Casablanca
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Everything posted by Casablanca
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Stealth cake! This opens as basically butterscotch honey-cake on me. My friend put it on her own wrist, took a sniff, and pronounced, "Tastykake Krimpets!" Later on, I get a good dose of skin musk from this, but the honey krimpet vibe abides.
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Clean, spritzy sea mist, a little sweet pea, and blue musk to open. Although I usually amp salt, I'm not getting a lot of it here. The sea spray suggests salt but leans more clean and ocean-aquatic on me in a way that threatens to go powdery. In drydown, a little moonflower slinks in, and stays mild. The blend starts to soap and powder up, but still mostly reads as a clean aquatic. In the end, this ventures further into soap territory on me than powder-land. It's not my style... but worth a look if interested in clean water blends.
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Spring Whispers is a soft and breathy fruity floral --- also a complex one. Freshly applied, it smells like cherry flowers, strawberry-like freesia, sour plum, a little fresh pear, something dewy, and something like a clean, powdery laundry freshness. I don't notice bergamot, currants, or musk at this point, but there's more than enough going on. In drydown, the freesia overtakes the early-blooming cherry flowers, giving the blend a dominant strawberry-ish floral tone. I find a bit of blendy bergamot. It's a pretty pairing with the freesia. And... that's about where this stays. Spring in a bottle.
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A calming honeyed beeswax and candle-smoke. The honey-beeswax has that bit of caramel tone that reminds me of Dalliances by Candlelight, a Luper from another year. The amber is well-blended and doesn't stand out on its own to me. I don't notice lotus for a while... but as this dries, I find a little creamy pinkish quality that's pretty, and not bubblegummy. It reminds me a little of Poor Monkey and Elegant Vulvas. Lovely blend.
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Sudanese myrrh, papyrus, champaca flower, black lotus, amber, and honeyed leather. Spicy-hot myrrh, like, myrrh as the hot blast of air from the desert that smells the sweetest of all, according to the locals. This blend reminds me of a book I read about the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia, and a fascination with such an environment of extremes and challenges to live in, and people who do. A little cinnamon edge to a blast of hot myrrh that's also champaca-spiked, golden with amber. I didn't remember the notes for this when testing it, except the myrrh. I loved the hot champaca-myrrh opening. But then after drydown, I realized it smelled like the papyrus from Mr Ibis wrapped with leather. I didn't think they were in it, and thought I must be having a skin chemistry weirdness that would be funny in the morning. But hey, they're there! I wasn't making it up. I remember I had hesitated on Seth because the Ibis papyrus wasn't very good on me. I found him a new funeral parlor where he is more loved. But this myrrh is really the desert, and the champaca a tiger. The lotus is sweet and well blended in. Love this.
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Silky blue musk, soft blue chamomile, jasmine, and rose. More jasmine is coming out on my skin than rose, but they are playing together reasonably well for two such divas. The blue "silk" musk and chamomile are a little more potent for me than the flowers. Especially the musk. It's really kind of a lot. Musky musk is musking all over the place on me lately. The musk is a little too much for me in this one.
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Ung. This is straight magic. For this girl who prizes The Shadowed Veil as her favorite Weenie and is running low, Prairie Witch is a pot of (autumn) gold. Potent spices (with star anise and clove in the light), bourbon-stewed apples, and buttery, candle-glowing pumpkins make up the dominant notes for me, but there's a background complexity that includes some dry grasses. I'd swear there was patchouli in this, as in Shadowed Veil, but perhaps it's the smoked vetiver. I do get more of a background woods vibe than just vetiver... the complexity. Lovely and unusually long-lived on my skin. Bottle to happen.
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Black Apple, White Musk, and Champagne Grape
Casablanca replied to Seajewel's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
This opens on me with a dry and mildly grapey champagne (with fairly low-key fizz) and a beautiful, tart black apple. This is pleasant until the white musk turns it to apple-champagne powder poofs (oof oof) on my skin. -
Perfumey apple and I also get something in the way of melon or guava with it. I can see the fruit similarities to Snow Moon... But Snow Moon was beautiful on me, having a wintry note that worked well with my chemistry. Unfortunately, the brittle ice encasing these fruits is one of the varieties that turns to plasticky vinyl on my skin (I think Frostbitten and Snow White did, as well).
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I mean... yes. "Buzzy floral aldehyde" is as described! Behind that, I pick up a tinny metallic steel note, and like @doomsday_disco, something breathy and cool and mentholic like eucalyptus. Despite its eucalyptus vibe, this blend carries for me a highly artificial mood, if that makes sense. This is a scent about a constructed thing, electric and made, and it smells like it. It's not my style, but it's been an experience to try.
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Metallic cumin over russet amber. This turns... more chemical and less cumin and amber on me as it dries. I seem to be on a chemical streak... So, metallic chemicals, kinda? It seems this one does not quite work out.
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Initially, Ice Age Baton gives me some of the garage-chemical smells that others have also found. Behind the industrial fumes, there floats a dreamy, chalky vanilla and cocoa. So I wait... ...and the ick does settle and fade. I thought the chalky rubble of the blend would remind me of Klosterruine but, actually, to me it smells closer to the porcelain of Pediophobia. This could be an influence of this lovely vanilla! Smooth blend, once you get past the rough.
