Wwindy

('05 release) This really, really reminds me of a cross between The Sportive Sun and Heavenly Love & Earthly Love. (I know, those came later, but I tried them first!) Lots of lovely amber and resin, maybe a bit powdery but not unpleasantly so, with faint vanilla/floral overtones. If this were music, I would say it's a variation on the theme of the two blends previously mentioned, transposed a little higher up -- sorry, that's not a very objective description, but I don't know how else to put it...

Oh, yum. This starts out all apple and hazelnut, with a bit of sweetness from the opium and a touch of something almost gingery. The hazelnut is very rich and velvety, almost like chocolate. As it dries down, the overall effect gets smokier and darker, with the damp fall leaves (I know the description says dry leaves, but they don't smell dry to me!) coming forward. I'd say this is darker and a shade more masculine than L'Autunno, and it's a walk in a deciduous forest rather than an evergreen forest like Samhain. Another fabulous fall blend!

As mentioned above, the L'Autunno bath oil is really, really sweet when you sniff it in the bottle. I've been using it as a post-shower moisturizer rather than bathing in it, so I can't tell you what it does in the tub -- but on my skin it loses virtually all of the sweetness. My husband says it smells like a hayride on me, and it does! It's got a very strong grassy hay note underlaid by the cedar and sage and rounded out by the warm, subtle patchouli. It's very pleasant and evocative of the season, but here's the thing: Combined with the L'Autunno perfume? This. Is. SPECTACULAR. I don't even have words. I'd been wearing the perfume on my skin and the room spray in a locket, and yeah, that's a nice combination too, but the perfume and the bath oil together? SO GOOD. It's just so deep and rich and complex and... and... quintessentially autumnal! I can't get over how fabulous this pairing is.

The world must be ending... I HATE citrus notes. HATE 'em, I say! I also hate foodie scents as a general rule. But first Gunpowder snuck up on me, and now this! Somehow Fearful Pleasure is absolutely scrumptious, even though I can smell the orange peel. Er. Um. As a matter of fact, I have to admit I actually like the orange peel. I'm telling you, the world is ending. Anyway. As others have said, this scent is spot-on accurate for the flavor text: Cider, not fresh apples, not apple juice, but delicious hot mulled cider with orange slices and maybe a few cloves and cinnamon sticks thrown in. After a little while the fruity notes fade back and the oakmoss and smoke come forward a bit more, giving a slightly more perfume-like effect. The smoke is never particularly strong on me, and I can't pick out the sassafras. The blend doesn't have much throw on me, and even towards the end it doesn't really smell like anything you'd identify as "perfume" -- it's more like I've been hovering over a crockpot full of the aforementioned spiced cider long enough to have soaked up the steam in my clothes and hair. I was inspired to test this yesterday because the weather was so hideously cold and wet and wintry, and it wound up being the perfect warm, cozy pick-me-up. Yum. Tartchef, you crazy enabler, look what you've done now!

So weird! If I weren't looking at the list of notes, I would swear this was gardenia with a hint of incense. Seriously, I get just about nothing but glossy, creamy white floral. Dunno why, but I do! Where it's most faded on my skin, I can pick out a very faint trace of vanilla. It's a pretty scent, but very much not my kind of thing. Ah, skin chemistry...

Such a great concept, and such a fascinating blend! During my initial dab-test yesterday, this kept morphing all over the place. First it was lavender, then it was tea and vanilla, then it was Snake Oil-y headshoppy goodness, then back to lavender, then the fennel popped out... whoa nelly! Today with a full slather, LV is steadier: a beautiful lavender musky sweetness. It reminds me a little bit of Wulric the Wolfman, and a little bit of TKO (both of which I love), and then of course a lot of Snake Oil -- just lighter and far more innocent than SO. I do get occasional hints of tea, but no lily of the valley at all (and am just as happy without it!). Off to order a bottle before this comes down...

A reviewer above noted that this reminded her of the Burt's Bees baby product scent. I agree! I'm using that line for my daughter right now, and on my skin TGoAH smells very much like it, with the addition of a slightly stronger carnation note. This is really charming, very winsome -- it does indeed gladden my heart. As evocative as it is, I don't think it's something I would ever wear as perfume; I'll keep my decant and maybe dab it around in the coming months/years when I want to remember my little sprout as a baby.

