Lucchesa

I loved the carrot seed in Pale Snowman and was curious to try it here, but Pulmonary Valve doesn't work on me. It's not a surprise -- white musk and tobacco flower are both notes that have a good probability of going screechy on me. This was just not a good match with my skin chemistry.

Right atrium starts out as citrusy white tea, a note that never lasts long on my skin. The next phase is dominated by soft, sweet cherry blossom, and then the gentle wood, a note I'm not familiar with, is evident. I don't get a lot of amber; this is mainly cherry blossom on me, and could easily be a shunga. Light and pretty but not really me.

I had the option of buying a tester or a bottle of Calligraphy Practise. I should have bought the bottle. I was worried about the violet and the oudh, but apparently violet leaf does not go old lady on me, and the oudh is very much in the background. On me this is primarily a beeswax scent, right in my wheelhouse (Lights of Men's Lives is possibly my favorite GC). It's not as sweet as LOML; the sage and white sandalwood keep it dryer, and the opoponax is not as syrupy as it can be. Herbs, woods, resins and beeswax all play beautifully together here, and while there's not much throw (normal for me), it lasts a long time. Absolutely lovely and I'm sorry not to have more.

The Visionary was a longshot on me, though neither the red nor the white musk was as problematic as usual on my skin (I have found in combination they can kind of cancel each other out and only their good qualities remain). So the opening was very promising: a musky peat and heather. It's the ice note that goes awry on me, taking this into aquatic territory, which for my chemistry means dryer sheet territory. Sad face.

Lavender always comes out in a big rush before my skin quickly gobbles it up, and this is no exception. Lavender and Patchouli starts off with a lavender you might get if you gathered a sheaf of it and had it drying in your kitchen, but as always, it's not long-lasting on me. The patchouli quickly muscles it out of the way, so the drydown is all woody patch (not headshoppy) with only the faintest trace of herbal lavender. I always enjoy testing lavender scents but rarely end up keeping them.

Lemongrass and Tonka starts out all lemongrass on me. I can't find the tonka at all. It's a bright, happy lemongrass that doesn't go anywhere near cleanser territory, but it really does feel like a SN lemongrass. It takes an hour or more for the lemongrass to calm down enough for me to smell the tonka, and then -- thank you, Lunasariel, I know I'm not crazy -- I'm getting wafts of coconut along with tonka and lemongrass. After three hours the lemongrass is almost entirely gone, and I have a soft, creamy, coconutty, vaguely tropical tonka skin scent left.

I'm frequently anosmic to the Lab's pepper note. I just can't smell it. Not here! Black Pepper and Sandalwood starts out with a healthy dose of fresh-ground black pepper. Then the sandalwood comes out to meet it, a little sharp at first but softening quickly. Three hours in it's mostly cozy sandalwood but still with a tang of black pepper. This is a lovely combination, and I'm so excited about having a black pepper note I can actually appreciate.

I think Penny Rolle was given to me by a superbly generous forumite. It starts out very foodie on me, all caramel pecan, though not much in the way of cardamom. Then the pecan calms down and I get caramelized shea and sandalwood, over a warm nutty ambery ground. The patchouli is really quiet so if that note is scaring you off, you needn't worry. I didn't get much throw from this, but that's normal for me. What I got was a warm sweet snuggly comfort scent.

I keep wanting pomegranate to work on me. I want it to smell like Pom unsweetened pomegranate juice, and my skin turns it into candy. I was hoping the vetiver would dirty it up enough to prevent the pom from going all candy on me, but no, Pomegranate and Vetiver starts out as red, vaguely berry-flavored candy. Eventually the vetiver shows up and they play nicely for a little while before the vetiver pushes the pom out of the way and takes center stage. The late phase is all vetiver with hints of dark, sweet-tart fruit lingering around the edges. This stage is fantastic, but there are other ways to get to a gorgeous vetiver drydown that are more amenable to my skin.

Hebrews 13:1-3 is a happy, comforting scent, like getting baked goods in the mail while you're in prison. Not that I have experience of that or know if it's even possible... Anyway, it doesn't fall into any neat categories; gourmand is probably the closest, but the cinnamon is dusky, not spice-cabinet-like. The tobacco stays in the background, and while I have no idea what a sugar blossom is, it didn't strike me as particularly floral. I like this one and am curious to see what it ages into.

Psalm 146:9 starts out as cocoa and labdanum, like a chocolate coke, with a little vanilla around the edges. It took about an hour for the vetiver to develop on my skin, and it's a gentle sweet vetiver like the one in Two Sheep and Two Goats, so don't let it scare you away if you're a labdanum but not a vetiver fan. So it was a labdanum-vetiver scent for a while, with the cocoa and vanilla fading away after a couple of hours, and the drydown was mainly sweet soft vetiver. Lovely and I suspect it will age well.

Dee. Faustus. Bess. Catherine. The Apothecary. Anne Bonny. Phantom Time Hypothesis. Kit. Elf, Druid -- almost any of the RPGs would work.

Could it be a 13?

