Soupy Twist

wow, this is vile. Nasty foul black musk with a wee waft of fir and balsam. My eyes were watering. I was hoping to get the other notes but I couldn't wait long enough to see if they'd show up. Given the other reviews here I was really looking forward to this, so I have no idea what my skin did to it.

I'd call this "mulled prune juice." The sweetness of prunes which dries into the lovely dusty spices of cider, with hints of tea. Much nicer than I anticipated. Warm and comforting.

Marshmallow in the bottle. Goes on as vanilla-y marshmallow. Oh, this fellow is a charmer. Not quite as foody a vanilla as Possets or Villainess. I'm getting something fuzzy and woolly as it dries, but it's definitely the powdery outside of a marshmallow, which is honestly a little too much for me. I see why he's getting a lot of love around here, though.

Sea of Glass: an absolutely magnificient hyacinth Titania: Peach nectar, pear, flowers, lily of the valley Squirting Cucumber: fresh cucumber and juicy grass Lilium Inter Spinas: lily of the valley

No, but I find this idea completely hilarious and I think Beth should totally make one for a Lilith scent (if Lilith is into PBJs).

A weird, plasticky, artificial cherry blossom — like if you bought shampoo or body wash with "Cherry Blossom Scent." There's a little tea in the bottle, and a brief flash of yuzu as it dries, but mostly that body wash scent. I seem to recall that I wanted to test this for the alleged grapefruit note, but there isn't any.

Egle (Märchen): Ocean water, hyacinth petals, star jasmine, and fir. Ends as a beautiful hyacinth/honeysuckle on me. Titania (Ilyria): white grape, white peach, iced pear, musk rose, sweet pea, moonflower and snapdragon. My notes call it a "juicy floral." TAL's White Light: I get jasmine, gardenia, and tuberose; no official notes listed. Can't help you with the frankincense part, unfortunately.

Oleander, iris, bitter almond, tonka, and a bit of smoke.

Fresh tobacco in the bottle. Goes on as pipe tobacco. There's a sharp note — the citrus in the listing — but that shifts until it smells like it's about to burst into smoke on my wrist. About here I decide it's missing some essential sweetness; this is clearly a single note, something which needs to work with something else. I'm not nearly as happy with this as I'd hoped to be. Had to wash it off. My father used to smoke a pipe, and his tobacco was blended and layered. I vividly remember sticking my nose into the canister and loving the smell. This is not that good.

El Dia de los Reyes (Yule 2014 and 2015): Hot cocoa with cinnamon, coffee, and brown sugar. Arabian Dance (Yule 2010): Leather, coffee, hazelnut, tobacco, and Middle Eastern spices. Irish Coffee Cake from the 2015 Will Call, which has no official notes but is buttery, boozy, spicy coffee cake. Blood and Judgment So Well Commedled (Lilith 2015): A little kid’s interpretation of Hamlet’s BFF. A scent of kindness and devotion, friendship and loyalty: soft brown leather and brushed suede with bourbon vanilla, toasted almond, tonka bean, and amber. Pottaskefill (Yule 2015): Salt licorice, birch tar, black pepper, and leather.

Exactly what it says on the tin. Wood, basil, oregano.

Snow, mint, and a bit of eucalyptus. Pine and juniper come in through the middle, and it dries to fuzzy cat-mint. This is almost identical to The Snow at Noon, where that has the sweeter berry note and this has the fuzzy mint note. Wonderful!

I finally, finally figured out why BPAL's almonds never work on me. My skin devours the almond note, and what remains is whatever else is in the scent. And the Lab really likes to pair almond with incenses and musks. In this particular oil, it happens to be combined with vanilla and mimosa. So when the beautiful marzipan vanishes, all I'm left with is fluffy, dusty mimosa blossom. Now I know, and my heart won't be broken any more.

Sigh. Just like every other BPAL almond: a beautiful cherry-almond in the bottle and for the first 10 minutes, and then... it's gone. Fades to sour musk and then sickly-sweet myrrh.

2012 version, so an older bottle: Caramel and burnt sugar in the bottle. Goes on as sugar with a flash of candy fruit. Dries as crème brûlée with cinnamon. I think this is almost exactly what Askasleikir would have ended up as if he'd lasted more than 10 minutes on my skin.

An "old" candy cane in the bottle. Goes on as a dusty, fuzzy candy cane, like it was dropped on the rug. This dries a bit sour, and quickly fades to "stale." It's almost gone in a few minutes, which is kind of shocking. I have no idea how the Lab can take what is essentially the same formulation and have it come out so differently from year to year.

As the great man said, it is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts. I was convinced that if I were going to purchase any bottles out of this update it would be this one, but wow, did it not work for me. A lovely fir pine in the bottle and on first application. Then someone lights the fireplace which is stocked with fir boughs. The window must be open for a minute to facilitate draw, bringing a smoky snow note to the back of the throat. It's not the Lab's sweet snow note from the Snow Falling series; it's definitely "smoked." The window is closed, and then all I get is pines in the fireplace. The smoke note is much less offensive than Alkemia's, but that's all it is: smoke. No tobacco at all.

Yikes! No idea what happened here. I must've gotten the "broke open the jewelry case with a circular saw" batch, because all I smell is friction-burned treated-wood sawdust.

A sweet floral in the bottle. It's hard to describe when it goes on — sweet, light, and fruity? Iris? It sounds silly but I want to call it "grown-up Juicy Fruit gum" — it's sweet and fruit-like and juicy, but not in a childish way. After a few minutes this dries to something more like a flower stamen, which is sad because I really liked the fruit part, and in 10 minutes the entire thing has quieted to a floral powder. No musk, no juniper. Kinda disappointed; this had a lot of promise.

oh, so very close. This is a luscious, sweet peach nectar for a solid 10 minutes, but then it fades to gross dusty musk. If it didn't sour on the drydown this would be a bottle for sure.

oh dag, now I have to try this. It sounds wonderful.

Wait, that's the official name of this stuff?

Gesundheit. What ingredient is that?

I thought this year's Snow at Noon was lovely, but it's almost identical to Skadi, so it might not work for you. Almond Blossom (Yule 2013) is in the same vein. Loup Garou is a GC (Diabolus) which my notes say is "like walking through a very crowded Christmas tree farm." Knecht Ruprecht (Yule 2012, I've seen it recently in Swaps/Sales) is definitely pines in winter, not BPAL's regular snow note. I have not yet tried this year's "The Second Morning After Christmas" or "Unmanageable Snowdrift," but give the reviews a read.

Tea in the bottle, but that's the only place. All I get is a sickly sweet rose, which develops some sour amber as it dries. Not a drop of vanilla.