Lucchesa

The blend Lady Death: Savage reminded me of, which hasn't been mentioned here, is Harper, and when I looked up the notes, there are some in common: the bergamot, vanilla and labdanum. I like both of these blends a lot. I was worried about the bois de jasmine, as jasmine is usually just bad on me, but the note behaved more like wood than jasmine. Wet the citrus dominates on me, then the amber and what seems more like vanilla musk than problematic white musk begin to shine. I'm frankly not sure what some of these notes smell like, but the whole is a lovely thing in that vanilla-pale musk-floral vein the Lab does so beautifully. Unfortunately my skin devours it after a couple of hours, but it is very nice while it lasts.

Paduan Killer Swarm is orgasm-inducing when wet. So, so good. I couldn't remember most of the notes when I put it on; I definitely got the coconut and licorice, which is subtle but definitely there. It's also golden, like honey and amber and tonka. I was surprised by how many spices are listed in the components because I couldn't pick them out at all. This is just a cloud of sweet gorgeousness. No more reviewing -- I just need to lie back and smell my wrist. I only have a tiny amount of this, which breaks my heart.

So, I didn't pay close enough attention to The Moon Goddess's notes when I purchased decants. Wet, she's all vetiver, pine and lemon on me, with a little hay, sharp in a nice outdoorsy kind of way, plus I know those are all notes that are going to soften on me in drydown. Then I went about my business and forgot I was testing a new scent, and a couple hours later I was very puzzled to find that it had transformed into what smelled an awful lot like oud. I was pretty sure there was no oud in the ingredients listed. But it was hiding under one of its aliases: agarwood. I will definitely test this at least once more and pay more attention to the in-between stages, and I may well age the decant for a while to see if the oud settles down and if the leather ever emerges on my skin, but I was disappointed that that agarwood crowded out all those beautiful notes.

I am a little shocked by how much I enjoyed wearing Tricksy yesterday. It went on in a big blast of almost camphorous patchouli, if that's a thing. I'm not reading anything in there as oudh or as honey either, at least at first. I was a little taken by the wet stage but decided I was going to ride with it, with that big bad patchouli vibe, and in about an hour or so, the honey came out and sweetened it up but just slightly, and that is the phase I dig most. It's a dry, woody patch, a dry honey, and I don't honestly know what role the oudh is playing here. I got this hoping it would quench my #occupywallstreet jonesing, but this is a very different animal, not rich and chewy like #ows. But I think I really like it!

Monna Vanna is absolutely lovely. I don't generally wear straight florals; the ambergris, fruit and bourbon vanilla keep it interesting for me, though it is predominantly a rose blend. The violet and lily creep in and make it powdery around the edges after a couple of hours. This is the kind of scent that made me fall in love with BPAL, but my tastes have changed somewhat, towards darker more unisex blends mostly, though I also find myself loving those sugary creamy florals; this is somewhere in the middle. It definitely reads feminine on my Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Monna Vanna, 1866, Tate Gallery

My imp of Satan Summoning His Legions smells like soft leather with cinnamon and cardamom. Yum! But my skin disagrees with this one. Sometimes leather and white musk are fantastic (see: Jareth), but here the white musk turns intermittently soapy on my skin. So it was lovely at first, exactly the kind of fiery soft leather scent I love, and then it went soapy. And then the lovely was back again, but then again the soapy. I think this would be a beautiful gender neutral scent for anyone whose skin doesn't convert white musk into soap.

Yep, that's pumpkin spice snake oil all right. And if you like both those things, how could you go wrong? My imp has had a few months to age now, and it's already great. At first, it's predominantly the foodie pumpkin pie spice on me, but as it dries, the Snake Oil emerges, heavy on the vanilla, and it's just delicious, with excellent throw on me. Sweet, cozy, autumnal (I know, it's June, but it was cold and pouring down rain here today!). The Snake Oil eventually subsumes the baking spices, and 12 hours later I'm left with just the ghost of vanilla, so it doesn't have the crazy 24 hour wear Snake Oil does on me, but this is amazing and probably going to get even better.

