starbrow

Schmendrick truly is a TRICKSTER. I keep going between thinking he smells like a freshly showered, slickly dressed court magician lacquered down in ~manly cologne~ ...and a raw-boned wannabe wizard a week into an epic journey, smelling of grassy patches of sage and clover that he's been sleeping in. I had a decant of this that was all the latter, so grassy and a little dirty and sweaty but so so cozy. In the bottle, less aged, it's a lot of slick cologne Schmendrick, and I'm not as BIG a fan of him?

But fortunately for my tastes, it's not a hugely oakmossy cologne, and I appreciate that. If anything, it's a classic cologne that dabbles a lot in sage and chamomile, which is really unique and herby. I really wish my Schmendrick would roll around in the grass a little bit more; that would make him an absolute keeper. I tend to like femme-to-androgynous scents, and this one is just on the cusp of what I would love to wear. I am curious enough to age him longer and see which direction he turns.

This one could have easily gone suntan lotion or *whispers* Bath and Body Works, summer-style. Fortunately, fig elevates this from pure tropical explosion to a Mediterranean beach, lounging in a floppy hat and designer bathing suit. There definitely is some element of sweet coconut lotion, but the delicate drabbles of fig brings something lovely and mature, fancy gourmand. The fig is juicy and ripe to me, but not dominating. It's quite balanced, in a way that many BPAL figs are not, because it can be a pretty bossy note. In this trio, it dances well with the other two.

If I could wish for anything, it'd be more of the smoked vanilla. It's such a gorgeous note in the Cedarwood duet, and it could totally afford to POP more in this trio. If anything, I wish it'd been paired with something other than coconut, because I can *tell* there's a smoky sweetness beneath that coconut but it is just so obvious a tropical note. 

I think coconut fans will find this a wafty, elevated blend that is perfect for summer. I am still debating whether to keep my bottle or not, but it is undeniably beautiful.

This is EXACTLY what I hoped it would be! It smells like the bottom of a big bowl of Fruity Pebbles, when the cold milk and creamy half-and-half has taken on the coma-inducing sugary fruit flavors of the cereal. Sometimes milk can be "off" or sour as a note, but Dies Patribus is sweet sweet SWEET! That heavy cream is totally grounding the milk, richly gourmand, with soggy bits of Fruity Pebbles or Froot Loops floating around to bring you straight back to childhood. So cozy and yummy, very nostalgic. 

'Fresh strawberries' is a little different than my experience with this note, however. Eat the Strawberries is definitely representative of the best of BPAL's fresh strawberry. Dies Patribus's actually reminds me of the dried strawberries found in Special K! So still very much in the cereal realm. A very authentic dried strawberry, extra sweet and a little crunchy. But if you're hoping for fresh, this might disappoint.

For me, I was wholly satisfied with what this Father's Day served up for breakfast. Recommended for the sugary carb-loving gourmands among us!

Orange blossom is a note that I actively hunt down blends where it's the star. It's such a delicate, romantic floral that it can easily get buried in a blend. I thought Valuable Powerful Deserving sounded like a great place for it to shine. And that is absolutely the case. The resin of the amber encases the orange blossom so beautifully, like a little glowing nimbus of light, and sweetened and deepened by the vanilla of the oudh. I remember getting this scent and thinking it was a little, well, boring, and that's why I've never worn it. But in the time since it's aged (did I try this on fresh from the mail or something?), it has gotten anything but boring.

My indolic-sensitive nose says that this is the GOOD OUDH...the GOOUDH if you will. Good oudh, like here, is creamy, rich, expensive, a cloud of scent that is billowy and indulgent. Nothing to taint the scent pool, just delicious aged wood here! It pairs beautifully with vanilla, in not-quite-foody ways. I don't get creamsicle, but I do get youthful, joyous vibes from this blend.

Hugging the skin and only rolling off it in small-range billows, VPD is such a livable scent for the summer. Sweet and yet resiny, nothing too heavy, the perfect tide-over for the oppressive heat of Florida nights when the curl of orange blossom on the stray breeze reminds you that there are some good things about these swampy summers.

