Rayleigh

I love The Scales of Deprivation and The Bow & Crown of Conquest. Here are a few others I love that remind me a bit of those: Paladin (Immaculate white musk, sweet frankincense, bourbon vanilla, white leather, and shining armor.) I get a lot of the frankincense and a smooth white leather, lightly sweetened with bourbon vanilla. Has a cleanness to it without smelling soapy. No. 93 Engine (Balm of Gilead, benzoin, frankincense, balsam of peru, beeswax, saffron, galbanum, calamus, hyssop, mastic, lemon balm, and white sage.) The beeswax gives this a glowing warmth. It's sweeter, but has similar complexity. Dee (soft English leather, rosewood and tonka with a hint of incense, parchment and soft woods.) One of my favorite scents ever. Cozy, dry, papery incense and lived-in brown leather.

I love this idea. I have yet to (intentionally) try my hand at layering, but here's what I have for potential matches: Basically my only experience with layering is when I put on a scent while Zorya Polunochnaya (Pale amber and ambergris, gossamer vanilla, moonflower, and white tobacco petals) is still lingering. It's an airy, cool-toned vanilla, and it seems to get along beautifully with everything. Not marshmallow, but sweet, gentle, and grounding. My first thought was Sybaris (Bright violet with sweet clove, Mediterranean incense notes and tonka bean), which is a sweet spicy violet cloud on me, but it might overpower the base blend. Good (Shimmering celestial musk with vanilla, white honey, acacia, and sugar cane) from the RPG series is intended for layering, and can add a nice neutral sweetness. Kumiho (A sharp, biting blend of crisp white tea and ginger) and Baobhan Sith (Grapefruit, white tea, apple blossom and ginger) are both crisp, airy scents that I don't think would detract from the lemon and orange blossom. Embalming Fluid (white musk, green tea, aloe and lemon) fits in that category as well. Arkham (A shadowy, unapproachable forest of maple, birch, dogwood, cypress and pine softened by a garland of New England wildflowers: bergamot, columbine, rue anemone, blue violet, creeping phlox, bloodroot, toadflax, and pixie moss) is not at all shadowy or grim to me, but rather a sweet, summery green meadow distantly encircled by trees. Finally, there was a fairly recent (2020) trio of Lemon Peel, Marshmallow, & Orange Blossom that might not be hard to find in sales/swaps and that would be perfect. I hope some of that helps and that your game goes well!

I love this note, too. A Vision of the Courtesan (Tobacco leaf, rice milk, and frankincense) is a 2020 Luper with tobacco leaf rather than flower, but it absolutely belongs in the same family as To a Wreath of Snow and Zorya Polunochnaya. It's elegant and creamy. Blauer Mond (blue musk, and indigo amber, myrrh, moonlit oudh, oppoponax, terebinth, and tobacco leaf) has a great tobacco leaf note, too. It reads contemplative and cool to me. I noticed a number of comparisons to Pediophobia in the reviews for Kiseru (Red sandalwood, vanilla husk, and tobacco smoke) as well, but I haven't tried Pediophobia myself. Kiseru is woody vanilla with a gentle haze of tobacco over it, not too smoky at all. Incubus (Spectral white musk and the heart-stopping chill of sheared mint, fanned by caramel-touched body heat, and the diabolical sensuality of black musk, nicotiana, and sage) is the only GC I have tried with nicotiana/tobacco flower, and it's lovely with the sage, but it gets a bit overshadowed by the other notes.

I'm not the best authority for describing these notes, but I tend to enjoy them. Here are some recommendations: ATHENS. (voluptuous myrrh, golden honey, red wine, and sweet flowers.) It's a great red wine scent. It's a darker take on red wine than Kali, very tannic. It might depend on how honey plays on your skin. The honey is a subtle supporting note on me, but I know some people amp it and get nothing but honey. Jazz Funeral (Bittersweet bay rum, bourbon, and a host of funeral flowers with a touch of graveyard dirt, magnolia and Spanish Moss) if you like some humid dirt and moss with your booze. Mari Lywd (Welsh cakes and ale with a smattering of dried lavender) is a recurring Yule scent with a hoppy, wearable ale tone. I haven't tried Mad Sweeney (Barrel-aged whiskey and oak) but it seems like a good option. Juke Joint (Kentucky Bourbon, sugar and a sprig of mint) went weird on my skin, but others get mint julep from it. Looking at the notes, Hellfire (A swirl of pipe tobacco, hot leather, ambergris, dark musk and the lingering incense smoke from their Black Mass) doesn't list anything alcoholic, but it sure smells like leather+incense+booze to me.

