annemathematics

gonna give much love to A DUSTY MOTH

this is a creamy vanilla floral on me. very pretty and girly. hints at innocence but exudes confidence.

opens with a wood-focused, tea-stained, spicy cologne. dries down to a rich patchouli aura of gentlemen's BLING. fan-flippin-tastic.

a very pretty rose scent. I was expecting something regal and old-fashioned, but this is actually bright and youthful in feel. the orris adds elegance but in a subtle way; this scent doesn't have that classic powdery feel that some orris-heavy perfumes have. like the reviewer above, i also wore this against the Waltz to compare the two, but I found this one to be the younger sister. the waltz was richer, deeper, more shadowed. this was brighter and carefree. sadly like youth, this blend was too too fleeting on me. while I'm confidant that aging will improve throw and longevity, my ability to give a more detailed review is hindered. but i do like this as is very much!

the lab's bright grass and silky sap notes woven into a dapper oakmoss tweed. feels kinda old-timey, dashing, distinguished. if you've been craving earthy oakmoss brightened up with grass/sap notes or wanting the lab's grass-sap notes smudged and made slightly more serious with oakmoss, this is your baby right here! makes me think of an old-fashioned university-schooled naturalist dressed up in a suit, out and about recording field notes about blooms in a city park.

super dreamy sublime-smelling unisex scent focusing on the lab's black tea note. has moderate throw and layers beautifully with other scents (I tested it against globe and recommend trying the two scents together if you're able.) fades after a few hours, something i'm hoping a bit of time/aging will improve.

this opens with a vetiver-heavy patchouli over a light rose. as it settles, the rose remains until the end but functions more as a beautiful emollient than a star player. the vetiver recedes a bit, and the vanilla comes out. a few hours in, the tone is set by warm and fuzzy myrrh, with wafts of soft, sweet vanilla. this lasts overnight on me and has a nice throw that lets me smell it without overwhelming my coworkers. this past week I've been reaching for it every day. it's lovely and very easy to wear. elegant and glamorous but insanely comfortable and happy too.

and the Sun has perished out of heaven, and an evil mist hovers over all. Homer, the Odyssey An evil mist hovers over all: Tunisian amber, wilted asphodel, myrrh, and smoke. the lab's beautiful asphodel over a base of smooth myrrh. some ambery sweetness, very subtle smoke (leans frankincense and not tobacco). a feminine sibling/lover to orpheus charming animals from last year's unicorns. I love this and will be wearing it on monday for the big event. eta this has had about five days to settle, and currently dries down to a asphodel over frankincense with myrrh/amber swirling in the background.

My bottle came directly from the lab, ordered when the yules dropped. It's all uniform in color and texture. I shook it up, and a moderate amount of slow-moving bubbles did form, but it didn't get foamy or effervescent. Hope that helps. (Put some on. Smells beautiful.)

I took out my imp from the 2014 release while revisiting my evening with the spirits decants, and it completely rocked my world. the opening makes me think of a classic department store type scent but a classic blend from decades ago that one "discovers" either on one's grandmother's dresser or via the vintage sellers on ebay. very strong and rich as though all of the alcohol/filler evaporated away and one is left with a sweet concentrated sticky syrup in a spritzer bottle. as it dries down, a sense of it's youthful spirit returns and I'm wearing a labdanum/rockrose-focused cloud of beauty. the throw is good and it lasted overnight. not only is it a gorgeous scent, but one that "fits" me in terms of mood and chemistry. I adore the little wafts I get throughout the day. they brighten my mood and make me feel elegant. unlike some folks above, I don't get an aldehyde-heavy chanel number 5 blast of prefume, but something far deeper and richer, more vanillic, but in the rockrose/benzoin/amber sort of way (aka not foody). it also feels very different to me than the lace scents. and I don't get anything soapy or powdery (I do like powdery perfumes, but this isn't playing that way on me) eta the 2017 bottle I ordered arrived, and indeed as mentioned above it does smell like the aldehydes in closet raid. not sure if it's a big change in formula, if it's because of different components, batch variation, OR if this was why I tucked the 2014 unloved into my imp box and three years has morphed it into the incredible scent it is now. fingers and toes crossed that my 2017 bottle will age into what the decant has become. eta: after a bit of aging, the new bottle ended up getting deeper and richer and smelling like my old beloved decant. so gorgeous! so, if the bright high-pitched note in the intro is not to your liking, age this a bit and it will mellow.

lavender, amber, ambergris...all winning notes on me from the lab. this was a no-brainer blind bottle buy. and I like it, but something in the wet stage keeps me from loving it. freshly applied, there's a blast of something that smells like old boiling unspiced apples, very clammy and foul. like going into someone's home where a kid has spilled his apple juice sippy cup and made everything grimy and sticky. liberamoris above mentions chamomile, which in essential oil form does this for me, and makes perfect sense, as I know I'm not smelling literal apple fruit perfume. then the lavender appears, herbal and trying to shake off the chamomile/steamy apple thing. it succeeds, and the ambergris comes forward, and then all is good, all is well. low throw, fades after a few hours.

sprayed on hallway curtains. this is lovely! mostly stone and moss, a little bit of verrrrry dark, rich fertile soil in the beginning, the slightest hint of resin wafting about in the night air under the darkest moon. (I might be dreaming in thinking that the church's incense is wafting faintly in this; it might also be resins from other atmos being reanimated by the fresh application of this.) beautiful stylish outdoor scent of nature meeting stone and metal. a good scent to huff while watching burton's sleepy hollow.

