Lucchesa

The Levee is dominated by a dark, smoky patchouli, though it doesn't scream vetiver to me, so if you can do smoke but not vetiver per se, this might still work for you. It takes a long time on me for the sweet notes to develop, and they're never in the forefront, so it's definitely a patchouli scent with brown sugar and honey as supporting players. This is super lovely - if you love Banshee Beat, Tricksy, #occupy or Nasty Woman, this is definitely one to try.

Calumet 412 smells like BPAL to me, which means that it is full of all the scents I love. Wet rich golden amber predominates on me, with vanilla and polished woods and rum. It's warm and sexy and comforting, really really nice. I don't get a lot of throw (I almost never do), but wear length is good. It stays pretty true to the initial impression, just getting softer and maybe a little sweeter. Beautiful!

I'm a sucker for anything with the word "Renaissance" in the description, even though violets almost never work on me. Plus a Michelangelo poem? How could I not?! My imp doesn't specify the year which makes me suspect it was the first iteration. Doom of Beauty goes on strong, with an almost astringent herbal quality that somehow reminds me of the Fernet Branca my grandmother used to give us kids to settle our stomachs. (I know, Fernet Branca became hip somewhere along the line, but in our family it was used as Pepto Bismol. Hey, rosemary IS for remembrance.) Any wimpy little violets that may be present have gotten totally swamped by the Renaissance knot garden of useful herbs. As it settles down, I get astringent rosemary, a little rosewater, a little citrus peel, and it just keeps getting softer and prettier with time. It is very unusual -- it doesn't make me think of any other BPAL. I am thrilled I found this on a swap partner's list when it wasn't on my radar at all. SUCH a keeper for me!

Eve is pretty. Apple, well-behaved rose, and light honey. The ylang ylang, which I worried about, is not particularly strong on me. It is a very pleasant fruity floral, but not so compelling that I'm heartbroken that it's discontinued.

Our Nightmarebane. Named after the Baku, benevolent Japanese spirits that eat nightmares. In Japanese tradition, nightmares are gifts from malevolent spirits; when you wake up from one, you may call, "Baku, please eat my dreams!", and if you are virtuous and merciful in spirit, the Baku will devour the evil, transforming it into a blessing of good fortune. I didn't try Baku for its nightmare-devouring properties; I wore it in daytime. Baku on me goes on with a strong, sinus-clearing blast of medicinal lavender. That initial burst of lavender never lasts long on me, and within 20 minutes it had faded and the anise note was overtaking it. Within another 20 minutes or so, my skin had eaten Baku almost completely. I guess a strong opening would be good for inducing sleep, and if it worked, I wouldn't need it to last very long...

Foodie overload! Gluttony is everything it says it is. On me it's most like a chocolate covered hazelnut praline, but the chocolate is no darker than semisweet. With all this other sugar, a darker chocolate would have been nice to cut the sweetness. I guess the hops does that a bit, but there's an awful lot of sweetness to counteract. I always love the hazelnut note. If you are a gourmand lover, definitely give this one a try.

Ether is clean and fresh, a little lemony, a little floral, a little aquatic though not too soapy. It's not my thing but I can see it being a lovely summer scent on the right person.

Molly Grue is gentle and lovely -- I really enjoy all these notes. I expected the opening to be all hazelnut, but it is never strong and blends quietly with the fig and bitter sesame. The spices are also very quiet, and the rice flower, and that is why I'm not keeping this decant -- this scent is just too soft and gentle on me, and my skin eats it up much too quickly.

Tanuki No Doke Daruma was a frimp from a generous forumite, but I'll try anything no matter how unpromising the notes. Plus I love the tanuki stories. As expected, this is not for me. The apple and currant combine into something way too fruity for my taste, the apple blossom and champaca making it too floral as well. I would like to smell the tomato leaf note, but I couldn't individuate it here, and the grasses don't really come out either. No clue what goma is. Too fruity and too flowery on my skin.