Dalliance with an Amorous Bat Demon (Honeyed patchouli, sweet benzoin, smoky labdanum, and white sandalwood) from the 2020 Lupers was a nice, smooth, honeyed patchouli on me. I never tried Owl Moon from Blood Milk, but it sounds perfect for what you're looking for (Dark, rooty, sweet patchouli swirled with honey) and is available through Blood Milk's website.

My go-to lilac is Lucy's Eyes (a pulsing infernal amber, shot through with lilac-blue, bloodshot and blazing.) It was my first lilac blend, and it's gotten stronger and more cohesive with age. The amber anchors the lilac, making it last longer than most lilacs on my skin, and I like the contrast between the cool blue of the lilac and the depth of the amber. I like The Lilac Wood and The Last Unicorn, too, but I actually don't get very strong lilac from either.

I want this fire note in everything. The honey here provides a supporting sweetness, but for me this is mostly about the glowing amber and that phenomenal fire note. It isn't smoky, but it smells like a clean-burning wood fire. Distinct from my other honeyed-amber love, V'al Hanissim. The fire gives it something wild and outdoorsy, while the honey and amber keep it cozy. Like V'al Hanissim, Horses is potent and lasts a long time.

Wistful and clean. Light musky plum, soft florals, and sharp fresh eucalyptus. Not much presence from honey or amber yet. It smells pensive. Gauzy. It doesn't stand out for me, but it does capture a reflective mood.

This is far sweeter, warmer, and more uniform than I was expecting. It has a misty, ephemeral quality, with the subtle effervescence I get from cognac. I favor the darker base notes, and hope the myrrh and tonka in particular come out more as it ages. Nice, but elusive in its present form.

@reconditarmonia, here's what I can think of for that vibe: Bewitched is a rich blackberry scent, made more wild by the sage and musk but without any coniferous notes. Arkham, despite the description of being shadowy, is light, airy wildflowers. I haven't tried Druid, so I can't speak to it. I haven't tried a lot of the Fae-inspired scents, but there's overlap in the themes between fae and elves. The perfume Fae is a nice peach grounded in moss. Maybe Dana O'Shee or Leanan Sidhe would work, though I haven't tried either. Something floaty and ethereal but not necessarily inspired by the outdoors may fit, like Persephone with its rose and pomegranate or Sudha Segara with its warm ginger. You may also consider the Last Unicorn scents such as The Lilac Wood, though those are bigger commitments since you can't get sample sizes. Not to push you towards it, but I have to add that Elf is more than the sum of its parts. It's not too intensely woodsy, focused more on light berries and honeycomb. I find it highly evocative of sun-dappled woods. It's what I was thinking of until I got to the part where you mentioned it doesn't sound like your thing. Good luck finding one that works for you!

Tulip apparently smells like star jasmine to me -- that's not a bad thing; star jasmine is the much tamer cousin to regular jasmine and I tend to enjoy it. The beeswax gets stronger as it dries, and it becomes a very pretty, pollen-dusted beeswax similar to that found in Beeswax, Amber, & Star Jasmine, though this is less bold. The balsamic beeswax is warm and waxy, not strongly honeyed. I don't detect leather, exactly, but it and the sandalwood seem to be providing a smooth base. I expected something a little drier and more bookish from the name, but I like it.

Lavender and blur. The lavender is pretty! The blur is blurry. A lot of the notes here are big hits for me. I love tobacco leaf and carnation, and have liked black orchid but don't run into it much. But I get only a muddle of unspecified sweetness and a pretty lavender that doesn't last very long on my lavender-eating skin. I agree that it is a pleasant, classic perfume. I was hoping for more of the dark and smoky notes to step up, which they may over time. Pretty, but surprisingly subtle.

I love the motor oil, and the lavender actually sticks around on me. Beautiful, wafting fumes. The leather enhances the motor oil without becoming plastic-y as fresh leather sometimes does. The problem is the oak. Oak on me smells like wood polish, and it gives the scent a soapy, sharp undercurrent. As the scent dries, the oak only gets louder and the motor oil and lavender fade. I like the rest of it so much that I'll keep trying it as the decant ages, but so far I amp the oak too much to enjoy it.

Unfortunately, this stomps way past my sweetness threshold and keeps going. I was expecting the sandalwood and lavender to tame the foodie notes, but they barely make a showing on my skin. This smells like a very fine hazelnut coconut cream, thick and decadent and made with high quality vanilla bean. It does soften with wear, but it's too rich and gourmand for me. A lot of people are going to love this. It's just not my cup of tea.

Vividly realistic toasted cardamom sprinkled over a soft base of bourbon vanilla with just a breath of lavender. I also get something lemony here that reminds me of Dorian, though this is less sweet than Dorian on me thanks to the cardamom. Gentle, but long-lasting.

