Lucchesa

Saddypants Lion smells really classic BPAL to me, maybe because some of the earliest GC scents I tried were amber heavy ones like Tamora and Bastet. Fae's musky peach comes to mind too, but amber is really the star in Saddypants. OK, amber and honey musk, which is a gorgeous note I know from only a couple blends: Lady Una, The Bride. I get almond at first, but that is never a long-lasting note on me. The peach is also very discernible wet and settles down to let the sweet amber and honey musk do their thing. I don't get much throw (which is normal with my skin chemistry) but do get decent wear length. Lovely!

Smug Yale is lovely! Green with soft vanilla. It's what Van Morrison's brown eyed girl would smell like, making love in the green grass, behind the stadium. Light and carefree, sweet and kind of innocent and natural, not the least big smug. I don't get much throw (which is normal for me) but the wear length is quite good.

Goblin Stampede smells exactly like it ought to, which is marvelous. Sweet black coffee, no cream on me, and lots of spices. The nutmeg is particularly nice, and my skin did not react to the cinnamon or cardamom. I only got a decant of this as I had to make a decision between it and Temptation of St. Nick, which I got a bottle of, but I'm kind of wishing I had bought more. It does soften fairly quickly, but it has a nice long wear length, as I realized when I inadvertently layered it under another scent; it had grown faint so I applied something else, but I kept smelling coffee and nutmeg coming through the other blend.

I'm getting a non-listed-note experience too, but in my case it's oudh. When Animal Allegory hit my skin, that was the first thing I thought of. There definitely seemed to be something animalic, unless my expectations were playing tricks on my nose. The oudhiness did calm down quickly, and then I got a dry, dusty incense, a little head-shoppy, quite lovely if you like that kind of thing. I'm not getting a lot of tobacco, at least not yet. It turns out I don't need a bottle of this, but I will enjoy my decant and am glad I got to test it before the goats come down.

Incolumitas is absolutely lovely. It's that sweet lavender note that shows up in many Liliths, amplified with sweet bourbon vanilla, with a grounding of gentle sage and patchouli. The lavender lasts about 90 minutes on me, which is pretty good for my lavender-eating skin, and the vanilla is still hanging on after three hours, everything else having become pretty quiet by that point. I think this would be a magical bedtime scent.

I was recently frimped A Moment in Time by a lovely forumite, and it is a lovely scent, leaving me confused about guaic wood which I thought I just had a bad experience with in another blend. Lilith's lavender is the star here, against a backdrop of warm woods and sweet bourbon vanilla. The patch is very unassuming, if that's a note that worries you. Lavender never lasts long on my skin, and within a couple of hours there is just a breath of lavender, and the fig has become more prominent. I feel like this would be an excellent started BPAL; it's warm and sweet but not cloying, and it feels innocent but not girly.

Ligur is black, heavy, charred, dirty -- and one of those scents I smell in the vial and think, I'm really going to put this on my skin? And when I do, it's not good, for at least an hour. It's kind of a charry-tarry mossy vetiver mess, perfect for a duke of hell, not exactly what I want to smell like. Gradually the vetiver calms down and I get more of the frank and opoponax, and it's really pretty, but it takes over an hour to get there on me. If it could start out this way or travel there faster, I'd be into it. Definitely masculine and dark.

I was trying a couple scents yesterday, plus sending out a swap, dabbing on things I was decanting, and at one point I smelled my right wrist and thought, "What is that? That is not good." It was L'Hyver. There are two unfamiliar notes here for me, elemi (described on scent sites as terpenic - citrusy conifer with hints of turpentine) and guaiac (described as phenolic - smoky dry acrid), and I think one or both is not a happy partner with my skin. I would say guiac except I enjoyed the guiac/labdanum combo in Studie Einer Ziege (). I didn't have time to make detailed notes, but it was a harsh smell, and had mellowed away an hour later. Given the above mentions of L'Hyver being different on different applications, I'm willing to try this again, as the amber-cypress-musk-labdanum-ti leaf combo sounds wonderful. I'll edit if I get a different experience. It smells lovely in the bottle...

I got a sniffie of this as a frimp in a recent swap, just enough for a tiny skin test. Oh my. Because so few bottles of this seem to have been produced, I suspect this is going to be one of those scents going for three figures on eBay before many years have passed. It's a beauty. Sweet creamy vanilla with cardamom and freshly grated nutmeg, super cozy and reassuring. I got low throw (normal for me) and less than average wear length, but I'm not surprised given the small bit I was sampling. Could truth possibly prevail again next year, Beth?

