Casablanca

At first, this couldn't smell more like I imagined it from the notes list if I had brewed it myself. Am I imagining the little tang of a metallic something here, too? Blood manages a syrupy thickness without becoming too sweet. For me, the clove and resins keep it well away from smelling like cough syrup, but some may find the cherry syrup part of it too close. After drydown, I seem to smell just a little unlisted red rose in this, or maybe carnation... soft petals hiding under the softening cherry and myrrh. Blood isn't very me, but I like it. The balance is nicely done.

To add to those, King Pursued.

A white, glistening, fruity floral. There's an aquatic tone to the pear and lily of the valley; I can also find the musk in the early sniffs. Then I realize the rosewood is fairly prominent, too, but it's much lighter and "prettier" than the rosewood oil I have. It works better with the other notes here than mine would. Waiting for the soap to show up... There. Around 10 minutes in. The blend is still full-smelling, just soapy on my skin, unfortunately.

Ouch. I can like jasmine, but not screechy jasmine -- and this same quality sometimes puts me off of lime's similarly strong and high-pitched impact. The two together are probably a headache waiting to happen, and I don't even get scent headaches. I smell flowers behind them, but holy smokes. I'm just going to recover in a corner for a bit.

Most blends wait a few seconds or minutes before turning to soap on me, but this one wastes no time.

Soft tobacco, ambergris, and a curl of incense. I kinda pick out leather, but it blends into the more prominent tobacco. Not that anything here is strong -- the whole is fairly soft-spoken on my skin. I like this, though the musk doesn't smell as fine to me as many musks. Am I smelling just a little orange or bergamot in here? Later on, I get lots of ambergris. Mm.

Oo. Not being much of a dragon's blood person, I'm surprised at my warm reaction to this at first sniff. I get a sort of smokiness not accounted for in the notes. I'm not familiar with the lab's poppy note, but what seems to be the poppy here engages me. I feel like this is a floral I could wear if it were still around, probably because it smells nothing like a conventional floral.

First impression: minty lemon-lime and black leather. I can find the grapefruit, but mostly this is lemon-lime. Then I smell the amber, tea, and orchid. And then finally the teak, but it seems to hide in the leather and make it more sophisticated. Ahm, yes, please give me all the world's leather and teak together... This mix is fine. Kush? I don't find it... Since I'm at work, maybe that's for the best. I'm not a fan of the citrus top for this blend and, to be honest, nothing about the bright citrus makes me think of NYC. But the rest of the blend does... So I sit waiting for the citrus fruits to burn off. Once they mostly have (though, they do linger on...), the tea amps up. Its not-quite-bitter scent always somehow smells "hollow" to me, like a space carved out of some natural material. The smell of leafy negative space. With orchid, amber, leather, and a lil teak. Later still, the leather smells strongest.

Incense and warm metal. This smells attractive (to me). I catch some sage as a top note, but it fades lightning-fast. Steamworks is low-throw and short-lived on me, but the incense and warm metals draw me in while it lasts. This is a warm, metallic incense skin scent, barely there, and just a little sweet.

Star anise, a little orange-toned, is my first impression of Scarab. The orange tone and much of the anise vanish in a minute, and then I smell frankincense, and a little of what I'm guessing is meant to be the lubricating oils -- but they seem to dilute the fragrance more than add to it. I smell another thin musk. Later, I find some leather. Scarab settles into a light anise and spice leather skin scent, barely there.

The first impression for me is of a thin balsamic musk. Very thin. The notes list had drawn me in, and I was looking forward to this, but I hardly smell anything here. It's like the components have mostly checked out of the motel. After a few minutes, I smell something a little like curry, dry as a husk. A bit later, I get a faint tobacco stink. Not a good tobacco. But the fragrance still smells thin. Insubstantial, other than the curry odor. I don't care for it.

I just shrugged and blind-bottled this, to be honest. I love these notes, and already knew I love them together. Veritas smells as I imagined it would, and when I got an oil diffuser for the car, it seemed just the thing. When the diffuser ran out, I refilled it with Veritas again. No urge yet to change to something else. This is one of those golden meadow blends -- at least that's where chamomile takes my brain, especially when it comes with frank, angelica, and certain flowers. I smell chamomile and feel like I'm smelling pollen and sun in the air, without the sneezes or skin burns. I'm a sun lover, and pretty happy with this. Chamo and frank are strongest on me, with a light-handed, colorful sweetness from the flowers, and a bit of wood and rootiness from angelica. This lasts around three hours on me, a common length for my skin.

I don't know what Angel's trumpet smells like, so, yay! Mostly, I smell wet, clean lettuce and a little floral sweetness. No rosewood and nothing else specifically. This verges on powdery, which may be the orris influence, but doesn't go all the way there. Later, it goes a little soapy on me. Low throw and lifespan. Not for me.

My first impression of Himerus on my skin is of blue juniper, bright bergamot, and purple orchid and lilac. On the second inhale I get the rosewood/red musk mix, and sandalwood. Himerus isn't very me (and I'm expecting the lab's red musk to turn armpitty on my skin in a bit), but it's interesting. I like the cool-toned juniper-orchid-lilac notes, both together and contrasted with the warmer other notes. The overall effect moves from juniper-perfumey to fruity-floral-perfumey, though, so it won't be everyone's thing. Weirdly, the red musk never goes ill on my skin. That might be a first for the lab's version of it on me. I think this could be a decent winter blend.

