Casablanca

Green mandarin is Queen on my skin -- a very green, but not bitter, mandarin. I'm loving this note and the green and orange colors is brings to mind. This is a beautiful green mandarin green tea with refined hints of rosy woods. I don't pick out distinct woods, except for something like a rose-tinted rosewood. The honey's touch is light enough here that I only notice its sweetening effect in the blend when I look for it. I love this in all its parts: the way the green mandarin blends into the green tea, the relaxed elegance of the woods warmed and given joy with a little rose, the restraint of the honey. I will need more of this one.

I like how different this one is from any other blends I've tried, thanks to this rice. On the wand, this is a strong basmati rice, a nutty and buttery grain. A little honey sweetens it, but this is really all about Queen Basmati. Wet on my skin, I get a little more honey, but it's still just warming and sweetening the dominant rice. The rice is nutty, and a little popcorn-buttery. After a while, it develops something like a curry note on my skin. Champaca is scarcely attending, and is just a hint of its usual self. I'm a little relieved when the honey asserts itself a bit more in drydown. The basmati is good, but it overpowers at first. This seems to be the same honey as in Honey, Hay Absolute and Amber. It's sweet and mild, rather than heavy or sugar-crunchy the way O smells to me. But that curry-like odor also hangs in on me... and it wins out in strength over time. I'm glad I tried this, but it's not a match.

Sexy, honeyed, amber-yellow flowers with hints of fig and apple, and the lightest breath of sage. The jessamine smells closer to honeysuckle to me than jasmine, like a sort of wildflower-honeysuckle scent. This beauty is a huge profusion of ultra-golden flowers drenched in lightly fruity honey, touched with gentle sage. This smells like something bees would swarm over, and that tends to mean I love it. Bashful—sip thy Jessamines As the fainting Bee— If I were a bee landing on this, I would faint straightaway. Gorgeous golden floral that will morph into a bottle for me.

Creamy lemon curd, white tea, and a touch of delicate lotus root. My experience is like VioletChaos's: a creamy, curdy dessert lemon coupled with the clean lemony note of white tea. Much more cream from the amber cream than amber. The eastern touch of this lotus root is delighting me in this combination. It's subtle on my skin, but it's an out-of-the-ordinary twist. This is more gourmand than I expected -- from the curd -- but it's just gorgeous. This is a perfect mood blend for the winter-to-spring transition. Very pleased with this blind bottle!

Mm, delishus restaurant coffee and vanilla ice cream. A little musk blending in. I get a hint of nutty chicory in the coffee, like in some other reviews. It's not a heavy chicory like I once smelled in a coffee, but a light and toasty touch. I'm down under half on my Jiaolong and was looking for a similar-but-different replacement. One with less overt black musk. Found it. ❤️

A fresh, soft, and playful apple-yuzu white tea, touches of snow and ozone. And... there it is! Snowdrops from Lilith's First Icicle, minus the heaps of powder I got from that blend! The yuzu is coming out softer than I expected: a gentle, almost shy/almost coy citrus rather than a sun-bright, horns-blowing citrus. This is a youthful citrus playing hide and seek under chilly apple trees dotted with white apple flowers and the flurries of a late, indecisive snow. This blend of white apple, snowdrops, and snow is giving me an apple blossom impression and an image of a late snow in early spring. The yuzu scent is a sort of orange-melon-lemon note to me. I'm not getting any of the powder that I often get from white musk. This is a delight.

First applied, Right Ventricle is fresh and positively acidic with citrus. Sweet orange and lime, though smelling somehow a bit like paler fruit on me, like there's also a little white grapefruit or something hidden among them. After the early citrus burst, a sweet and tropically sultry ylang ylang comes out, and then benzoin. The combination is coming across as really sweet. At this stage, this actually reminds me a bit of fruity gum, but not in a bad way. The ylang ylang continues to grow in intensity on me once dried. I once spilled most of a bottle of ylang ylang into homemade deodorant I was making. That was... so strong... I'd forgotten about this, but the dried blend is reminding me of it... 😂 A sweet and fruity tropical floral.

On me, this is loads of mandarin, with only scant hints of clove and carnation. The mandarin is smooth, mildly sweet, a bit green, and not bitter at all. The carnation comes out a bit more after the blend dries, but I still barely get the clove. This is mandarin's joyride all the way through. I dig mandarin, so this is good by me. In all likelihood, the clove and carnation will grow some as the blend settles, so this is a nice starting point.

The first queen, daughter of giants: radiant amber, black fig, and rose oud. This is a bright reddish carmine fluid. Fresh on my skin, Bestla starts strong: primarily as a dark red rose, with some dark weirdness mingled in. I realize it’s the oud, but it’s different from usual. It’s strange. But it’s a strong oud! From the notes list, I realize it’s the black fig that’s giving the earthy-woody oud the weirdness I’m getting, which is a darkly sweet fruit-fleshiness. The black fig blends almost into oneness with the oud, darkening and sweetening it, a part of it. Soft amber lives in the background. Once Bestla has dried, she fully blends: a dark, potent rose oud with tones of black fig and soft background resin creating fullness. I don’t have anything quite like this. It’s close to what I’d wanted Daruma Doll to be, from last year’s Lupers, without the Doll’s red musk that did so poorly on my skin. A keeper.

