Casablanca

Ung. This just arrived, and I don't know how it will settle, but it's just delicious right now. Fresh out of the bottle, it's mostly smoky caramel. A little deep red spice and dark vanilla waft around in it. On my skin, it re-balances to more chili spice and a softer caramel over dark vanilla. Black vanilla is one of my favorite notes, one I don't see often enough. This caramel doesn't read as foodie (or as caramelly) as the one in Caramel Apple Snake Oil did. This one feels a little closer to chocolate, though that may be some black vanilla influence. The chilies add a warmth and quirk that I love here, and they blend so well with the rest. I really loved Temptation of St. Nick (cacao, blazing chili pepper, clove husk, bourbon vanilla, pistachio, hazelnut), and this one is in that family. This is a less nutty, more sultry version. Glad I went for this.

Dry cocoa that lasts a short time, and majestic oak that lasts longer. Welcoming, warmly woody oak. The oak that enfolds and protects you in the woods; the oak that abides.

I should note for science that this blend has a couple floral heavy-hitters that aren't typically my thing: magnolia and tuberose. Despite that, it goes on fairly gentle. What I notice most is the wildflower honey, a note I love -- but even that is soft-spoken. Alongside the floral honey, there's just a well-blended sense of golden flowers and a hint of clove. This stays pretty soft on me. I picture a gold-gilded fence around a small garden.

"Verdant Inferno" is going to be the name of my new 90s alternative cover band. Anyway, I tried this on after another BPAL daffodil-tulip blend, Queen of Earthly Paradise, wore off today. Enkindled Spring is definitely in this sort of early-spring-flower family -- it's youthful, jubilant, and just a touch quirky. Fresh on, it's a burst of spring flowers and greenery. I find daffodils, waxy tulips, and pink peonies, alongside a green that's vibrant but not intrusive. There's a white floral sort of note in here that I'm not loving quite as much, which I'm guessing is the star magnolia. On my skin it's heavy, almost heady, and borderline soapy after a while -- it'll find lovers out there, it's just not for me. The greenery note has a short life on my skin after its initial happy burst. The blend becomes dominated by the magnolia, but retains a little of the daffy-dils and other spring flowers.

First impressions: White coconut, Tahitian vanilla, and green grasses. They show up in that sequence, at first, on each inhale; then they blend together, and orange blossom and a hint of fig creep in, too. In drydown, the blend becomes waxy on me. The green grasses start to remind me of the vibrant green in Emerald Lace. The coconut and Tahitian vanilla give this a summery vibe, but the orange flower feels springlike.

First impression: Powdery orris and white honey. Definitely a white honey, which kind of smells like white tea + honey to me. Between the white honey and the orris, this smells pale, though I get some creamy vanilla-gold from the amber. This one mostly fades from my skin quickly, leaving a faint powdery white scent. Cockatoos are white and powdery. This feathered hope might be a 'too.

First impression: Heavy, almost syrupy violet rooted in oudh. The oudh is woody rather than barnyard -- the lovely oudh. Like, I don't get on with violet, but I'm still loving on the oudh. Before long, cedar warms up and warms the blend. Scarce hints of hot spices further warm the woods, rather than calling attention to themselves. This is really a sweet, warm, dark twilight-woods blend now. I can find balsam and cognac if I look for them; they have a more subtle effect, but it's pleasing to find how they add to the atmospheric pathos. The sweet violet settles down and blends in more once this has dried. This may please violet lovers and those seeking a dark woods mood.

First impression: Spiced (clove-heavy) amber carnation and warm red pimento. A little worn leather and ambergris linger around the edges, mingling frontier and sophistication. In drydown, this softens and blends. The warmth of the carnation and red pimento play well with the spices. This is a dichotomy blend, a scent for someone who has liked rugged scents long enough to become refined in their choices to represent that. 🙂

Hope most interested me for the mentions of French beeswax and linden flower. First, what does French beeswax mean? Is it wax made from fields of lavender? Now, that this has arrived... it does remind me of the lavender-infused honey I used to keep in the kitchen, some waxiness to it. That honey had a bit of a sweet, herbal lavender lilt to it, and this reminds me of that. This French beeswax is the strongest note at first on my skin. Second, the linden. I love this note, and it doesn't often appear in blends. I was curious if I could find it here. And I might be... there's a bit of a cottony quality to the scent starting in drydown. It's really blending into the mimosa. Like a soft, cottony mimosa. After this dries, I find a sweet, myrrh-like thing that may be the opoponax, and the earlier notes step back a bit. The whole becomes quite blended. This is the concept scent of a fresh, sunny, French country kitchen in springtime.