I'm so delighted I was able to swap for a partial of Three Gorgons. I love Klimt, I got to see the Beethoven frieze in person last fall, and Beth nailed it for me. Amber always strikes me as old-fashioned, in the best possible way, and I feel like this is something one of Klimt's elegant patrons (or lovers) might have worn. I get soft mandarin, sweet amber, warm tobacco and rich spice -- I would have guessed there was saffron in this, and I would not have guessed there was vetiver. This is the mildest-mannered vetiver I have encountered, so don't be afraid to try this if vetiver is your bugbear. I love amber blends, and this is a beauty. And although I don't get much throw, it does last well on my skin. Gustav Klimt, Beethoven Frieze, detail, 1902. Secession Building, Vienna ETA image since link in first post isn't working for me

I'm not sure what went wrong here, but Partridge in a Pear Tree didn't work for me at all. I am a fan of plum, black musk and sugared citrus, but something in the mix went soapy on me, and after the first hour there was no plum, no black musk and no sugary lemon, just soap. Major skin chemistry fail.

Mouse Circus is adorable! I can see this being gateway BPAL for a preteen. It's pink and fuzzy and sugary and salty -- all kinds of junk food for your nose. I don't get much wood at all, just cotton candy and popcorn -- it really does smell like the midway where they're spinning cotton candy and popping corn and frying up elephants' ears. And even for an adult, it's quite pleasant, though not my everyday kind of scent. It brings a smile to my face and lasts quite well.

I generally don't do aquatics, but Sea of Glass is surprisingly lovely on me. I definitely get citrus -- I sussed that out all on my own -- but taking advantage of the superior discrimination of you all, I can also perceive lily of the valley, which is usually a good note on me. A pretty, summery scent, but not a profound spiritual experience for me.

Weird: I get no patch at all and none of the bitterness I tend to associate with neroli. The amber resin is VERY sweet, as if the crushed herbs were trapped in corn syrup. It's pleasant but not wowing me, and as achildoftime says, I too am relieved not to have fallen in love with another HTF discontinued blend.

Wet, Hemlock is aggressively evergreen on me, with a menthol-eucalyptus-type edge. Really strong, really not my cup of tea. Two hours later I wouldn't have recognized it. Hemlock has softened into an absolutely gorgeous forest skin scent. This stage I could huff all day. I'm just not sure I'm willing to go through the wet phase again to get here, as there are other evergreen scents I adore all the way through.

You had me at chestnut milk.

Quintessence of Dust is primarily beeswax and dust on my skin, with soft leather in the background. The leather and dust notes and the sheer complication of the scent remind me of Adam. I have tried a number of BPAL "library" scents, and they tend to be very faint on me, but while Quintessence is a skin scent on me, I can make out a lot of the notes behind the beeswax. Parchment, a little smoke, a coppery tang that might be bloody tears or metal. This is gorgeous and evocative - definitely not a night on the town scent, much more introspective.

Cafe Mille et Une Nuits is Arabic coffee on me, the kind that's brewed with cardamom. Strong coffee and cardamom (yay!) at first, with the tobacco in the background. The coffee fades after an hour or so and the spices linger, but this is not a long-wearing scent on me. It's a brand new decant, so I'm going to see how that goes with aging. It is beautiful, though!

Wet, Venus Libitina was all about the cherry on me, a big round cherry slightly reminiscent of Chokecherry Honey but not as sweet. Within 20 minutes the rosewater took over and it became a creamy rose scent. Rosewater tends to work better on my skin than almost any rose note, and that holds true here. The rose does threaten to go sour, but the lingering cherry and bourbon notes hold it back. Still, it has become a rose blend; I liked the wet phase better. Then, about 90 minutes in, Venus Libitina truly becomes a thing of beauty. The rosewater reins it in and all the notes are present in equilibrium, even the orris, which I worried about, but which is perfect here. Whereas I very rarely get throw from any scent, I get wafts of the almost foody aspect of VL from a few inches away. Creamy sugary rosy deliciousness. Just lovely!

