doomsday_disco

I decided to grab a decant of this because it shares some notes with Destructive Vagina of the Fox Spirit (vanilla orchid, black amber, coffee bean, labdanum, champaca, and oudh), of which there's probably less than a milliliter left in my bottle. I think that scent being discovered in my early BPAL days really helped cement it as one of my most beloved Shungas, but what I really appreciate about it is that a lot of the notes in it are not really in my wheelhouse at all, but they somehow all come together to create this really pretty scent that I imagine is like... the best indie coffee shop/bookstore.

So I deathmatched the two.

Record of Women’s Treasures of the Way of Elegance Day and Night does indeed share some similarities with Destructive Vagina, but oddly enough, Destructive Vagina is less destructive.  While that scent has a bit of an airy quality to it thanks to the vanilla orchid, Record of Women's Treasures doesn't contain any notes that lift the scent. This is mostly resins, incense, patchouli, and spices on me, with the black pepper being one of the most prominent spices (it made me sneeze at one point). The patchouli, champaca, and spices are very noticeable, especially during the first few hours of wear, and the coffee bean and resins lurk in the background during this time. Once those notes calm down, it settles into a soft resin scent that does smell like a cousin to Destructive Vagina of the Fox Spirit -- I'm guessing because of the labdanum (which is not cola-like in either blend). But Destructive Vagina ends up being the stronger scent by the end of the day.

I still prefer Destructive Vagina between the two, but I do enjoy this, and I plan on giving it a full-day slather to see if I need more of it. It's definitely a possibility, since it does share some similarities with that scent (and I doubt I'd be able to find more of that one).

This starts off with a powerhouse of a lily note that lasts for a few hours and hardly lets anything else through, but then it morphs into a dragon's blood-centric scent that lasts for many hours and hardly let's anything else through  , and the dragon's blood in this is the incense-y one and not the spicy floral one (huzzah)!. It ends up settling into mostly dragon's blood on a bed of Snake Oil's musk by the end of the night AND it's so strong that that is also what I smelled on my skin upon waking the next morning.

So yeah, it's not very Snake Oil-y right now, but perhaps that will change as it has more time to settle and age. It does have plenty of throw and lasting power, though! I am going to hang onto my decant and test this before the Lupers go down to see if the Snake Oil in it is more prominent.

This doesn't smell like crème brûlée to me, but I'm not mad, because it still smells GLORIOUS.

Freshly applied, it reminds me of if you took Vanilla Mandarin and replaced the mandarin with passionfruit and threw in some sugar. Then it morphs. the passionfruit disappears, and for some inexplicable reason, it reminds me of whatever is in the House of Mirrors Atmosphere Spray from Denver Comic Con 2015 that makes it so alluring (wuuuuuuuuuut). And then it morphs again and becomes the most wonderful toasted sugar scent backed by a bit of vanilla. I could not stop huffing my arm.

I'm most definitely upgrading my decant to a bottle (or maybe two).

This starts off strongest on the crushed grass, and I swear it's the same one from Emerald Lace, as the wet phase of the scent strongly reminds me of that one. Eventually, it ends up morphing, and the oolong tea becomes the dominant note. It's the one found in Ceaselessly By My Side the Demon Stirs, which has a tannic quality to it and something that reads like a touch of spice. I get touches of the white musk and moonflower with the tea note, but the green mandarin isn't distinct on me -- I'm not getting anything particularly citrus-y or fruity from this.

I preferred the wet phase of the scent when it was very green instead of tea-centric, so I don't need a bottle.

This reads as a candy-like blackberry scent to me, like a fruity taffy. Imagine there were a blackberry-flavored Mamba or Starburst. It would smell like that. It's not a fresh blackberry, nor is it the wonderful baked blackberry of Four and Twenty Blackbirds. I don't get any coconut from this on my skin, but I'm fine with that.

I like the scent and will keep my little sample pot and use it up, but I don't think I need a full bottle of this one since I don't really have a lot of scents that would go with this.

This one is strong on the honey. I only tried two scents from this year's Honey Pot, but I believe that this scent and Honey Milk Tea Boba contain the same honey note, which is thick, goopy, golden, and somewhat floral to my nose. This is backed by the tonka and vanilla, which combine with the honey to smell somewhat baby powder-y on me (woe). Eventually, I do get a nice vanilla in the background, but it takes several hours to get there, it's still buried beneath the honey, and the scent stays close to the skin by that point.

I am glad I restrained myself from ordering more Honey Pot decants this year, as I thought this would be a winner based on the notes!

This one is predominantly a honey scent on me. I do smell some tea in the background, which is most noticeable early on -- but the tea note is more like an iced tea note to me (because it reminds me of a summer tea wax melt I have). There's nothing creamy or milky about this to my nose, and sadly, I do not get any boba, which was the main draw of the scent for me.