Prince Lir in the book was ridiculously charming, and so is his namesake blend. Where most princes - I mean colognes - are smugly overbearing, blanketed in headachey oakmoss, Lir isn't like that. His fougere has a cuddly quality, all softness instead of sharp angles, and any oakmoss is just there to give it some clean-cut good looks. I would kind of love the vanilla to pop more, but the sweet fuzziness of the hay-like coumarin and bergamot (no sharp citrus either) permeates and enhances the cuddly effect. 

The one note that might remind people of a classic men's scent is the juniper berry, which is not pine-y here but just has something classic and foresty to it in this context. In combination with the basil (and perhaps even a drop of lilac in the fougere?), it pops with fresh greenness, light and springy rather than heavy and thick. This, too, wholly fits Lir's character. He's not that angry, slick-haired, cologne-wearing prince. He's a sensitive soul, and his scent soothes rather than instigates. As a fairly femme woman, I am totally comfortable wearing this cozy charmer.

If you love I Too Die of Love or Jareth, consider giving Prince Lir a whirl. To me, it has a lot less vanilla than Dorian but it falls in the same "friendly fougere" category. One of the major winners for me from The Last Unicorn line.

Look at all those beautiful notes! To convince myself I *needed* this blend out of all the activisms, I whipped up a diffuser blend with these notes as close as I could get it, and it was very beautiful. I took the plunge into the Apostophe of Time.

The bottle sniff is murky but promising. Onto the skin it goes. My brow furrows in confusion. All I smell is...oakmoss. Big-ass, cologney, smug oakmoss. The more it sits, the more I recognize the lemon peel from one of my old favorites, Dead Leaves Cream Amber and Lemon Peel HG. In fact, these two would pair very well together. It's a pithy lemon, without the recognizably bright citrus that can scare some people off. But mainly....oakmoss. I really don't get any bergamot, amber, certainly no resiny or cola-y labdanum, none of my beloved neroli/orange blossom, and clary sage is not here for this party.

Apostrophe of Time is for unabashed, whole-hearted oakmoss lovers. I am rather distressed at the secret oakmoss and how it takes over in this blend, because it is a headachey note for me and it means this blend is not for me, but I am very happy for all the oakmoss fans out there that you will have a great option that also supports a great cause. Quite gender-neutral, as long as you love....well, you know the drill by now. If there are any concerning notes listed, I really wouldn't be scared. Just ignore that list and go with your gut. Do you want BIG-ASS oakmoss? Put an Apostrophe on it!

This is a 3 A.M. jasmine, the dark-night-of-the-soul sister of The Bindle, velvety and softly glowing by moonlight. Something almost blue peeks through - cereus? - but overall this reads deep, dark burgundy, luscious and resiny. I am a red musk fan, and I don't really smell it here. Whether it's too buried under the jasmine to peek through or ruddy musk is truly a different kind, the underlying musk is almost opium-spiced to me. 

It's sad that jasmine has not been my friend lately, because this is a gorgeous blend and jasmine lovers SHOULD try it!

What an oddly cute intersection of scents! "Chilly amber perfume" was the most vague of the notes from this collection, and the one I wondered about a whole lot, eager for my decants to reveal its mysteries. I don't think that description really prepared me for what I was in store for.

Snow covers this scent, but it's a snow with a very interesting fruit tinging its chilliness. PINEAPPLE. No, I am not crazy! Yes, I smell pineapple up in this piece! The distinctive sweet-acidic brightness is very familiar to me and very unusual in a cold snow. It is like a snowcone effect over the glowing redness of the resinous amber, which is also sweet, and an unlisted but definitely present conifer. I am still learning the difference between that family of trees, but I suspect this one is in the balsam fir or spruce family, because it's not a strong pine but rather something wildly, warmly foresty. For those who might have issues with pine, I think this might suit just fine. 