The Lemniscate is primarily frankincense and cedar on me. If those two notes work for you, this is stunning. I've been testing some fruity scents which really aren't my thing, and in contrast Lemniscate is bracing, clean, unisex. The cedar and frank combine into a single dry, woody thing -- I can't pull them apart. There's a kick of black pepper, a ghost of warm tobacco, maybe the tiniest bit of sweetness in drydown from the cognac. I absolutely love this one.

Slivers of warm, pulsating DRAGON'S blood forever crystallized in golden amber resin. I should have read the reviews, or this should be Dragon's Amber. Dragon's blood very rarely works on me, and this is not one of those occasions. It's only a little amber and a lot of the sickly sweet fruity-floral DB turns into on me skin. I was hoping for something more like blood musk and amber. Oh well, I'll pass this one on.

I wonder if it's the blood musk that is giving you that effect. (I've never really been in a tattoo parlor... I know, I know.) Blood musk tends to work better on me than red musk pure and simple. Have you tried Ezekiel 16:19 from the new Deliver Them scents? Blood musk and ashes. It's really unique, different from any other BPAL I have, and definitely no beeswax sweetening things up. Plus it's a great cause.

I love trying 13s, though I can have a hard time differentiating components among all those notes. This one is gorgeous. I get primarily dark chocolate with boozy vanilla cream, sweet and comforting but not cloying; I think the bitter coffee and smoky notes help keep the balance. If you are an almond hater, I get very little almond here. The carnation takes a while to show up, and the cardamom is very understated. After an hour, 13 July 2018 is pretty faint on me; I have to get my nose close to my wrist to smell it. But it lasts at this level for the next several hours, not disappearing entirely. Aging may improve the wear length, but the composition is a winner.

This 13 is lovely rich chocolate spice in the bottle but kind of odd on my skin. I don't know some of these notes -- ladybug beans, cascara sagrada, master root -- and the effect on me is less chocolate in my spice cabinet (though I do smell the cumin and allspice) than cocoa powder in an herbalist's storeroom, with bundles of dried herbs hanging every which where. A kind of dry, dark, earthy, herbal blend, not particularly sweet -- not unpleasant at all, but just not me.

Maybe my nose is busted, but I don't get pomegranate from Crypt King. Maybe a hint of fruity sweetness, but not identifiable pom. Wet the one note that stands out is the almost foody ginger. I do get oak moss and lilac as it dries, and very little patchouli. I'm going to pass my tester on so someone else can try it. It's too confusing to me. It's very nice but I like to have a better idea of what I'm smelling.

I was frimped a tester of this that doesn't specify the year. Rose can be iffy on me, but Pink Snowballs is really pretty. I'm only familiar with the Snow White note through Cotton Phoenix and Frostbittens, but my skin seems to love it. The rose is pink and sugary on me. Sweet and lighthearted but with nice wear length for a delicate scent.

Daemonorops, vanilla, Indian sandalwood, Mexican copal, hyssop, muguet, sweet pea, amber, hazelwood, galbanum, hiba wood, and orchid. Sniffing Great Red Dragon without peeking at the notes, I could definitely tell there was dragon's blood present, though not so much dragon's blood as to make it uncomfortably sweet for me, and vanilla. And a bunch of other stuff. Woods, flowers, that sort of thing. I did not get hazelnuts or anything foodie, and no throw even wet. But it was really appealing. And 20 minutes or so later I sniffed my wrist again to see how it was developing, and it was gone. Where did you go, Great Red Dragon and Woman Clothed with the Sun?

Goliath Birdwing is quiet on me. I was afraid that lemongrass plus lemon balm would equal lemon Pledge, but the citrusy herbs stayed very mellow. Unfortunately, so did everything else. I guess this is one of those seamless blends where it's hard to identify the separate ingredients, but I would have enjoyed more pronounced sage and anise notes. It's pretty in the imp, but I felt like my skin was damping it down.

