Casablanca
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Everything posted by Casablanca
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I often amp both salt and butter, so let's see how this butter-salt cage match goes. On my skin, aquatic salt comes out swinging first. Within a minute, though, butter surfaces amongst the tides and washes heavily ashore. Butter and salty ocean go several rounds, but it's clear they are less in a fighting match than in a committed flirtation with one another. Gradually, a coy, soft vanilla drifts out, letting it be known that it is really responsible for the affectionate, flirty vibe that seems to make up the undercurrent in this ocean. So, yes? Buttery oceanic salt and soft, sweet vanilla.
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At first, Shells is pearlescent pink abalone, with whiffs of salt and musk. The musk creeps in more noticeably during drydown:, at first just salty, then shifting closer to its own russet musk thing. However, sometimes I amp salt, and this is one of those salts. The salt soon overtakes most of the russet musk and pearly abalone on my skin, and the blend becomes mainly a sea-washed-and-dried salt scent. It's a thin outline of salt crusting a shoreline as the tides ebb, though without much of a salt-crystal granular texture.
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Gold honeyed-oats and fizz. Oh, it's beer fizz! This is one of the few beer blends in which I clearly smell the beer, but on my skin, it's surprisingly light and fizzy --- borderline ginger ale fizz. A soft, dry husk quality gives some seasonal texture and I catch a whiff of corn now and then. The amber makes itself known as well. Mostly it contributes to the dedicated golden quality of the whole, but now and then, it seems to stand out on its own as a mild presence. Lovely, hearty blend for late summer through fall.
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Dry, dark coffee beans (definitely the roasted beans, not the brew), dry cacao, and an equally dry, grass-stalky khus behind them. Coffee beans have that bit of roasted husk scent to them, and here that's so well supported by the other notes. This is deeply comforting and I love it. Bottle, please!
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Bright red apples bobbing in a vat of sweet, boozy, musky, slightly spicy apple-slosh. Basically. The booze (which smells bourbon-heavy) and red musk are a little more prominent for me here than in my memory of straight-up Smut... but it's been a while since I wore Smut solo. They come out swinging heavy (but oh so sweetly), and this is possibly a good time to mention that Bobbing for Smut might not be an office perfume (depending on your office, of course!). In drydown, I also start to smell some white floral. (It reminds me a bit of jasmine, though it's less intrusive and better blended than jasmine often is.) I'd rather I didn't smell this part, but it's not interfering too much. For all this seems to have a few notes that I usually sidestep, I do like this one quite a bit for a certain mood. (When the Lab box arrived, I was in that mood --- and I gloried in it.)
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Spiced baked apples open both the scent's description and experience on my skin. Clove soon spikes as the most prominent spice for me, but ground nutmeg and cinnamon stand in ready support. Behind these, a warm, autumnal mush of pumpkin and peach fill out the blend --- as in Jack, they smell dimly candlelit. Not that I read a lot of smoke or bonfire from this, but something glows in a small, candle-flame way... rather like how amber may communicate sunlight. Spicy, apple-peachy, autumn-gourdy, glowy. Happy with this.
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First, this perfume name was my favorite. For the rest: Throughout its wet phase and well into dry, Ball Gags is a bushel of sweet apples further sweetened with honey. These aren't necessarily Honeycrisp, but with the addition of honey, they're in the neighborhood. The effect is essentially very sweet, almost syrupy apples. The black leather takes its time to appear --- at first, I thought I might be smelling black amber -- and even after a long time, remains subdued on me. On my skin, this plays out as much bobbing, few ball gags. 🙂
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Bobbing for Sneks goes on heavy and sweet, and somehow musky even for SO. The apples are baked rather than fresh, warm and almost mushy, buttery-soft and mildly spiced. Beneath the harvest fruit, the Snake Oil runs deep, its patchouli especially noticeable, like a taproot burrowing into the orchard depths. Lovely SO blend.
