Lucchesa

I didn't buy To My Dear And Loving Husband because champaca is usually terrible on me and agarwood is oudh and can be stinky. All the other notes are well within my wheelhouse, though. I was lucky enough to be given this by a marvelous forumite. The agarwood behaves here, and at first this was really promising, with the vanilla-copal-patchouli combination reminding me of Kabe Ni Mimi, with tea, except that bourbon vanilla is more reliable on my skin. Tea rarely lasts on my skin though. And then the champaca came out to ruin things. Champaca is rarely quiet on me, and it upsets the balance here. I'm so glad I got to try it, and it almost worked! I think this would be lovely on a champaca fan -- don't be scared by the agarwood, it's just a deepening note here, not a fecal one.

Kabe Ni Mimi just missed my short list of Lupers I was buying decants of; a super generous forumite gifted it to me. Similarly, it kind of just misses on my skin. My first impressions of Kabe Ni Mimi were vanilla, copal and gnarly patchouli. Now that I know it's there, the sandalwood is obvious, too. The opening is promising, and the late drydown, mostly that vanilla sandalwood, is gorgeous, but it goes through an awkward phase on me where the vanilla-patch-copal combination is just not gelling on me. Some vanillas go weird on my skin, and that's happening here for a time. If I could eliminate the middle, this would be a great scent.

I don't usually wear fruit-only scents, but fig and cherry are two of my favorite fruit notes, and an ultra generous forumite passed this decant on to me. It's a satisfying dark chewy fig well balanced at first with a rich red cherry. There's a slight almost Jolly Rancher tartness to the cherry, an earthiness to the fig. Delicious! But because I wear fruit so seldom, I will probably pass this baby on.

I'm surprised no one has compared Die Flamme Reinigt Sich to Chestnuts and Hearth Smoke from the most recent Yules. They are very similar, or more precisely, Die Flamme is similar to what C&HS smelled like last December. Now, months later, C&HS is richer and rounder, though still not chestnutty enough for my tastes. This is lots and lots of bonfire smoke with the nuttiness of roasting chestnuts and slightly bitter acorns. After two or three hours, the smoke has receded somewhat, as have the nuts, and I'm left with a smoky frankincense note. Amber, cedar, labdanum and vanilla are missing in action on me, unfortunately, but I have a feeling this will age beautifully.

Tiresias on me is caramel and woods (which could be teakwood, but I checked the components, and no, it's caramel, sandalwood and patch). Then it's caramel, woods and tobacco. Caramel can go off the rails on me, but this is really nice; the woods restrain it, and then it melds right into the sticky tobacco, which I adore. So it ends up not foodie at all on me. I'm not getting cinnamon, currant or lily of the valley, but those are the three notes I wasn't particularly interested in here anyway. After an hour or two it's a skin scent of caramelly, woody tobacco with a slight hint of spice -- delicious.

L'Heure Verte 2017 is heady. I rarely wear florals, though I like lilac -- Eusapia and Cave of Treasures are favorites -- but L'Heure Verte is like sticking your head in a vase full of just-cut lilacs. It's a little over the top for me. Lilac, sweet floral opium that flirts with soap, and cool sugary absinthe. I can't make out the rosewater but I imagine it's adding to the florals. I will probably keep my imp because I'm very low on Eusapia and there might be a few days in spring when the lilacs are busting out all over when I might want to smell like this, but it won't be something I reach for often. If you love lilac, though, you need to try this.

