LavenderCoffee

Leaf Moon leads with the dead leaves scent plus woodsmoke, and the woodsmoke takes over for the first hour or so of wear.

After that, I get an almost perfume-like effect from the patchouli and leaves, with a touch of smoke lingering, and I have to get in close to find any trace of sweetness from the musk. 

I'm intrigued because dead leaves blends do not usually work for me, and I like this dark, autumnal patchouli more than I expected.

This is not normally my kind of scent - pink roses are actually on my nope list - but thanks to all the delightful reviews, I thought it couldn't hurt to track down a decant and check it out.

Of course I kinda love it, and I blame the bergamot. It's warm and not overbearingly sweet, and ends up smelling like a rose resting its head on a lady grey marshmallow pillow.

I worried about black musk stomping over everything here, but I need not have, since my skin loves champaca and the musk is forced to play second fiddle. The overall effect of this blend for me is a soft violet champaca musk over patch and dark dramatic roses. Torn about upgrading it and running out of time to decide! 

ETA: Oh hey look it's 2 years later and I did indeed get a bottle. This is ridiculously gorgeous - there's a huge rush of sweet lavender tinged purple floral in the wet phase that I don't remember getting when I first acquired this, and it just keeps getting better as it wears. Black musk and champaca should never have worked for me, but that delicious base of patchouli and resins is perfection and everything just clicks. It's also very big scent and I always put too much on, but oh well 😅

I seem to dig the perfumey Liliths this year, of which this is definitely one. In my head, I thought this would be darker, but on my skin it dries into a lavender-backed orchid scent over plush musk and oud. Without looking at the notes, I would probably have just called this an orchid perfume.

No idea where leather and tobacco are hiding, but I think I'm gonna upgrade this one and see how it grows up. 

Not much new to contribute here, but it really is like a cloud - very soft and floofy. I thought the bourbon vanilla would be a bit more imposing, and although the cardamom is initially quite pronounced for me, it becomes a light, dreamy scent.  

This leads with amber for me - a subtly sweet amber with a similarly subtle honey. Some honey blends are quite loud and cloying on my skin and this one is neither. I can't suss out anything like beeswax or vanilla in this blend, but the honey blends so seamlessly with the amber that I can see where both of those notes would fit into the soft warm glow. 

As it dries, the "fire" note emerges, and I also find this part hard to describe. As mentioned above, it's more like a flame than a whole fire: not smoky or spicy - it just smells warm.

Horses remains close to the skin, but creates a perfect memory of honey, amber, and fire. 

My skin loves narcissus and always catapults that note to the front. I struggle with jasmine sometimes, but the combination of the two works well for me here, and both are prominent when freshly applied.

As the oil dries, the lemon peeks out, and more of the plum, lavender and labdanum are evident, since the narcissus/jasmine combo actually calms down and shares the stage! This blend is a win for me: a dark moody floral with moderate throw.

This duet is absolutely gorgeous. I love a cacao note, but it doesn't always last on my skin. Here, the oud seems to help it stick. Each note plays off the other for a lovely and sophisticated chocolate perfume. Not much throw, but decent staying power. 

Glad some other folks had the same funky oud/poud sort of experience I had, because I tested this opposite Cacao and Oud and was extremely confused for a minute! Luckily the duet was a success.

Rogridiss honestly does not remind me of any of the component scents: I don't really get any leather or chocolate. Freshly applied, it's the mysterious funky oud experience, and then after it dries (~20mins) it basically disappears on me. 

I was excited to try this one but my skin does not like it. The Weed and Whiskey 2021 duet was a surprise hit for me, but Weed and Sugar Cookies is no-go.

It does indeed smell delightful in the decant and on the tissue I used to open the decant, but once applied, it gets a stale, slightly burnt character, and fades fast for me. Looking forward to passing this on to someone who can enjoy it!

I think I'm finally learning that my skin amplifies frankincense. It's not a note that I dislike, but here it is surprising to me because I would not expect frankincense to eclipse clove or cedar. I would love a clove/cedar bomb! but alas, it is not to be. 

This one is a journey for me, and it never really smells like coffee, but I love it. There's something very sweet in the bottle and my skin picks it up and runs with it for about twenty minutes. I'm not sure if I'm misreading a metric ton of cardamom as sweet, or if the shisha is sweet, or if there's sugar in the coffee, or all of the above, but it is LOUD. And then it goes away.

What I'm left with is the most beautiful atmospheric scent of a clove cigarette inside a very old coffeeshop. 

