supreme_c0rt

Juicy fig, cocoa that reads as dry, earthy cocoa butter rather than candy, and a beautiful blend of woods holding the whole thing together. As it dries, the fig steps back a bit without disappearing, and we're left with something like a wood-forward blend that's dry and juicy at the same time. Gorgeous, and a testament to the lab's power of conversion through well-chosen notes. I don't like fruity or foody, but this I like. Intrigue reminds me of the effect of Velvet -- a cocoa/sandalwood blend that loses the chocolate quickly and becomes an idea of wood chocolate. That, but with fig. It's comforting and calm, mysterious and luxurious. Sorta sweet, but not too sweet. Throw is about the same as other blends, longevity is on the shorter side. Wood lovers that want to gently venture into fruit and cocoa, try this one.

Hi! I am also a masculine/neutral* scent lover. Check out my Top Ten for my favorite blends. For reference, I don't tend to like overt florals, fruits, or food scents. I amp sweet smells like a mofo (even though I don't like them). So finding truly non-sweet (or barely sweet) scents has been a journey. If you like wood/cinnamon/citrus I would recommend Djinn and Azathoth to start with. Pop those into the site then see what else the algorithm recommends. If the description grabs you, try an imp. Worked for me. Trying a handful of imps, then taking my time testing each one --- really sitting with it, and writing notes --- helped me figure out what I was smelling and what was working. Then I could use that to figure out what other blends would be fun to try. You're only out about $25 bucks. Then you have somewhere to start plus some imps to swap that didn't work for you (the people on this forum have been amaaaaazing at guessing stuff I'd like and including imps that were great for me). Welcome to the smelly cult. O_O *smash the gender binary

Much like Tricuspid Valve, the oudh in this screams from the bottle, and it says one word -- 💩. Scrubbed off with haste. Two months later, right as I was about to put it up on the swaps list, I decided to give it one more try. The oudh this time, while still strong wet, dissipated much faster than it did the first time, and the other notes started coming out. The result is something rich, dark, heady, buttery. Like the darkest Snake Oil imaginable. There's still the stank underneath, but this is much better and I like where it's headed. So if you're freaked out by the barnyard/septic tank smell, give it a few more months. Store it somewhere, forget about it, then come back.

This is my favorite SO variant, for sure. I'm not a fan of Snake Oil but I feel compelled to keep trying variants because I'd like it to work. This one is dark and smoky and leathery enough to win me over. The lab's black leather is usually a whollop and can be very harsh -- but it's a perfect match with snake oil (which does the same thing to me but with sweet). They make good music together. Wet, it's decidedly nutty. Like the scratch and sniff peanut butter sticker. But dry, it all comes together in a smoky, leathery, dark vanilla swirl. Sexy but not sexual in the weird biological fleshy way that OG SO is for me. Sweet, but not overly sugary (more creamy). Similar to Snake Skin but more leather. Glad I snagged this! For the days I want more sexy equestrian than butch biker. Like OG SO the throw is solid and a little goes a long way. I have barely 2 drops on and it's going all day. EDIT: Aged about 4 months, and it's gotten even better. This is a snarling mechanic's worn-in black leather jacket with a creamy vanilla silk lining. No chemical edge at all and the nutty smell has gotten fainter. Sorta like leather car seats in a vintage muscle car -- the "oily black musk" is reading almost like motor oil. The vanilla has gotten richer. I am smitten.

It's so quiet on the skin, but as it warms up it gains a little volume. Up close it's a fizzy, woodsy vanilla cream soda with bubbles and all. As it dries it quiets again, and takes on a tone very much like Bastet but with more wood. Warm and golden -- very accessible. A little powdery and almost nutty with a predominant glowy amber. Cozy and comforting like a hug. Of the snake variants I've tried this is the least like OG Snake Oil while still echoing the original. So if you want SO but less showy, less overtly sexual, more woodsy, this is a great pick. For me personally it's not a hit, I prefer more oomph and complexity. It's nice to have this for layering though. I'd probably add it to the drier wood blends when they need more sweet. I'd almost say that if Snake Oil had a cousin in the Steamworks collection it would be this one.