This imp of Chant d'Automne is 11 years old. In the imp and on wet, it's a lovely smoky version of the dead leaves note. The amber is there if I sniff for it, becoming more prominent as it dries down. There's definitely some dark smoky vetiver and tobacco in here, though I'm not sure I can pick out the blood musk; it may have aged away. As it dries down, it gets softer and cozier. I love the dead leaves note -- hey, I love all these notes -- and this is a total win on me.

Pottaskefill is almost perfect. I love licorice scents, and I am learning that I love the salt note, and salt licorice is to die for. With soft leather and birch tar? Mmph. Chewy, sexy, unisex. The "almost" is because it went a tad soapy on me at one point. This happened recently while testing another blend which shouldn't have gone that direction, so it may be a weird skin chemistry thing of the moment. Anyway, I will be on the lookout for more of this one. ETA I did buy a bottle and apparently haven’t tried it until now. It is aligned to @mymymai’s review. Dew and grass. Not good on me at all. I double checked against my decant, and they smell very different. I’ll have to rehome this bottle.

Hyakki Yagyo on me was a powerful, headshoppy musk blend. The combination of the black musk with the champaca made it behave more like red musk on my skin; it's not the lemony black musk I am partial to. The coconut comes out on drydown, which is lovely, but it's never prominent on me; the clove is only a hint, and I'm not sure I ever found the myrrh. If musky incensey blends work for you, this one is sexy, has some throw and lasts a long time. It's not quite me but champaca almost never works on me so I'm not heartbroken.

This was the first Monster Bait I've had the opportunity to try. When I applied my decant of biggerCritters without checking notes, my first thought was creamsicle. Orange and vanilla ice cream. Then I realized there was a white floral floating over my creamsicle. A creamy white floral, something really familiar that I was blanking on, so I checked the notes. Duh. Jasmine. I avoid jasmine so rigorously that i had forgotten what it smells like when it works. If I had smelled cat pee, I would have known immediately it was jasmine. And it's mixed with gardenia, the rare white floral that I enjoy. And the whole thing is totally delightful. The citrus mellows out, and it's a gorgeous, long-wearing fluffy vanilla scent. The jasmine hangs in there but it's sweet and creamy like the gardenia, and it's lovely.

Instead of the desired smokiness everyone else is getting, Fifth Lash was soapy on me. Why? I don't understand. Red musk, lots of it; leather, a little plum, and soap. Stupid skin chemistry.

A fabulous friend gave this decant to me. I had shied away due to aquatics never working on me. This came close, but in the end, the laundry detergent effect won out. But if you can do aquatics at all, this is a really interesting blend, and on me it had great throw and wear length. It starts with that almost chewy sea salt note from Eyeball Seaboar, which I love. Then I got the pale pink floral note of the peony, and finally the inky petroleum. But the dryer sheets were there too, and they eventually dominate the experience on my skin. Still, I'm super glad I got to try this, and I'm going to be looking for more sea salt blends.

Silver Dollar really does have a silvery feel to it. I can't really smell the benzoin, but the iris is a cool, powdery floral against the citrusy white tea and bergamot. It smells like the bathroom in the Four Seasons in Seattle (happy hour is affordable, really). This is not a criticism. Elegant, clean, and expensive. It's not really me, but I'm glad I had the chance to try it.

Wet, I was guessing that there was oudh of some description in She Perishes -- there was a note that wasn't pleasant on my skin. That calmed down pretty quickly and let the woods, resins and spices develop. It wasn't overly cinnamony on me; there was a kind of dry warm waft of spices as the top note and the balsams and resins underneath. Probably some of the other notes too that I'm less familiar with. A gentle, dry spice blend, quite nice but not a standout on me.

Wet, The Orb comes on with the blast of almond extract that is characteristic of almond notes on me. It's not noticeably bitter. That doesn't last long and is replaced by strong oudh, similar to the oudh in Nevertheless, She Persisted. This is right on the edge of my oudh comfort zone, and of course it's got good throw, so it makes me a little self-conscious. This stage lasts a bit over an hour, and then the notes find a beautiful balance on my skin, with the almond reemerging and the oudh calming down, so it seems like my experience was much like artisjok's, and like her, I enjoy it more and more the longer it wears. This is totally unisex, warm, a little nutty, and if you can rock the oudh, it would be a great power scent.

Testing blind, I got gentle rose with amber and myrrh. Think rose plus the amber of Haunted and the myrrh of Sloth. But even though it's a soft rose, it's really at least half the scent -- the rose, and the resins -- not a sixth of the scent (I know it never works that way, but I was hoping for more resins/musk than rose). I'm really not getting appreciable oudh, which is iffy on me, or black musk, which I love. The rose stays true on me, without going sour. If you love the rose/resin combination, with an emphasis on the rose, this is a must try.

Zmey Gorynich is gorgeous on me, but it takes about three hours to get there. Before that, it's all red musk. OK, and a little dragon's blood. Once it finally settles, it's a very sexy, musky, sweet-but-not-cloying leather blend, with a hint of resins and incense. I love the late drydown, but red musk and dragon's blood is not a duet I would choose if Beth made it, and that's what I get for the first three hours.

Clown White is foodier than I expected. I get almond too -- I'm glad to have that confirmed by other noses. It reminds me somewhat of Ooky without the lemon. Sweet, nutty, a little chalky, and quite long-lasting. I'm keeping this one!