bheansidhe
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Everything posted by bheansidhe
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A Guardian Angel Serves a Small Breakfast
bheansidhe replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Limited Editions
AAAHHH, THIS IS SO GOOD, THIS IS SO GOOD it's .. gingersnaps? Peppery crispy gingersnaps, butter, a little waft of coffee steam, and something I can't name but makes me want to drag my waffles through it, and then my whole entire butt. Why the hell did I type that? What unhinged review is this? I'm snorting my arm like a truffle pig. What am I smelling? Oh, there's the musky component, and the cream, and the spices, and the amber, and now the gingersnaps are something much closer to the magical sweet buttery dough note in Lavender Lussekatter, sans lavender. Rosenkuchen apparently has rum, poppy seeds, almonds, and/or raisins, depending on the recipe, and now I'm getting a German bakery vibe, but primarily? It smells like angelic pastries for breakfast and MAGIC. -
From start to finish, this blend reads like "honey plus" - and as noted, this is a viscous forest honey, almost as funky as a chestnut honey; pungent, distinctly musky, but still definitely a *honey*. Sniffed, it's dark honey plus lemon blossom and neroli. On my skin, it's honey plus tree-sap resins and a touch of floral sweetness like honeysuckle blooming in the background. For a moment, confusingly, it's honey plus a very realistic salted black licorice. On drydown, it's honey plus a resinous musk, still viscous and sweetened, but not cloying. I never get a separate note of ylang ylang or amber. It's low, golden, and darkly warm; really an interesting play on honey variations.
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Sniffed: a dark purple Snake Oil variant. Applied: a medium-bright Snake Oil overlaid with a floral pollen that's almost bitter, like angelica root, but gradually softens and opens into both a lilac floral and a vegetal green vanilla musk. The lilac is realistic, but not shrill, bright, or soapy; it floats like a leaf on the Snake Oil river. This is overall a softer and slinkier blend than I was expecting, with the vanilla musk and some chewy patchouli notes carrying equal weight with the lilac.
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This one confuses me a lot (without offending me in the least). Sniffed, I get .. sexy ginger ale without the bite? A very green, vegetal vanilla note? Something powdery and light blue? What it IMPLIES is that you are floating across the sunny lawn at a garden party wearing a giant, GIANT flower-bedecked and tulle-veiled hat, something that treads the line between 40s starlet and 80s church lady, an ankle-length sundress (not a caftan), and comfortable -- yet kittenish -- strappy sandals. While sipping something refreshing, ginger-infused, and deceptively non-alcoholic. Enjoy. ETA: creamy, powdery, sweet ginger-ale musk at drydown.
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For a relatively short (low-throw) perfume, this blend announces itself with BIG shouty cassia and cinnamon notes when it hits the skin. Fortunately, they're muffled by the waxen lipstick accord. There's a touch of bright citrus at the edges, but as it wears, it fades into warm, spicy, slightly powdery, cassia-scented stage makeup. I don't specifically get myrrh or lotus, but I get a fringe of glamour. 100% wear this if you want to feel like Liz playing Cleopatra.
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Russet musk and earthy patchouli root, with a slight rustle of rose silk. Slightly sweet, slightly spicy, very much in line with the "shaggy" or "furry" musks of other animal-themed blends like The Bear Prince, but with a Valentine spin. As another reviewer noted, this doesn't read like the notes usually labeled as red musk by the Lab. It's not my usual type of perfume, but since I had a sample on hand and the reviews were so conflicting, I thought I'd weigh in. It's warm, furry, subdued, mildly spicy, and perfectly pleasant.
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This is mostly a gin-coded perfume on me with fresh laundry notes - like Swank crossed with Dirty. There's vanilla silk at the drydown.
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Your ENTIRE body is sinking slowly, softly into a vat of body lotion scented with coconut and cool white tropical florals. Your nose just breaks the surface. You're going to get out any second now. Any .... second ... now. (*glurg*) An hour later, I emerge to discover I'm wearing a creamy stock perfume. Stock, dianthus, the carnation-like flower with the clove scent - that's what I've got now; like Alice, but with tropical seduction in place of rose.
