doomsday_disco

I realized that I would not be able to take on hosting a swap without overextending myself (I could co-host, though!), but I LOVE the idea of a New Year's swap, to say goodbye to the chaos that has been 2025 and to try to focus on some good things to ring in 2026.

I've worn this three times now. I tested it, didn't feel like I paid enough attention to it, slathered it, and felt like the lotion I wore that day overpowered it, and then tested it again, determined to finally give it the attention it deserves and write a review.

Ube Pumpkin Cheesecake is a creamy cheesecake scent with a coconut-like sweetness from the ube note and some mild pumpkin spice, like there's just a drop of Pumpkin Spice Everything in this scent. It gets more creamy and vanilla-like over time on me, but sadly, I don't really get the graham cracker crust on my skin. It still smells really good, though -- my only complaint is that it has low throw on me, and I have to hold my arm up to my nose in order to smell it. But of the ube offerings I've tried thus far from the Lab (Pumpkin Spice Halo Halo, Ube Suf, and this), this is the one I've enjoyed the most, and I'm really glad that the pumpkin didn't overpower the ube.

There are a lot of wax makers who add zucchini bread fragrance oils to their various bakery-scented waxes, and this blows those scents out of the water. The zucchini bread is more prominent than the pumpkin on me, sufficiently zucchini-y and more bread-y than an actual loaf of zucchini bread, but the pumpkin is there, adding a bit of sweetness, warmth, and some non-overwhelming spice.

I don't love it as much as last year's Pumpkin Maple Nut Bread Atmo, and I suspect I'd like Halloween Hagelslag more than this once I get my decant (based off of my own scent preferences), but if you're a fan of zucchini bread and want to smell like it, you should give this one a try.

This may be like... a pumpkin 'single note' featuring the slightly vegetal, yet sweet, and not overly spiced pumpkin note found in scents like Moroccan Pumpkin Patch (NOT Moroccan Pumpkin), Dorian in the Pumpkin Patch, and Mouse's Long and Sad Pumpkin. I'm not really getting the booze from it, nor the vanilla.

It's not a scent I could really see myself reaching for on its own, but I do want to try layering it with Morocco to see if I can get something similar to 2013's Moroccan Pumpkin Patch.

If you're looking for a pumpkin scent that isn't heavily spiced, I recommend giving this one a try.

In the bottle and freshly applied to my skin, I swear this smells just like a bowl of Cap'n Crunch Berries Cereal? 👀 This is not a bad thing.

I wonder if it is the malted aspect of the milk with the berry notes giving me that Cap'n Crunch vibe?

Then the cherry pops up, and it's glorious, but fleeting, leaving behind mostly a strawberry milk scent with like... a spoonful of Cap'n Crunch instead of a bowl of it.

After a few hours of wear, the scent is pretty faint, but I think I smell some papaya behind the strawberry milk, because I briefly smelled something that reminded me of the Papaya, Passionfruit and Candyfloss b-side.

I'll be keeping my decant (in the original bottle -- woot!), and I'll spend more time with it to see if I need more of it. I really enjoy the unexpected Cap'n Crunch... I just wish this lasted longer. But maybe once I wear this for my scent of the day and slather it all over, it will have much better staying power. 

I should also mention that Fairy Lobster Foam was a funky dairy disaster on me, but this one, fortunately, is not!

Green Lovebat starts off with the green apple and peppermint in full force. After a while, the green apple loses its sugared aspect and becomes more tart, and the green currants emerge, making the scent even more tart. The peppermint is quick to calm down, and the milk emerges; it's definitely a dairy milk note, but it isn't super buttery (and it is a very accurate milk note). By the end of the day, this is a milky green apple and currant scent with just a hint of coolness left behind from the mint.

Green Lovebird is my preferred Lovebird, but oddly enough, Pink Lovebat is actually my preferred Lovebat! If you're looking for a milky green apple, though, this one is for you!

Sidewalk Apples starts off with a blast of tart (but not green!) apple and a whoosh of dead leaves on some pavement. I wouldn't let the fermented aspect of the scent scare you away, as I believe that is just highlighting the intense apple at first -- there's no whiff of decay! At one point, I couldn't help but wondering if there were some motor oil or something akin to the Lab's ink note on the pavement, as it veered into a more industrial phase, before settling into what I would describe as Dead Leaves and Cement Atmo plus apple.

Dead leaves and I don't really get along, so this isn't a bottle for me, but if you and dead leaves get along and you're looking for a more atmospheric apple-y scent, give this one a try!

