doomsday_disco

13-year aged red patchouli, Damascus rose resin tar, blackcurrant syrup, Egyptian myrrh, and crimson musk seed.

Fest der Bogenschützen is all about the green apple and the crushed green grass on me. I am not able to detect any red currant whatsoever. The green apple is a true green apple that doesn't remind me of jolly ranchers or shampoo.

I deathmatched this against The Garden of the Hesperides. That one features a sweeter golden apple and the grass is more noticeable in this scent than the greenery was in that scent.

This was absolutely glorious the first time I tested it (on the back of my hand), but it went wonky on my during the second test when I deathmatched it. I'm not sure why. I'm going to have to give it a full-day slather and see how it goes. If I don't get any wonkiness from a full-day slather, then there will likely be a bottle in my future (even though I have way too many apple scents, I don't think I have a true green apple like this in my collection). This is my favorite of the Surely You Jest scents that I tried.

The wine is so sweet that it reminds me of red Kool Aid backed by some frankincense at first. It gets less fruit punch-y as the frankincense gains some strength and eventually overtakes the wine, but I am not smelling the marzipan in this (woe).

I don't think I need more of this in my life (I really wanted the marzipan from this), but I do feel like this could fit in with past Liliths that featured something church-y with something sweet.

This one didn't jive well with me. It is predominantly about the citrus notes and the mimosa, backed by the red lotus root. I'm not able to pick out the white peppercorn. But one of the citrus notes, perhaps the tangerine, combined with something else, perhaps the red lotus root, is making this smell somewhat medicinal to me, and the citrus is combining with the mimosa to make this smell like... somewhat medicinal citrus SweeTarts??? And I tried this twice, so it wasn't a fluke.

I prefer my citrus sans florals.

This is mostly about the lavender, champaca, and resins on me throughout wear, on a bed of moss, with a touch of lime. The champaca and resins are pretty smooth, and the oud doesn't isn't an indolic variety. The labdanum does have a flat cola-like quality to it and does end up being one of the dominant resins by the end of the day. I wish I had gotten the cacao from this, but alas.

I don't think I need more of this in my life, but I do think it is a more complex version of the lavender and labdanum scents that the Lab has been releasing as of late. If this sounds good to you, but you're worried about there being oud listed twice here (agarwood and Bengali oud), I think it would still be worth a try. I think for me to love this, there would have to be MOAR CACAO.

I wondered how this would compare to Narr from The Fool's Journey (I wonder if the tarot collection is going to resume?), as they share some similar notes. Well, despite them both containing fig, honey, and buttercream, they are quite different.

Cosmic Critters is very earthy on me, as it is mostly about the patch on my skin, backed by the fig. My skin chemistry just didn't bring out the sweet notes, and ran away with the earthiness. There was a brief phase where I smelled a bit of creamy sweetness, but it was quickly beaten back by the patch and fig. Wahh.

I really wanted those sweet notes and wish I had had Little Bird's experience!

I once had an aged imp of Lyonesse that was so glorious with its aged golden vanilla note that I had to immediately grab a bottle. But my bottle, even 11 years later, does not smell as wonderful as that aged imp did.

But The Storm reminds me of that aged imp of Lyonesse! It's mostly a golden vanilla and rain-touched moss on me, with the silk in the background and the moss becoming the dominant note after a while.

I didn't think I'd end up enjoying this as much as I do with moss listed as the first note. I am going to have to deathmatch it with Lyonesse, but I think Lyonesse is going to lose. I predict a bottle in my future.

ETA: Just wanted to add that I did bottle this one and deathmatched it with Lyonesse, and it wins, hands down.  

I grabbed a decant of this instead of a bottle, because I already have several apple hair glosses (Apple Marshmallow; Apple Pie; Green Apple, Bergamot, Vanilla Orchid, and Tiare; Red Apple, Blackened Honey, and Opoponax). So I was like, uuuuuuugh, do I really need another? But golden apples are my favorite, so I had to try it.

Well, my bitch ass should have just gotten a bottle. It is a true golden apple scent with a light honey. I don't get any bubblegum-y lotus from this, nor any buttery cream. And the scent is STRONG. Seriously, this is a hair gloss that I could smell just going about my day, without lifting my hair to my nose, and I was hit with a cloud of glorious golden apple when I washed it out of my hair two days later. And this pairs wonderful with The Garden of the Hesperides, another golden apple scent and the best apple scent that was released last year.

I'm sure I could make my decant last, but I think I need to grab a bottle before it goes away because it's just so good.

My bottle leaked in transit. (I ordered it through a decanter instead of through the Lab, but it still was in the Lab original packaging and the sprayer lid was off and that's where it was leaking from. The sticky stuff the Lab uses to cover the bottle didn't do anything to prevent the leaking, plus I find it to be a chore to get off bottles and it sometimes scuffs up labels, so I miss the colorful tape of yore. But I digress.) The reason I am mentioning this is that it arrived in triple digit heat, and I could tell that it was leaking through the package, which was wet in spots from it, and the smell was really strong. It ended up being so intense that I still felt engulfed by the scent after throwing out the packaging and wiping down the bottle of hair gloss and placing it in another room. I think some of it must have gotten on a blanket on the couch from the packaging, and plus a lot of it got on me after I tried to clean the bottle.

After this experience, I was sure I didn't need to test it because the scent wasn't going to be for me. Still, I decided to wait a few days and test it on the back of my hand (I didn't want to put this in my hair and then feel overwhelmed by the scent). Fortunately, the scent wasn't engulfing me, probably because it was no longer being amplified by the heat it absorbed in the mailbox. This is mostly about the pink candyfloss, backed by some marshmallow. The marshmallow gains some strength over time, but doesn't overtake the candyfloss on me. I was really hoping this would be like Pink Wig Spray, but the cotton candy note in this is not the same, even though they are both pink. This has more of a powdery candy dip or children's vitamin vibe to me than fluffy cotton candy.  