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Freshly applied, this offers a hot cup of smooth, richly dark coffee (coffee and a bit of grounds, I'd say). A trace of soft, milky caramel swirls in the background, lending its smoothness. The caramel and oatmilk knock on the door of "creamy" without really going in. Mostly, I'm getting rich black coffee with a little hand wave from caramel. Apple is late to the date. Oh, there she is. Once this dries, Apple makes an appearance but no strong statement. She's behaving really chill, kind of leaning back into caramel as though into a recliner. She showed up, she lets Coffee know she'll take it from here... But at the same time, she can't really be bothered. She and her spice are soft on my skin, more of an autumnal mood than a fruity personality. This has only rested a day, so I anticipate some shifting... but I dig it.
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Nice. From this Onesie, I get a chalky-pale vanilla-cognac note mingling with clean fabric-laundry. The early chalky texture I find seems almost like a porcelain or marble note (could it be bone?), but the texture smooths out quickly. Mixed with that is a vanilla that smells antique, like one of the vanilla-cognac laces, and faintly sweet. I don't have Pediophobia to compare, but at least for me, and before this is longer rested than a day, this one is in that spooky family. I'm testing a friend's bottle, but I'd be happy, too, if it were mine.
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This is pretty. Freshly applied on me, it's mainly a fruity orange-strawberry blend against a complex vegetal background. Pomegranate, plum, and currants creep out in drydown, and this veers deeply into dark-red-fruits territory. I suspect this is mostly from Mme Moriarty, but I've never tried that one. Once dried, this just goes full heavy fruits. But I'm enjoying this deep fruitiness with, for me, largely unidentifiable plant hints now and then.
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Freshly applied, for a few seconds, this is a non-cologney (and a bit richer) dead leaves bell pepper... then boom. Amber and lavender Snek Oil. For a brief phase, the blend offers things sweet, dark, a little lavender-herbal, and a little bell peppery. The distant fires are distant. I can sense them as traces of cinder and smoke, but nothing too punchy in the snoot. Dorian pokes his head in only after this dries. I'm not sure how to describe his effect on the blend, other than to say it gets more nuanced or involved, but doesn't overwhelm.
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Columns of the Temple of Neptune at Paestum
Casablanca replied to Seajewel's topic in Limited Editions
Columns is smooth and atmospheric: dried and drying grasses around sun-baked stone. Probably one of the more prominent stony scents I've tried in a while. During drying, I notice a little swampiness from the cypress, the Mediterranean vibe of olive leaves, and dry, powdery incense. This does evoke an ancient Greek temple. -
Jasmine, as she tends to do, grabs all the attention at this pool. She's draped in an open-weave beach wrap of blue musk, and wearing a swimsuit with a few shy peonies on it --- as if that has anything to do with her nature. She's rather shrill, but thankfully not indolic. (No pee in the pool.) With a little hunting, I find the vanilla tea, but lavender didn't make the party. This is a cool-toned jasmine musk for jasmine lovers.
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Floral honey predominates this Deed, as others have noted. For a while, this is Wildflower Honey SN on me... which kind of tempts me to bottle! The redness from the labdanum does creep through, however. In drydown, the weighty sweetness of this honey starts to settle, and a more ponderous redness starts to glow through its veil, like red lighting behind a stage-set scrim. A bit later, I also notice the bourbon vanilla, blended and almost completely merged with the honey. Honey has to recede on this stage before vanilla has a chance at the spotlight. I can imagine this balance will change with some age.
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An unexpected beauty. I haven't been as often into musk blends, but this one reads as fresh and lovely. Soft, misty lavender and pear float over amber cream, dreamy and somehow almost clean in their freshness. The mistiness combines with the herbal chamomile, lavender and pear to bring a spa-like vibe that I'm more or less in love with. The musk gives this blend more staying power while not interfering too much with the serene spa atmosphere. Enjoying this one.
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Summer Rain has been variable on me day to day. It sometimes sits and dries on me mostly as new-fallen raindrops, sometimes more as herbs and rocky cement. This morning it's more of the latter, at first appearing with an airy, barely-coconut note that tapers off as quickly as steam rising from hot, rain-wet pavement. The lavender is quiet, even subdued, and blends well into the herbs --- which themselves smell to me like assorted herbs thrown in with a few tenacious cement-crack dandelions. As a Philly girl, I love this as an idea of the summer storms here.