I love galbanum, but it always amps on me like crazy, taking over and drowning other notes out. but...not here! there's just a whisper of it in the opening. then it dries down to soft resins behaving, well, kinda like clay. having done ceramics for years, I'm shocked at how much this reminds me of dusty dry clay at the bisque-fired stage. it's so evocative and comforting, with a cozy dry warmth. this is a 2017 top ten for me. bravo, beth!

2013 was the year I placed my first ever direct lab order! so this is a special year for me and I luck out because the scent is perfect for me and gorgeous on me. huzzah! I've enjoyed some dark bpals, some metallic bpals and some smokey bpals. wet I get black patch and dark smokey vetiver, but as it dries all the notes come together and form the most perfect gleaming accurate metal scent. very pure clean steel, with light hits of resin just around the edges. proud, authoritative, austere yet regal. I love this! happy anniversary, bpal!

Incense-blackened oudh and bourbon vanilla with tobacco absolute and 9-year aged patchouli. I'm a sucker for all of these notes, and the perfume they are brought together to create here is lovely. it is however on the soft side. if you are drawn to big delectable vanilla, gritty sweet tobacco or funky filthy patch, that's not what you'll find in this bottle. rather, P&D is more of a subtle experience with each of these notes. it's a little smokey at the start from the oudh, and after a few hours of wear, a soft and respectable patchouli can be sussed out. but overall, this is all about the blend, and it's one that I don't quite have the perfumer's vocabulary to do proper justice to in describing. it's very pretty and wearable and gentle. as I have and treasure so many fine bpals that showcase the big-n-dirty side to the listed notes, it's wonderful to experience this different side to them. a lot of vanilla blends and tobacco blends tend to have a sweetness to them, sometimes caramelly, sometimes plain old sugar-dusted, and this does not, which I am liking. it's a yin to many of my yang bottles.

This is the House of Unquenchable Fire's less haughty, very nurturing bohemian sister. Same gorgeous champaca classed up with light touches of frank and vanilla, only here with a big warm patchouli playing partner. It's beautiful. eta after a few weeks of settling and a few times of wearing, the above still holds true, but just adding that after about two hours the soft, floral-tinged patchouli becomes the main focus of the scent. still groovy, but that HoUF connection is faded. fyi.

just wanted to add in a new favorite lavender bpal from 2017: 18 June 1860: On this date, the first wet plate photograph of an eclipse was taken. Shimmering amber, collodion, silver nitrate accord, and white lavender. also the lilith scent goddess of mischief is a fantastic perfume featuring....lavender!

in the bottle, this smells like rich floral honey over chewy, leafy patchouli. i'm anticipating a rich earthy honey HG variation! but applied and worn, it's quite different. airy dried leaves with occasional wafts of woody (woudy?) patch and very very light floral (saffron!) honey. like walking down a very dapper street on a windy autumn day, getting wafts of the fine colognes and perfumes of the gentlefolk you pass on the street. it's gorgeous and I love every stage of it, from bottle huffs to the actual scent-in-my-hair.

the chattering raven from last year's anniversary scent is fantastic!

something about the personality of this scent reminds me of coyote. not that they are dupes, but that they would hang out together and be good friends. the musks overlap a bit between the two scents, but while coyote is warm fur navigating sun-dappled grasses, chiroptophobia has those musks swirling about in cool night air (eucalyptus) wrapped up in a cloak of leathery wings. chiropto is verrrry snuggly, cuddly, adorable. the leather note is strong at application, but at dry down I've got mostly a nice soft mix of musks and light sandalwood, brightened with the hint of euc. beautiful and brilliant, I'm of course quite batty for it.

this plays so differently on my skin than it does for the two reviewers above me. the dead leaves is doing that wonderful soft cologne thing that I love the pineapple is bright with the slightest hint of sweetness, but I'd have trouble identifying what it was if not for the notes list in the title. it's not syrupy or heavily sugared like the actual fruit and it smells nicely natural for a scent that's likely born in a lab and not the wild. the vetiver is a little smoky when freshly applied but recedes graciously into the blend and doesn't stand out. the patchouli is also very much a team player here. this is one of those scents that's blended in such a way that none of the individual notes stand out. it's much brighter and lighter than I expected considering the big resins at play here. it's very cheerful and uplifting, unisex, nothing boozy/cocktail-like at all on me. medium throw and lasted about four hours. I love dead leaves blends like this one.

very very light diaphanous purple scent. a little bit of violet that's not sweet and while smokey, is less smokey than the two incarnations of la befana that I've tried. everything in here is played in moderation: the orris isn't uber-dusty, the lavender not so sharply herbal. everything is swirled together, very much a blend vs individual notes. soft and delicate and restrained, low through and comparatively brief wear length.

this opens with the varnish and polish of the wood, settles down into bright shiny wood over warm, dusty myrrh. I dig this. funny how these scents from a horror story are so cuddly to me. leans unisex, hints of glam.

on my chemistry, this is mostly patchouli. the most gorgeous, soft, dusty, soothing, warm, snuggly patchouli ever. at least that's what wafts about me in the air. if I huff my skin, I get a beautiful gentle blend of saffron and labdanum. a little bit of musk dust.

beautiful swirls of ambergris, very subtle frankincense and something underneath that's kind of deep and rubbery...reminding me of old monster toys like the one pictured above. even with the touch of toy, this is a beautiful, cozy kind of scent. cool swirly blanket of fog over city street cozy. this scent softly hugs my skin for two-to-three hours before dissipating into the night.