starbrow

Wow, the sniff from the bottle gives BIG lemon peppermint. Like, essential-oil strongth! Something sweet too, almost marshmallow floof but I've never met a marshmallow this strong either, it's like marshmallow's sturdy cousin Bertha. Curious how this will go on skin. Once applied, the peppermint is 1000% winning. It's a sweetened peppermint, and still has a drop of lemon's bright kick in there, but it's minty minty peppermint. This is absolutely the kind of thing that used to pass for candy back in ye olden days, but now it's the last thing you eat from the stash of the Halloween candy, and that only because everything else is gone and it's slightly better than nothing. At least it's crunchy and leaves your mouth fresh and tingly! I'm interested in the sweet poof of marshmallow that peeks its head out a bit, but I don't enjoy most peppermint-dominant scents, and that's definitely what Ghosts at Aldershot serves up for me.

A Gingerbread Dog is a most unusual species! It's a playful twist on a traditional gingerbread recipe. Quite a bit different than other varieties, with something that smells to me like a Publix chocolate chip cookie base (minus the chocolate) and sweet pecan and coconut shavings. Only lightly spiced to my nose, although the clove is accounted for, and the saffron is something I had to dig a little bit for. I love saffron in red musk blends, and that's where I'm most familiar with it. But comparing A Gingerbread Dog side by side with Tonka Bean and Saffron, I can see the similarities while enjoying Dog's foodiness over the duet's perfuminess. The earthy, vibrant quality of saffron's spice adds lots of life and "bark" to gingerbread's usual vibe. The truly wonderful thing to me about this blend is how it manages to be sweet but somehow not TOO sweet. My skin tends to amp sugar and especially any syrupy notes. So far, this one is behaving itself. The coconut that I feared so much is not a problem; it doesn't go sunscreen, and doesn't take over on the skin either. It acts in a baking capacity here, i.e. coconut shavings. Yum! A few hours later, this is all pecan, like it has big pecan pie energy. I acquired a half bottle and I think that's the perfect amount for me. I would wear this blend when: dreaming of winter holidays during the summer months.

2021 version: I was really hoping for a delicious, nourishing bowl of oatmeal in a bottle with Frumenty. I'm glad I just got a small amount of 2021 Frumenty, because oatmeal it is not, and nor is it my jam. This is a whole lotta butter/cream a la Jack, tinged with wheat and a floral currant sweetness rather than with peach and pumpkin. It's so different than oatmeal. The buttery floral makes me cringe. I dig the grain/nutmeg combination but I have Hildegard's Cakes of Joy and Mari Lwyd to satisfy that craving without the dairy. I wasn't expecting Frumenty to be SO heavy on the butter and cream. My skin doesn't get along well with the Lab's dairy note, and it's even worse when it turns floral and a little sour. I don't get a lot of cinnamon and ginger in the blend, nor a lot of booziness. I would have liked more spice for sure. The nutmeg does pop. Glad I got to try it, now I know Frumenty is definitely NOT for me! I think if you love the Lab's butter and cream, and you love Jack, Frumenty might be a great grainy version of that.

2021 version: The lavender comes out of the gate swinging. It's the punchy kind, dry and herbaceous, with a lot of kick to it. I can immediately tell this is the kind of scent that will need drying down to fully emerge. I have enough experience with lavender by now to ride out this beginning, which is not my favorite lavender opening, but even now, it's accompanied by something more mellow and grounded. Once the lavender starts to burn off, the true beauty of Mari Lwyd blossoms. It is reminding me a lot of Hildegard's Cakes of Joy, with a lightly-honey-sweetened baked note along with something that reminds me a little bit of cornbread. It's that kind of cake for me, a cakey bread baked in muffin tins, rather than birthday cake. The amount of sweetness, minimal and natural from the drop of honey, is perfect. It leans more savory, with just a little hint of fermentation like an ale would have, with some gluten in it too. The really amazing thing to me about this scent is how it manages to be both light, with no heavy syrup or saccharine foodiness, and yet, it has this amazing soft throw to my nose for hours. I wouldn't say this has a big throw, because it stays in my own little bubble, but if you want to be able to smell the scent you're wearing yourself, this one may be perfect. It works wonders for my skin chemistry, which doesn't do well with big sweet caramel-y notes, but does wonders with lightly spiced savory/bready notes. By now, the herbalness of the lavender is just a ghost in this blend, but it's there and hauntingly beautiful. Bottle upgrade? Bottle upgrade.