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Up front, Juicebox is warm honeyed chocolate made a tiny bit earthy with brown figs. The hazelnuts come out more upon drying, and become the more forward note on me, with the figgy honey (and a faint chocolate) becoming more of a background. I notice some cakeyness during this time, too, but hazelnuts are still out in front. That said, the whole perfume is pretty soft at this point. Cozy. Foodie. Brown.
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Dad Makeup throws out soft clouds of Earl Grey-like bergamot perfume when freshly applied on me. The clouds drift forward over a backdrop of skin-soft, slightly creamy honey; after a moment, I can find the marshmallow as well, also lingering close to the skin. The dried scent chills out on the perfume thing. By then, the blend somehow instead gives off a mellow, clean vibe. It smells like I'm a half-hour out of the shower, all dried off but still carrying traces of some pretty, mildly creamy vanilla (and slightly bergamot-herbal) shower gel. I like it.
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Sweet white honeyed vanilla cream and floofy marshmallow stand out innocently enough, not quite betrayed of evil intent by an undercurrent (under currant?) of currants and a mild, musky clove. This one's sugary innocence casts behind it an opium-like darkness. Under this pale, candy-like cloak of honeyed vanilla poof lurks a darker side that reminds me of Sugar, Poppy Tar, and Red Currant, if anything... But the overall and most forward impression remains sweet throughout its wear on my skin.
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Green-mossy cedar and patchouli, and something a little odd... which mellows and improves over time and seems to shape into the cade. Earth mother vibe, though a bit swampy or muddy on my skin.
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Sugared clove against a curtain of amber musk. In the realm of both Black Amber and Sugarcane, and Luke 10:25-37. Love this sugary spice.
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A blast of bitter green wild grasses sounds right. There's a raw, unauthored quality to this: as though a stray hiker found a little-touched, overgrown, and thoroughly overlooked area and opted to spend the day there, maybe sketching, even though it's not what would ever make a brochure or most people's ideas of idyllic nature. It simply is, as it grew, sculpted by the courses of wind and sun and the nourishment of sandy soils. In drydown, the bitterness and greenness subside, and whiffs of powdery orris emerge. I never notice other notes.
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Soothing, frothy waves wash up on my skin --- that's how this one smells on me. I'm seated on gray stones long washed smooth by the timeless flowing tides, and the water washes up and down against the rocks, against me, limning us both in salt and pearlescent froth and mineral seawater. In drydown, I find a lovely, breathy vanilla, which is where the pearlescent quality seems to arise from. There might be a whiff of white rose in it, also; at least, I'm not finding other rose. This pearly vanilla is beautiful, and luring me in like a Siren. (Also a Girl at the Beach...) The linen and general airiness of the scent leave it clean, and the balance of notes is thoughtful and delicate. The salt remains present throughout, though it never overwhelms --- partly because I'm attending more to this pearl note. Aquatics aren't a common purchase or reach for me, but this may be the prettiest one I've sampled in a while. I'm likely to bring in a bottle if I can afford it.
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As you might expect, there's a lot going on for this July eve. This perfume is honestly such an odd olfactory circus swirl that it's tempting to sort of hold up my hands and walk away from review writing, but I'll try. I mentioned a circus. This one brings to my mind an imagined 19th-century one: cymbals crashing, horns blaring, garish masks and spinning tumblers and dancing monkeys and hawking announcers and trinket peddlers. I can pick out these notes from among the imaginary 5-cent booths: lemon, violet, herbs that may include oregano and mugwort, apples, and lilac and something inky and murky. Sometimes, there's a general impression of "candied," as though some of these thingies are sold at faire booths in that sugared state --- that's part of where this mind-picture arises from for me. Candied herbal red currants and apples are what seem to steal the show for me eventually... That's where this dries to. A kitchen-sink notes list (everything and the kitchen sink) can probably venture many directions for many people; this Hall of Mirrors awaits its next subject to reflect.