Another voodoo blend with no listed notes. I've had no luck with this voodoo line so far. First impression: citrus, in particular lemon and grapefruit, and maybe also bergamot. Then I think I smell honey, and Van Van makes a sharp turn toward lemon-honey cough drop, with maybe something green underneath, like basil and grass mixed. The cough-drop lemon amps to high hell on me over time. Not for me.

My first impression of Velvet is swirls of chocolate vanilla with sprinkles of myrrh, like a lighter Candy Butcher. This is like the Candy Butcher reformed into a slightly nicer and more gentle person. After a bit, it seems like the chocolate vanilla with myrrh sprinkles has been poured into a sandalwood cup. The myrrh and sandalwood are still just framing a gourmand at this point. As Velvet dries, its sandalwood comes forward -- very pleasing. This is a good blend and would be fun to test directly against the Candy Butcher. I'll probably store them together.

This is a gleaming, bright rosy brew, reminding me of Bilquis, but sweeter and brighter. The lotus flowers bring an intensely pink bubblegum brightness to the roses, and behind all that, I think I get a light frankincense and/or sandalwood base. This is sweet, reddish-pink lotus-rose syrup poured and oozing across a franky/sandalwoody platform. I like this, but would sooner apply Bilquis. I'll probably store this imp with her.

2010 Sugar! I mean seriously, sugar. We biologically lean toward craving it. I love it in most of its forms. (Maybe not powdered sugar, but it's still good for motorboating.) Sugar Skull smells like white sugar and brown sugar and caramelly sugar and candied fruits that smell mostly like strawberry and lemon to me. And maybe a teeny teeny bit of lotus bubblegum? Skull seems to get a little spiciness as it dries. Cardamom? I like it.

… A deep, resonant scent, both comforting and soft: lovers’ roses, solemn chrysanthemum, dark vetiver and dazzling cactus flowers. This smells like Demeter's Beeswax paired with a chocolate rose. Other than the rose, nothing like that is listed in the notes. It is to boggle. After a bit, I smell flowers -- the strongest of which I think must be the chrysanthemum. I like it. It reminds me a little of the "marigold" note of Flor de Muerto, but less sunny and yellow-smelling. And then the cactus flower comes out beside it. But this still smells a lot to me like Demeter's Beeswax. Demeter describes their beeswax blend as calming, and this blend certainly is that -- it's just not what I was expecting here. I do like it mixed with these flowers, though!

Wow. Other than the jungle blooms, I get everything listed for this in one quick sniff. The smoke and copal (the latter being quite strong) blend into each other, and the plumeria and orange blend. This immediately evokes Mexican jungles, and I love that. My reaction to copal is always mixed. I'm mostly drawn to it, but usually also just a little repelled. It's just so... Very. Rustic. I love most of its associations in my head, but that much rustic in one place also makes me grimace on the inside. Unfortunately this blend quickly moves into nearly single note smoky copal on me as it dries. The orange-plumeria cut out so fast! If the copal had been given a lighter hand, I'd likely bottle this.

Poof! Incense. Smoky champaca framed in an indolic jasmine (not loving the back-of-the-nose pee-diaper tone in this one), bergamot, and moss. This is a lush, deep green moss note -- love that part, and the incense, but the jasmine (I think) is bringing something a bit nasty to the scene, something I only smell on the end of the inhale. A bit later, I can pick out iris -- not usually a favorite for me, but it's much nicer than the jasmine here -- and carnation. And then a lean, dark base of vetiver and patchouli. I don't mind the patch in this blend. This dries into incense with mild hints of patch and flowers. Once the jasmine calms down, I like this.

2008 Day of the Skulls is a grainy-textured beeswax floral. The textured smells of frankincense and sandalwood blend wonderfully with the sort of arid, textured smell that cactus flower notes seem to have -- I love this one, it works. There's something smoke-like here, but without the smoke particles. It seems to come from the tobacco-cocoa hints, which really are just hints. I don't smell this and think of tobacco or cocoa at any point, but I get a dark, blended impression that reminds me a little of those, and a little more of smoke. I don't smell specific flowers beyond the dry texture of cactus blooms; there's just a floral impression. On me, Day of the Skulls dries more into the waxy quality of the beeswax, though still colored by the frank and dry flowers. In two and a half hours, it's just a hint of beeswax, and no more. But I like it.

I love this. A hibiscus-apple-amber blend is strongest on me at first, but the golden tea-ginger-champaca is like a second blended wall of fragrance right behind it in strength. I get a touch of frankincense, and pick out no carnation. The spices and ginger and tea amp on me over time, but this does not morph much.

I'm not sure what's going on here: this smells so strange. The dominant note on me is oakmoss, I guess -- but the whole blend is a jumble of some notes disagreeing, and others diluting each other out. So I seem to get oakmoss, a whiff of leather, a backdrop of thick, chalky floral soap, and a sense of the Void -- a thinned-out emptiness where fragrance was probably supposed to be. Later, it's chalky floral soap.

Jasmine-honeysuckle is strongest on me at first, with a little lavender coloring the edges of the scent, and I think a little pale musk somewhere in the back. At first, this is OK... After a moment, the jasmine pulls to the front, and starts to smell like a high-pitched whine; later it turns to soap, pulling the whole blend into "nope" territory.