I am SO confused. Testing A Kneeling Child blind, it started out all red musk. More of a dry red musk than a grape-y one. Eventually I could smell the licorice I knew I was supposed to be smelling, as it was one of a batch of licorice themed frimps VetchVesper had bestowed on me. But still subsumed by red musk. I checked the notes and was flummoxed. There has to be red musk in here. My nose is far from infallible, but we're talking red musk. None of the caramel/polished wood accord that teakwood normally produces on my skin. Very strange. Could VV have mislabelled the frimp? And then I read her review above, specifically the second paragraph. Yep, if you told me this was Satan Starting from Ithuriel's Spear (Golden amber, carnation, blackcurrant, aged black patchouli, red musk, and vetiver), I wouldn't blink an eye. Red musk plus other stuff that's usually delicious on me. Mostly red musk. Yep, that's my impression of this decant. ETA the image is pretty great:

Licorice Bats starts out with a dry cacao note, then it's cocoa-coated black licorice, and eventually the chocolate fades away to the faintest hint and it's all black licorice, all the time, sweet soft black licorice. Delicious!!! No throw (normal on me) but good wear length. So glad I got to try this one!

The Silence of the Woods reminds me of The Earth Mother (patchouli and clary sage with a host of dark mosses and lichens, wild grasses, warm acorns, dammar, burgundy pitch, pine needles, mandrake root, hay absolute, and sweet vetiver) with less vetiver and more soil. I'm not getting wine at all, which is not a note that works well on me, and I just looked up burgundy pitch and found it is hardened spruce sap, which makes more sense. This is a lovely variation on the Lab's many lovely forest scents. I can't say I am getting any berry or fruit; there is an eventual softening and sweetening of this scent on me over time, but that invariably happens with the pine note as well. Beautiful and meditative.

I'm interested in learning more about the carrot seed note, but Solitary and Abhorred didn't give me enough to go on. At the beginning, I did get the bitter carrot seed with some patchouli and balsam. Dark, bitter green and black notes -- I'm really not able to make out the white tea at all. But soon enough the patch takes over, and it becomes almost a single note patchouli, dark and wild, which is no bad thing. Maybe the carrot seed is keeping it from sweetening at all on my skin.

I received a barely testable bottle of Rapture Pig as an Ajevie freebie and applied a tiny drop to the crook of my elbow. This baby is strong! Think CD Hope on steroids. Jammy, sugary rose. This is so far out of my wheelhouse, yet I understand its greatness. If candied rose is your thing, this is amazing. It is hard not to smile with this wafting around. And yes, the label art rocks.

A generous PIFer recently gave me a chance to try some scents that were not quite in my wheelhouse. I love lilac and woods, but rose is problematic on me. And while I enjoy the black tea note, my skin tends to obliterate it. As I might have guessed, Spirit Board is all rose on me. The lilac is there, but it's like there's one sprig of lilac in a bouquet of pink roses. The woods are surprisingly quiet, and I can't make out the tea at all. This would be beautiful on a rose lover! It's too overwhelmingly floral for me.

Testing blind, I got caramel, rosewood, and cognac. The latter is obviously the rum, though it smelled a little more upscale to me, while caramel and rosewood is a pretty good approximation of what teak is like on my skin. I'm not surprised I'm not getting pipe smoke; I can't smell Hellfire at all. It is the most elusive note for me. This is comforting, a man who is elegant and confident but not threatening. Thanks to the generous PIFer who sent it my way!

Hypatia came to me thanks to a generous PIFer. Roses aren't usually in my wheelhouse, but rosewater tends to be more reliable on me, and it's really pretty here, shading this scent feminine. The white musk and oud are soft rather than strident, and I don't know what makes amber crystalline, but instead of the usual glowing warm note of amber, Hypatia feels cool -- the cool of logic, of the sparkling order of the universe. Lovely and lasting. I'm so glad I got to try this!

Oops, I neglected to review this, so this is retrospective, but I swapped it away because I unexpectedly amped the acacia, which drowned out the lovely beeswax on me and made this more of a high-pitched honeyed floral. I'm glad so many other people are loving it!

Song of Hope is a cousin to another recent love, Pleasure Boat. Both star my favorite floral, carnation, backed by amber and vanilla. The ambergris here is quiet on me -- actually, this is a quieter blend than you might imagine from the notes. It wears close, and the leather and spices are subtle. Like Pleasure Boat, this one melds into something you can't easily pull apart, more of a russet carnation brocade than Pleasure Boat's golden one, and it's absolutely lovely.

