supreme_c0rt

I just got this in the mail so it hasn't quite settled yet, but I am already quite happy with it. After an initial strong smoke opening, it recedes as it dries down to mostly mahogany and moss. The moss is doing a beautiful job of cushioning the often-problematic bitey edges of the mahogany. The smoke lingers in the background gently cradling the whole blend, but this is not a vetiver or barbecue kind of smoke at all and on me it isn't pushy or assertive. I can see this being a nice entry point to BPAL for folks who wear like masc, woodsy cologne. The sillage has a men's-body-wash-adjacent quality to it (it reminds me how many masc scents use a lot of these same notes) but getting in close is where the complexity comes back. I think it would be easy to add some interesting dimension to this with layering. This is a wonderful companion to the Dead Leaves, Black Amber and Woodmoss HG from the 2019 Weenies that I have been rationing.

I've been wearing my imp of Tsubi on and off for over a year, and each time I wear it I find myself baffled and a little sad. I cannot figure out why this isn't working better than it is. I mean, look at those notes! It's pulled right from my dreams. Then I put it on and feel some kind of strange longing. It's like my favorite song is on the radio, a song I haven't heard in a while but really want to listen to, and all the knobs are broken. It feels like trying to catch smoke in my hands. I want to love this scent more, and each time I pick it up and put it on I think, this time it will sing, and it purses its lips and hides its face. Like it has stage fright or something. It's lovely but just a whisper, and then it's gone. 😔

Sweet and spicy carnation with a heap of tobacco (shisha/chewy/French type found in Snaky-Hair'd Moirai Many-Form'd, et al). On me this is about 60/40 carnation/tobacco; orris is making a quieter play here than it normally does. In the bottle this was almost all tobacco, but once it hit the skin it started to recede quite quickly. The spicy, cinnamon-nutmeg-dirt of the carnation plus the thick sweetness of the tobacco is giving me vibes of a super fancy expensive pink bubblegum. I don't normally like the extra-sticky tobacco because it tends to go very treacly on me, but the carnation is balancing it nicely here. Fully dry, the tobacco sneaks back in and wrestles for dominance with the carnation. This isn't quite me, but I am still enjoying it.

Orange blossom, I love thee, you know I love thee, but dammit, thee can be Too Much Sometimes. Let's see what your mood is here. In the bottle I can smell the pepper clearly, but once it's on the skin it vanishes. After an initial heady rush of orange blossom, it quickly downshifts into an almost equal 50/50 orange blossom/lemon scent. I really like how the lemon and the floral keep each other in check. Bright and floral but not overpowering on either side. It's very pretty and I think a good expression of both each note individually and the harmony they create together. There's a certain hand soap from TJ's that has this great orange blossom note and I love how it leaves my skin just *lightly* touched with the orange blossom scent as opposed to drowning in it, and this blend does the same thing for me. Not soapy, mind, but The Right Amount of orange blossom. So... yay! I think I'm getting the Skin So Soft thing too, lol. It's comforting. ☺️

The black tea here is dark and unsweetened; sort of like the tea in Dorian but without any sugar. The tonka is warm and resinous and skin-like, which lends a soft glow. The vetiver is barely there at all: whisper-quiet, gently grounding and cradling the scent with the idea of a faint smokiness. This makes the tea have sort of a darjeeling quality to it. Do not fear this vetiver, this vetiver means you no harm. The overall effect is like a warm, weak black tea scent -- an almost-smoked-lavender, almost-anise quality to it the way most of the Lab's tea note smells to my nose. Very low throw and wear length, as mentioned; it's there and it's gone. It's very delicate and pretty though, while it lasts.

Tombstone plus beeswax and minus the balsam. The cedar here isn’t the raw cedar-chest variety (Coiled Serpent) nor it is the gentle, caramelized-wood variety (Cedarwood and Smoked Vanilla) but it is sitting right in the middle. I think How Doth the Little Crocodile uses this cedar too, but it's unmistakeable for Tombstone. Fully dry it's a cedary cocoa butter/chocolate situation. Like a Hershey’s factory in a lumber mill (I can dig it). Woody, slightly foody, skin-soft. It’s close enough to Tombstone and to raw cocoa butter that I don’t think I’ll need more than the decant. I feel like if this had a gritty base note like patchouli or leather it might send me over the moon, so I will try layering. It's quite cozy and straightforward as-is, so if it sounds like you'll like it you probably will.