Sara Pezzini is lovely on me. Honey, skin musk and gentle leather combine into a melange that is at once low-key and sexy. It's like being comfortable in your own skin, and I think this is a fantastic "second skin" type scent for people who resonate with these notes. I get good throw (rare for me) in the first couple of hours, and it doesn't morph much on me; it finds its groove and stays there. This definitely goes on the list of things I will buy from the Lab someday when I'm not distracted by the latest LEs...

My decant reads "Snowflakes in Chicago." This doesn't smell like Snow White 08 (the only one I've tried) to me, nor do I get mint. I feel like it's a more aquatic, ozone-y snow note; the coconut is subdued on me. Trying lavender blends is always a little tragic for me since they come on with an initial blast of lavender which my skin eats up almost immediately, but this one sticks around to a surprising degree. In fact, while I usually get very little throw from anything, I get a lovely amount of snowy lavender throw from this. It's an interesting blend of chilly and warm notes as the wool emerges to balance the snow, and I'm liking it much better than I expected.

Lilacs! Of course! I put this on this morning without checking notes, and I got amber, bergamot, and a distinct floral I ought to have been able to identify but my brain wasn't coming up with it. The rose was less evident wet and came through more on drydown. The amber and bergamot chypre notes are dominant wet, suggesting an elegant male, while the flowers become more prominent with time. After about an hour it wears very close to the skin on me. This is too floral to be an everyday scent for me, but it is absolutely lovely, and I love how the masculine-leaning amber chypre balancing the ethereal lilac water and rose petals embodies the straits of Victorian womanhood. I would wear this to give a lecture on the Pre-Raphaelites, perhaps.

Snake Oil is a classic. It's not for everyone, but everyone tries it sooner or later. My rec would be to get an imp, test it to see what you think, then put it away for six months or more. Oils age faster in imps than bottles, so you'll get a sense of where it's going. I've haven't had the opportunity to try Streets of Detroit, but it's also a classic -- until the recent re-release it was very hard to find, and I'm a little surprised it's not sold out yet. I think it would be hard to go wrong with it as you could easily sell or trade it if it didn't work out. You might look in Steamworks for GCs with a similar vibe. Robotic Scarab? I can't remember what that one smelled like. For other scents in the Reaper and the Flowers category, I would try Crossroads, Burial or Jazz Funeral. Maybe The Ghost, but that's more purely floral. Water of Notre Dame has a very lily feel to me. (The Conjure Bag scents are frustrating to start with because they don't have listed notes.) Forests: Thanatopsis, Black Forest, Elf, Ranger, Druid, Golden Priapus. Aquatics are not my thing. I have a couple I can send you. For gourmands, a lot of people love Eat Me and Drink Me, neither of which was a win on me. I love the gingerbread note, though, so I'm really looking forward to my Yule decants. Shub-Niggurath is a gingerbready GC. Also, for learning, I found it easier to get a handle on scents with fewer notes. Vixen is an excellent example. Haunted and Sloth are just two notes. It's simpler to figure out what opium smells like from Anathema or Darkness than Kubla Khan, for example. And imps are fantastic for learning what notes work on you. I've never bought a GC bottle without trying it in imp form first. Good luck!

Doomsday_disco shared a little Black Cherry Apricot Glogg with me () and while I like it, I didn't fall madly in love with it, which is certainly a good thing for my bank account. It is more fruity than spicy on me; In particular, I was hoping for *more* anise. I get quite a bit of booze, but on my skin even the driest red wine tends towards grape juice, so it's like grape-cherry-apricot brandy. Imagine layering Grand Guignol with Suck It and Gluhwein (which I only know in hair gloss form). The myrrh and benzoin are pretty subtle on me, though that may change with some aging. I don't get the crazy throw d_d describes, but I wouldn't expect to with my skin chemistry. I'm thrilled I got to try this, but I don't need to seek out more.

Gingerbread Snake was a frimp from a generous forumite and I love it. Wet, it's the strong gingerbread note from my beloved Gingerbread, Vetiver and Black Clove. Eventually the Snake Oil is recognizable. Throughout, the balance tilts more towards the gingerbread than the Snake Oil, although it has the terrific throw I get from SO and good wear length too. It's gingerbread with extra vanilla and sex appeal. Apparently I yearn to smell like sultry gingerbread.

2018 version. My grandmother used to make sticky coconut-almond macaroons with almond extract and a slice of maraschino cherry on top. Wet, this is that. At first it's all sweet cherry amaretto (which would be a lovely thing). I know a lot of people think BPAL's almond note smells like cherry anyway, but here it really really does. Almond notes never stick around long on my skin, though the cherry keeps this one anchored a little longer than usual. The coconut is gentle, and I don't get any saffron for the first half hour or so, then it comes out and makes this blend less ridiculously foody. (I know, saffron is food, but it has an earthy, dusty feel, kind of grounding, not sweet.) Throw is low and wear length is maybe less than average, but that may improve with aging. I do love cherry and almond notes, and I quite like this!