Coffee is usually pretty subtle on me, but here it is dark and bold. The coffee smooths out as it dries, and the musk steps up. It is reminiscent of the sugared musk from Smut, but the coffee provides a balance of bitterness and a lot of depth. It's intense, sophisticated, and velvety dark.

Sweet, musky, heady coffee. This is a strong, brooding, captivating scent. The coffee isn't too bitter, and the ambrette adds an interesting, nutty musk without veering too perfumey. It reminds me of one of my teachers, who kept a charmingly crowded, dusty office and always had a massive carafe of strong black coffee at hand. It's a little too sweet for my tastes, but I love the vibe.

I haven't gotten any popcorn from the Snake Oil variants I've tried, fortunately. Only from the bottle. Which is good, because the variants tend to work well on me. When Snake Oil comes back in stock, I'm planning on trying a fresh imp and seeing if it has any popcorn to it. It's a shame if they had to change something permanent; I'm sure it wasn't by choice.

My bottle of Snake Oil from October 2019 is thin and light in color. It still smells different than the fresh imp of Snake Oil I first tried, and it's rather weak. It has been developing a bit more depth with time, losing some of its initial popcorn-ish note, but it is a slow, slow process. I only noticed a shift in the last month or two. My imp, though, is from around the same time as your bottle -- January or February 2019, and it became rich and dark and extremely potent. So if your bottle is from the same batch as my imp, it may yet change. Maybe we did just end up with an extra slow aging batch.

This baby packs a real punch -- it's one of those scents that's still going strong 24 hours after applying. Still fresh, this is a good blend of the two scents. Smut is maybe a bit stronger, but it's afforded depth by the resinous Snake Oil. The leather is smoothly sinuous. The lab's fresh leather sometimes has a plastic tang that fortunately disappears with a little age, and that plastic is already barely a presence here. The cardamom is not very strong, but I can find it if I focus on it, and it gives a welcome earthy spice that tames down some of that sparkly sugar of Smut. Both Smut and Snake Oil are known for aging phenomenally. I'm happy with this blend just as it is, but once the Snake Oil starts to rev up, it can only get better.

I had high hopes given reviews of previous years' Buck Moon, but alas. Bread. Salty, slightly sour bread. Long after dry down, I get maybe a bit of musk, but the sourness also increases. The salt is what puts me off of this more than anything. I'm not opposed to grain scents, and in fact some of my favorites fit that description, but this is not working even as a bread blend. Thank goodness for decants -- and fortunate that I already have some excellent BPAL blends that capture the woodsy vibe I was hoping to find here. I'll give this a rest and try it again, but unless the story changes, this one's not for me.

To a Wreath of Snow starts out sharp, with little kitten teeth made of lavender and mint. The tobacco flower, a note I particularly like, is recognizable from A Vision of the Courtesan. The sharpness recedes as the ambergris warms up. The comparisons to A Vision are apt, though this is less spicy/creamy and more icy from the minty lavender. They are definitely distinct scents, but they share a family. In this class of scents, my preference is still for Zorya Pulonochnaya and A Vision of the Courtesan, but this is a welcome addition. I expect it will grow on me in cooler months and as the ambergris matures. ETA: I was right. This grew on me a lot. It smells hazy and dreamy, with the minty lavender giving it a chilly effect and the ambergris warming it. It's strikingly beautiful.

Sniffing from the vial, this had a sweaty top note that made me nervous. Fortunately, none of that is present on the skin. It turns into a golden, musky vanilla. The olive blossom gives it a lightly fruity cast. The woods are subtle -- I like cedar and wouldn't mind if it were stronger, but if anyone is leery of finding pencil shavings here, there is nothing like that here. I hope the wood notes strengthen with time, but even if this stays exactly as it is, I'm enjoying it immensely. Airy, golden, and effortlessly pretty.

This is such a deep, mysterious, velvety dark scent. The plum honey is neither too fruity nor too sweet. The incense is gloriously rich. Myrrh is one of my favorite anchoring notes, and it is particularly beautiful here. The nagarmotha -- similar to patchouli, from what I can find -- gives it an earthiness, contrasting with the wispy dark musk. This is how midnight should smell. The lab does these melancholy, dark purple, resin/incense scents so well, and this is an excellent realization of that theme.

Interestingly, this dries down to smell exactly like an orange blossom tea I once had. Not that I am at all sure there's orange blossom in this, mind; the florals are a whirly melange of things I can't identify. The honey is very subtle, as honey sometimes is on me, and the breezy aspect has the freshness of inhaling steam rising from a cup of tea. What an unexpected connection. It's not to my tastes, but it's nicely fresh and the florals are tame.