This is wild! Right away, Manus Dei reminded me of No. 93 Engine, so I had to go put some on to compare them. And that first wet stage really is identical, except that No. 93 has what smells like more benzoin to me, a poky resin that reminds me of bandaids. Manus Dei has far less benzoin in it, but still the same very appealing mix of grass (weeds), dried herbs, and machinery. The ink is present too, a bit like sniffing a Bic pen after you've been chewing on it. For once, no pickles in this ink. It's very authentic. The longer the drydown, the more Manus Dei outstrips the competition. Maybe I amp benzoin these days! All I know is that Manus Dei's earthy, herby notes bring lovely witchy vibes, while the machinery smell and wisps of ink make me think of a 1940s writer pecking away at her typewriter on a summer's day, the smell of sun-warmed grass and clay earth drifting in from the open window. It stays close to the skin but stays true once it's dried, a gentle writerly scent. I am definitely keeping this one and putting No. 93 Engine in time out!

A witch's ride for sure. Wet, this is oddly floral with a slight hint of apple. The floral is reminding me a lot of broom flower (from Hexennacht) which would make a lot of sense for a Witches Lace! It's not a flower I personally enjoy smelling on myself, as it's quite heavy and loud in a green sort of way. Noxious (mephitic) petals indeed! But once that element begins to fade, the other layers do emerge. The gorgeous cognac and dreamy tobacco are at the heart of this lace. They are old-fashioned indulgences, soaked deep into the lace, with a suggestion of narcotic opium. The smokiness is just the right kind, light and swirling. In spite of all the dark notes, this does not end up being a very dark or gnarly perfume. Quite the opposite, it has an herbal dreamy atmosphere tinged with a hint of vanilla, a dab of patchouli, a lot of restraint in other words! If I could change anything, it would be to remove the broom flower or lower the ratio of it in the blend so that I could enjoy the wet stage as much as the drydown. I don't think this is something that will age out, either. However, the drydown is so beautiful, I am happy to hang on to my bottle and see where it goes.

Look at those NOTES! This is one blend where you can have fun picking out each every note, for sure! Each time I go to smell this, I immediately get a vivid sense of essential oils; the bright swamp of cypress wood, the woody juice of juniper berries, a thick spicy clove, a grounding patchouli. I think The Light Betwixt the Horns does a great job of taking very natural scents like these and elevating theme into a perfumery context. The blend smells fancy and designer, while at the same time deeply connected to its components. The first hour goes a little powdery-resin for me, no doubt thanks to the amber. The second hour is when the sexy red musk truly emerges. There is a smoky (blackened?) quality to the sweet-fruity layer, and I couldn't quite tell you which fruits are in here, but I might guess currant, berries, a touch of plum or grape? Combined with the red musk, it's sultry and smoky-eyed. Damn, this is going to age like a champ. A cousin to A Savage Veil, though more complex and less rooted in patchouli-plum depths. More complex is not always better, it's just a different take on a darkly spiced resinous sex bomb. If you're worried about the smoke or the scorch, this does not go BBQ or headachey at all. There is a tone of corruption that I like a lot. I suspect Light Betwixt will find a home in many gothic-loving collector's hoards. Including mine.

There is everything to love in this dark and tangled tale. She hardly needed aging. Right from the mail, this bottle was incredible, but after a few days to rest, the beauty of each resin begins to truly pulsate. At its heart, I can sense Shadows and Light, the 2020 Lilith. They share no listed notes, yet the smoky shadows are there. There is perhaps a dark and murky vetiver behind both of these? The patchouli is a black-lipped Gothic stunner, both sophisticated and deeply rooted. I adore frankincense, am new to gaiac (NOT garlic, thank the gods), and have a rocky relationship with myrrh and labdanum. None of them particularly stand out to me in the exquisite blending of resins here. A fabulous incense profile, heady and unified. I am getting a viscous motor oil vibe from Horn of Malediction that reminds me of Wasteland World. I immediately applied to compare. Horn outshines, with no leather to hide the smoky motor oil. It does remind me a lot of Streets of Detroit! One of my top 5 scents, so the similarity is a huge plus in my book. A touch of Amaxophobia too, with that menacing smoky "car breaking down" overtone. The other comparison that had to be made was Malediction, which has as its listed notes "red patchouli and vetiver". Is it the base for Horn? If so, they have taken very different paths. The vetiver in GC Malediction lasts for days, through showers and sweating and swims. You have to be prepared to love its powerful vetiver. It is a long-term relationship. I don't know that Horn of Malediction has the same vetiver. I absolutely believe the red patchouli (a very lovable, warm, spicy patchouli) is combining with Shadows and Light vetiver and all those other fabulous resins. But if you don't love GC Malediction, still it's worth giving Horn a try, I believe. In the end, this is one of the darkest, sexiest, smoothest new blends I've smelled from BPAL. It will lull you into the darkness of its forest and then tangle you in thorns. It makes me wish I had bought a second bottle, just to be safe. If you love any of the scents I just mentioned, you might just love Horn of Malediction.

