Lucchesa

Redacted Dragon was terrible on me. Almost all the notes are generally good, except for jasmine, but Redacted Dragon wasn't bad in a jasmine sort of way. It was bad in a mean dragon cracking into fire sort of way. This is not a friendly vetiver. This is more of a Malediction or Rumpelstilzchen sort of vetiver, with a very harsh ginger. I wasn't able to appreciate any of the carnation or baking spices. I came really really close to scrubbing it off, but I let it stay and a couple of hours later it had become something wearable, but I won't be repeating the experience.

Leather and flowers I can't identify -- that's what I thought when testing Calocyclas blind. Once I see the notes, I think, oh, of course, sandalwood, and I'm kind of anosmic to the pepper note, so I'm not surprised I couldn't make it out. I don't think I really got much olibanum either. It's a really nice, kind of seamless unisex leather blend with a little throw but not terribly long-lasting. Apparently, the thing in the middle -- a marine creature, possibly microscopic? -- is a calocyclas.

Groom of Frankenstein wet is black leather and a sharp, almost citrusy ozone note, in about equal proportions. Both of them settled into a clean leather with a cool edge, really nice if you like unisex veering towards masculine. Ozone is not usually in my note pantheon, but it's not going detergenty at all here. I got good throw from this, which I rarely get with my skin chemistry, though wear length was only about four hours on me. I envy you 12-hour people!!!

I don't understand where everyone is getting the gin from. The Magician's Hands is not sharp on me at all. I get very little cinnamon from this, and the myrrh is a fuzzy backdrop for the nutty musky ambrette seed and the calamus. And I"m not exactly sure what calamus smells like, but I would guess kind of earthy-spicy-outdoorsy. (In other words, the parts that aren't myrrh, cinnamon or ambrette). Not much throw (which is normal for me), and average wear length. This is a nice, work-appropriate unisex blend but not something that I need to hunt down more of.

Growing up singing about we three kings, I always wanted to know what myrrh smelled like. Thanks to Aveya sharing some of her SN, now I do. Actually, myrrh was a note I thought I had a pretty good handle on from blends like Penitence and Sloth, and it turns out that was true. Unlike Aveya, I like myrrh. It doesn't turn to baby powder on my skin, though it does add a softness, a blurring around the edges that might be considered somewhat powdery. It's deep and dark and soft, like a warm blanket on a winter evening. Ultimately in late drydown it has much more sweetness than I anticipated. It's really beautiful, and I'm so glad to have gotten to try it.

Given the note list, Raven Moon 2012 should have been a slam dunk on me. And it's not that it's not working at all -- it's really very nice -- but it's not an instant favorite. It is definitely in the darker scent category I wear a lot of in the winter. Myrrh is the dominant note on me, with a subdued dark musk, not the lemony black musk variety. The patch is really understated, and so are the spices -- they're definitely there, but there's nothing foody about this scent. I don't get much throw (I almost never do), though it does last a long time -- with a late afternoon application, I can still make it out on my wrist the next morning. I like Raven Moon, but I wanted to adore it.

Someone told me a while ago that I would love Fake News. They were right. It starts off with that expensive vibe everyone else has mentioned. I think there must be amber, maybe as the gold element, because it smells a bit like Jacob's Ladder to me, and I always associate amber with an old-fashioned, perfumey feel. The patchouli is the next thing that jumps out at me. It's not a gnarly patch, despite the description; I don't get the comparisons to #occupy at all. It's a beautiful patch, and it's definitely patchouli, but there's nothing headshop about it; it's little-black-dress-but-haven't-sold-my-soul patchouli. The tobacco is very faint on me, and I have to admit that I have never been able to make out the lab's pink pepper note. I'm not sure what it's contributing here. There is definitely something Gilded Age about this scent, and I would agree that the patchouli is more sneaky than gnarly, but I'm happy to sneak in patchouli whenever possible. It's a gorgeous scent for a very, very ugly phenomenon.

Mopey Boar is an oddball. At first, all I got was Teaotter's machine oil -- the type of lubricant my dad used on the machines in his woodshop when I was growing up. I think this was the combination of the truffles and the incense, and in all honesty I don't know if I would have been able to name it had Teaotter not unlocked that scent memory for me (which is why I shouldn't read reviews before testing scents), but it was weirdly specific and lasted a long time, during which I got no clove, no cardamom and no ginger. It took a good two hours for the spices to emerge on my skin. It's gorgeous now, about 3 hours in, a kind of earthy incense with ginger as the most prominent of the spices. But the opening was definitely strange on me.

