Casablanca
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Everything posted by Casablanca
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First impression on skin: Musky lavender-amber perfume, with smidges of lemon and patchouli. Drying: Sweet patchouli grows, but so does powder. Is there white musk in here with the blue? I'm not sure what, but something is turning to billows of powder on me. Dry: Lemon-lavender powder musk, a whiff of cypress, and an impression of other notes buried in powder. This one was kind of a mess on my skin.
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I got Winter Dusk to try for the blackcurrant. Unfortunately, it seems the "indigo oud" is the fecal "black oud" in hiding. The blend reeks of dark berry poop on my skin, and my spirits sink. In drydown, Dusk develops into black rose and blackcurrant poop. I don't notice birch tar. Well. This is why we seek decants. A moment of gratitude for all the decanters out there. 🤗 There's a blackcurrant blend for me out there. If not today, some other day.
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Lemons coated with white frost. After a moment, the mugwort -- dreamy herbal against this winter backdrop -- drifts in. I like this particular wintry trio. Mugwort is a lovely complement to the other notes. With another herb, like basil, this could smell like a winter kitchen or garden. Mugwort takes the blend, instead, to a dreamtime place, a yellow moon's winter-lake reflection of itself. The moonflower suffuses the blend on me after drydown. By now, though, white musk is also adding poofs of powder, too much powder for me. Of the other blends I've tried, this one reminds me most of Take the Moon (silvered musk, lemon peel, white fir needle, frosted apple blossom, mugwort), but its overall effect on me is softer and less sharp.
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World is a delicate fragrance, like the sight of a frost fairy out of the corner of your eye; she may vanish rather than suffer your direct look. This smells like pale fractal lace of ice patterns forming on a window -- "The Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind." Cool bluish frost, salt ambergris, warm cedar, and musk. Faint whiffs of black tea and husk add an antique feel. The coconut itself comes out more on me after drydown. By then I don't notice the tea anymore, but the rest is still in play.
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A tower of airy, frothy vanilla foam over a glass of heavy jasmine-rose cream. Mallow adds poof to the vanilla foam and helps it reach a soaring height above the glass in defiance of the laws of physics. The froth, as in life, is short lived. Once dried, the Gown collapses into a creamy heap of heady florals. Emphasis on the floral. I love rose and jasmine apart. Together, they can overwhelm, and that happens at this point for me. This is one stage, two divas, and no mutual artistic respect.
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Oh, this one's interesting. Strong coffee heavily spiced, smoothed with milk, and sweetened with sugary vanilla. That sounds straightforward, but the aguardiente must be adding a twist, because I'm picking up an anise that's bringing a lot of "interesting" to the spices -- in a good way. This spice blend as a whole actually makes me think of allspice. As Cola dries on me, it loses its coffee and grows a black-peppery quality to its spice. Still cinnamon, clove, and a little anise, but my chemistry is bringing out some black pepper with it. After a while, this is mainly a spice blend on me, my skin having drunk the other notes.
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Freshly applied on my skin, Sanctorum is an amber-frankincense of a sacred mood, a full-on golden incense with church-appropriate gravitas. The bergamot is a light, airy presence around the edges, like a child at play on the floor in a somber place, indulged to be a child. The blend develops a little perfume vibe as it dries, which may be partly the bergamot. Something about the perfume quality also reminds me of petitgrain. This blend is handsome and an excellent fit for a mood. Though it's not my kind of thing, I'm glad I tried it.
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This is a quiet, understated blend on my skin, but a beauty. It smells like candlelight over honey-baked offerings at night. Soft amber light (with drips of raw golden beeswax) and warm incense alongside sweet honey cakes. The incense is subtle, but I think of golden frankincense. Something also reads as soft yellow beeswax. Amber enfolds these and makes them its own. This is an elegant side of the blend. The other side -- the comfy cozy -- is the honey cakes, which smell about equal parts honey and cake on me. Sweet, warm, moist, honey-colored. The honey cakes are strongest on me at first; in drydown, the amber becomes more prominent.
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Pomegranate turns toward the unexpected: a prominent, perfumey amber and what seems like a wood-grainy sandalwood or other woods. Musk-perfumed, gold-resinous woods. The pomegranate is very much a minor player in this ensemble as it plays on my skin.
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Jammy cranberry in soft, oven-warmed pastry. This smells like the timer isn't quite up on the bake -- you've peeked in the oven too early and found the sufganiyot starting to brown at the edges, still partly dough. The jam itself is pretty intense here: pleasantly tart, and maybe a tad citrus-sour, but red and drippy and syrupy with dissolved sugar.
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Oh, well, this is delicious. I love herbs blended well into a whole, and I get that from the rosemary here. It's fresh and green and pronounced, but not dominant. Warm-cooked apples are the stronger note on my skin. Warm apple mash, fresh rosemary, and cranberries on a soft backdrop of spices and figs. The most potent spice for me is clove. I don't notice any leather, vanilla, or gingered rum. I don't have anything else quite like this, though I'd probably put it next to Lambs-Wool in the box. Festive holiday blend.
