Lucchesa

Dead Leaves and Maple Sap is beautiful and long-lasting on me, with a little throw (something I rarely get with my skin chemistry). It's a lovely balance of the dead leaves note with some live leaves and maple syrup, but it's not too sweet, and it does not read as foodie on me. It reminds me quite a bit of October, which is a win in my book. Autumnal, long-lasting, and work appropriate.

This is really nice in the vial, dead leaves with warm sweet coffee. My skin kind of ate it up, so I'm going to rest my decant a couple weeks and try again because I really want this to work on me!

Lust was awful on me. Lust and Malice each have four notes, three of which are patchouli, myrrh and ylang ylang. Malice substitutes clove for Lust's red musk, and that makes all the difference. Ylang ylang is never my favorite note, but after an initial blast of tropical blooms, it settles back to let the patch, myrrh and clove duke it out. So this is not a floral blend on me, but a spicy resinous one. It takes a long time to settle the balance between the three components, so that sometimes when I sniff my wrist the clove dominates, sometimes the myrrh or the patch. I actually enjoy that quality in a scent. It keeps things interesting. The late drydown is a soft, dark myrrh/clove skin scent, very beautiful. I didn't have high hopes for Malice, but it works surprisingly well on me.

I keep trying the Lab's manuscript/library scents (The Book x2, Buggre All This Bible, etc) and keep being disappointed by how instantly they disappear on my skin, if they ever bother to turn up at all. But hope springs eternal, and I am stubborn. And my persistence is finally repaid in The Manuscript. Not only does it stick around, but it has some throw, which I hardly ever get with my skin chemistry. Soft brown leather, a little dusty, ink and paper, and that ineffable chilly note that may be what anchors this to my skin. I love this -- I'm so delighted I got the opportunity to try it!

In the imp and wet on my skin, The Gorobble was all caramelized sugar. Like a marshmallow roasted by a perfectionist into a gentle golden brown. I wanted that burnt marshmallow, and it took about half an hour for the smoky scent I was hoping for to emerge on my skin. It's really nice if you're fond of slightly smoky foodies, but I prefer the current Lilith Scorched Marshmallows.

I can smell the lovely blackened woods notes in the imp, but on my skin everything gets drowned out by the cloying sweetness of the dragon's blood. DBR does that on me, all too often, but the other notes sounded so lovely that I had to take a chance. I think this would be gorgeous on someone who can wear dragon's blood.

Dragon's blood is not usually my jam, and red musk tends to take over, but the other notes tend to be good on me, and Bloodlust works surprisingly well on my skin. It reminds me of parts of both Blood Kiss (without the honey-vanilla thing) and Wrath. The red musk is kind of drowning out the DBR, and that's fine with me, but the patch and vetiver are keeping the red musk in check. I only get a tiny hint of cinnamon. This is a powerful scent, not for the faint of heart, not for the vetiver-avoidant. I like it.

Bloodlust Bonbon started out all Bloodlust on me -- really, all red musk, taking over as red musk tends to do on my skin. Then I got some DBR, a little smoky vetiver, and half an hour later, yes, out comes the cacao, making this a little deeper, smokier Bloodlust, not ever really chocolate-y. I get only a little throw from this, but it lasts a long time and it really warm, sexy and lovely.

I was hoping for more glowing firewood, possibly some roasting chestnuts, and less sherry cobbler. Wine notes are often too sweet on me to begin with, and this is combined with fruit, the apples and oranges of the extended description. So on me this is a warm fruity sherry (I do not get spice - not a mulled wine sort of thing), and only after two or three hours does a smoky "hearth" note become prominent. So the late drydown was lovely, but overall it was much too fruity for my tastes.

A super generous forumite frimped me a tester of this. So good. So rich. So...French. I want to bathe in it. You can't bathe in a tester, sadly.

I loved last year's Zip Line; this one sounded too foody for me. But I added it to my decant order after the first two reviews, hoping for a nutty sweet patchouli scent. Sadly, on my skin the patchouli and hay are missing in action. Lots of very sweet butterscotch rum candy and funnelcake, no patch. Zipline Part II reminds me a great deal of Grog (and when I want to wear Grog, I'll wear Grog). I don't know why my skin has it in for the poor defenseless patchouli, but yeah, this one's too foody for me. But foody lovers who are worried about the patch should give it a try!

I don't wear a lot of lavender because my skin eats it up, but I do think it's beautiful and love to try lavender scents. This one is lovely and gentle, and I can see it being a good sleep scent, especially because (as is usual with my skin) I didn't get a lot of wear length from it. I generally get an opening blast of lavender, and Puppet Kitty is no different in that regard. Then it mellows into a skin musk with warm wafts of what must be the cotton and wool notes, with a gentle background of lavender.

This is so beautiful! I've been wearing it with October, and it's a delightful combination. This is mainly fresh maple leaves and sap on me. The cedar is evident on first spritz but quickly softens, and the pine and moss are just a gentle backdrop to the glorious maple leaves. They're not dead leaves, but they're bright red touched with green in my imagination, still clinging to the tree.

2015 All Souls. I have been avoiding this one because the currant cakes in Eat Me are a complete disaster on my skin. But this All Souls gives me just a whisper of currant and cake but is mostly lovely sweet incense - definitely not a foodie blend on me. No throw (which is normal for me) but good wear length.

Dead Leaves, Red Musk and Neroli introduces me to a new animal: reticent red musk. When it hits my skin, all I can smell is dead leaves (the wonderful gorgeous dead leaves note I love) and neroli. I expected this to be more like red musk, red musk and red musk, so this is a surprise. After about half an hour the red musk begins to emerge and it becomes exactly the scent I was hoping for, the fruitiness of the musk balancing the bitter citrus of the neroli, all smothered in the lovely pile of dead leaves. But for some reason, my skin eats this up in a little over an hour. I'm delighted I got to try it, though.