A great undersea metropolis located below Devil's Reef. A swirling, lightless, effervescent scent: the deepest marine notes with bergamot, eucalyptus and foamy ambergris.  I love bergamot and often ambergris, but aquatics are not my jam. This is all about the marine notes on me. OK, there's a lot of bergamot too, though (thankfully IMO) not much eucalyptus. So clean!!! Aggressively clean. Mr. Clean. This would be a very nice laundry detergent. I suspect the ambergris will eventually dominate the drydown if I let it go on that long, and there's a possibility that will be very beautiful, but I'm not sure I can get past the wet phase.

2008, a decant from a lovely forumite. I was pretty sure Snow White would work well on me because I love Cotton Phoenix. I was right. There's something pillowy about Snow White. Sweet, soft, white, marshmallow-y. I don't get coconut but rather a delicate almond blossom and a snow effect which I think is a gentle ozone underlying everything. It's magical. It wears close to the skin (normal for my chemistry) but has good wear length.

Miss Lupescu was not on my radar, maybe because of the animalic musk (I only recently discovered I quite like civet). But, Miss Lupescu! And I learned with Lupers that almond blossom is a wonderful note on me. Anyway, a superbly kind and generous forumite just gave me a partial of this, and I am in love. It opens with sweet almond, woods, and musk which is by no means scary. As it dries down, I get more and more amber and eventually the gentle spices. Don't avoid this if you're patch-averse because the patch is really a background note. Furry. On me, Miss Lupescu is sweet and sexy and warm and spicy. It makes me feel good. Throw is low, which is normal on me, but wear length is good.

The Little Sparrow has a kind of yellowy-green vibe on me. For the first couple of hours, it's perfumey, treading very close to soapy, with an almost lemony brightness. I wouldn't say this is nutty on me; rather, I get something like the hay note with some light sandalwood. I'm not perceiving any amber at first, though amber does always feel perfumey on me (in a good way). But the late drydown is entirely a warm golden amber. A sunshiny scent, perfect for August but also nice to brighten a December day.

I rejected my first Bow and Crown imp as too cologney and swapped it away, but I was recently frimped another and as my tastes have changed, I had to retest it. Wet on me skin, I got lavender, carnation, vanilla and white musk. White musk is usually bad on me, unless it's Jareth, but it isn't too high pitched here. The sage and cedar emerge as the lavender recedes, which it always seems to do on my skin. The leather is faint on me but a warm background presence. I wear a lot of unisex scents now, and Bow and Crown will definitely be one of them. I think this is a good time of year for it, too (December). It's a little sweet, a little musky, a little outdoorsy, a little spicy, and the overall feeling is cozy and warm. It has some throw (rare with my chemistry) and pretty good wear length too.

The Temptation of St. Nick is a charmer. Warm spicy nutty cocoa powder goodness, with decent wear length. The comparison to Mexican hot chocolate is accurate, though it's not overly foodie on me. I wouldn't have been able to identify the pistachio if I hadn't known it was in there, but I do love toasted nuts in a scent. I may wear it with Dia de los Reyes one of these days to see how they compare, but I'm delighted to have bottles of both.

Svarta Fonix Bokaflod is breaking my heart. There are a few BPALs that don’t bother to show up on my skin — I’m thinking of Hellfire and Buggre All This Bible off the top of my head. This is one of them. I get a very faint vague sweet spice, almost imperceptible even a few minutes after application. So disappointed! ETA My book is All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris. Since I’ve never read any of the Sookie Stackhouse books or seen True Blood, it will introduce me to a whole new world. Thanks, Puddin’ and Goblins!

Haunted is one of my favorite GCs, so I was excited to try Inside the Golden Amber of Her Eyeballs. I got golden amber and dark fuzzy musk but also lots of citrusy ti leaf, giving this a brighter feel than Haunted. Myrrh feels kind of fuzzy to me, too, and while I couldn't pick it out, it may have been adding to the furry vibe. I was really enjoying Inside the Golden Amber, but it didn't last long on me, which I might have expected given my skin's tendency to gobble up tea blends.

Cabras is very perfumey on me, which I think is the sage, ivy and juniper combo. Lots of clean, green ivy. I've been having trouble lately with sage going soapy on my skin in some of the newer blends, and it happens a little bit here as well. I didn't get any pine, which is usually a much better evergreen note on me than juniper. Cabras is pretty, but it's not the pine-dominant outdoor scent I was looking for.