Spring-like aquatic greenery flowing into amber and a soft, blended musk. For me this has much of the mood of The Queen of Earthly Paradise and Qui Aime Bien Châtie Bien, except with a flowing grass-and-greenery vibe instead of the slightly quirky spring flowers of those blends. This is a beautiful spring and summer blend that will morph into a bottle. ❤️

This one is like a dream of snow in the San Fernando Valley... ❤️ Sparkly snow, poppy, a little whiff of white tea, and something California desert brush-like that reminds me of the Lab "chaparral" note. I'm guessing it's the California sage. I get something more overtly desert-scented here than from other sage notes, but I love them all. The poppy smells soft and golden, and less opium-heavy than some other poppy notes. California desert smells give me nostalgia for when I lived there. It's quirky and fun to pick up a bit of that plus snow, without it smelling like Big Bear or Lake Arrowhead, the only places I saw snow in the southern state. Love this.

Both on the wand and on my skin, I get a metallic, chemical Windex-adjacent note mingling with amber and something expensively perfumey. The metallic part does smell bronze- or iron-ish, but this smells too chemical and perfumey for me.

Chocolate dominates here on my skin. Alongside it, I get teak, blackcurrant, and lavender. I don't pick up white musk, which is cool because it goes so powdery on me. This is an appealing blend. I love the teak with this cacao. I'm not seeking more chocolate, but I'm glad I tried this.

Glistening, snowy white musk purpled with plum and blackcurrant, with an airy lavender wafting over. This smells like a sugar plum fairy.

Lavender poop musk? The Bestla poudh meets musk and a little airy lavender. Or... I think it was airy. The oudh was so heavy, it went beyond distracting.

Zingy at first. Freshly on, I get these notes in order: neroli, clementine and blood orange, grapefruit, lime, bergamot, lavender, thyme... and an itty bitty bit of tobacco adding an earthy, smoky nip at the bottom. This is fresh from the citrus, yet smudged with tobacco... the tobacco keeps this from smelling clean on me. As it often does, the neroli amps and turns orange candy lollipops on me... but when I can ignore that, I dig this early stage. In drydown, though, it turns more musky and the tobacco dials up. It works itself into a citrus-thyme-tobacco perfumey perfume.

Mm, this is one for the herb-heads. It also feels very Mediterranean. Herbal, lemony lavender and green moss, with hints of brown sugary fig. The chamomile and thyme herbs are having a party with the herbal quality of the lavender. I would easily turn to this for a refreshing herb fix. Probable bottle.

Vanilla coconut cream and a whiff of sandalwood. This does remind me a bit of Obatala, which I remember as having a sort of watery coconut meat note... I'm getting something like that here, but a little more sunscreen-like and also more dressed up through the other notes. This smells like the well-groomed summer evening out, when the sun shines late, after the day at the beach.

I definitely get the shaving cream comparison from an earlier review, and yet it's pleasant... At first, I get glassy snowdrops and slightly soapy vanilla foam. The blend is a little chilly, but I get much more glass than ice. The soapy vanilla foam makes me think of shaving cream and babies... I guess baby powdered-babies. 🙂 As Icicle dries, it turns completely to powder. I don't make baby powder comparisons often, but this one is pretty much the best baby powder on my skin once it dries.

This is youthful, pretty, and playful: a pink musky bergamot-grapefruit blend. It's more perfumey and has less citrus zing than I expected, and the white musk goes a little powdery on me. But not too much... I also keep thinking I'm getting some other quirky and fun note that I can't place, something fruity or floral. Whatever it is, I'm digging this combination. Except for the perfumey, powdery quality... I'm going to enjoy this decant a lot! Just need to figure out if it's too powdery for a bottle.

Oh, gosh. The first-sniff thought is "Probable bottle." Beeswax wreathed in smoky incense and lavender over a hint of stone. This one has more smoke than the little bit I seemed to get from Snow of the Gravestones at Petersfriedhof; instead, the smoke here is pervasive in a way that reminds me of Dia de los Muertos. This smells like a festival-day smoke -- smoke wafting through the streets, present everywhere you go. Lavender sweetens and purples it. The blended lavender and incense smoke wafts over stone that stands apart from the other notes. It smells subtle, flat, and gray to me. A lot of the time I don't notice it. Lovely blend, very evocative.

Warm, golden incense, olive oil, a hint of blown-out candle smoke, a touch of frost. The incense smells like a frankincense-nag champa. There's an unlisted sort of olive oil part, and I get a little smokiness blending in. The frost is barely there for me. An evocative scent, with something of the Hanerot Halalu mood. Lasts more than two hours on me.

Sweet, fruity, pink cotton-candy flowers. Very pink... I get green tea along the edges of this fruity floral, as though fruits and flowers float in it. Cotton candy, tuberose, melon, a whiff of plumeria, and lots of pinkness.

Powdered sugar over strawberries, raspberries, orange zest, and a goop of whipped vanilla cream. I thought there must be raspberries in the listed notes, because I'm smelling them, blending into the strawberries... but maybe that was another perfume's notes list. This strawberry-raspberry note is super fruity and girly. The orange manages to smell like the zest, not the juice. It smells drier than juice. It's a nice touch! I'm not sure if it's the suggestibility, but I keep smelling a little suggestion of vanilla crepe as a last lingerer in my nose when I inhale this. This might be a tad girly for me to bottle, but I can tell I'll really enjoy the decant. I don't usually go for gourmand, but this struck a chord.

Snowy white tea, brightened with bergamot and girlish freesia. The freesia opens as a strawberry-like floral, delicate and innocent. Its strawberry aspect fades quickly, leaving a bit of floral sweetness. The snow note is delicate and brittle. It has an ice that edges close to plastic on my skin, but stays clean. It's snowy ice over an aquatic whiteness. Morning at Fuschlee is snowy, airy, and delicate.