I'm just here for a hit of vetiver, baby. Out of the gate, lemony woods predominate Azathoth. I wouldn't have known specifically tangerine if I didn't look at the notes. The citrus is rather generically bright and pingy, combining with the grassiness of the vetiver to lean in a lemon direction. The familiar scratch of gritty vetiver is soon overwhelmed in a strong cloud of cedar, with its thickly woody warmth, and black amber adding a softness and depth to the resin. I don't get tons of saffron at this stage, but if I focus on it, there is indeed that spice I tend to enjoy, sunny and earthy both. An hour or so later, my beloved vetiver emerges again. The cedar bomb has subsided, and the calm hypnosis of beautiful grassy vetiver takes over. It is a close throw but I catch delicious whiffs of it every so often and I'm happy. I think the saffron is giving it an extra happy twang, like Bard and Scherezade. I might acquire a bottle of this eventually? There are other vetivers I like every stage of more (Bloodlust) but for GC vetiver in an easy-to-wear format, backed by some beautiful black amber and saffron, Azathoth is a surprising winner for me.

For those not familiar with bay rum (and yes I did my research!), this is going to be a mixture of rum (specifically spiced rum, with bits of vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and/or cardamom) and bay plant, i.e. pimenta/pimento, which is a really distinctively jagged, almost bramble-y note, much like mountain laurels themselves. There is a drop of citrus in there - lime oil? - but it is layered underneath some pretty bold greens and spices. And indeed, the hair gloss lives up to this description. It is richly layered, not too boozy, but has a strong kick to it, with tons of bay (if you're questioning, sniff a fresh bay leaf and you'll get the picture!), and a lot of deep, unsweetened spice. The combination does read traditionally masculine. Is that stopping me? No. I'm keeping this hair gloss and using it to layer with both some sweeter blends and some of the really sinful musky/resinous oils. On its own, I don't know that I would just spray Bay Rum HG and call it a day. However, as a compliment to the many perfume oils I've acquired from BPAL, I think it works divinely and I plan to use it a lot for that.

Note: the label on my bottle just says Plum Blossom but the listing itself that I bought says Plum Blossom Twig. For future reference/sales etc, these are the same fragrance! Mm, right away, cream lemon amber is here to play. I recognize this note from the Dead Leaves, Cream Amber, and Lemon Peel HG. Here, it is divorced from dead leaves and has all the creamy warm honeyed amberness and a drop of bitter lemon to play well in hair. It reminds me a bit of some of the GC hair glosses with honey - Honey HG, Hair Loosened, etc. - but with more notes of course. The lemon is not strong, just a nice glitter of citrus, and fades with time, in case it's a note you are not super fond of. (Me!) The wildflower honey is REALLY going to town. I...can't really smell much plum. Like if you told me to guess what the notes are, I wouldn't have guessed double plum, and plum is my favorite note of all time. It's a beautiful honey, light and shimmery and a hint of floral which probably the plum blossom is helping. There are some pale lilac colors dappling this scent. I am hoping the purple comes out to join the fun over time. If you are a fan of the lab's honey hair glosses, this is another winner with some beautiful lemon cream amber for color.