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I nabbed a half bottle of this, and have no regrets. This and Hunter Moon 2019 have each pleased as mulled wine variants: Hunter Moon more nature-based and sophisticated, this one more yummy and gourmand. I get all Gluwein's listed notes, even the dark green, herbal touch of bay leaf, though it's light-handed. The honey and vanilla beans are also light touches on my skin. The red wine, spices, and citrus stand out stronger to me, but this is a well-blended, comfortable whole for the holiday season.
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That is some sugary-ass butterscotch. You know that carnival muscle-arm game where someone swings a giant mallet down to send a marker up a scale into a bell? This should ding anyone's butterscotch game. Sugary, milky butterscotch. I only find a trace of coffee, like an afterthought, starting in drydown. This is mostly a Milk and Butterscotch Candy duet.
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Omgcozy. The coffee is fully cafe au lait'd out, all cozy and chill. Comfy cashmere blanket yes. Warm, milky vanilla coffee yes. The book isn't in the scent, but it's in the picture. There might be a shred of coconut in the cup. Love.
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An atmospheric coffee shop blend. I expected it to be stronger, but it goes on soft and goes softer. What I get at first is a hot black-brewed coffeehouse joe and a doughy cinnamon bun with icing... but it's all so soft. Then it blends into morning coffee shop atmo. Coffee shop air. Maybe my skin wants coffee, so it's eating some of these blends right up. Retesting will happen.
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This shows up as described. Brown-sugared honey and a coffee with cream. The honey stands out a lot at first -- bit strange with coffee -- but the scent pulled itself together on me after drydown. This goes well with an Irish coffee in the morning. 😎☕
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Coffee Bean, Indonesian Vetiver, Black Oud, & Patchouli
Casablanca replied to zankoku_zen's topic in Yules
First whiff: Ahhh, coffee beans/vetiver/patch I love you. You belong with me. Be mine, for now and always... Second whiff: Poudh! Nooo... Third whiff: [...] Did that work? Can denial make poo oudh go away, just this once? The oudh has merged back into the rest of the blend on my chemistry. I can find it, but I don't mind it. Without it, though, it was magic. Alas, no bottle, then. -
This smells like the rough, non-polished under-side of black leather on me. It reminds me of the black leather pieces in a tack shop, from when I rode horses as a kid. This is like a black leather tack shop. It's all of the leather, but none of the coffee. My friend who is an absolute hooker for all leather scents -- and hates coffee -- will probably adore this.
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Surprisingly sweet cardamom, with just airy hints of vanilla and coffee. This quickly becomes a scarcely there, sweet cardamom skin scent on me. Really faint vanilla, no coffee. This one seems to have passed right through me, like a coffee-house ghost.
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Dark-roast coffee beans and dark, smoky copal. But I also get an itty bitty cola undercurrent, with a last gasp of fizz left in it. Then it goes flat, like the cola at the bottom of the liter bottle. Odd? Could there be a breath of labdanum lurking here? Mostly, this is dark-roast beans and dark, smoky copal, and I like that part.
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This was a lovely blue cypress note on my skin. It shimmered, like dreamy blue trees. It reminded me of the "sheer juniper" in The Crescent Moon -- cool blue-green and evoking a similar mood -- paired with that blend's warm amber. Shimmering blue cypress on warm amber and benzoin. This got a little perfumey on my skin after some wear.
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First on, this was a warm, lightly honeyed red oud and sweet patchouli, with a background of other woods. After an hour, Unitas was mainly a sweet patchouli with hints of honey on my skin. I liked this sweet patch and will enjoy this decant.
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Loads of honey, a waxy vanilla, and sugar cane. Soon, a super-poofy mallow amps way up on me, like it does. Sugary vanilla honey-mallow, with a poof as big as a beehive.
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Bottle and wet on skin: Warm, creamy, drippy caramel enfolding a green apple. Only a hint of something woody and more sophisticated beneath (hi, Snek). Drying and dry: Warm caramel, hint of green apple, and Snek's musky woods. This reminds me a bit of the apple blossom, caramel, cream, skin musk, and teak in Agrat-Bat-Mahlaht. I think that's the closest blend I've tried to this one, for what this is like on my skin.
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Cardamom-infused tobacco with honey, tonka bean, and vanilla cream. Test of Strength on me is a surprisingly spicy (nearly peppery) tobacco sweetened with a light touch of honey, paired with a softer side that's mostly tonka, but with a little vanilla showing up now and then. The cardamom is more potent and pepper-like than I expected, but some of the spicy thing might be coming from this specific tobacco -- they blend well. This feels like a very dual-natured, yin-yang fragrance to me, with the punch from spiced tobacco paired with softer tonka-vanilla. The notes on each end blend well with each other, but don't quite come together -- yin and yang stay separate, a little bit of honey in between.