I hope other folks have better luck with this one.

I grabbed a decant of this duet because of the lime, but it is the currant that is the main player on my skin. So I'm getting tart currant and a squeeze of fresh lime that is not candy-like at all. It's reminding me of the lime in Griotte, Lime, and White Musk, actually. 

I realized after trying this that pretty much every scent I have with currant as a main feature also contains some sort of sweet note. So this tart currant scent isn't really my thing, but I look forward to layering it with its moon to see how they play together.

The wild strawberries are the star of this duet. I think this features the same wild strawberry note as last year's Strawberry Moon: Wild Strawberries and Amber Hair Gloss (okay, it wasn't released last year, but two years ago -- what is time, wtf). The strawberry note is super ripe and sweet, but it's still a realistic strawberry that doesn't smell like strawberry candy. The inky musk plays a background role, and I was worried the fruit plus musk would be off-putting to me in the way that red musk is, but nope! I think it's just there to support the strawberry. I'm not sure exactly what type of musk this scent contains, but I usually don't do well with the darker musks, so if it is one of those, it is very well-behaved.

I need to spend more time with this one and layer it with its moon to see if I need more of it, but I enjoy it enough to keep my decant to pair with the aforementioned hair gloss.

This is one of my favorite hearses, if not my favorite of them all? (Don't make me choose.) I already had the atmo that was originally released and loved that (it's my most-used hearse atmo), but I wasn't sure how it would play on my skin as a perfume with notes like petitgrain and bay rum (which made me wary). Still, I knew I was blind bottling this anyway as the warmer months approached, and fortunately, the perfume version did not disappoint!

This behaves very similar to the atmo on my skin (huzzah)! The lime is the strongest note throughout wear on me, and it's sweeter than an actual lime rind is, but that's not a bad thing in my book. I think the citron lurks right behind it, and the white musk and bay rum help to ground the citrus notes so that they stick around. There's a hint of black pepper that's slightly more noticeable than it is in the atmo, and it combines with the bay rum to give this a bit more sophistication than a straight-up citrus scent. As for the petitgrain, it usually is bitter and neroli-like on my skin, but fortunately, I'm not getting anything like that from this, and for that, I am glad.

I definitely need at least one back-up bottle of this before it goes away next month... maybe two. This is definitely one for lime fans.  

The tart red currant stands out the most to my nose. It's backed by the strawberry (I'm not getting much of the cream part of the strawberry cream) and the pumpkin candyfloss, which is not overtly pumpkin-y -- it just adds a touch of spice that makes this have a baked good quality to it behind the fruity notes, even though the pumpkin is supposed to be in candyfloss form. It's kind of like if you took Red from the Fraggle Rock line with its red currant, made it more pink, and then added some warm spice for good measure. It somehow makes me think of fruit punch with a bit of pumpkin cake (sans frosting) nearby.

I do think this is nice, but I don't think it's a lotion I need a full size of... I'll happily use up my little sample pot, though!

I'm not able to pick this apart note-wise in the way that I usually do, but like its atmospheric spray counterpart, this is very pink! It smells like a really fruity and fizzy drink. There are moments when I can pick out the fruit notes -- like, oh, there's some grapefruit! Ah, there's the guava! Oh, now I get some strawberry and blackberry! But the note that is most discernible on my skin, sticking around throughout wear instead of popping in and out, is the champagne, which I feel like is the most accurate champagne note I've come across, as I can smell the champagne itself and not just its fizz.

I bought the atmo last year, and now I'm happy to have the perfume oil in my collection!

The French lavender is the star of the show throughout wear, backed by what I think must be the cherimoya. I've never had it or smelled it before, but it is bright, fruity, and somehow combining with the lavender note to make me think of A Conscious Slumber, even though the only note these two scents share is lavender.   (I'm not mad -- I should have grabbed a back-up bottle of A Conscious Slumber while it was available, as it is one my most effective sleep scents.) The coconut and ube aren't main players on me, but I think the coconut cozies up to the lavender after it has been on the skin for a while like it does in Daybreak, and the ube may be doing the same (since it often ends up being somewhat coconut-adjacent on me after a while).

I'm going to need at least one bottle of this to wear as a sleep scent, maybe more.

The sweet ube candyfloss is the dominant note throughout wear on me (and it is truly sweet like candyfloss as opposed to being the usual starchy, coconut-adjacent ube note), backed by the red bean paste wrapped with rice paper. I love Beth's red bean paste so much, and although I don't dislike the ube candyfloss, I wish the red bean paste were the strongest part of the scent! It is present throughout wear, but it is at its strongest when the scent is freshly applied.