Ever since it came out in 2019, this is one that has called to me as a potential FANTASTIC permanent LE autumnal option. I was scared of the scary notes - leather eek! smoke eek! - and knew that the hay and pumpkin would probably be great. I finally got the opportunity to acquire a bottle and took a chance! I know my tastes have definitely shifted in favor of leather these days, which is good because I get a ton of leather from Escape. It's a rich, swarthy leather; not plasticky to my nose, but very concentrated, like walking into a real old-fashioned leather boot store. The throw of it from a foot or two away, however, is softer and pleasantly warm. Flaming pumpkins join the party with a spooky gourd scent. This is one of BPAL's best pumpkins to me, cheekily spiced and a little woody. It's not as dark as The Empty House/The Shadowed Veil from 2019, but it's in the same league. There's some cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, a pinch of clove. But it's definitively pumpkin, rather than merely relying on pumpkin spice to bring the vibes. The smoke that I was so worried about is no worry at all. It's a swirl of something thick in the air; it stays clear of the BBQ/char/headache note, and stays quietly and eerily in the background. The hay too is a low-lying note, just pleasantly grassy rather than being a big player, but I do recognize it from some of the beautiful Hay Moon/Hay & Clove/Harvest of the Empress scents, and it totally adds to the autumnal vibes. There's one more note that's unlisted but that both I and a friend identified: kettle corn! Just a hint of something sticky-sweet and popped-corny! Big popcorn/caramel notes tend to be a disaster on me, so this one is no more than a whisper, just enough to carry the smells of Halloween treats on the air. Delicious. I'm really happy to have found a readily available BPAL that is so fall to me. Sometimes I'm afraid to gleefully apply the Weenie scents I have because I only have a limited amount of it. Escape from the Autumn Carnival, in stock year round at the lab, is going to get a heavy rotation, I already know it.

I was rather hoping those bonus notes - rose musk, cognac, white amber - would help offset the peach blossoms a bit. Not yet! This is currently a PEEEEACH floral hair gloss, in fact it smells to me like a honey-sweetened peach and red currant tea, with a brush of the red (sour) plum from 2021, just more muted. Rose is, for once in her life, shy, ignored in favor of the sweetness of fruity florals. White amber is naturally going to be a shy note around such superstars. But ah, my beloved cognac. Where are you? That most sophisticated, old-fashioned of boozes, we could use your lacy presence here! I'm thinking I will let my bottle gel and age for a year and see what emerges then. If it is still a peach fest, I will probably let it go, but I could see it developing into something more complex!

My favorite of the 2021 plums! This isn't quite classic BPAL plum to me, which is dark, gothy, swoony, and often grounded by patchouli or oudh. However, it is a lovely plum that reads as sweet purpled musk to me. The floofy marshmallow (same one as in Marshmallows Gum Drops Peppermint Candies!) brings the fragrant plum into a candied place, but not as much as the recent Sugar Plums of Yule 2021. If those were too sweet for you, this duet dials back the sweetness a notch or two, and fluffs up the purple fruit to be a bit more ethereal, more dreamy. My decant of this aged into something really delicious and complex, while the bottle is definitely lagging behind and remains a little young-smelling. I think this will age really beautifully. If you are a fan of early-era BPAL plums, this probably will be your jam! And if 2021 plum has been treating you dirty, give the duet a try and see if it is a bit kinder. I may not backup my bottle, but it should stay in my collection for a good long while!

This reminds me a cool, refreshing cocktail with lots of sour/sweet fruits to bring the pucker and the sugar both. The red plum is the sour kind, but it definitely works better in this context than in others! I get a lot of the lab's pineapple, which to me is something of a pineapple juice note, maybe a little hint of the tin can . There's also pink grapefruit, MY NEMESIS, bringing its distinctive puckery bite into the mix. The king mandarin sits in nicely as a brighter, sweeter citrus twist in the midst of these four acidic fruits. A little whiff of cherry blossom is a welcome calming presence. So is the crushed mint, contributing to the cocktail effect by reminding me of muddled mint leaves - love that for summer! Thankfully the oakmoss burns off fast, and leaves behind the fuzzier bergamot to ground the whole mixture in a citrusy blanket. I tend not to wear perfumes that are this citrusy/acidic, so I will probably be letting go of my bottle, but this is quite lovely as a fruity spring/summer hair gloss that will smell crisp, clean, and refreshing in the office or during off-duty hours.

2022 version: This...this is not it. Jasmine sambac, who invited you to this party? A stinky, brash floral that I do not love straight from the flower - I went to a nursery and smelled it! - and it is here here here. It's HERE. There is no room for apple in jasmine sambac's aura; she is a diva, and she will be heard. All the other notes wish they were at this party, but really, they are just faded flowers whimpering in the shade of Jasmine Sambac. The florals are truly out of control in this blend. The high-pitched indoles of them are SCREAMING. You come to this party because you love this wild flowery romp. You want Jasmine to dirty dance with you. You want to get high with indigo poppy in the bathroom. Incense smoke was maybe present in this apartment like two weeks ago. It's long since faded from the room. I was fooled by the collection of notes into thinking I might enjoy the 2022 rendition, but alas, it's not my cup of tea.

