jasmine seems to get buried in with the mingled scents but it makes for a very well-rounded very complex perfume. If you like this, you might like: Liz (though Liz is sharper all around)

Yep, oakmoss. This is the scent that is responsible for the green depth in some of my favorite green-forest-y scents and also responsible occasionally for their soapy scent deaths. In the bottle - I don't know how to describe this but green and fuzzy. It's like ... if green velvet was a scent. On my skin - First whiff is soapy. This is common for me with unaged oakmoss scents. Underneath that soapiness, I can get a hint of the deep woodsy goodness that it might become in a year or more. I tend to like this better as a basenote (but oh do I like it as a basenote,) so I'm going to hang on to a decant's worth but don't feel the need to hoard it as I do with other single notes.

Sin (note: amber, sandalwood, black patchouli and cinnamon) is one of my favorite GC blends. It's sexy, it's warm - this is no exception. In the bottle: The warm cinnamon of Sin with a nice creamy pumpkin. On the skin: This is deep, creamy, and warm. There seems to be some vanilla in here to balance the pumpkin and make it this creamy. All of the elements of Sin are definitely here - deep sandalwood, warm amber, sexy and slightly peppery patchouli, and bright cinnamon. If you like Sin and wanted it a little creamier or with a balancing sweetness, you will probably like this one. Given that Sin ages gloriously, I expect this one only to get better as time goes on.

Let me start by saying that Snake Oil is I want to love but it won't let me - on my skin it's all honeyed sugar syrupy sweetness. Even aged, Snake Oil doesn't work out for me and I have some old stuff around here (my spouse wears Snake Oil quite well.) This? This works. In the bottle: vanilla buttery pumpkin On the skin: This warms up and has a bit of spice to it that fades pretty quickly into a mellow, creamy scent. There's a nice warm-pumpkin-pie-filling (the way it smells _before_ you cook it) smell here and the pumpkin fades over time. This has a foody edge without making me think "Gee, I smell like a bakery." A little like someone over-vanilla'd the perfect pumpkin pie filling. Definitely a winner and I expect it to age very well.

This was so sharp in the bottle it repelled me from really settling on notes other than "sharp aquatics." On the skin - Sharp. The ozone is completely drowned out, on my skin, with florals and laudanum before it turns in to the sharpest, most floral soap ever. People who've liked other lightning-and-ozone scents should give this a try, skip it if you've had any trouble with aquatic notes or "soft" florals.

In the bottle - boozy hay and vetiver with a light citrus back On the skin - First up, some boozy, peppery vetiver. The bergamot comes forward as it dries down and the vetiver calms down, giving this a classic cologne feel without the usually accompanying migraine. The throw/sillage of this one is pretty intense and rooms smell like it a little while after I walk out. Definitely not for the faint of heart or small spaces. More like this, kinda, or at least related: Great Sword of War, Dracul (ha!,) Trevor Bruttenholm

In the bottle - leather and warm (but not sharp or sweet) cinnamon. In fact, the cinnamon is so not-sweet and spice-like that it almost smells like cardamom with the balsam. On Me - Warm leather (I agree, very much like the leather of Peter Quint) with a bit of dry balsam, and a bit of spice. The cinnamon becomes more apparent as it dries down but never reaches screeching or red-hots levels like many cinnamon blends do for me. It's not the same kind of leather-spicy that Spanked is - it's warmer than that. I'm not sure what's keeping this from being very dry but really isn't. The leather seems to stay pretty strong as it dries for me but the spice really warms up, as well. On my spouse - Vanilla chai masala. Whatever is keeping the scent from being dry on me is making it very sweet on my spouse. Almost all of the leather disappears at first and it's mostly sweet spicy calm cinnamon and balsam. He describes this as "vanilla chai tea incense - it's not like tea but more like someone was trying to make a scent-a-like incense." At full dry down the leather is back but not nearly as strong as it is on me. Overall, a nice warm spicy scent. More like this, kinda: Spanked, Peter Quint, Dee, Iago

Do you like Sonnet d'Automne but wish it was a little deeper? Do you like October but wish it was a little lighter? This is like the two met in the middle. In the bottle: Slightly sharp, green, definitely leafy but more like the kind of wet leaves that fall of a tree and stick to everything than dry, falling leaves if you know what I mean. On the skin: The first few minutes of this made me afraid it was going to go soapy. There seems to be a light vanilla-type musk in here somewhere, I think. As it dries, it brings out that musk campfire-and-mossy-woods smell that October has that I love so much. I think this one is only going to get better (and smokier) with age. As it is now, it seems like it will become part of my procession into early winter with Sonnet d'Automne, A World Where There Are Octobers, and October.