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And Though They Are With You Yet They Belong Not To You
Casablanca replied to Seajewel's topic in Limited Editions
What a gorgeous fluffy vanilla with delicate sandalwood when first applied. Ah. But, after a moment, this sweet duet is overtaken by the loud orchestra of a perfumey skin musk. I keep sniffing, trying to recapture the beauty of the initial pairing... and each time get a snoot full of musk. Perfumey, powdery musk. The beauty is obscured behind it. It's a fog of war. I can't wear this sort of musk or my ampage of it, but I enjoyed this blend's initial life on my skin. -
Milk, Burnt Honey, And Ambrette Seed
Casablanca replied to Seajewel's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
A nice, bright honey mingles with burnt milk. Like, the milk started to burn on the bottom of the pan, and someone scraped it off and mixed it with honey. This is definitely burnt, and not just toasted... and for me it clearly smells like the milk got the scorch, not the honey. Burnt food smells often repel me, but I'm oddly drawn to this while it's wet on my skin. In drydown, though, the story changes. The burn turns chemical, moving toward burnt rubber tires. This bit of nasty still floats over a cozy vibe of warm milk and honey. It's a taunt. Later, it settles down again into something cozy. I'm on the fence about whether the nasty phase is worth an upgrade. -
Beautiful scent... but not quite the expected. First, it's quite sweet. A light honey and green tea come brewed with potent white sugar and lemon, but a quite airy, vague floral impression... I can't begin to name what the latter might be. This smells like a green tea (or perhaps it's the honey) that's brewed with overt sugar and lemon added, but also has some inherent floral tones, as a wine can have currant or chocolate notes. Khus? Nowhere to be seen (or sniffed). I'm really enjoying this, though it is too lemony when I sample it up close.
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This one is simple and lovely. Well-blended, clean blend of salt and pale, light honey, with a soft, nonaggressive lemon. The lemon pulls off being both as tart as a bit of sass, and nearly as sour as a Tom Collins... but it's still mild. The image that comes is someone wearing a wide-brimmed white hat and matching capris drinking a Tom Collins on the beach. (Except, does anyone drink those?) I haven't always gotten along with salt perfumes, but this one is really working. Upgrading to a partial.
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This perfume doesn't go quite as expected for me. The first burst of it on my skin is simply a bouquet of nondescript pinkish flowers. In drydown, I start to get something reddish and fruity, but also something a bit powdery and clean, like laundry sheets. I've enjoyed past wildflower honey blends... the note hasn't gone all dryer sheets on me before. Here, though, alas... something is reading to me like a wildflower-scented dryer sheet. Clean, powdery, pinkish, floral. Drop of light honey.
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I've tested this blend a few times, and I only ever get a blackened red rose... extraordinarily powdery and a little soapy. I never find any other notes. I enjoy some roses, but this one is showing emotional incompatibility with me.
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This would actually make a fine autumn scent. On the wand and on my skin, both, it's primarily apple-pulpy. It's like some crazy grovestand apple juice... a really extra one, with loads of pulp and a little sweetening honey and orange. It makes me think of something you might get to drink at the shop of a pick-your-own-apples orchard. In drydown, I notice a little amber, but it never comes far forward on me. The golden honey does strengthen over time, but it never really obscures the pulp.
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This is nearly an ylang ylang single note to start, as others have described. I find a little drop of white/light honey on one of the petals... the amount is comparatively small enough to remind me of a honeysuckle with its miniature yield of nectar. I'm not a floral scent person, so this doesn't resonate greatly for me, but it could be lovely for someone who can fully appreciate its tropical, blooming fullness.
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You May House Their Bodies But Not Their Souls
Casablanca replied to Seajewel's topic in Limited Editions
From the reviews above, there seems to be quite a variety of experiences with this one... which I love. For my part, I get a rich black patch as the main player, smoothed with vanilla, made a bit perfumey with musk. There's also something dry and hemp-like coming through for me... combined with the vanilla patch, it does bring Revenant Rhythm to mind. Yet this veers much more musky and sweet (almost sugared) on my skin than RR. Well-balanced and lovely, though a little too musky-perfumey for me. -
Vanilla-creamy toasted oats with a little honey and the beautiful cardamom from Perfectly Normal Childhood/Lights, Camera, Something. I love how this one opens. I don't really ever get enough of this vanilla and cardamom together, and they are beautiful with the other notes. As it wears on me, though, I simply amp the beegees out of these oats. Nightingale eventually goes too grainy/oatmealy for my tastes... but it smells like an absolutely amazing winter breakfast.
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This reminds me of a sunflower scent I picked up for soap-making, but more complex. Golden, musky amber with tones of oranges and lemons over a base that's a little rustic from cedar and a bit grainy from frankincense. I want to say a golden frankincense--but the whole blend is so suffused with gold, it's hard to separate the individual warm contributors. I also get a little sense of fibrous greenery. Essentially, this is summer in a vial.
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So much ginger ale fizz. So much! Someone shook this ginger ale until it exploded. It's mostly fizz on my skin, and on my friend's skin as well, even after a couple weeks of rest. It's quite fetching as fizz goes... but I'm left craving a honey ginger blend with less buzz.
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Brown Sugar, Cream, and Earl Grey Tea
Casablanca replied to Seajewel's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
I'm disappointed that I can't find my decant of this, but I can more or less review by memory. This was brown sugar-dominant on me, a molasses-toned sugar smoothed over by a gentle cream. The Earl Grey was less potent on my skin, but added some dark dryness and a little airy complexity. I quite enjoyed this. Misplacing the decant feels like less of a blow, because I'm planning for a bottle.