Strong camphor notes out front. Not a ton of moss or salt on the wet phase, at least not that can hold up to the blast o’ teak. Cold, bracing, almost effervescent forest notes; I never knew how much teak smelled like pine and juniper, but it does. As it dries it mellows out a bit -- it is still very cold and bracing, but now with a soapy quality. I do get the aquatic sense about it, but it’s more like a coniferous forest near an ocean; like a hiking trail in the PNW. Unfortunately these type of camphor-forward notes will always remind me of medicine (campho-phenique and vicks, et al) so even after they’re mellowed out and blended, I still get the association of ... needing medicine. It’s very cool and detached, serious and clear-headed. Like a no-nonsense forest ranger with one of those great wool fisherman sweaters. If this is your vibe, I think you'll be pleased with it.

Floral bouquets are always a very tricky thing with my chemistry. Either they go totally soapy, or too grandmotherly, or headache inducing. This though! This is wonderful. Gardenia is the strongest out of the gate, so if you're here for that you'll be quite happy. The rest of the flowers are supporting that note with a clear white burst of dewy, sparkly sunshine. It smells like a real bouquet, like Easter Sunday and springtime in a bottle. I think, or suspect, that amber is the reason so many floral blends go wrong on me. The absence of any traditional grounding notes like resins or woods here was a very good call. It's just flowers, and it's just nice.

To me this strikes the middle path between medicinal and ethereal. I get a distinct sense of the steam rising from a mug of hand-crafted honeyed herbal tea meant to soothe the throat and open the sinuses, with a side dish of something like warm handmade molasses-honey Ricola crafted in a magic woodland cottage. There's black licorice, spicy ginger and nutmeg, clarifying sage and pine and sap, warm glowing heat, beeswax and honey, and something else that isn't of this earth. This is so complex and strange. It smells like elf medicine. I wish I could describe it better. It smells like nothing I've ever smelled before, and it warps and shifts wildly throughout the duration. Truly a must-try, because describing it just won't be enough to communicate it.

The description doesn't lie -- this is one sharp blend. Patchouli is the dominant note here (it's the sharp herbal type), with THEE sharpest tobacco leaf note I've ever encountered. This ain't pipe tobacco, it's much dirtier. The red musk and oak do their part to soften the blow but fair warning, it is very sharp. I have never met a red musk that doesn't stomp all over everything so I'm as surprised as anyone that it plays a secondary role here. I get a similar feel as I do with Drakkar Noir, which is not my favorite cologne (although I have met people who can wear it well). I'm thinking with some more age things will settle a bit and this can be the Drakkar I was never able to pull off before. The smokiness and oakiness are both very promising, but that patch and tobacco are taking zero prisoners.

Dark red fruit and jammy on the wet phase. To my nose it's grape juice more than wine. Tannins are very evident. Makes me thirsty for Kedem. This settles into a delightful jammy rose (like Lush's Rose Jam but not as sweet). I wish it would stay here forever. Alas. A few minutes in, the jasmine pushes its way to the front and it joins the myrrh to settle into an indolic, moody floral. The patch isn't noticeable and the sandalwood is similarly very quiet. They ground the blend but this is foremost a jammy rose/jasmine scent with dark grape resins. If you like the hothouse jasmine variety (big indole) this should be up your alley. If you liked Caterpillar you will probably adore this (I find it has a similar feel but it's simpler). Widow is classic BPAL to me -- big assertive floral attitude but dark, moody, and sensual at the same time. I like this more than I thought I would even if it's a bit too heady for me.

Holy moly this is effervescent. It is immediately bracing and sinus-clearing, like champagne through a neti pot. I'm getting a wallop of eucalyptus, lemon, ginger and pine. Not getting much strawberry on the wet phase, just extremely fizzy ginger ale & pine-sol. Dry, it's all Skittles and ginger ale. Not strawberry specifically, just kind of a pink fruity fizzy smell. You could tell me it's grapefruit mimosa and I'd believe you. You could also tell me it's strawberry Pez mimosa and I'd believe you. It's not really my cup of tea but man this is wildly accurate to the description. It's fun. It's like.... Cyndi Lauper fun. If you think you will like it, you will love it.

The oak here is distilled, clear, and light; quite different from the chewier oak varieties in Étienne De Boray Oak, et al. I'm also getting a lot of aldehydes (soapy-waxy-lemony-white floral) with a refined and gentle amber. This is a high-class, breathy kind of oak. Sophisticated, airy, gently woody and beautifully blended.

"Ginger cat" is spot on. This smells like something between civet musk (almost like a cousin of Satyr) and spiced walnut cookie incense. Sweet-spicy, almost foody, fuzzy resins, and a little bit scratchy and animalistic around the edges. This smells much more like a Yule than a Weenie to me.