I had high hopes for Haute Macabre - I liked so many of the notes! - but it also was a pretty major fail on me, as well. Also, the leather scent to end all leather scents - DeSade? Smelled awful on me. I aged it for years and it never got better for me, I had to swap it away. You may have to keep poking

Here to second Rogue, Iago, Red Rider, Perversion (though sweet,) and Spanked. I'd like to add, for consideration, Dee and Captain Cully. If you're into hunting down LEs from previous years, Peter Quint.

Aureus, Love's Torments, Anne Bonny, Violens If he's okay with cinnamon, Plunder. If you want something that's deep and warm (heh) Fenris Wolf. Reading the notes of other things he wears, there's no sandalwood but you might give Great Sword of War a try.

If you like French Tobacco that's the note, to my nose and a few others in the review thread, that's in Antikythera Mechanism.

Oh, my. This is very sexy as far as I'm concerned. In the bottle: Very deep, earthy patchouli. But not sharp like the Sumatran Red. On Me: Wet it's very strong and very woodsy. As it dries, it picks up more woods and a little pepper. My spouse described this as a "peppered whiskey barrel." At full dry-down it's very earthy and woodsy patchouli. No sharpness at any point, which is usually where patchouli fails me. I would also highly recommend layering this with French Tobacco Single Note, if you have it - it's an amazing combination. On My Spouse: Wet it's very peppery and earthy. As it dries down it picks up a little more woods but it also picks up a sweetness. At full dry down it's like sweet woodsmokey peppery patchouli. My spouse described full dry down as "patchouli-scented heavily peppered mango chutney but in the most fantastic way." I'm glad I bought two bottles - if it's this good fresh, I can only imagine what it will be like months or years from now, as it should age about the same way the patchouli in Sin does.

In the heat, I like to wear "clean" scents - Neutral, King Mandarin, Gnome. Sounds like for folks who like florals, 'clean' florals work out pretty well, too. You won't need the additional help of booze-related scents, since you'll have plenty of that. For dancing, I like to wear something I find sexy, like Sin or Satyr, but others might find those too heavy in the heat. For actual travel, like being on the plane, I usually avoid wearing scents at all to keep from bothering other passengers who might have different allergies or migraine triggers than mine.

So, you're looking for a vanilla amber musk (since you don't pick up the orchid at all)? Have you tried O (Amber and honey with a touch of vanilla?)

In the bottle: ALMOND! with some leather and vanilla? On Me: Wet this smells like a marzipan coated leather coat - it's got that overwhelmingly sweet almond smell that marzipan carries. As it dries down more of the leather comes forward but unfortunately brings a bottle of Windex with it. I'm not sure but either the vanilla or leather is providing a chemical smell, which could lean it toward being a DeSade style leather (which is all chemical on me.) As it dries, I pick up more of that Captain Cully style leather but the sweet almond pushes the scent into cloying. Candied almonds in a leather coat, perhaps? ] On my spouse, this smells like insulin (used to live with a diabetic, will never forget that smell,) and leather. Overall, if you thought Captain Cully wasn't sweet enough or was too dry, this might be the scent for you.

Antikythera Mechanism, most obviously when aged.

You might want to post this over in this thread

On wet: Uh, evil Tootsie Rolls? No really, it smells like slightly dirty, slightly dark Tootsie Rolls. Spouse says: cherry Tootsie Roll pop. Initial Dry: Dirty Tootsie Rolls, but the chocolate is edging out of Tootsie Roll territory finally. Mid-Dry: HI I'M PATCHOULI, HOW ARE YOU? Full-Dry: Yep, very heavy on the patchouli, there's a hint of sweetness behind it but I mostly smell like a bus full of hippies that someone gave lollipops.

Blends with banana - which I've needed to wear gloves and a mask while decanting. But I'm pretty sensitive to real bananas, too. Florals trigger migraines.

This smells stunningly like a cake that's make by a local gluten-free bakery (Corina Bakery, in Tacoma, WA for the curious.) They call theirs the Aztec - it's a deep, rich chocolate with dried Anaheim peppers, rich chocolate frosting, and a heavy dose of vanilla and cinnamon. For me there is no morph here, it is what it is in the bottle and on. The chocolate is a rich, creamy bakery chocolate - not the dark, earthy chocolate nor a sweet milk chocolate. Prepare to desire chocolate for eating pretty immediately.

Well, here's the ten I ordered: French Tobacco Single Note All Five Box of Chocolates scents Sic Erit Olisbos 2013 The Sound of Insects Chintamani-Dhupa Zoomable photo here