I wish I had gotten a decant instead of a bottle.

I agree that there is no bitter pith accompanying this mandarin note, but I am getting an incense-y quality from this that I sometimes get from some orange blends.  So on me it's mandarin backed with an incense-y quality and sweetened with sugar. I like this more than Peach and Sugared Orange Slices, but not as much as Pomelo, Mandarin, and Pink Grapefruit, where the mandarin features the strongest on me, but doesn't have an incense-y backdrop.

I'm going to retest this after it has had more time to settle to see if that incense-y aspect is a fluke, since nobody else is getting it. But at the moment, I could not see myself reaching for this duet over that trio.

Note: This is a review of a tester that I was frimped, but I was able to test it twice.

This features a dry white sandalwood that's the strongest note at first, before being overtaken by a very strong honey that made me think of Honeyed Pear Tart from last year's Black Friday imp offerings. I don't get any cream from this, just a very strong honey with some funk to it. It ends up being predominantly honey for most of the wear, but the sandalwood manages to creep back in and join the honey on the center stage by the end of the day.

This duet wasn't a win on me, but it was fun to get to try it.

This starts off with a very bold clove, with the pink pepper cozying up to it. I really enjoy it for the first few hours, but then it somehow ends up taking on a vegetal quality to my nose. I'm really not sure how.

While I love clove scents, this one inexplicably went wonky on me. I'll be sticking with my bottle of Sweet Clove SN.

On me, this is mostly a skin-musky vanilla, the same bourbon vanilla from the original Drag is for Everyone, with a light backdrop of teak. The teak in this is surprisingly tame on me. Everyone keeps saying Glowing Vulva is a your-skin-but-better scent, and it's not on me, as the teak screams at me in that one. This is more of a your-skin-but-better scent to my nose. The vanilla is not very sweet on me, and it is not a floofy, billow-y vanilla.

This is not something I need more of, but now I'm wondering how similar the new Bourbon Vanilla hair gloss will be to this.

Red Poppy Pod and Blue Lilac.

Patchouli and Wormwood.

English Ivy Leaves and Milky Hemlock Sap.

Blackberry and Lime Rind.

A paean to glorious green and glistening horrors: accords of glowering baneberry, belladonna sap, manzanilla de la muerte, and bloodied flytrap fangs.

Belladonna Berries and Sugared Black Tea.

Bourbon Vanilla.

Belgian Chocolate.

Pale lichen, sweet Oman frankincense, moss-covered bark, silver fir needle, golden myrrh, and green patchouli leaf.

So... I have tried the original, but not when it was new. A kind forumite sent me a decant from their bottle back in 2018, so the decant I received was of an oil that had already aged for five years, and of course, decants themselves age quicker than bottles do, so any comparisons I make to the original release aren't from when the original was fresh. Here's my review of the aged original release.

So the main notes I get from both versions are the patchouli, lavender, and opium, but the aged decant of the original I have is far stronger (I deathmatched them). That is not abnormal for an aged oil, though. The red, Sumatran patchouli in it is particularly bold in the aged version, so the lavender and opium aren't as prominent in the aged version. Although I still get a lot of patchouli from this one, it's much lighter than the patchouli from the aged decant, so I get more lavender and opium from the new release (with the opium being longer lasting), which is fine with me. I just wish it had the oomph of my decant, but maybe it will with age? The blood musk in here is not like the Lab's usual red musk note at all, so I would still give this a try if the other notes appeal.

Right now, I like this, but I don't love it, and I'm wondering if that will change with age, so I'm going to hang onto it and see how it develops. I thought this would for sure be my pick from the Our Lady of Pain re-release, but Hair Loosened and Soiled in Mid-Orgies is my favorite from that collection.

This was my favorite of this year's New Year's scents, but I keep retesting it and keep waffling on whether or not I need more than a decant.

This is mostly a berry-infused cream scent on me. The cream is mostly a true, light, homemade whipped cream, and the gooseberry note is unlike any other berry note I've come across from the Lab, both sweet and tart, like there are both green and red gooseberries here. There isn't a huge fried dough presence from the fattigman note: like Little Bird said, it just adds a light spice and sugary warmth to this scent. The crumbs reside in the background, never overtaking the gooseberries or cream on me. And the cream only gets a little buttery after it has been on the skin for several hours. I didn't notice anything particularly musky coming from this, and for that, I am glad.

The decant is definitely a keeper, and I will have to retest it one more time to how much of it I've used and if it will be enough before these scents come down.

I wouldn't have gotten to try this, but I ordered this on behalf of a friend, who let me try their bottle.  

This mostly smells like musk in the bottle, but goes on as leather, musk, and some dragon's blood smoke, backed by some amber and patchouli. It is not as loud as you would expect despite these powerhouse notes. I believe the fossilized amber in this is the same one from Syzygy and The Key of Solitude, but I think it is stronger in both of those blends than it is here. As far as the patch goes, I'm getting less in this than I did from The Key of Solitude. The black leather is a smooth, well-worn variety, the musk has some red musk qualities to it, and the smoke isn't acrid whatsoever and plays well on me despite dragon's blood being an iffy note. There's also a phase of the scent where it smells somewhat like ash on me before it morphs into a musk party by the end of the day.

While this isn't something I could see myself reaching for, it did play more nicely on me than I had anticipated, and it was fun to get to try it.