Another perfectly gorgeous scent from the Deliver series! I could almost cut and paste dementia_divine's review because Luke 10:25-37 behaved very similarly on my skin. The clove was the strongest note on me, followed by the amber; under them I could faintly make out some earthy saffron and sandalwood. And late drydown, a few hours in, is all sweet golden amber on me as well. This is a lovely, warm, comforting scent, and it will be beautiful in the fall and winter. It wears close to the skin (as most scents do on me) and lasts a long time.

Psalm 82:2-4 is the first of the Deliver scents I haven't absolutely loved. I was worried about the crystalline musk being close to white musk, which often doesn't work on me, and I was right to worry. The musk was just a bit too high-pitched on my skin, and I didn't get any vanilla for ages. It isn't bad or anything; it just didn't blow me away like some of the others in the series have. I wished it worked as well on me as it does on some of the other reviewers! ETA I noticed today that my imp is really stratified -- there's amber color at the bottom, clear on top (I actually thought I had just ordered a half imp and it was amber). So I rolled thoroughly, and this time I got the vanilla a lot earlier, and the whole effect was softer. I'm hanging on to this imp to see how it ages. It may end up blowing me away after all.

A second-hand imp of Ozymandias, of indeterminate age. Ozymandias is very faint on me. A little incensy, a little powdery, no throw nor a particularly long wear length, nothing that would raise it above beloved desert scents like The Lion or Bastet in my estimation or make me sad that it's discontinued.

Astringent lavender and black, black patchouli. I have an imp of East African black patch SN, and it's very recognizable here. So, unlike zanzoku_zen, I would NOT recommend this to anyone who's scared of patchouli, because at least with my skin chemistry, this leans pretty close to single note big bad patch. No lilac or star anise, only a hint of citrus ; some pine does peek out once the lavender starts to mellow a bit in drydown. And there's something about the lavender/patchouli mix that's not sitting well with me. I think this would be beautiful if my skin let it express more of the notes.

I love blackberries and keep trying to find the perfect BPAL blackberry scent, which has led me to a series of dreadful disappointments, as the blackberry note tends to go berry bubblegum on my skin. So I didn't have particularly high hopes for Exodus 22:21. But I love me some dark syrupy opoponax, and myrrh usually plays on my side as well. And this -- this is beautiful. There's the gorgeous rich blackberry and the resins and something almost lemony which I think is really tart redcurrant, balancing the sweetness of the berry, and I think the resins keep this blend from getting too sweet as well. Wet, I got unusually good throw for my skin. Drydown is more subdued, less fruity, rich and deep. This is not a playful, light summer blend on me. Phox calls it mature, and I would second that, but in the most positive way. I'm so glad I took a chance on a decant, and I may need more. In fact, I feel that way about all the Deliver scents I've tried so far. What a stunning collection.

I can't usually wear red musk, but I've had some success with blood musk. Blood musk is more apt to share the stage with other notes, which is especially crucial when there are only two notes. And the blood musk and ashes are in perfect balance here. Ezekiel 16:49 is a very somber scent, and utterly unisex; for the first couple of hours I get no sweetness at all, then it starts to soften a bit, but it is still dark. Gray ash, coppery blood -- this really isn't like any other scent I can think of, and it's beautiful. Not much throw on me (typical) but good wear length.

Dragon-Smooched Snake Oil is powerful stuff. Wet, I barely smell the Snake Oil at all. I get strong, cloying dragon's blood resin, patch and honey. But the SO starts to assert itself pretty quickly, and as it dries down the DBR backs off somewhat. Fresh SO is super sweet on me already, so this is almost overpoweringly sweet, with terrific throw. The extra patch gives it a more structured feeling. It is ridiculously sexy, and I don't even particularly like dragon's blood. D-SSO lasts longer than most of the SO blends do on me without simply turning into Snake Oil, though it's not still there the next morning the way plain SO might be. Of course this is likely to age magnificently. If I loved dragon's blood, this would be to die for. As it is, it's still pretty great.