Lucchesa

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.

Good Morning, London was exactly what I expected on me: an initial blast of lovely herbal lavender which my skin quickly devoured, leaving an old-fashioned golden amber single note. The amber did go a bit powdery after a couple of hours, but I didn't mind as it was still really nice. It is in fact quite a gorgeous amber scent, but I have many ambers I love, and I think I will pass the decant on to someone whose skin will let them hang onto both the notes.

Original Christmas Pudding decant. This is quite a morpher on me. It starts off perfumey, not foodie at all, but settles into a boozy plum. There is a stage where I can smell the suet accord, which freaks me out a little, but ultimately just adds depth to the holiday spices. I don't get a lot of custard -- it's not eggy or dairy-like on me, more like a rich boozy fruitcake. It lasts a long time, with a sugar-and-spice late phase. I don't wear a lot of foodies but this was nicer than I expected.

2015 Rose Red. I don’t wear much rose but this is a genuine fresh-cut red rose experience, from back in the day when red roses actually smelled like something. At first it’s green cut stem and red petals. There is also a dewy aquatic aspect to this scent. It ends up pure red rose With medium staying power. I don’t get much throw but that’s normal for my skin. If you love rose, you need this.

Ruhe means quiet in German, and Ruhende Ziege mit Kitzchen is quiet on me. All the notes are lovely, snuggly autumnal ones (except I'm not so familiar with the castoreum, but it seems to be right in line with the rest of them). I agree with doomsday_disco that there is a cola vibe to it -- I was testing Studie einer Ziege on the other wrist where I got the syrupy cola labdanum, and there seemed to be a family resemblance though the only shared note is the clove. The brown musk is lovely, though I'm not getting much leather; the oudh is nothing to be scared of. This sits right in the middle of unisex, neither male nor female. It wears very close to the skin on me, and the wear length is less than average, though that may improve with aging. It's nice but I have enough comfort scents that I don't need a full bottle.

Suffragium was straight-up coca cola on me, and sure enough Studie einer Ziege shares that syrupy cola-like labdanum note, but Studie works much better on my skin. The tobacco and woods take it out of pepsico territory, into something a little richer and smokier, and the clove adds just the right amount of spiciness for me. I don't get much throw (which is normal for me) but it lasts a good while. This is very cozy and comforting. I like it!

2016 Maison en Pain d'Epices is complicated gingerbread. Foodies aren't my everyday go-to, but I do love the gingerbread note; it was everything else here that worried me. But it's surprisingly good. Milk chocolate often doesn't work on me, so I suspect this is at least semi-sweet. Thankfully, I can't really make out the mint, or the nekkos wafers. I just get warm spicy chocolate gingerbread that lasts all day as a skin scent and isn't as ridiculously sugary as the description might imply.

The first review on page 2 likens The Smiling Spider to spicy soap, and that is exactly the experience I had with it on my skin. Dry clove, bitter not sweet, with black musk and polished mahogany, and I suspect it's the furniture polish that creates the soapy sensation, which dominated the throw. The patchouli is very subtle on me. This one was a miss with my skin chemistry.