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I was nervous to skin-test this one, as hazelnut usually stomps on all adjacent notes, but this is primarily a foody pear/vanilla crusted in white sugar crystals. The osmanthus lends a "floral water in the dessert recipe" note, while the frankincense and hazelnut remain a warm, pear-soaked crust at the bottom of the dish. This rides the line between foody and floral, but I appreciate how light the "sweetened" aspect is. It stays soft and low. This would be a good inside-the-shirt perfume for an occasional intimate puff of sweet air as you move around. ETA: Oh ... no. Hazelnut had the last laugh after all. It's a gentle hazelnut soaked in frankincense syrup, but still a hazelnut finish.
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Sniffed, I get the grassy sweetness of green tea, sugared violets, and jasmine. On my skin this is predominately violet, but balanced by a cool mint that is not so much minty as it is a freshness, a cool breeze that keeps the floral notes sweet, not shrill. I'd say I'm getting more lotus and violet in the middle than jasmine, rounded out by cream. It's heavy on the "sweetened" from start to stop. The vibe is slipping into a whisper-light green satin robe spangled with pink flowers.
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Call this Elizabeth Arden Red. It smells like my childhood memories of my mom coming home from the department store smelling like a mélange of faded perfume samples and high-end makeup.
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I've never had it, so I'm still puzzled by what "ruby chocolate" is supposed to smell like (in perfume, and in life). What I get here are distinctly white-chocolate cocoa butter notes overlaid with pops of tart-sweet red fruit, a red musk, and a gentle balsam-and-moss fougere. I suppose the last note could be leather if I looked at it sideways, but it's more of a general moss perfume base note. There's a tiny drizzle of floral sugar-syrup after a while, but I wouldn't call it a floral perfume; it's more like a drip of floral-infused syrup topping the scent stack. The dominant notes are the ruby chocolate, berries, and musk. The drydown is unfortunately cloying on me, as with Millennial Pink. My usual chocolate chemistry fail.
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Horreur Chocotique: chocolate, but make it Jessica Rabbit.
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Leather first, chocolate second - and this is a black and crisp leather, a severe leather, a designer black trenchcoat equally fitting for a post-runway brunch or an S&M munch. The chocolate: also black and bitter; a confetti snowfall of Valrhona Guanaja Dark vigorously microplaned into the pockets of that leather coat -- FOR LATER, for a SNACK, for AMBIANCE, to flavor the pouch of TOBACCO you tucked in there for safekeeping and not for any, ANY, nefarious purposes whatsoever -- though you certainly SMELL nefarious, and dangerous, and delicious, and darkly resinous -- only from a close distance, mind -- and nothing like a dessert. ETA: while this has low throw, it has staying power! The next day I'm getting zero leather, just a gorgeous chocolatey amber with some dark notes underneath. I love love the second stage and am willing to put up with my least favorite iteration of leather to get down to it.
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For those of you wondering "What the hell...?", I am here to reassure you: yes, this perfume is wearable. On first application, it's a banana perfume. The banana part lasts for about fifteen minutes on my skin, and then becomes a softer, vanilla wafer-coded sweetness. But first, last, and always, this is a "silk" perfume. Have you ever smelled raw silk fabric? It's a little musty and dusty - but not in an unpleasant way! - more like in a "furry to my nose" way. This smells like the occlusive dustiness of silk fabric, plus the fig fruit (I'm not sure why this is a "fermented" fig - it doesn't smell alcoholic to me). The "mushroom dust" adds a slightly salty umami note, like miso paste. I'm just baffled at how much this smells like a bolt of raw silk noil, but in a pretty way. TL;dr weird, but wearable! The far drydown is "a slightly spicy, seductive skin musk."
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Sniffed: smells like blue cotton candy with interestingly powdery, white sandalwood-y notes as the core stem around which the glittering blue sugar-crystals whirl. On the skin: there's the raspberry, which are big translucently red-toned sugar crystals soaked in raspberry juice. I get some warm vanilla in the background, too. Fun, fruity, sweet, uncomplicated.