I wasn't sure if I quite liked this at first brush, but the more I wore it, the more I was charmed by its funny, quirky family of notes. Pineapple snow, amber, spruce. This probably sounds weird, and one of those scents you just have to smell and try yourself to know if it's your style. I think I'm going to look for a partial or full bottle of Es Lacht der Mai!

All these notes sound like a foodie WIN. The one wild card was the pink oud, but into my cart it jumped anyways.

Interestingly, this oud does not go indolic (pooud) at all. It ends up a little bit on the "foot" side of things. Musty and funky, yes, but nowhere near the danger zone. For me, though, the foot smell (or, ahem, I guess you could interpret it as a smell more relevant to the name?) does not go well at all with the sweeter/more foodie elements. The pinkness (raspberry?) is working in concert with the vanilla and burnt cocoa to synthesize a sort of waxy box-o-chocolates vibe to me, the kind that you pick up at the drugstore in a heart shaped box. I don't really get amber or even specifically vanilla. Just fruit-flavored cheap chocolate and feet.

A weird one for sure. As artisjok mentioned, a little queasy in the bottle but surprisingly light and fluffy in the hair. I'm not in love, but it could be much much worse. (Damning with faint praise, but that's how oud goes!) So the question - what do Various Penises smell like? - can be answered thusly: moist skin of an intimate nature, freshly washed with chocolate raspberry LUSH. 

I was confusedly huffing on this for a day or two, wondering why I smelled gingerbread of all things, when it hit me like a brick. This reminds me very strongly of the Gingerbread, Cacao, and Champaca Yule of 2018! That must mean this trio's incense is champaca. I feel like a freaking Sherlock.

That said, Darjeeling Tea, Cocoa Dust, and Incense smells a whole lot more rough around the edges than GC&C, which from the beginning had a gloriously well-blended "perfumey gourmand" waft. The trio feels concocted rather than blended. Maybe they need more time to gel together? For sure, the cocoa disappears within the first couple of minutes, rather than being steeped into the essence of the blend, and leaves the champaca at the forefront. I am not opposed to champaca, it just has to be cleverly blended, and here it is a little out of its element as the star. The tea's spiciness is surely what's reminding me of the gingerbread, but it's more tannin-bitter and doesn't have the foodie sweetness. That's perfectly fine with me - I don't need my tea to be sugared - but I have to ride out the first hour of champaca and its flowery, high-pitched incense to get to the good stuff. 

I would recommend this to champaca lovers, even if you are not a fan of cocoa. Chocolate really is not even a player here! I really would love for "incense" to be labeled more precisely in the notes, because there are so many kinds of incense, and it's very helpful to know what you are in store for.

RAWR! Heed the order of the notes! Die Flamme is, not surprisingly based on the name, showing up to my nose as all bonfire smoke and scorched chestnuts. The smoke note is the charred embery kind that is in certain BPALs: The Storyteller, Midnight Bonfire, The Hearth, Hearthflame and Incense. It's a smoke that tends to get into my sinuses, and I wish it weren't so strong here, but I think it may be my particular sensitivity.

Nothing sweet or Christmasy about these chestnuts: they are meaty, sweaty, ballsy. (Come on, admit it. Chestnuts out of their shells totally look like balls.) I've come to realize I like my chestnuts in gourmand or spicy blends, where their nut-swinging is balanced by sweet foodie notes or rich spices. Here, they seem a little naked in all that smoky char.

When the smoke finally calms down, the roasted acorn note emerges, a little gourdiness for spring. I just don't get the resins, the cedar, the frank, or *sob* the vanilla bean. I have heard from others that they DO, though! "Spiced muffins" YUM. I want that! I could use a whole lot more sweetness in this blend, or richness, or just something rounded and woodsy and resiny. Will aging bring those out? Probably! 

A gorgeous array of notes earned this a blind bottle. I am always in search of a good orange blossom, and everything else seemed right on point.