(Samhain '08, in decant form) On initial application, the evergreen notes here hover perilously close to the dreaded Irish Spring Effect (and, weirdly, that soapy-clean pine note endures where my shirt's picked up a little oil!) -- but happily, after a little wear time, the greenery disappears almost entirely from my skin. What remains is a nice honeyed apple with overtones of patchouli and smoke. I think the only trace I'm getting of the pumpkin is the sweetness; the spices aren't coming through at all, at least not that I can consciously detect. The effect is definitely autumnal, without being overtly foody or too intensely smoky. If I could convince my clothes not to cling to that iffy evergreen, that would be lovely! As it is, I like this blend quite a bit but will probably be wearing L'Autunno more often. I am curious to try Samhain releases from other years, to see if the fir and woods are less prominent in any of those. ETA: (Samhain '07, also in decant form) Wow, '07 comes up different on my skin than '08! '07 seems to have a lot more patchouli -- that honey sweetness is stronger, too. I could pick out the pumpkin note at first (not as buttery as the lab's pumpkin generally is on me), but it faded pretty quickly; the apple isn't anywhere near as strong in '07 as in '08. Mostly this rendition is a sweet, rich, nuanced patchouli on me. Could be the vagaries of decanting, could be aging, could be skin chemistry -- but there's definitely a big difference here! I'm going to have to try a side-by-side comparison...

Oh yeah -- oatmeal cookies with hints of maple and musk! Different and fascinating! I'm normally not a foodie by any means, but this is surprisingly wearable. It does fade relatively quickly on me, though. ETA: "You smell like the breakfast bar I ate this morning." "But in a sexy way, right?" "Um. Not really." *sigh* OK, maybe not as wearable as I thought...

Smoky dead leaves, with a very strong vetiver edge. The musk smells red to my nose; it starts out way in the background, but gets significantly more prominent as the blend dries. The vetiver calms down at about the same rate as the musk comes out, with some added warmth from the mild amber. The initial vetiver-y blast is indeed intense -- but if you can stick it out through that, Chant d'Automne does mellow out nicely.

I got a lot of cucumber from Horn of Amalthea, but it burned off relatively quickly -- and I know that blend's tough to get hold of at the moment.

This blend morphed like crazy on me. I kept mentally revising my review the whole time I was wearing it! Fresh on from the decant, it's all rose and green cactus. About ten minutes later, I get a HUGE BLAST of honey sweetness -- like I've drenched myself in pure honey. Maybe a half hour after that, if I stick my nose right up to my wrists or the crooks of my elbows (and I do mean right up to), I get a gorgeous, sexy smoky/woody scent... but the throw is still entirely sweet, slightly green rose. I love that yummy tobacco-copal mix on the surface of my skin, but I don't think I can bear to put up with the billowing wafts of sticky-sweet rose for the sake of a faint trace I can't even smell without snorfling myself! Ah well...

I can smell this trying very, very hard to be dandelion and birch on my skin, but something here just isn't working -- the end result is a rather artificial, perfume-y pale greenish-white scent. Not for me, I think.

I snarfed up Lamia's unloved imp, and am so glad I did! I've been insisting forever that I can't wear fruit notes, but have lately been proven wrong by the mango in Diwali and the apple in Snow Glass Apples, both of which I adore. So, I went looking for other BPAL apple... and Verdandi is perfect. I love amber, I love apple, and apparently I love whatever the "deep herbs" here are! Darned if I can identify them; all I can pick out is a faint hint of dusty green over the crisp red apple and warm soft amber. The apple smells very natural and realistic. The amber isn't powdery or even particularly prominent -- it's quietly lurking close to the skin, deepening and rounding out the scent. The duration is relatively short in terms of maintaining any significant throw (maybe two or three hours for having anyone besides me be able to smell anything), but I can still catch faint whiffs even after a good six hours and am content with that. This isn't sweet or foody at all on me, just gorgeous and soft and perfect for the end of the summer/beginning of fall. I'm looking forward to wearing it all autumn, actually!

O "blackened fruit gums", whyfor dost thou mess with my poor hapless nose? I like most of the components in this blend, but am woefully undecided about the overall effect. The musk, frankincense, and spices seem most prominent in the vial rather than during wearing (although today my boss said, "You smell like spices!" -- yay!). On initial application I can pick out the lavender, a nice trace of smoke, and a bit of fresh green leafiness. The current and fruit gums take over on drydown, however; there's an aura of jammy sticky cooked fruit here that I'm just not thrilled about. We'll see what my guys think about this one -- left to my own devices I'm not sure I'd keep it, but if they love it I might reconsider...

I get mostly fig and amber from this, too. It's a lovely combination -- very warm and rich, not particularly foody. The orange is there at first, a bit sharp and tangy, but it burns off quickly (a good thing, says this anti-citrus person!);a lingering trace of something herbal remains. Like most of the Grindhouse ladies I've tried so far, this one doesn't stick around long, unfortunately.

Oh dear. This blend really, really doesn't like my chemistry, it seems... The initial application gave me a very mannish evergreen blast from the juniper. When that dried down, I was hoping for the woods and/or the musk or even the lilac -- but what I got was orchid, which smells like stale department-store perfume on me. Not good in either phase. I can't even swap the imp, because the cap broke off in a way that it partially adhered to the top of the vial! *sigh*

Earthy, slightly woody raspberries! In the vial I can smell other notes -- particularly the frankincense, and the almost hairspray-like (to my nose) overtones of the benzoin, but on my skin this is raspberry with a grounding of faint wood and even fainter patchouli. Overall this is very light, and very short-lived. I like it, but I wish more of the notes showed up and stuck around.