I was worried this would be super sweet like a drink with whipped topping, but it is indeed more of a caramelized sugar and coffee scent, as mentioned above. 

When freshly applied, the dark chewy caramel has a bigger throw than the coffee, but as it dries both scents are apparent.

After an hour or two, there's almost something slightly burnt about it, but I love a bit of burnination, especially where sugar is concerned. 

"The scent of the roasted seeds of Coffea arabica, so intoxicating in real life, has resisted capture again."

I can't improve on the first post here, so I'll echo it, but I will add my own two cents anyway. 😅

In the bottle this is sweeter than just plain coffee, but dry on my skin it comes pretty close to the real thing. To my nose, it smells more like brewed coffee than beans though. 

Going on a coffee note journey today, starting with a re-test of Kobold Barista because it was a resounding fail when I first tried it.

When I first wore this, I got a vaguely burnt and somehow perfumey coffee aroma from it, and not much spice. 

Now that it is properly rested, it is noticeably spice forward and the coffee is perfectly nice, without much cream to speak of. I love to order dirty chais when I go to coffeeshops, and this is a milder version of that scent to me - and mild is probably good if you want to layer, as the RPGs are intended. Skin tingles just a tad with this one. 

YMMV, but I get more clove scent and less coffee from Café Mille et une Nuits (although that one almost strays into clove cigarette territory), and more of a spiced coffee from Kobold.

King mandarin, green mint, green tea leaf, and white musk.

Tested from a decant.

This is a bit loud with mandarin and mint when first applied, but the mint disappears, as other reviewers mentioned. It dries down into a subtle skin scent of tea and white musk, with only a memory of mandarin. It's really lovely. 

Got a little tester imp of this scent from another forumite. 

It seems like there is a little mint when it's wet, or something wacky happening with the lemon, but after a few minutes it's gone. 

Then it's all strawberry lemon candy, and it has some decent throw!

Freshly applied, the first notes that hit are cigarette smoke and tuberose - I can't normally hang with tuberose, but it is blended with the smoke in such a way that both scents are more appealing together than separate. As it dries, I get more pomegranate and fig, and I keep sniffing myself. I did not expect to like this quite as much as I do!

Received this as a frottle from the lab in mid-January 2022. 

While wet, this has a pleasant aroma of leaves and teak, as well as a hint of herbaceous green from hyssop and ivy. 

As it dries, more of the patchouli and coffee bean emerge from the background of tonka. Without looking at the notes, I might have guessed a soft brown leather in the mix.

A warm, Autumnal scent with a subtle perfume quality, and the coffee/patch/teak combination is quite lovely.

In the bottle, I get bay up front and the slightly astringent cypress note. Once my skin comes in contact with the fig, that note comes to the foreground in a big way and stays there. The bay remains prominent, closely followed by the ambergris, and this basically becomes a gorgeous three note blend for the duration. 

I'm reminded of the bay and ambergris combo in Falling Leaves Moon, but instead of leaves on top, it's fig.

The throw on this is phenomenal. When I did my own amateur 15 Minutes of Fume session and applied like 6 different scents at once, this one jumped out over all the others. It also has excellent weartime. 

This one took me on an interesting scent journey. It leads with the iris, lavender and cognac, which creates a gossamer sort of effect. Then I get more of the "warm backdrop" from the sandalwood, vetiver and tonka, and some sweetness from ti leaf as well. After it dries, it ends up in a soft resinous place for me. A contemplative blend with low throw. 

This oil is a vivid gold color, and freshly applied it is all patchouli doused in narcissus. It does have a "lacquered" fume-y sort of effect to it as well.

As it dries, the herbal notes pop out a bit, and then recede. I think I can detect some of the opium tar like a fuzzy dark center in the swirl of narcissus and patch.

It is a strikingly beautiful but unapologetically bold blend. 

Not what I was expecting in terms of candied ginger at all. Much more spicy than sweet, and the ginger/clove combo dominates when first applied.

After 30 minutes or so, this reads as an earthy spicy skin musk with a suggestive quality, and a hint of orange blossom. 

When freshly applied, there is an effervescent quality that makes it smell like an Italian soda, and the grapefruit is more forward in the blend.

Once dry, this is all about the raspberry and plum blossom musk, with citrus notes as accents - it is somehow bright and fresh and seductive at the same time. Utterly swoon-worthy and unmistakably Shunga.

This is a warm, airy scent for me.

Cypress is the dominant note, and while wet it is certainly a bit sharp. After it dries down, however, it smells like dappled sunlight through dense cypress trees - like the canopy of the swamp rather than the floor.