YES LIBRARY SMELLS GIMME GIMME This is a full-on scent journey through the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library. You throw open the massive oak doors and are hit with a cool breeze of the cavernous interior where there are seemingly miles of leatherbound books, piles on piles of paper scrolls, a dust that permeates everything, and decades of polish on the gleaming wood bookshelves. After a little while the dust settles, the air feels normal if just a little cool (is that tea in the air? who snuck tea in here?), and it's just you and the massive leatherbound book, and the wood polish, and the spells. Gah this is so pretty! If you liked the polished-wood note in Hailstorm of Knitting Needles and Wax Cylinders (or if you want to smell like Ron Burgundy's apartment), you should snuggle up with this. 🧙‍♀️ EDIT: Retesting this about 3 months later, and this lil baby is doing some crazy morphing. That tea note I detected earlier is really far out in front now. It smells like glowing polished woods (the polish isn't Pledge but more of an oil/beeswax based polish), book leather (very soft) and a steaming cup -- yes, I can smell the steam -- of sweet black mint tea with a slice of lemon. It's very refined and bookish and confident. It feels sort of like a lovechild of Dorian and Hailstorm, with the same vibe as Scholar's Tower and so many of the Steamworks babies.

I'm not super big on florals, but I wanted to give this one a try since I grew marigolds over the summer and fall and I love their ruddy, spicy scent. To my nose this is a perfect 50-50 of rose and marigold. Dead leaves note is present, yes, but third fiddle to the marigold/rose, which I'm happy about since DL is temperamental and fails on me more than it succeeds. The chamomile and bourbon vanilla lend a sort of dry creaminess to it that folds everything together beautifully. One reviewer said DL smells like green bell peppers, and I totally get that. For that reason, this sort of reads a bit more like "summer garden" than it does a true autumn. I still like it, because I like my florals green and fresh, spicy not powdery, and this delivers in spades. And so it goes on my shortlist of favorite rose blends.

On me, this is one sweet oakmoss! White sandalwood is the driest of the various types, and the dryness does help ground the oakmoss and keep it balanced. I'm not getting much vetiver here, this is all sweet oakmoss and sandalwood. This is clean and light, with kind of a soapy/powdery quality to it, like a nice high-end shampoo. Totally appropriate for a hair product. Inoffensive, gently woodsy and totally unisex. The scent is familiar to me and I can't place it. It kind of reminds me a bit of Skin So Soft, or something in the neighborhood. I was hoping for a bit more growl from the vetiver and less soapy-clean, but this is still nice. If you are a fan of oakmoss you should be pretty pleased with it.

Wet: a pungent slap of raw teak and rooty patchouli. Teak can sometimes read almost like turpentine, and that's what I'm getting here. Sharp as a knife. As it dries, cream and beeswax begin to surface, softening the edges of the raw wood. It takes a minute though. Rose is sorta there but not overly so. Just a hint of smoke, quite faint. Fully dry: the volume drops suddenly to a whisper of creamy rose-beeswax with a breath of patchouli and teak. I'm cheerleading for the leather and smoke but they're still in their seats. I'm not getting a ton of the other notes either. This is maybe the first time ever that black oud hasn't stomped the whole house down. I'm not even really picking it up at all here. I'm surprised how this scent almost vanished given how strong the opening was. It's nearly undetectable. I might have to rest and re-test to see if it finds its legs, since this has a lot of potential to be great but is struggling to find its voice, at least on me.

Little wolf skin boots And clove cigarettes An erotic funeral For which she's dressed Her perfume smells like Burning leaves Everyday is Halloween Like many other blends, placement is key here. On the wrist, it's all sweet smoke (wood/barbecue smoke, not the interpretive smoke of vetiver or certain resins). On the inside of the elbow I get much more of the standard Dead Leaves note mixed with the smoke, and I can detect something vaguely like "fire" which I can't place but may dragon's blood. I also get some lemon. Very showy, out-front smoke. Exactly the type left behind in your hair after a night in front of a bonfire. Smokey smokey smoke-smoke. Again, depending on placement, I'm left with either 100% smoke or 100% dead leaves once fully dried. This is as straightforward as it gets.

Floorboards is sort of like a cross between Dorian and Hailstorm of Knitting Needles, but with an unsettling base note of dried-out cigarette tobacco and something I can only describe as ... musty air. The stale air inside a shuttered room in an abandoned house that is filled with old dusty lace and scattered paper. There's also an ink note that comes out more and more as it dries. It is quite spoopy, quite creppy, but also somehow wearable. If you like Dorian or Hailstorm but want, like, HAUNTED versions of those, this might be right up your alley. Fully dry, LICORICE appears in a jump scare!