I have to say, the sweet orange peel is DOMINATING. Right down to the bitter white pith that makes peel different from the fruit itself. It is sweetened considerably by honey, thick and syrupy and a little stomach-churning. It's like an orange liqueur candy, pungent and saccharine, lightly spiced, but with something unsettling about it that is faux-boozy. I think the beeswax might be adding to the thickness of the mixture. I can't specifically smell anything smoky in here, with either the beeswax or the khus (vetiver). It is more high-pitched, short of floral but definitely loud.

I wish I could pick up more of the fragrance of the orange blossom. ever-present in humid Florida nights and a comfortingly familiar note to me. I would love to extract the orange peel and leave just the blossom to shine. 

At the moment, the individual notes aren't harmonizing perfectly. Orange peel is just too much of a diva, and honey WANTS to be a diva, and they're sort of trying to out-scream each other. I'll be interested to see how this ages, and whether the full cast steps up as I'm hoping. 

2018: 

Fun fact, this was in my first BPAL order as a blind bottle! I just thought it sounded pretty. Now when I smell it, I get hella nostalgia. A personalized reaction to this scent for sure, but it no doubt colors my impressions.

Something about Body, Remember makes me think of - bear with me - an idealized version of sex. One with sweet skin-musk, coconut oil from a massage, sugared bodies mingling. It's a romance novel version of sex aromas. It doesn't have quite the raw sex skank that will openly remind you of the real thing, or make it too X-rated to wear in public. But it definitely is the memory of sex, softened with a glowing filter. 

The black coconut brings to mind the same dark purply note from Death Adder, and the sugared champaca is much like Temple Viper. If you like either of those two scents, Body, Remember might be a good chance to take. Weirdly, I agree that this is vaguely orange-blossomy. Could it be the champaca flower? It is in such harmony with the other notes in the bottle, gleaming like candlelit skin.

I would definitely wear this on a third date.

2018:

Snake's Kiss is the most dramatic example of aging I've experienced. Fresh, it was so quiet, in bottle and on skin, the whisper of a kiss, lemon sugar. I almost let it go. Instead, I tucked it into a drawer with the other 2018 Lupers and forgot about it for a year.

When I remembered it, I was stunned. The coy whisper had turned into a full-on smooch of honeycomb, a sweet and gooey honey with none of the bite and a smear of beeswax creaminess. The sugariness is here and it is LOUD. The vanilla almost reminds me of the 90s vanilla obsession, verging on that generic bodysplash that I get from Antique Lace, but not quite tipping over into it. It stays unique thanks to its base in BPAL aesthetic. It is a snek, through and through.

Yet the Snake Oil is the quietest of the notes in Snake's Kiss arsenal from its incipient year. It is, arguably, the Snake Oil variant that is farthest away from its mother scent. It keeps that verging-on-playdo-quality of classic Snake Oil and, obviously, the vanilla, while bumping up the creaminess to an eleven and letting the spices fade into a distant murmur in the background. I would say this is more like Morocco than Snake Oil, and indeed, fans of the former will find a lot to love in this kiss. This would be an excellent gateway drug into BPAL.

Interestingly, I think the drop of lemon sugar is a little reminiscent of the 2020 March "13" blend. If you missed that one, Snake's Kiss might give you vibes. 

THIS ONE, Y'ALL. THIS IS THE ONE. It's so, so me. I am a red musk lover and an amber lover, so already I had a good chance of loving it.

Let's dive deep.

From a single whiff of my decant, I knew this would be an instant bottle. It smells aged to perfection, and it's only a few weeks old. Holy yes. Onto the skin it goes.

This is sparkly amber. S P A R K L Y. It's Alleviate the Frenzy, Elle Est Heureuse, Galerie Des Glaces, House of Mirrors Atmo, amber. She glances at her reflection in a glassy pool, fluffs her hair, and spins into a bright cloud that is magnificent to linger in. Divine. Her bestie is a playful and dressed-for-springtime red musk. You may be used to heavy, thick red musks. Well, she's barely clothed here. It's delightful. Somehow, she brightens up the amber even more while also singing a high, piercing call that might just beckon some wayward sailors.