Wet, Fishtail Beaver is all cedar and mint. I don't mind the cedar, but mint is not my bag. As it dries down, I get more of the patchouli and vanilla, but still too much mint for my tastes. (I won a PIF of testable empties of all the anniversary scents, thanks to a super generous forumite; I wouldn't have tried this otherwise. Because mint.) It does mellow down into a lovely snuggly patch with cedar and vanilla, but I'm just not able to appreciate the mint component.

Gin is not a good note on me, so although I love the idea and the label, this was unlikely to work on my skin. And sure enough, it's gin and tonic all the way -- gin and lime, gin and lime and evergreen. When I first read the notes, I wished the hound playing Scotland the Brave could be represented by scotch, not gin. But then it wouldn't be an annoying bagpipe playing dog. It would be a nice wolfhound curled up by the fire. So this scent is absolutely right for its inspiration, and I think it would be a terrific summer blend if gin works on you -- something to wear while downing G&T's on a sunny terrace somewhere.

Soft and smooth, Constipated Elephant has no sharp edges on me, not even wet. I don't really have a handle on nagarmotha yet, but the cypress is gentle. There's something much more elegant about this blend than I expected from the name or the description; also, I guess I expected a kind of poopy oudh would go with the concept, and that is not the case here. I don't get much throw (which is normal for me), and it's pretty faint after not quite 4 hours, but I have a testable empty so I didn't exactly slather. I'm so glad I got to try this!

Oh man, this smells like college. Wet, the cannabis is the strongest note on me by far, with some hippie patchouli which as usual is trying and failing to cover up the smell of weed. Damn, I could huff this one all day. It gives me the emotional rush of that period of my life without inhaling. This is NOT work appropriate. Not even in Washington state. I may need a bottle. Eventually, the kush settles down and I don't smell like a pothead's dorm room anymore. (Though I wonder if my nose is just habituating to it and others would still pick up on the Mary Jane.) Then the myrrh and gorgeous black musk start to take center stage. This is good. I definitely need more than the few drops in the empty bottle I won on FB. ETA This lasted a long time on me, and the late drydown was almost syrupy, dark and delicious. I would never have tried this without the generosity of a PIF-ing forumite -- I'm so grateful!

I would never, ever have tried this had a generous forumite not done a BPAL PIF of testable empties of the whole set which I won! Champaca is my enemy, generally. There's something sick-sweet about it on my skin. And I never smell the pink pepper note. It smells quite pretty in the bottle, a kind of floral vanilla tea, but champaca's fruitiness increases the moment it hits my skin. Yep, starting to amp the champaca in that cloying way. If champaca is good on your skin, this is going to be lovely on you. Not on me, sadly. By the way, I think Injured DIckchest is a terrific nickname for our newest supreme court justice.

Grapefruit! This smells exactly like the Method grapefruit spray I use on my kitchen counters. That is a good thing - it's a huge mood booster. Unfortunately, my skin ate up all the lovely juicy tart citrus in no time. If this had any staying power on me, I'd be buying a bottle.

I was worried about the salt in Eyeball Seaboar (also the name, Seaboar) taking this into an aquatic direction, which would not be a win on me. But it's really very good. The blend that came to mind while testing this is Mithras, my favorite AG scent. The only shared note is honey, but the blood in Mithras has a saltiness to it. I also thought of the sweat and honey of Sara Pezzini. If either of those is good on you, this is definitely worth a shot. The patch is sweet, as advertised, not a big bad hippie patchouli, and the overall feel on me is that of a second-skin type of scent. I'm not getting great throw or wear length from this, but my skin chemistry may just be having an eat-em-up kind of day, as it obliterated the Bellicose Clam on the other wrist... Aging may also help. I'm definitely keeping my decant and will retest in a couple weeks to see if I need more.

Sour Pard opens in a blast of sweet cherry almond on me. I love the Lab's almond note, so that's a plus, but it never lasts long on me. Sour Pard settles in to being mainly a red fruit scent, not too sweet, and red musk has finally decided it is OK to be a bit player on me, so I get a fruity red musk that complements the other notes. I'm not really noticing any carnation, though; maybe it will strengthen over time.

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?