This smells like the the word Bohemian. Like 1970s era Stevie Nicks floating around in a gauzy swirl of sweet hookah smoke and incense. It's calming, sweet, and mysterious. The herbal lavender is keeping the labdanum from turning treacly, and the labdanum/tobacco is keeping the lavender from screeching (after a very screechy wet beginning). Labdanum amps hard on me as syrupy cola -- it threatens to do so here occasionally -- but remains mostly in check because of how well balanced this is. As it dries down it melts into my skin beautifully, and I will occasionally get wafts of this stunning, heady, tanning-oil-and-sand-meets-incense throw that is just luscious. Like a soft-focus '70s summer fantasy somewhere in Malibu. I love that it's very different from the close-up smell. I'm really falling hard for this one. Gaueko might be one of the very few sweet and feminine-leaning blends I will actually wear. It's so evocative, and overall very relaxing and comforting. It's changing my mind about lavender (which I usually find to be kinda boring). I think if I added a touch of patchouli to this, I might time travel.

This is a dead ringer for Anne Bonny. They're nearly the same but this one is just a teeeensy bit grittier if you really get in there and huff... Maybe the civet people keep mentioning. I don't get any pee, and I'm disappointed! No, not really. I've had accidental (I HOPE) lab pee before and it was certainly an experience (what's up Moon Goddess...). Anne Bonny is listed as red patchouli, red sandalwood, and frankincense, though I'd wager the frank was subbed with something else here. Wet, it had a heady nag champa waft (very enjoyable), but as it dries it's going to that same exact sweet/spicy place that red musk (really "red" anything) goes on me. It wears down super fast like Bonny does. Though I did notice after wearing it all day I kept getting gentle barely-there wafts of something very sexy and delightful like smoky nag champa/wood incense. I liked this blend and will keep it even if it did not cover totally new ground for me. Fenris Wolf is another great "red" blend that fans -- or almost-fans -- of Satyr might want to try. Similar profile.

I'm actually grieving more than a bit that this didn't work. It's everything I wanted; the motor oil, rust, and musk are perfect and exactly my style, but that leather. Oof. It just punches me right in the face and stomps all over the industrial beauty of the other notes (the tobacco really had no chance). I usually have no problems carrying the lab's black leather note. All their leather notes get along with me. But this just came across as unrelenting "new car smell" (that chemical, artificial sour blast) and gave me an instant headache... and on top of that was nigh on impossible to wash off. The bottle I had was 9 years old, so maybe that leather note just doesn't age well, or maybe it's the rust that's causing it. Time to rehome it, then cry about it.

This was an oppressive scent on me. Even from a fair distance the scent gave me this sense that I was being suffocated, like being buried under a pile of hot wet towels. The prominent notes were a blast of hot dirt, animal fur, dirty patchouli/vetiver, and burnt molasses. There is an asphalt note here too. There are bits about the scent that I enjoy (but which I can't identify) but the feeling of being smothered or buried alive is rather unpleasant. It takes a while for it to subdue, then it turns into something hard to pin down, simultaneously alive and dead. Like old book paper and black potting soil. It takes a very long time to wear down to a comfortable volume, but once it's there I like it much more. The vetiver is easiest to ID, in fact it's quite similar to An Excerpt from Speculum...etc etc from the Liber collection. Not sure what I'll end up doing with it, but it is certainly evocative.

This is the smokiest blend I've tried to date*. On me, it's a warmer flavor of pure wood smoke -- the kind of meaty, bacon-y wood smoke that you can smell in your clothes after sitting by the fire on a winter's night. The other notes play on the edges of the scent but the smoke is definitely the forerunner. Not acrid at all though, like how Midnight Bonfire was on me, and it sits very close to the skin. The amber really warms it up beautifully and gently guides it away charcoal or carbon territory. Not getting any of the frank or the terebinth, but I don't mind that (I amp frankincense, with mixed results). It's lovely and grounding and comforting, but probably not for everyday wear. Maybe more for a specific mood or possibly even ceremonial -- it's completely perfect for Yule season. Layering with this is great -- I blended it with Fenris Wolf and it's sexy ancient forest magic on my skin right now. I'm excited to try it with other woodsy/musky blends; looking at A Young Boy and His Brother Seated Upon a Goat, Czernobog, and maybe even Iago if Iago doesn't eat it up. *The Storyteller was the other smoky one -- First Lash feels like a less-sweet version of Storyteller. Which is nice since I wanted to love Storyteller but that beeswax note always turns into cloying honey on me.