The red apple is the star of the show on me throughout wear. I say sweet because there's no tartness, not because of the caramel or toffee -- because neither of those notes are distinct on me (there's a candied aspect, but I'm not getting any buttery caramel or toffee), and the same goes for the cinnamon and almond, shockingly. I do get the popcorn by the end of the day, where it manages to cozy up to the apple note, but by that point, the scent is pretty faint.

This comparison will probably help maybe only a handful of people, but it reminds me of the jar of scoopable County Fair wax I have from Zeep Bath (which closed this year). That one also reads mostly a sweet red apple to me, although it is said to contain funnel cakes, handmade caramel apples, and kettle corn.

I'd recommend this to someone who wants a pretty straightforward, non-spiced, sweet red apple scent.

I've tested this three times on myself, and once on my partner.

The first time I tested this was the best time I tested this. Here's the review I shared with another member of the forum: "Bright red cherry that's more like the cherry on the outside of a tootsie pop, similar to the cherry in Lilith Poundcake, but amped up, with some tartness from the red currant, a little bit of industrialness from the ink, and some creamy vanilla. The ink is really subtle in this, though!"

However, the next two times I tested this, the cherry was quickly overtaken by the currant note. So bright cherry, quickly overtaken by the tart currant, and that just lasts and lasts with only a smudge of ink and hardly any vanilla cream anymore. This is also how it smelled on my partner, who said, "I'm not getting a lot of cherry from this" after I slathered it on them. But maybe we're just both amping the currant? 

It's still good, but I'm a little sad that it has gotten less cherry and vanilla forward as it has had some time to settle. I'll be hanging onto my bottle to see how this ages, but I really wish the cherry would stick around.

The moment when the vivid pigments of autumn recede and the forest exhales into browns and golds. It’s the taste of bark, the scent of soil, the quiet dignity of endings. The tannins remain when all else drains away, leaving a leathery resilience; the echo of structure, the memory of what once was green. It is autumn’s afterimage: subdued, steadfast, and softly beautiful in its restraint. Brown jelly with yellow and green micro shimmer.

The art of surrender, the moment when green life releases its hold and transforms into fire. It’s the graceful unraveling of chlorophyll, revealing the hidden pigments that have waited all year beneath the surface. Each leaf becomes a brief flare of gold, crimson, or bronze — a final, luminous exultation before the fall. Antiqued brass red jelly with a golden-yellow and green shift.

Sweet and strange, like a love letter scribbled at midnight. Soft pink jelly with an iridescent shift, semi-sheer.

The fading of color under relentless sunlight, obliterating pigments until the leaf is nearly luminous, pale, and ethereal. It’s the quiet surrender of golds and reds to light itself, a whisper of brilliance that lingers in ghostly reflection. Like frost catching the last sunbeam, photobleaching turns vibrance into serenity, leaving the leaf luminous in its delicate, waning glow. Light consuming what it once created: a translucent pearl white with a glowing blue shift that can be painted on its own or used as a topper.

Mellow, honeyed light that lingers after chlorophyll’s retreat. It paints the leaves in shades of corn silk and marigold, a gentle radiance that doesn’t blaze but glows from within. Lutein is the warmth that softens the edges of decay, the quiet joy that remains when all else fades. Sparkling sunny yellow.

The dimming of autumn’s lantern: sunlight softening as it filters through thinning canopies, scattering into bronze and rust. The leaves catch what light remains, turning it to fire before letting it fade, the blaze surrendering to shadow. Shimmering rust with the shifting shades of dropping leaves.

Witchlight in a bottle: crisp orchard green charged with supernatural glow. Spooky apple green with brilliantly eerie orange shimmer.

The crunch of leaves beneath your feet: an autumnal jelly packed with glittering, falling flecks. The forest floor caught in mid-rustle.

A sudden, passionate flare before the frost. It floods the veins of the dying leaf with crimson and wine, a defiant burst of color born from stress and sunlight. Where carotene glows warm and steady, cyanidin burns — fierce, fleeting, and emotional. It is the leaf’s last heartbeat made visible, a brief rebellion against the coming cold. Umber oxblood duochrome.

The green blood of life itself, coursing through every vein with the vibrant glee of sunlight turned to sugar. As it breaks down, the forest exhales its last green sigh, and the world begins to dream in gold. The forest’s heartbeat, pulsing beneath decay — a vivid, vegetal gleam: deep olive jelly with orange and green spark.

A semi-translucent orange jelly shimmer, gleaming with hope. Sunlight stored in secret through the long green months. When the chlorophyll fades, carotene rises like memory, painting the trees in gold and amber. It’s the whisper of summer lingering in every flame-colored edge, the warmth that endures even as the world cools. A quiet glow that says: even in decay, there is light.