This should have been so fabulous on me! The dragon's blood is stomping all over everything else. In addition, the dragon's blood in combination with (I think) the sand note winds up perilously close to soapy. I don't get dry or spicy or fiery at all -- no tobacco, no ginger, just floral dragon's blood with a bit of red musk sweetness and soapy-clean overtones. *sigh* My decant has already been sitting for a while, but maybe I'll put it back for another chunk of time and see if the dragon's blood will die back a bit.

Yep yep, rose and incense! No surprises here. This one did fool me a little, actually. I put a quick swipe on one wrist to see what it was going to be like, was thrilled to find it mostly incense-y, and therefore slathered with abandon... then I got hit with the Rose Bomb! It's a fairly elegant, non-powdery rose on me, but it is the dominant note. The staying power on this is excellent -- my initial application lasted hours longer than I generally expect BPAL to stick around. The throw seemed good to me too, but that may just be because I so seldom wear rose that my nose kept reacting to it!

I don't thinkso, but it's so hard to gage... oh. Actually, you may be right -- I ordered a dish I'd had before at Olive Garden recently and thought it seemed different, although I'm pretty sure Olive Garden does up all their stuff in giant pre-prepped batches that are all *supposed* to be the same... I'm nowhere near as good (bad?) as a friend of mine who can tell when his wife opens a scented product on another floor of their house, though! I agree about the sitting around question. I'm still wondering about the "decanters not giving blends time to meld" thing, though -- I see so many eager folks who run to test their bottles as soon as they arrive, that you'd think there'd be just as many reviews from people working with fresh unblended bottles as from folks with fresh unmelded decants. It's hard to tell from anecdotal evidence. (And just a quick question for Andra -- I'm wondering about the thread move, since it seems like what we're discussing is specifically not about skin chemistry but rather blend composition and perception. Is it going to be confusing for people to find the two issues mixed?)

Skin musk, smoky vanilla, pine pitch, patchouli, Indian resins, golden honey, and tobacco. Ta-da! This is exactly what I was hoping Hexennacht '08 would be -- sexy smoky forest witchery! Hex revised didn't quite do it for me, but Illustrated Woman is gorgeous. At first I get mostly the drop-dead stunning musk (which does seem amber-y to my nose); as the blend dries down, the tobacco comes out more and more, with the pine, honey, and vanilla playing supporting roles. The exception is on my wrists, where the vanilla is significantly more pronounced than in the crooks of my elbows or elsewhere. The throw doesn't seem particularly big; in fact, I suspect this is sticking pretty close to my skin. I don't care, though -- as long as I can smell it I'm a happy woman! (ETA Lab description)

I get the cardamom and something vaguely grassy. There's a slightly plasticky, almost pickle-like edge to the spice (I think that's the wood doing something weird to it), and the plant matter is ominously ... uh... not fresh. Like it might be on the verge of mildewing, actually. This one is not playing nice with my chemistry. Woe! ETA: I just couldn't believe this one wasn't working for me, so I went back and tried it again. This time when it was wet it started out not just pickle-y, but salty green olive-y! There's something faintly grassy and something almost nutty going on underneath the awfulness -- but whatever that one horrible note is, I just can't cope with it. Off to wash my wrist!

Such a gorgeous note list, and such a fascinating blend in the vial! Amber, cream accord, skin musk, and teak are all generally fabulous on me, and indeed they are here. The apple blossom is very faint on me, probably a good thing since I'm not a huge fan of either florals or fruit. I don't even mind the sweet caramel, which is quite strong in the imp and on initial application -- it meshes nicely with the other notes, and dies down somewhat as the blend dries. Alas, what it leaves in its place is something oddly gritty and discordant, not really burnt but... aha, I know! On my skin it smells like heated-up brown sugar, as opposed to caramel, if that makes any sense. I like everything here except that one off-putting element; I'll test again in a few days and see if it works better then. Otherwise I think I'll be keeping my decant, but not going for a bottle.

Really? Huh. I don't know if my nose is totally unreliable or if I've just had seriously bad luck, but I don't think I've ever received a bottle either from the Lab or second-hand that smelled exactly the same as my imp or decant of the same blend. I don't mind, because (usually) it's all good, but I've just sort of learned that I can't ever count on a bottle smelling like the imp did. And yes, I'm talking Lab imps and Lab bottles, although same thing goes for decants and Lab bottles. For example, I loved my frimps of Morocco and Scherezade, and while I love the bottles I ordered too, they're noticeably different, even after a couple of months. Likewise, my Lab bottles of Heavenly Love & Earthly Love and Mr. Jacquel are significantly different from the decants I got. Amusingly, I currently own two decants of HL&EL and have had two different Lab bottles in my possession, and all four have been different! Then again, maybe I'm just crazy...