Sweet Alyssum SN was generously frimped to me. I love single notes to educate my nose, but sweet alyssum is one flower I'm very familiar with, as every yard in suburban Sacramento in the 1970s had some in its border, so at a certain time of year there was a cloud of alyssum scent everywhere. It's a really unique fragrance, sweet but a little dusty, hard to describe. And Sweet Alyssum SN does not smell at all like my recollections of the flower when it hits my skin. I can't quite articulate where it goes wrong, and now I need to go to the nursery to refresh my nose, but the SN is a strong perfumy floral on me that just doesn't capture how I remember the flowers smelling. It's much nicer about 90 minutes in (and I am not a lover of pure florals, for whom it would likely be gorgeous all the way through), but it's not what I was hoping for.

I often reach for Belle Epoque when I'm teaching that period; I'm surprised I've never reviewed it. I remembered it being a red sandalwood and vanilla scent, but today it was all about the mandarin, so it may be one of those blends whose presentation varies a lot due to weather, skin chemistry, etc. Bright, sharp mandarin supported by sandalwood and slightly smoky opium; I didn't get much vanilla or lily today, though after a couple of hours a faint soapiness crept in that I think is due to lily of the valley. Belle Epoque is my all purpose circa 1900 scent. I love the earlier reviews suggesting that this is the scent the spirited woman with great shoes of 110 years ago might have worn. I am always happy to wear it and feel like I'm back in the day of Toulouse-Lautrec.

I have a well-aged imp of Vasilissa today that I wore because I wanted a floral and couldn't remember what it smelled like. Freaking gorgeous, is what it smells like. I can't generally do jasmine, but star jasmine seems to be just fine (plus there was a fence covered with star jasmine in my backyard growing up so I have positive scent memories associated with it, despite the wasps). There's sweet, gently musky sandalwood and I would have guessed a drop of vanilla as well. This could be a Luper -- it's one of those beautiful soft creamy florals Beth does so well. And it's GC! It was nearly gone in about four hours, but it's so pretty it's absolutely worth slathering and reapplying. I need to buy a bottle and cellar it for a couple years.

I was frimped a decant of The Air and the Ether, and I am enjoying it a surprising amount. I would never have purchased it because I avoid scents described as ethereal or "almost imperceptible" -- they just don't show up on my skin, and if they do, they last about 12 minutes. I blind tested this, and the only component I could identify was the lavender. I would have guessed there was vanilla in here, or a sugary ingredient of some kind. I guess the sweetness comes from the amber, which was obvious once I knew it was there. The ambergris emerges more on drydown, and the lavender doesn't disappear the way it usually does on me but stays suspended in the mix, a mix which lasts longer than I expected from the description and the ingredients. This is just full of lovely.

Lavender is usually a fugitive note on me, so while Lavender Lace goes on in a blast of lavender, tempered with a grassy green note, it doesn't last very long. The smoke note emerges quickly then twines around a chewy sweet tobacco with a backdrop of bourbon vanilla; the smoke keeps everything from going too sweet. The only lace I've been lucky enough to try was Krampus, so I don't have a good grasp on the "lace" concept. This is lovely but has very little to do with lavender once it hits my skin. And it doesn't seem as though the rest of the notes are going to last very long, either. Stupid middle-aged skin.

Frumious Bandersnatch is subdued plum and subdued musk and subdued spicy carnation. It’s pleasant and these are all notes I enjoy, and it lasts quite a long time, but it is too understated on my skin for me to be interested in chasing down more.

White musk rarely works for me. Red musk rarely works for me. I didn’t have particularly high expectations for this blend. But somehow the red musk cancels out the screechiness of the white, and the white musk prevents the red from taking over, and this is one of the most gorgeous musk experiences I’ve ever had. Strawberry leaf is subtly sweet and berry-like whereas strawberry can be much too sweet on me — I’ll have to look for this note in future. The grapefruit is just a hint of zesty citrus. I am actually a bit shocked by how much I am enjoying Mania.

A Measurement of the Soul is really beautiful. It smells clean and righteous. I know that's a weird thing to say about a perfume, but that's where my brain goes with this one -- strong and upright. I feel like environmentalists of any gender could wear this while proudly battling the oil companies over land rights. It's mostly sage and cedar on me, grounded by the earthy fig - the wild variety must be less sweet than the cultivated, because this is only faintly sweet. If ti leaf is a tea note, it's swallowed by my skin like all its cousins. But I love this. It's quiet, but knowing it was there would give me a little extra backbone.