I wouldn't have guessed it immediately, but the suggestions of cucumber-melon identified why this smelled so familiar. Wet, it is a bright and fresh, sophisticated, high-end cucumber-melon with a very subtle amber and wood base. The mahogany is so subtle that if you were looking for a wood-forward note you might be disappointed. Not much throw after it dries and fades very fast. Once it does, the complexity flattens out and I'm left with a simple creamy cucumber-melon not unlike many commercial blends. I prefer the wet stage, but it's transient. Very pretty, but I don't think I'll need more than the imp.

A golden shower. By that I mean.... yeah. Wet, it's... pee. Oh no. Animal pee cleaned with Pine Sol. How did this happen. Dry... still Pine Sol but it's mellowed somewhat. Astringent and green. Big green clean. Softening into a flowery air freshener type of smell. The dollar-store plastic-tub type of air freshener that I got from Ranger as well. I wanted to test the waters on Pine again after Ranger rolled a critical fail on me, and this is finally proving once and for all that pine just won't work. Eventually the pine recedes entirely and is replaced by a sweet soft hay, a nice veer from something that started out fairly awful on me. The agarwood reads as Oud but a much mellower version than, say, Urd. It quickly dries down into something much more flowery (a white flower note like gardenia), with the soft leather beneath it. The lemon might be what's continuing to pee on my leg here. I can read each note once I know what I'm looking for -- but combined into a single blend it reads as fairly standard-catalog women's perfume. The end result just isn't working for me at all. To the swaps with ye.

So this is Christmas... and what have you done. Wet, my Immediate impression was Overpowering Holiday Candle. Probably my least favorite scent, and here it is punchin' me in the face. It's all the scents on the label turned up to 11 but hardest on the spiced rum. Like the olfactory version of swigging a large glug of Captain Morgan and having some of it get stuck in your sinuses. Dry: Thankfully the chaos seems to calm down rather quickly. Still getting those powerful candle notes but they're receding from the blast they once were. Smoke and tobacco are coming to the fore, some of the leather. These notes always amp nicely on me and they're why I wanted to try this blend. There's a lil bit of the tangy sharpness (guessing that's chardonnay) but barely detectable on me. I'm liking it better now but there's still a burnt, cloying cinnamon-bun type sweetness floating everything else (guessing that's still the rum) that's throwing it into the Foodie category and it's going to keep me from really enjoying it. Fans of gourmands would probably love this though. Ground-in: This is a holiday party right before the hangover kicks in. Sweet cakes, too much booze, etc. I attend one each year that is this scent personified -- drunken debauchery followed by days of recovery. It's so much like it that I get some woozy nausea just from the association. I mean, kudos to Beth once again for nailing the concept. Once it's almost gone, I'm getting strong Renn Faire vibes, it's all glazed cinnamon bun and roasted chestnuts. Not bad, but not me. I would really like to nuzzle someone wearing this. But when it's on me I can't quite carry it. Confirmed when I tried to wash this off. The rum has claimed me and will not release. I am one with the rum. RIP.

Wet, this is strongly medicinal; bitter and astringent (almost lemony) sharp wood. I too get pencil shavings. The cognac and tobacco are there but, unlike other blends where they shine (ie Black Rider) it's not quite curbing the blast of cedar, pepper, and frank. It is a well blended oil, since these notes are hard to pick apart, but it's very intense interplay since they're such different flavors. On the dry down it's almost all a slightly sweet black pepper. The effect on me is something akin to strong black licorice or anise. Unfortunately I'm not a fan of those notes (for me they elicit a foggy, nauseating, like not-quite-BO-but close, claustrophobic sweat smell) so this will have to go right to the swaps. I was mostly curious if BPAL's black pepper would convert me (thinking if anyone could do it..), but no. I think pepper just isn't a note that will work for me, and I suppose I may always associate it with Drakkar Noir. I will say this is the most interesting BPAL sample I've tried so far, unique in its own way. On the right person it would be memorable.

This was my first blind-bottle. The notes sounded right -- I am a fan of wood scents -- except I wasn't sure what labdanum was. Google said it's resin, so I figured this would probably still work for me. This went on super sweet, just like cola candy. Dry, the cola receded a bit, and got a bit creamier and drier, like desert-dry. A cola cotton candy tumbleweed. Later, the incense peeked in, but I was still throwing a lot of Vanilla Coke. Cedar was a no-show. It ended as powder, which is common for me. Swapped this one. It's pretty but too sweet for my liking.