If Abalone Vulva is pink mermaid musk, Awake is red siren musk. She smells like she could kill, and you would die happy.

Red musk fans need this in their life. Amber and glass-note lovers need this in their life. If you liked Abalone Vulva and could picture yourself wearing a more sultry version of it, don't hesitate, take the plunge. I just want to sing the good news that is Awake. 

Pink mermaid musk is absolutely dead on. Sparkling and twinkling, absolutely the kind of scent I would recommend to a girly-girl, tween or otherwise. It's all so dang likable. Nothing discordant or 'off'. Sweet, cute, pink.

I would even go so far as to say this is Mermaid Barbie Musk. It is so very, very pink. I'm getting Pink Amber and Peony vibes. Perhaps it shares some notes? This is the younger sister of Awake, the sweet and naive cousin of Alleviate the Frenzy. If any of those scents appealed to you, I'd highly recommend you pick up some Abalone Vulva. It didn't suit my personality, but on the right person this will be money.

2019:

Sparkly amber, reporting for duty. She's bright and perky-eyed at the core of this scent, but around her glows a nimbus of sweet and VERY VERY SALTY peach musk. I can't emphasize the saltiness enough. This is not a peach-dominant scent. It's all about that shiny, shiny amber, effervescently resinous, and her aura of supersalt. It starts off a little quiet on me, then starts glowing and glowing until the peach musk is fiercely concentrated and resonates off of my skin and into the atmosphere. It has a bit of the shine of the Elle Est Heureuse "window cleaner" potency. It doesn't give me a headache here, as long as I don't smell it right up close. I really love the cloud it creates.

It lasts so very long too. Maybe even 12 hours. Crazy-long wear.

I am not usually a peach-lover, but Alleviate the Frenzy is something else. She really is a little...hysterical, but in a good way. Amber lovers, take note! I think it might even be the same amber as in Abalone Vulva and Awake, both from the 2020 Lupers.

I get exactly one of the listed notes: carnation. Spicy, creamy carnation. That's it. That's the scent.

Did I raise eyebrows at the carnation and jonquil on this list like, behave, you two? Absolutely. Did they listen? They did not. Single-note carnation is not at all what I signed up for with Wan Wan, and while it's very pretty as SN Carnation goes, I went the rest of it.

Clove ALWAYS shows up for parties. So where is it?? Day-drinking with hay and vanilla, laughing about how that silly Star thought they would actually come to this one? I don't even know, man. Maybe with some aging this carnation will grow up and get some friends.

Honestly? I was expecting something a lot more perverse and funkafied from the name. The blend is surprisingly approachable. The sandalwood and balsam is a leetle bit funky, but no more so than any other blend with these two notes. They curl around the powderiness of the orris and the grounding of the champa and hiba to create an exceptionally dry, rattly pseudo-incense. I'm a little bit disturbed that this does smell like bones, dust, and skin-sweat. I mean, as long as everybody's having a good time? Get you some. 

Ultimately, this wasn't something I would wear and so I passed along my decant, no bottle upgrade, but it's worth a shot if the notes themselves appeal to you. Don't be scared by the name! OR THE ART 😮 

2007 was a super weird one to me. Lots of black currant, a dusty caramel, and not much else. A lackluster fruity blend, not nearly as rich as the description made it seem. Caramel is a flop on my skin in general, but this particular year of Red Lantern was a total bust for me.

Check out that sexy list of notes. It's everything I want and more. I blind-bottled.

Here's what I get:

Champaca blossom. Copal.

That's it. That's the scent.