Fresh on my skin, To Hope brings a lot of woody silver fir. Silver fir surrounded by brambles of other woods, dried needles, and a whiff of herbs. To me, this is the scent of unfamiliar woods, like I'm on a road trip and stopped for an unplanned, whimsical hike. After drydown, this grows more gummy with forest resin. Green, woody sap, a little cool. This would be how I'd smell if I lost the trail and blundered through impeding woods for long enough.

The first impression on my skin from Light of the Universe is a creamy, golden honeysuckle and deep red plum. They are blending well into something rich and voluptuous -- not a "Such-n-Such's little sister" sort of perfume. The amber comes through more in a golden quality to the honeysuckle and cream than as a strong note in its own right, at least initially. It's not the heavy, potent amber cream of the recent Luper, Golden Sunrise. Moving toward drydown, cherry blossom peeks out, and brings the blend closer to a "little sister" feel. The honeysuckle grows a skin musk quality that reminds me of Eostre of the Dawn. Once this has dried, it's like... a Shunga version of Eostre of the Dawn. You can just imagine that label art. I like it.

Warm patchouli and a purpleness from the "purple sage" -- remember Colemanite Phoenix? that purple sage -- dominate for me, alongside hints of hazelnut, cream, and coffee. I amped the purple sage in Colemanite, and this happens also in No Man. The overall effect, fresh on my skin, is an odd purple-savory note with a nip of patchouli and nutty coffee cream. In drydown, the purple people eater really takes over, though I think I get some cassis (black currant) blending into it. Later, dry, nutty coffee and patchouli come out more, and the purple calms down. This is pleasant, if not what I anticipated. I'll see what more settling does to the balance.

Damp wisteria petals, lotus blossoms, tuberose, and Queen of the Night. I'm a lousy judge of dedicated florals. It's been my least-connecting and most neglected category, but for this spring I've been craving more flowers, and I've been liking the Butterfly Garden atmo. I smell mainly wisteria here, with a playful but short-lived touch of lotus. The rest of my impression is just of other flowers in the background, with a note in the mix that reminds me of creamy gardenia, but not quite. Not sure if that's the tuberose, Queen of the Night, or something else. I'm happy with this: wisteria is one of the good flowers for me. It always smells light blue-purple to me, with a dreamy airiness that keeps it away from cloying, and that's happening here. I wish I got a little more lotus, because it's another one I love, but this is a good spring blend.

La Prostitution 2020! This also reminds me of La Prostitution et la Folie Dominent le Monde (sweet cream vanilla, white sugar, jasmine blossom, star anise). La Prostitution's jasmine vanilla cream gets a little meditative here with what appears on me as a prominent sandalwood. It's a pleasing change: this jasmine cream becomes more mature and thoughtful, perhaps a little more wise. The honey and cognac are beautifully blended in, and I had to look for them. Having found them, it's easy to just chill and huff and appreciate what they're contributing; I think the cognac is adding to the impression of gracious maturity I get from this blend.

Whoa, that's a bright lantern! Fresh on my skin, this is a searing, almost shrill, yellow yuzu alongside orange bergamot. The image this fragrance brings to mind is a modern canvas of bold, brazen yellow and orange streaks slashing diagonally. This might wake me up without coffee. I'm not finding that this one has changed over time on my skin; I don't find cedar or musk, just yellow and orange citrus streaks, band over band.

Unique. My first-blink impression of Chushu is lemon-honey maple syrup. I get images of warm red maple leaves, maples being tapped, jars of honey, and bright, sunny lemon groves. As the blend develops, I definitely also get the vibe that someone upped their hot lemon-honey drink game with a teaspoon of maple syrup. It's kind of the ultimate cold-season comfort. The maple and honey shift this away from lemon candy -- because it is quite sweet, and could be a candy -- or, at least, it's an interesting Trader Joe's version of lemon candy. Happily, the musk is light. The beeswax appears only after drydown, and I love the smoothness it adds. I can't stop huffing this, and it's lifting my mood, so I might need more than the decant. I also like the way the notes complement the colors in the art.

Pink mermaid musk, yes! This is another one of the more delicate Lupers this year, where there are many light touches of notes forming a cohesive whole. Abalone is a soft, creamy pinkness with tones of pearls in an iridescent sea, a fleeting grapefruit, a pale orris root, a gentle musk, and an innocent lotus. The ambers are also in light use, just suffusing the blend with warmth. Abalone has the compassion of Poor Monkey (pink lotus root, fig milk, ylang ylang, bourbon vanilla, soft myrrh, fir, khus, sandalwood incense) and the creamy warmth of Alabaster Vulva (white amber, sheer vanilla, orris butter, Italian bergamot, narcissus). This is their love child.