I need to spend more time with this one to see if I need more than my decant -- but the decant is definitely a keeper!

Now I'm daydreaming about Beth using this red bean paste note to make a dorayaki scent...  

ETA: I did a full-day slather on Saturday and got more of the red bean and rice paper when slathering. I'm debating a bottle.

This one starts off being mostly about the tea (more standard green tea than jasmine green tea at first) and lemon, with a bit of a camphorous quality from the hinoki cypress. Over time, the jasmine part of the jasmine tea emerges -- but it doesn't really smell like actual jasmine tea, just like a floral note hovering over the tea note -- as well as the resins, making this a floral tea scent accompanied by resins (I get more sandalwood than frankincense). They don't share the same tea or floral notes, but this is bringing to mind At the Tea Drinking from the 2023 Shunga collection, with resins instead of orange.

I liked this one best during the wet phase of the scent, before the resins became more noticeable. I wish that I had gotten more hinoki from this, but I still like this enough to hang onto my decant. I'm going to give this a full-day slather to see if I need more of it -- and maybe I'll get more hinoki that way -- as I do think this is pretty. I look forward to pairing it with Informal Tea Hair Gloss.

Ehon Takara Gura is mostly about the chrysanthemum on me, backed by the vanilla sandalwood. I wouldn't really describe this as a lemon scent, but the lemon is there to lift the scent a little. As the scent sits on the skin, the vanilla in the vanilla sandalwood really blooms (there's more vanilla than sandalwood on me, and the sandalwood isn't super dry). Combined with the chrystanthemum, it makes for a really pretty scent.

I'll need to give this one a full-day slather to see if I need a bottle, but I'm definitely keeping my decant! If you're on the hunt for chrysanthemum, you should give this one a try!

I purchased this bottle back in 2015, but I didn't review it due to life events, and now, here I am, 11 years later, reviewing the scent.

Aristocratic Couple is a delightful apricot scent. I applied my Bourbon Vanilla Hair Gloss yesterday, before I tested this, and it really helped me to isolate that note in this scent: it's a sheer vanilla that has a bit of brightness to it, and isn't floofy or foody whatsoever. I think that note has gained strength as it has aged over the years, but of course, the apricot is the star of the show here. The cardamom, on the other hand -- well, there's really only a light dusting of it. I didn't test them side by side (despite owning both scents), but I agree with another reviewer's comment about this being a cousin to March Hare. March Hare has its sprinkling of clove, and this has its dusting of cardamom, but the both lightly-spiced apricot scents.

I am glad I ordered a bottle of this back in the day. I really should wear it more often.

If you love ginger, this scent is for you, for it has it in spades! The ginger root is the strongest note throughout wear, and it is somewhat effervescent, reminding me of ginger beer. The lemon is next in prominence, and I get touches of the other notes, but they don't hold a candle to those two.

This smells like the sort of tea you would drink when feeling ill. I don't think I need a full bottle of this one, but I'm definitely going to hang onto my decant for those times when I'm not feeling too well and drinking lots of lemon and ginger tea.

On me, this goes on with what I believe is the white ginger, which is reading as a sweet floral on me, followed by a rush of brandy and the apricot mash. It is very sweet and boozy at first, but then the brandy wins out, and the sandalwood joins in, so that it is mostly a sandalwood-infused booze scent on me. The vanilla wasn't noticeable on my skin, but maybe it just needs some age.

In any case, of the two apricot Shungas in this update, I prefer Apricot Vulva, since it doesn't contain any booze.

I went the decant route on this one in case it would be too similar to Aristocratic Couple.

I gave this a full-day slather during the day yesterday and then deathmatched this with Aristocratic Couple (while also testing Workman Displaying further down my arm...). During the daytime slather, this was predominantly bright apricot and bergamot -- the bergamot really brightens the scent. I don't get any of the bourbon vanilla from this, or the cream musk, but maybe they will emerge with age. Unfortunately, I do get a waxy quality from the scent after it has been on my skin for a few hours, especially in the crooks of my elbows -- it's almost more like a dried apricot, even though it started off like a fresh one.

Compared to Aristocratic Couple, this is much brighter, and while the apricot and the sheer bourbon vanilla are really noticeable in Aristocratic Couple, I am not able to detect the bourbon vanilla in Apricot Vulva. Since the bottle of Aristocratic Couple is 11 years old at this point, it's possible that Apricot Vulva's bourbon vanilla will also be more noticeable as the scent ages. But fresh, Apricot Vulva does not smell as good to me as Aristocratic Couple, which also has the bonus of being infused with a tiny bit of cardamom that makes it even more appealing.