It's a fizzy, fizzy copal that you might recognize from other Lupers (Kabe Ni Mimi Ga Aru, Shoki Ni Me Ga Aru; Frankincense, Copal, and Cacao Atmo) or the Coffee Beans & Copal yule. I am not a fan of this copal. It's a cola that resides in funk land, like somehow (somehow), you left a little bit of opened soda in your cupboard for a couple years and it is now eminently Undrinkable. I kind of like it from a distance? It has a spice that somehow reminds me of long-ago times, like 1950s aftershave and dapper gentlemen. I like it when I don't have my nose up against it. I hate it when I'm sniffing it outright.

It's rendered really redolent with the champaca blossom. This is a hard note to describe. It was best used to imitate/enhance the fragrance of basmati rice in the I Will Be Strange, Stout, in Yellow Stockings blend. It is potent, not quite floral, not incensey, not popcorny, not foodie, but little flickers of all of those things. It doesn't really work here for me, amping up the effects of the copal and giving it massive throw. I am kind of mad at this duo. It's not letting any other note speak, and it's not a harmonious pair in my nose. I won't be getting other blends that have these two in them, because holy mother, they don't do it for me.

I had huge hopes for this one, but alas, they are all dashed!

Shining is absolutely spot-on. At the intersection of gleaming RPG Paladin and fervent To My Dear and Loving Husband lies Social Justice Paladin. It shares the purity and brightness of the original Paladin, while leading with the two main notes of Husband, champaca and copal. For those who fear Lemon Pledge from the lemon peel, have no fear; I wouldn't even guess from just sniffing that this has citrus in it. Mostly what the lemon seems to be doing is brightening and buffing up the other notes like a soft cloth, rather than blasting it with actual cleaner fluid. Also missing in action to my nose are the amber and frankincense, two notes I love.

So why was this a miss for me? It comes down to champaca and copal, two notes I enjoy in other blends but when they hold hands, it's vaguely unsettling. The high-pitched resin of the copal amplifies the fiercely cheerful champaca until these notes are both screaming in my nose. They hogged the limelight in Husband, and they are a smugly polished pair here. I will be avoiding this particular duo in future blends, but if they work for you, Social Justice Paladin may be the armor you need for these times.

Recommended for fans of To My Dear and Loving Husband, Paladin, Fighter.

I'm a sucker for green tea blends. Spectral Erection sucker-punched me into an early blind bottle. Why yes, I will take one ghostly boner!

This smells like no BPAL I've ever smelled like before. The closest I can come is Zombie Green HG, which is a dark green and vaguely swampy/weedy chypre. Spectral Erection is an electric green chypre that bursts out of the bottle with explosive power, both whiffing the uncapped lid and once sprayed on the hair. The moss and ambergris are incredibly potent, overwhelmingly so to my nose. They sound earthy, but in reality they zing with bright green ferocity and zip right up my nose and to the back of my throat. I get no white amber, the barest hint of florals, and no green tea other than, perhaps, the kind of matcha powder that might indeed contribute to the one-two punch of that ambergris and pale moss.

I picture this on an older Southern gentleman, one who chomps on cigars and runs a newspaper office and writes all the checks. It's not even cologney, with all the implications of Aqua and Axe; no, it's old-old-old school men's wear. And it is SO STRONG and lasts SO LONG. (If you have a Spectral Erection lasting more than four hours, call your perfumer?)

Alas, I ended up getting massive headaches everytime I smelled or (only one time) tested it. So, sadly, this phantom penis is getting the boot.

Chaos Theory VI: Vanilla 464

Cloves and incense are two of my favorite notes! Cinnamon I can take or leave, and needless to say, that is the note that dominates here. I compared it with my cinnamon bark essential oil, and it's so similar, Al-Shairan might as well be a single note. There is a touch of something fruity, that splash of orange and peach bringing to mind some of my essential oil blends that are 'spiced cider' or 'harvest spice' themed, but Al-Shairan doesn't actually smell like cider to me, more like an essential oil version of it. 

I get zero clove, zero incense, and no noticeable patchouli. If you love cinnamon bark essential oil, this is the scent for you. Personally, I turn to BPAL for more artistic interpretations than what I get from my EO blends, so I won't be needing more of this than my standard one GC imp.