I've tested this a few times, and I get a salty, mineralic lemonade from this, accompanied by some sweet almond and something silvery that's not a metal note (at one point, I thought I had this pinpointed, but I've since forgotten as I'm typing this review, so I guess I'll have to test it again to try to identify whatever that silvery note is).

Of the three scents released in the second batch of Gorey scents, I enjoyed this one the most. It's not in the same league as La Dame Aux Pamplemousses, though! I'll be keeping my decant, and I'll have to see how much I reach for it to see if I need a bottle.

Pumpkin Root Beer Float really does smell like a creamy root beer float -- emphasis on the root beer float, but the pumpkin is also present, adding a bit more warmth and some mild pumpkin spice to this creamy root beer scent. This is a more accurate root beer float scent than Astrid's Root Beer Float, which smelled more like root beer barrel candies on my skin than the actual thing. I've worn this three times; it has decent throw and longevity on me, and the ice cream note makes the scent really nice and creamy by the end of the day.

I have a lot of root beer/sassafras scents, but I may end up needing a back-up bottle of this one. I enjoy it way more than Pumpkin Tombstone, and I can see it getting a lot of wear during late summer/early fall while waiting for Halloween. And now I've got to wear this as a scent of the day and make a pumpkin root beer float just to see how one would actually taste!

Violets and I generally do not get along, but I gave this one a chance due to all of the other notes, and because the violet and vanilla chiffon duet from last year ended up being a win on me.

I get more violet than lavender from this, although the violet here is much more gentle than most violet is on my skin. I've tested this three times, and all three times, the violet was the star of the show on me. However, the first time I tried this, it was more like if you took Lush's Twilight and made it with more violet than lavender (although that's making this sound way more lavender-forward than this scent really is), with a soft myrrh and musk in place of any tonka. But the second and third time I tried this, I was like, "Violet and honeydew?" And now that I've thought that, it's what I smell whenever I sniff this scent. I believe it's the spun sugar note that is giving off that honeydew quality, because I've experienced that in some of Astrid's scents containing a spun sugar note. It does help lend a sort of ethereal vibe to this scent, but I enjoyed this the most the first time I tested it, when the other notes got to play a bigger role.

I think this is very pretty and will have to spend more time with my decant to see if I need more of it. That said, I'm very happy that I decided to give this a chance despite my tendency to avoid scents with violet notes!

I grabbed a decant of this because I've made an effort to try all of the Gorey scents thus far, and the pine and candle smoke notes appealed to me.

La Sylphe de Forêt Noire isn't strong on the pine, though. I actually get a lot of lily, satin, and myrrh from this, with some pine and moss lingering in the background during the first few hours of wear. I think the satin note may be reminding me of the something in Black Silk, but I no longer have that blend and haven't smelled it in ages, so I can't test it and know for sure. The lily in this is a sweet variety -- I believe it's the same lily note that was used in Je Suis Toujours la Grande Isis, which also featured a myrrh note. When the pine note fades away, the candle smoke makes itself more known, and the combination of the fabric note, the lily, and the sweet beeswax candle smoke is somehow reminding me of House of Mirrors Atmo from Denver Comic Con in 2015 -- like, not an exact match, but I feel like it could be a cousin to that scent. Although it's not the pine-centric blend I was hoping for, I would have enjoyed this scent more if it were like its end result from the beginning -- with more of that candle smoke to help tame that lily and fabric. As it is, this isn't something I need more of, but if you're a fan of lily, you should definitely give this a whirl.

Like the atmo, this starts off with a blast of moss-tinged mud, but the mossy mud lasts longer on the skin than it does in atmo form. When the mossy mud does calm down, the musky Snake Oil is the strongest aspect of the scent on me -- again, like the atmo -- but I, too, get more Dorian on me than I do from the atmo, especially once this has been on the skin for several hours, and it ends up being a main player. It's the musk and vanilla of both Snake Oil and Dorian that I get the most from both of those scents, and I'm pleased to report that this has some great staying power, still going strong on me the next morning after I tested it one evening.

Hiss and Hearse is a top tier Snake Oil and Dorian hybrid scent. It may possibly be the best hybrid of the two since No DNA Test Required from the 2018 Lilith collection. If you're a fan of Snake Oil and Dorian, you will enjoy this, unless you dislike dirt. I enjoy all of the components of this scent, so I'm very happy to have a bottle in my collection -- and I may have to scoop up another before it goes away.