I've had a few different sorts of experiences with beeswax notes. Sometimes they are closer to honeycomb wax (super sweet and very waxy/chewy ala Storyteller) and sometimes closer to votive wax (distilled, clear, delicate). This feels sort of in the middle pitching more delicate. It's a true white beeswax of fancy taper candles and votives with a slight chewiness. As other reviewers have noted there's a definite smoke note of a candle recently extinguished. This may be the closest to a real candle I've smelled so far from the lab. The wax definitely leads as it usually does, but! Getting in really close, I get a DISTINCT sense of a cold draft. It's very faint, like a slight chill, but it's there. There's also a slight mustiness from the vetiver. Together this is precisely the impression I get from the art. Looking down a dark corridor in an abandoned place. The vetiver is playing a gorgeous role here; it's got the rough edges that I adore but never goes acrid or barbecue. It's just smoky, and a little evil, and a little growly. Delicate, unsettling but still wearable. Everything is beautifully balanced and the atmosphere this evokes is just genius. (edit): later on in the wear, the vetiver fades out in favor of the wax note, and I'm starting to detect the leather note mentioned up-thread. It's not full-force leather but just a trace of it. This does remind me a lot of Storyteller, but in a more muted sense. It scratches a similar itch. Beeswax lovers, this one is for you!

Orris and I aren't typically friends -- it tends to go straight to baby powder which isn't something I enjoy smelling like. This blend is an exception. The patchouli is the star here; it's not gnarly, not bitter, not medicinal. Smooth as silk. The chypre is moss-forward which I think is saving me from the powder-scape of the orris. Yes the powder is still there but it's not the typical powder I get from this note. Creamy, not dusty. I've tested this multiple times since receiving it, and each time the patchouli gets smoother and more complex, grounding the other floofy notes and locking them into something cohesive and reassuring. "Sudden sophistication" is a great descriptor for this. It feels very modern classic. The modernity I think comes from the role patchouli is playing here, it just centers everything with a quiet confidence. I like this more and more each time I try it -- it feels expensive, mature, and warm and sexy. A lot like how Coco Mademoiselle feels on me. I don't have anything else quite like it.

The honeyed oak is a lot like the salty-sweet, beeswax/wood note in Two Westerners, but this one has a big ol' punch of pine in it and a noticeable earthy mushroom (having never smelled this before, I knew immediately what it was). For the first several minutes the menthol of the pine fights with the honey-oak in a way that's not working terribly well on me, but eventually the pine recedes into just a background coolness. Not getting much lavender; it's probably hidden somewhere within the cold astringency of the pine. Eventually the honey elbows its way to the front and this becomes a honey-forward, mossy oak blend. The honey is clear though, not chewy. I do like this - with these notes it's hard to go wrong. It's similar enough to Two Westerners that I'm not sure I need both. But maybe I do. Another beautiful expression in the Lilith line. ❤️

I'm getting the same saltwater note that Lycanthrope mentioned. This really puts me in mind of the Lupers that came out this year that had that shimmery mermaid-musk vibe (Awake and Abalone Vulva specifically). As a salty person, I can dig it. After it dries down I'm getting a lot of carnation cyphre and vanilla. The ylang ylang isn't shouting here, which is impressive given how extra that flower can be. I love that this feels almost like a foody floral, and almost like a pink musk, but isn't really either. I'm surprised at how throaty it is, and it has this slightly powdery "welcome to my boudoir" feel about it that feels moody and sexy, but still pink and fluffy? But still salty and tousled? There's really a lot going on here! This would be a great femme blend to try for folx that don't really gel with "femme" scents (I really dislike gendering things, but I think you get me). I usually avoid them because they don't feel like me. But this one is winning me over. There's a sneaky growliness to it that, I dunno, is just working for me.

Wet: Lemonheads! It's like I can taste them. Dry: this mellowed out a lot, and now it smells like a high-end spa. There's a scent memory in here of Green Tea Therapy from the Healing Garden, but like, real and not perfumey at all. The grass and tea have come out more and tempered the lemonheads note down considerably. This is refreshing and herbal and lovely. Uplifting and healthy, clean, bright, like fresh air from a window on a cool day. I can tell I won't get much longevity from this, but it's great while it lasts. Edit: I popped back in here because I've tried it a few more times. There was something *else* in this blend that was pulling at some nostalgic memories and I was trying to figure out what it was. I wasn't totally nailing the comparison to Green Tea Therapy -- it's not just that, although there's some of it. There's a teasing here of Gap Grass (one of my holy-grail nostalgia smells), and also, weirdly? The memory of Tommy Girl (a_bear had it right: CK One!) It doesn't smell like either of those per se, but it does smell like the memory of those. This blend is so faint that it feels like I'm smelling a ghost. If you went to high school in the '90s, spend some time with this blend and then hit me up in the DMs because I'm like, totally buggin'?