Sniffing this hilarious Luper, my scent memories take me right back to being about six years old and getting a Sam's Choice grape soda for a quarter at the end of a Walmart shopping trip. The cold grape fizzies tasted so GOOD in the Florida heat! I don't even know that I've had a grape soda in about 25 years, but I can still vividly remember that smell and taste on my tongue. In spite of its moniker, Purple Jelly Dildo is a very innocent trip back to those days. Nothing very complex about this scent, although on drydown, I swear I can smell a hint of black currant. Maybe even red currant? It's a little sip of fruity tea, elegantly cheeky. In the other teapot, of course, the kids' teapot, is grape soda, just straight up grape soda. A trip down memory lane! I don't think I need more than a decant, but if I loved grape more than I currently do, this would be fantastic to layer with plum, blackberry, and any other purply blends. I am not mad at this at all.

The same herbal lavender from On Wednesday I Will Promise You a Phantom, but now it has some bitter herbal friends - juniper, SUPER JADED, chip in its shoulder, it's NOT PINE, OKAY?? - and bergamot, with pretentions of cologne grandeur, honey you're a beautiful fuzzy essential oil, you truly don't have to prove yourself! - and spikenard, who just wants to BE SEEN, nobody knows who or what it truly is! Row of Trees ends up smelling like you dropped way too much of those strong essential oils into your diffuser and then you never turned it on to soften them with steam, you just got them on your fingers and are stuck smelling like a bunch of mentholic oils. The orris, soft shy powder that it is, has fled the building. The frankincense probably is contributing to the brightness of the blend, but has not lent much resin yet. Maybe with age. I think this could be interesting for those who don't like traditional perfumes and want to smell lots of big herbal notes in their perfume oils. Almost no sweetness, lots of strength and vigor, and cool at the same time. I won't be acquiring more, but I could see others loving this!

Pear lovers, take note! This is a very beautiful pear cocktail kind of scent. The green woodiness of pear juice leaps out at me right away, along with a fizzy white musk that I would have guessed for champagne or pear moscato. The fizziness does die down with time to rest and also with time on the skin, and leaves the beautifully summery combination of pear and cognac to chill out with the cool silvery musk that's left behind. I am a big frankincense fan, but I'm not sure where it really is in this blend! I am hoping that aging will bring out the depth of this resin as well as the brightness that it seems to be lending right now to the overall cheerful cocktail effect. This is one to watch for sure. The white musk right now is a little too "clean" for my taste, where it's not dryer sheet but still leaning effervescent and a touch of detergent. I think if you tend to do well with white musks and you are looking for a beautiful pear, The Terrible Door could be an Excellent Choice.

Woof, this is a SMOKY beeswax for the first few minutes! A thousand candles blown out all at once, the air hazy with thick candlesmoke and the rich twang of melted beeswax, the ghost of honey. In that sense, it smells just like every other strong beeswax scent from the lab at this stage, just a few weeks old. Endless Corridors started out this way, as just a stronger Light of Men's Lives, with more honey/smoke than florals. Lotus is usually a powerful note for me, a bubblegum-sweet floral that dominates. Here, it does not! It sweetens and turns the beeswax a little more powdery (the golden amber helps with that too), but currently, it's a quiet role in this blend, and a surprisingly elegant one. The golden amber too is a late-stage player, lending its gentle warmth and softness to the stronger notes. I think Shouutsushi will age into a remarkably different beast, perhaps one that is warmer and sweeter even than it is now! I will check in with my decant in a few months and see if it needs upgrading, just like Endless Corridors did for me. Beeswax fans should take note and run, not walk!

Right now, I'm getting big Tire Store energy + black pepper. It makes me wonder if there isn't some opononax in this blend, since opononax is one resin that smells very tire store in its purest form. Well then, the oud is leaning in that direction, the black pepper is doing its thing in a preground, conventional box of black pepper kind of way. Toasted honey, you are actually missing in action and you would be nice right about now. There is so little sweetness. There is no vanilla. The oud does not smell sweet to me; it smells rubbery, which is good if you like rubber, bad if you were here for resinous sweet spice. I will definitely be resmelling my decant as it ages, because this is one that could age beautifully, but at the moment I'm not leaning towards a bottle upgrade.