On the other hand, Workman Displaying His Sexual Prowess and Gigantic Size of His Member in a Variety of Situations is quite different to Apricot Vulva. It does not feature the same apricot note, is very boozy from the brandy on my skin, and it has the woodiness of the sandalwood. Of the two, I prefer Apricot Vulva.

I don't feel the need to upgrade my decant to a bottle since I prefer Aristocratic Couple and March Hare, but I'll be hanging on to my decant.

I loved this as soon as I smelled it, and as it bloomed on my skin, I knew that I would need more than one bottle in my life.  

The Indolence of Resting Men predominantly smells like sugar cane and cucumber on me, with a squeeze of lemon swirled with some black tea. It smells like the most wonderful, sugared cucumber and lemon-infused iced tea, and I know I'm going to love to slather this on every summer. I'm not getting any of the cream from this, but that's fine with me.

I went the decant route on this because I wasn't sure how the cucumber would go with the other notes, but it turns out, they complement each other perfectly! I will definitely be needing at least 2-3 bottles of this before it goes away!

I bought this bottle thinking it would be a sure win, since I've come to love the Lab's blueberry notes and regret passing on Blueberry, Cream, and Cardamom.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how I feel about this one, even though I've tested it twice, and I think that's because it's not primarily a blueberry scent on me. This is mostly about the cardamom and whatever comprises the chilled component of this scent (which is not mint!) on my skin. I do smell the cream beneath the cardamom and the cool note, and a little blueberry beneath that, but it doesn't smell like a gourmand scent on me.

I'll set this aside for a month and see how I feel about it then, but at the moment, I wish I got way more blueberry from this!

When I first received this, and when I first applied it a week later, I wondered if I had received Colors of Spring in disguise, because this was much more dewy and fresh than I had expected.

But no, this is the right scent. The plum blossoms are the star of the scent throughout wear on me, with the cherry blossoms settling behind them and being most noticeable during the wet phase of the scent, while the pink lotus is rather understated, but has a nice airy quality to it that's noticeable after several hours of wear. There's no bubblegum-y aspect to the lotus at all, if that concerns you. The plum blossoms are fortunately not doused in any sort of plum note, and they're the source of the fresh, dewy scent I'm getting from this. It takes about four hours before the sugar pops up on me, and I really love the sugar paired with these floral notes. As for the cream, I can smell it in the crook of my elbow by the end of the day, but it's really tame and not buttery or funky whatsoever (like some cream notes can be). That said, it's mostly about the sugared florals (with the plum blossom remaining as the star of the show) after a full day of wear.

I was hoping this would be like Reflected Vulva, but with plum blossoms and lotus instead of sweet pea. It's not a replacement for it, but this is really pretty in its own right, and I'm glad to have a bottle.  

An oil of purification, renewal, and the banishment of stagnation. Use this oil to cleanse your home and the spirit within it simultaneously. Scrub away the accumulated weight of winter: old griefs, old dust, old patterns that no longer serve. Invite the new light in.

Contains: white pine, hyssop, lemon verbena, juniper berry, sweet grass, camphor, angelica root, rosemary, white sage, and yellow bergamot.

Ulmus rubra’s mucilaginous inner bark produces a thick, protective gel that coats and soothes the throat in herbal medicine, and in rootwork this same quality becomes an act of slippery sorcery: thanks to the Doctrine of Signatures, the same mechanism that heals the body becomes armor against the violence of speech as wicked words slide away, accusations refuse to stick, and malicious talk loses its purchase and slides away, harmless.

Governed by Saturn and resonant with the Air element, the domain of communication and the spoken word, slippery elm carries correspondences that reinforce its purpose. Saturn’s cold discipline enforces silence and binds the tongue of the enemy while Air governs every form of speech, rumor, and persuasion. Slippery elm sits at the crossroads of both.

In hoodoo and rootwork, this translates into a robust tradition of anti-gossip and protection work and is a guardian of reputation. Slippery elm is carried in mojo bags, powdered into sachets, burned over charcoal, and sewn into charms. Pinches of the bark placed in the four corners of a room are said to protect the home from evil; a knotted yellow thread tied around the bark and cast into fire is a traditional working to cease all gossip directed at you. Keep the root close to your body wherever two-faced company gathers. In court case work, slippery elm shields against false accusations and slander, helping a difficult case move smoothly toward resolution. 

Slippery elm does not merely silence: it may be worn as a charm to cultivate eloquence, and it loosens the tongue when silence has become a trap or a curse, granting fluency and persuasion to those who carry it while denying the same to their enemies. 

A nutty, earthy-scented root with a whisper of benzoin, bourbon vanilla, and slippery, sweet sugar cane.