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Sniffed: a candied tart red fruit. On the skin: something like a cross between sugared strawberry and sharp cranberry with a sneeze of pink pepper, anchored by *some* kind of resin - I don't know that I would have called it out as patchouli if I weren't looking at the notes - it's more of a "coca cola resin," if that makes sense. Maybe I'm getting the hints of pepper and coriander that are in the Coke flavor blend. It's getting more resinous as it dries, but it's never reading like a patchouli to me; it's more like labdanum. Dried: an interestingly spicy red fruit.
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Heavy, sultry, commanding; distinctly kin to Follow Me Boy, while utterly disinterested in bewitching a man; that's just a casual side effect of this potion. It does stay low on the skin, so you have to be within striking range, but it covers the skin like an occlusive velvet cloak.
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Goose Moon: White Sandalwood and Black Poppy
bheansidhe replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
This is a sexy assassin touching the stopper of a poisoned vial to each pulse point, then walking through a mist of light floral perfume to veil its bitterness. Light enough for a child to wear, but somehow menacing as well - one of those "the whole is more than the sum of its parts" blends that Beth does so well. -
This is an odd one to review, to be sure! I don't get the spicy-floral smell of stock that I associate with carnation, and I'm never quite sure what peonies smell like (they don't grow in my climate). What I do get is a sharp-sweet pomegranate candy and what smells a lot like lotus root; a kind of pink bubblegummy coolness. If I huff and ask myself "Is this anything like Alice?" my nose replies that yes, something about this is like Alice, so presumably carnations are making themselves known. It never goes indolic, but I'd say it reads more like a sweet hard candy with floral sillage. The pomegranate part is distinct, so if that's a favorite note, this is worth trying.
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This one is incredibly realistic, sweet, fragrant, and nutty. This is not a Yankee Candle store; this is your grandparents' oven full of holiday baking. Huge throw and lingering warmth on my kitchen curtains.
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Fresh, this smells SO very purple - like a pure, bright, saturated child's purple in smell form. The purpleness itself is comprised of both a sweet but sharply herbal lavender and juicy cactus fruit (which does read like sweet melon flesh), plus a touch of Beth's snow note to stitch them together. The wear stays true to a "dark lavender" impression, like a dash of lavender bitters in your Midori.
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I was moved to dig this one out and review it to compare it with the huge Lavender Kitchen releases we've had the past two years. Despite the buttercream in the title, it's not a blend I would peg as foody; it's ALL a deeply steeped herbal lavender syrup cradled in a base that hints at the world's creamiest, most expensive triple-milled milk soap. As the blend dries down, the lavender gets softer and the base gets a touch butter-y-er, but I would still smell this blind and think "That's a FANTASTIC lavender-infused milk soap" and not "that's a lavender dessert." I don't get the marshmallow-vanilla of TKO or TKSnow. This is straight-up high-end apothecary shop, and it is GLORIOUS for lavender lovers. I love it as a sleep blend.
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So gentle and pretty that it might be a surprise bottle buy, making it the only hazelnut-forward blend to work on my skin. While distinctly warm and nutty, the hazelnut blends so well with the muted espresso that I can barely tell them apart. There's also a lot of the toasted milk note I remember from Snake Milk and a deeply sweetened, TKO-ish lavender syrup.
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I'm always impressed by Beth's ability to release many MANY sweet-coffee blends in a short span of time that all smell and wear differently from one another! Please Scream is an initial dollop of coffee ice cream deeply steeped in Turkish espresso - this is COFFEE coffee, and the diner might be a dive, but it's a CLASSIC, lovingly restored VINTAGE dive. The impression of Turkish-ness might be a result of the cinnamon and cardamom dusting the funnel cake; the cinnamon-and-cream also gives it a cozy horchata vibe. The ice cream digests quickly, and I'm left with treacle-y Turkish espresso dregs and spiced, sugar-dusted funnel cake much more reminiscent of El Dia de los Reyes (minus that one's chocolatl/cocoa). The weardown on me is similar to Pumpkin Spice Latte, but with stronger coffee notes and a different warm-baking-spice mixture.