Phallus Devotion on me is a really spicy oudh (agarwood) blend. It's not the fecal oudh, but it is that distinctive down and dirty woody smell of well-behaved oudh, with its terrific wear length. I can still smell traces of it the next morning. The patchouli and mahogany are there, but this a raw mahogany, not the polished wood scent of most mahogany blends, and I can't make out the rosewood on me at all. Earthy saffron and a peppery nutmeg bump up the spice quotient. Gender neutral, potent, and kind of in its own category.

Soceraphobia should be good on me, but it isn't. It goes on sour and harsh, like the last quarter inch in the carafe of an ancient Mr. Coffee that's been left on for an entire workday. Not a pleasant phase. It does get nicer as the vanilla pokes its head in and smooths things out a bit, but before long the vanilla turns back around and exits, and so does the entire scent. Really short wear time on me (not unusual for my skin to soak up coffee and smoke notes quickly).

Foolish Wooden Cucumber is a treatment at an upscale spa with blond wood everywhere and cucumber water in fancy dispensers. The cucumber is light, refreshing; the vanilla is also light and not too sweet, though it does sweeten after a couple of hours as the cucumber wears off. A perfect summer scent when you need a little rejuvenation.

Lilac is one of the few florals I really enjoy, and Penis Admiration has a lot of lilac. It’s surprisingly feminine given the name. On my skin I don’t get much wood, smoke or resin, but the lilac eventually melds with the vanilla and tonka, and the rest of the components are probably what are making this blend a little darker and smuttier than lilac and vanilla would suggest. Pretty decent wear length on me, too. I will definitely keep this decant to wear when the lilacs are blooming.

Back into the golden forest for this review. Kommt Mit Zacken is lots of sage up front, and I would have sworn there was an evergreen note in here as well. Sunshine and sage in a forest glade as the amber comes out, then the tobacco, mmf, and the soft musk, everything with fuzzy edges like a low-hanging sun is dissolving the contours. This is gorgeous and lasts a really long time on me. Bottle worthy.

A Gaulish giant, believed to be the Gaul’s parallel to the god Mercury. Wild sage and hyssop, marigold and frankincense, lemon verbena and tobacco. I hate to be first review and not a rave, but Erriapus is not working with my skin chemistry. You know those high-end, French-milled lemon verbena soaps? That's basically what I'm getting, with a bit of musty marigold. I wonder if my skin has started turning sage into soap -- I got soap from The Crescent Moon, too. That would be tragic. After about an hour I start to get a little tobacco and frank but it's too late to save this on me.

The one note I was worried about in Four Graverobbers was the dragon's blood resin, which is often sickly sweet on me. It's rather subdued here, more of an overall sweetening of the darker resins than the cloying fruity floral DBR can be on my skin. I like the bite of the galangal, and frank and myrrh are always a good combination on me. It becomes less distinctive the longer it lasts, as the sharp edges smooth themselves out.

Carnation is my favorite floral, so I love Ganymede's Junk. It's got the more delicate scent of clove bud as opposed to spice rack clove complementing the spicy carnation, and a dry white sandalwood sweetened with vanilla. I'm not able to make out any lily of the valley. A must-try for lovers of carnation blends like Alice and Maiden -- or if the rose in those blends put you off.

I got to try this thanks to the generosity of a forum PIFer -- aquatics are not my jam, but I was intrigued by torikitty's assertion that the drydown reminded her of Aegir, a surprise hit on me. And she's right -- the late drydown is very similar to that salty musk of Aegir. Unfortunately, on the way there, it goes through dryer sheet territory on me skin. Rosy ozone, clean clean clean aquatic, not really getting any amber. I'm glad I didn't scrub it off because after a few hours it does get lovely, but it takes too long to get there with my skin chemistry.