Heavily spiced mahogany, especially with a sort of black peppery saffron. I'm getting great wafts of dry, powdery clouds of saffron and black pepper mahogany. In drydown (and this scent reads as very dry even when wet), I notice oudh blending into the mahogany. It's a sort of polished-wood variety of agarwood, with nothing animalic. A little pleasant patch suffuses the blend. Whoever abides in this wooden living space must cook with saffron every day, and black pepper three times a week. I don't find rosewood or nutmeg as such, but I can imagine them blending right into this spiced wood ambiance.

O my. Unexpectedly, right out of the decant, I get a glorious, foodie vanilla. I can't stop huffing; nor can I quite identify what's driving this vanilla (or vanillas?) to such a high pitch of attraction for me. Is there a Tahitian vanilla? What I seem to be getting -- for some reason -- is a caramel-beeswax-coconut tone to it, along with the hints of copal and patchouli. Whatever the damn is going on, it's good. As this dries, I get more copal, and the blend as a whole softens considerably. But it doesn't otherwise shift much for me. A nice one.

Bat's a dark and intriguing blend, rapidly shifting at first. My first impression of it is a shadow of smoky, earthy patchouli sweetened with honey. The patchouli deepens while the honey fades, and out creeps something like animalistic leather. In the next moments, the blend shifts through dapplings of white sandalwood and shades of smoky cola. It's like watching a complex kaleidoscope of night woods, where the trees stretch and bend impossibly while large-eyed animals lurk and skitter among their leaves and branches. The drying blend settles into a smoky, woodsy patchouli with undertones of sweet, dark cola and black tar. That was a ride.

Initial dreamy pinkness: pink rose, pink cherry flowers, and a smooth, almost creamy cognac. And then I get sandalwood? (Looks at notes.) Yes, okay. Red sandalwood. Curious -- the initial dream-like blend of pink flowers has morphed into more red sandalwood than pink blossoms. The flowers also take on a resinous quality, almost as though a red benzoin, or something, is contributing. The cognac fades. Pink flowers, red sandalwood, and anonymous resins.

Oh, this is a thickly creamy amber cream, with -- somehow, for me -- creamy cognac. Or perhaps creamy Cointreau... once the bergamot weighs in. Compared with my memories of Novel Ideas for Secret Amusements (polished tortoiseshell, ivory, mahogany, amber cream) and Amber Lace (sweet amber, golden oudh, vanilla cream, white cognac, saffron, warm golden musk), the amber cream in Golden Sunrise feels thicker, heavier, and richer to me. It's a cream lover's amber cream. As this blend dries, I find the ambrette, and I think it's adding to the weight. I'm a cream devotee, so I will need to consider a bottle of this one, even though I already love on bottles of the others above.

An ultra-realistic swirl of canned peaches and syrup ... and, um, fuzzy peach skin? This one is a head-scratcher, because I smell both syrupy canned peaches (sans skin) and, separately, fresh, fuzzy peach skin. Soon, my skin amps the peach fuzz over the syrupy version. In drydown, Egoyomi's peaches turn overripe and mushy on me. But the cream is nice... I have three peach blends that play nicely with my skin, but this is one of the overripe fruit ones instead. It was interesting before my skin changed it!

Oh, hi. I've walked in on a musky Bacchanalian love fest of red and purple fruits in an oakmoss bower. This is what it smells like when blackberry, red currant, and plum get sauced on blackberry, red currant, and plum wines and get all sex-musky deep in the oak woods. I keep thinking I also smell wood violet. I experience violet (except for the fun parma violet in Elf) as the note that's diametrically opposite of me. It really might just be part of the plum... but it's making me shrink back a bit, even as I enjoy the rest. At any rate, you're in for a wild ride with this one.

Hopes and dreams: A soothing evergreen spa scent. My well-loved bottle of Balmy 26 Degrees is quickly running dry in these strange times. Wet: Jumping juniper! Some tree berries turn icky on my skin, but this is playing kindly enough. It's really more the evergreen than the berry for me: a little blue-green juniper, a little blue-green sap, and just a hint of woody berry. The mood is remote, cool, and forested. Drying: I feared the green tea might have gotten lost on the way to this woods party, but I start to glimpse it now and then, arm-in-arm with bamboo. Mostly, this is still juniper's event. Dry: Green tea and bamboo wander in and things calm down. Juniper stops singing and puts down its gin on the rocks to sober up. Time to chill and watch clouds or something. This is a soft and simple blend on me. It doesn't evoke quite the heart-eyed love response that Balmy 26 did, but I'm enjoying it and would use a full bottle gladly.