It's so interesting to read the early reviews for Dead Leaves, Bourbon Vanilla and Myrrh because I am having the opposite experience of most of my peers. I get very little in the way of dead leaves from my decant and lots of bourbon vanilla and myrrh. The drydown on my skin is entirely vanilla and myrrh, which is a lovely combination -- looking through my spreadsheet, I don't see it in a lot of places. But I was hoping for some dead leaves as well.

Like yewberry, I’m here for the name. This is kind of an interesting scent: sake with oakmoss and sandalwood are the notes that show up on my skin. Unfortunately, it is very quiet on me, more like men gently brushing against bells than ringing them. And since the whole point was getting to respond, “Oh, Men Ringing Bells with Penises” when asked what scent I am wearing and nobody is ever going to be able to notice this one on my skin, I will be passing on my decant.

Golden sunlight and sweet fresh air brightening a Heavenly sky on Christmas Day: crisp winter air, shimmering amber, sweet honey, with a touch of pumpkin pie, pine cone, cranberry, and bayberry. I couldn't remember what was in this at all when I tried it this morning. It struck me as rather aromatherapeutic. It came on with a blast of what I took to be citrus but was probably cranberry, very invigorating, and then that morphed into a prominent evergreen blend, also kind of energizing. Ultimately the late drydown was a warm, sweet spice with just a touch of very soft pine. I'm really glad I got to try this one; I think it captures Scrooge's giddiness rather well.

2016 version of Le Pere Fouettard applied this morning without looking at the notes. I was pretty sure it had whip leather, coal dust and licorice, all of which were perceptible, but what I didn't understand was why I was getting the baked goods from hell note that occurs on my skin with Eat Me, Cockaigne, and a few other blends. Also, my skin was prickling a bit when I first applied, but since I was driving my husband to work I didn't have a chance to wash it off, and it did settle down eventually. Anyway, I finally got home and was able to check the notes and yep, gaufrettes. Damn. That baked goods note just hates my skin. Oh, well, I'm glad I got to try this one because it could have been marvelous!

Wow, I must really hate water lily, because sweet pea and carnation are two of my favorite florals and Desdemona didn't work on me at all. It's another reminder, I guess, that I just can't do pure florals and that I really need to stay away from anything that might be aquatic. This is not a spicy carnation on me, nor is it the luscious sweet pea of Mouse's Long and Sad; everything just gets drowned out, no pun intended, by the water lily.

Like d_d above, I was afraid of Black Annis. But as my tastes have darkened and I have grown to love vetiver a lot of the time, I decided I should really give this a try, since I do love the anise note. What was really scared of, though, was the civet. I tested this alongside Debauchery, my first two civet blends, and just as musk doesn't smell like rutting stags, civet does not bring anal glands to mind. It's dark and musky but the oakmoss is stronger here; there's not a lot of vetiver or anise, but they give this blend its character, a smoky licorice sweetness. I really enjoyed this a great deal more than I expected to and am considering a bottle; its only drawback is that it doesn't have a lot of staying power on my skin.

conflagrantThief's review is a very hard act to follow. Um, I like it too? Debauchery is one of the few available non-aquatic GC scents I hadn't tried. I'm a wuss. I was scared of the civet. And red musk has a habit of completely taking over on my skin, but that doesn't prevent me from trying red musk blends. It was the civet. It turns out civet is nothing to be afraid of. Heady, yes, and a little feral, but not nasty. And it kept the red musk in check. In fact, there was a very nice balance on my skin of three pretty sensual notes, the civet, musk and opium, and I got much better throw and wear length than I do with most blends. I don't know that I'll ever need to buy more than a decant at a time of this, but it's definitely a keeper.

Anise is one of my favorite notes, and while Anise Swallowtail Caterpillar isn't strongly anise-scented, the anise adds a lovely depth to this HG. I always worry with booze notes in HG since it tends to have much more throw than perfume does on me, but the bourbon here is quite understated (I don't smell like I just walked out of a speakeasy). The overall feel is a lightly spiced vanilla cream, totally work appropriate and terrific for autumn, and I get good throw and wear length.

My Infernal Lover is definitely the red musk variant. I'm sort of ambivalent about red musk, whose pronouns, in my head, are she/her. I like her, but she can be a bully, turning blends into single note red musk, drowning out all the other lovely notes. And her voice carries -- red musk is one of the few notes I get reliably great throw from. All this is just to say that if Infernal Lover had been one of this year's Weenies, I probably wouldn't have taken a chance on a decant. But I was lucky enough to be given some. I was really curious to see what red musk would do without a lot of other notes to dominate. What if she were the star and just had a little honey and cream as supporting players? It turns out that she relaxes, smooth and sweet and creamy. She's still sexy as hell, but she's not hitting you over the head with it, or grinding the other notes under her stiletto heels. If you get along with red musk, this is genius. I tested Infernal Lover along with Sanguinem Menstruum, another red musk/honey blend I am quite fond of. SM has a bit of almost metallic sharpness from the opium poppies, and while both blends had good throw and staying power, SM lasted longer on my skin.

Oh wow, Le Rideau Cramoisi really doesn't work on me. At first it was all champaca, which is a tricky note with my skin chemistry to the point where at times it leaves me feeling slightly ill. Other times (Body Remember, Thousands of Lights) it's just lovely. Sadly, this is more in the former category. Then suddenly it was all honey and opium. The final stage, after about 45 minutes, is honey, opium and champaca, and it's like I'm getting the worst elements of all three. VetchVesper is right: there's a metallic feel to this one, like a new aluminum water bottle. I can't really smell the clove in here at all, and the leather is very faint. Not for me.