The Luper 2022 pear note seems to be a fizzy one, because both this and The Terrible Door have a fizzy champagne/pear soda quality. This is not a bad thing, just something to know if you go to look up either of those blends and are drawn to the pear. It's a fizzy, sweet, carbonated pear, make no mistake! The mandarin comes out in a smoky, peppery, incensey haze an hour or so later. It is kind of sexy. A surprising appearance after the opening pear soda. The mandarin citrus doesn't dominate, just spikes the deeper notes of smoke and opium and an ink dye that is berry-based. I do enjoy this stage a whole lot. A sophisticated, opium-smoking, definitely red-light kind of scent. It's light and skin-hugging, but it's there. I do hope it grows more with aging. I will keep an eye on this decant for future developments. The latter stage is the one I'm really interested in. If champagne notes are not your jam, I think the deeper mid and base notes will prevail, for what it's worth.

Oh bitter almond, we meet again. I was hoping the dark musk and the other notes would hold you back but no, there IS no holding you back. You are just a force to be reckoned with. Strong and abrasive, bitter almond is a hard note to describe if you have not experienced it for yourself. It is related to the cherry pit, which as you may know contains components that our bodies convert into cyanide. If you are like me, your body smells this component and is like DANGER DANGER THIS COULD KILL YOU. It's the equivalent of seeing a neon-colored frog. You don't want to lick it, yo. Okay, powering through the excruciating five minutes of Bitter Almond Show. The chocolate mint and dark musk begin to emerge. Oh, this is lovely! It's reminding me of How Doth the Little Crocodile, the aged kind. Wow wow. Gorgeous. It's a perfumed interpretation of those notes, rather than a foodie replica of chocolate mint. Infuse your pillow mint with a chocolatey brown musk and a sultry black cherry, and you have what the dry stage of Languishing turns into. The poisonous edge really does burn off, and the other notes come through beautifully. The anise is not a strong presence, but it lends a needed cynical note of murky spice to the otherwise wholly pleasant cast. As if to say, Bitter Almond may have left the stage, but you've still got me, baby. I am going to need to play around with this one a lot more. I'm curious to see how it ages, and if the bitter almond gets less excruciating of a five minutes with time. I might even need a bottle?

Wow, this is a total surprise of a scent! I feel like the notes don't properly convey what you are in for with this Honey trio. Right out of the gate is a sugared lemon, that crystallized sugar that leans into lemon drop candy territory, like the 13 from March 2020. I think it's swirling with the green tea to create a sweetened, crunchy-bits-of-honey kind of drink that is only marginally healthy hehe. The lemon effect never really goes away, just goes from bright and punchy to soft-focus and coy. I was most anxious to see if the khus - aka VETIVER - would make an appearance in this trio. It truly does not. Not fresh, at least! And this is definitely not KUSH, in case you're worried about a weed smell! I think there is something slightly grassy that emerges as the bright lemon dies down and a sun-warmed quality appears. You may have smelled this in some hay blends before, which sometimes can lean a bit lemony. This one, however, is full on lemon. I am not a big lemon fan, I was actually hoping for some big-time vetiver, so I won't be upgrading my decant. I can see those who enjoyed that 13 or who WANTED to enjoy it and were just never able to track it down, really loving this Luper. It's in the same ballpark too as The Wellerman and maybe even the Sticky Bat? It's really delicious, very wearable, not at all Lemon Pledge. There will be some fans out there, the challenge will be for the right people to FIND this scent!

I was hoping that double plum would help this blend be plummy. Alas, my plum friends, it is not. Not at the moment, at least. This is all white musk - a soft, powdery white musk at least, and not the aggressively soapy kind - and wisteria and water lily, which are gentle watery white florals and not screaming diva white florals. Very clean and innocent smelling, but very very oldfashioned. Some of my toys from back in the day had this kind of powdery comforting smell to them, and I am getting some of that here. There's also an element of some of the gentler commercial perfumes from the 80s and 90s, to me. I don't get a single drop of plum from it fresh. I am hoping that time will help it emerge, but right now, this one is for the lovers of those pretty, elegant white florals and the powder-dusted musks.