LavenderCoffee

Ooh I thought I'd reviewed this one, but I must have mentioned it on a different thread or have misremembered. When I first tested this from a decant, it went a little too funky for me and I thought I was safe. But then I regretted passing the decant along, and decided to find a bottle. Now I love it, especially the way the elegant white patch and beeswax funk play off each other. It's a different sort of musk quality than honey does on its own. A sensual, personal sort of scent.

When I tested this yesterday the first description that came to mind was "toasted beeswax," which technically doesn't make any sense, but still seems correct to me today, after wearing it all morning. It's a rich, sweet honey scent accented with vanilla, but the additional notes add a layer of complexity - a gently toasty quality - that prevent it from going too cloying for me. This also hits my sweet spot for sillage and longevity, as I'm still enjoying my personal scent bubble 6 hours in. Glad I caught up with this lovely scent after missing it last year.

got the 2011 version as a frottle and it is so gorgeous! have to echo the "warm and smoky" vibe from Lucchesa - I find this much more cozy and sensual than I would have expected from the notes. this is going into my fav incense blends category.

Swoon-a-roonies, this is great! If you ordered a decant it will probably be obvious that you want to roll/shake/otherwise gently agitate this oil, but even in the bottle you can see a distinct separation of components:

There is definitely something magically cola-like happening, without being sticky or cloying. I love the contrast of the cool fizz of champagne with the warmth of dragon's blood and clove, accented by a flirtation of delicious cherry. But the sparkling champagne note is the star, and it lasts all day. A delight!

I am super pleased with this one. Both oak and honey can be big notes, but they are very nicely balanced here. The strength of a big strong oak and the comfort of warm sweet honey combine into a fortifying hug of a scent that sticks with you all day. I do get a bit of nutty acorn but I'm not sure I can pick out the sap yet.

A yummy jammy rose to layer with everything, yes please!

This reminds me quite a lot of the Burnt Sugar and Blackberry duet, but it does have some pastry/dough peeking out. I agree that the balance strongly favors the blackberry over the apple. 

So funny reading reviews of this from when it was released that are all about caramel. Over 15 years later the caramel is pretty subtle! In its advanced age, Bad Luck Woman Blues is earthy, smoky, slightly herbal, with pleasant hits of the cologne elements and a soft, sweet background. Dries down into something quite balanced and wearable. Now to see if it works against bad luck dudes!

Edited to add: just gotta repeat the previous reviewer, it smells expensive and powerful. I'm so into it!

When I first got a decant of this scent, I was overwhelmed by the combination of rich, dense honey and rich, dense cake. Now that I've had it awhile, the richness has dialed back from 11 to 7, which allows the lavender to shine through. I agree that the honey develops a musky quality, but that is right in my wheelhouse. Very pleased to end up with such a delightful lavender honey concoction.

This is the blend that taught me that walnut is not a good note on my skin. My first skin test was absolute 💩 so I decided to come back to it later after some rest. I was able to get a hint of chocolate croissant eventually, but for me, this is leaning into the walnut countertop for a deep whiff where you can tell it has been used for baked goods. I will tread lightly with walnut in the future!

Chocolate and coffee (who would have known?!) are two of my favorite scent notes, and even though I prefer to drink my coffee unsweetened, the lab's coffee note seems to work best for me when it is sweetened, so I was super hype to get my nose into a bottle of a sweet, chocolatey coffee scent. Thought it would be a slam dunk, but the coffee in this blend will simply not be stopped. I have a tricky history with BPAL coffee scents so take my experience with a grain of salt. 

The best phase of this scent for me is right after application, I get the sweetened creamy topping, the smooth chocolatey filling, all infused with the warmth of coffee. After 20 minutes, the oil dries and the coffee takes over - all the other notes fade to the background, and the effect for me is largely the same as the lab's coffee single note. I put a generous dab into my scent locket and the yummy wet phase lasted a couple hours, but settled back into pure coffee all the same. If there is any vanilla bean in this one, it could age into something less coffee-centric, but at present it's not something I'm excited about. 

My initial notes on this were "too musty/dusty, can't find snakes," and honestly, that still holds.

After having the bottle for a month, I gave it a full day's wear, and I'm still perplexed: I can't find the snake oil in this one, and it has very little throw besides. Did not even have the sneaky next-day snake that typically happens for me the day after wearing a snake oil blend. I can only assume that one or more of the other notes added here is colluding with my skin chemistry to de-snake the scent - or perhaps, as is written in the description, the bottles are too tiny to be detected, or too well-packed in cardboard. 

It's an interesting atmospheric blend, but it is neither what I was expecting nor something that has grown on me.  

This is a fun one for sure, but the candy and the musk actually blend together really nicely for me, to the point where it feels quite sophisticated after an hour or so. Might retest this against something like Teenage Werewolf or even Bear Moon from earlier in the year. 

This starts with the same hit of candied lavender as Lavender Coconut Cream Pie but the earl grey tea shows up right behind it, and it's marvelous. I don't get a distinct impression of a sugar cookie but there's definitely a vanilla baked good in here somewhere, and it's great. A sweet lavender treat that would make a lovely sleep scent. 

Slug is a beauty. Goes on as an airy cream, lightly sweetened with honey. It could be a buttercream, but whipped, as mentioned above - with half the density and half the sugar. It's honestly barely buttery though, just a hint of richness that melts right into the warm amber, which takes over in the drydown. A lovely light golden scent. 

Red oakmoss: "I'm not a regular oakmoss, I'm a cool oakmoss" 😎

The throw on this reads like a very polished cedar scent on me, with the oakmoss boosting the signal. If I get in close, I get more of the patch. As is often the case with these blends, and as is mentioned above, the sum is more than the parts - you could easily convince me there's a dash of clove lurking.

I always assume oakmoss will clobber everything, but this trio is beautifully balanced. Although it may be a bit overpowering for me and I usually like a big scent! If you want to command the room in what will likely be perceived as a masc leaning fragrance, this is one to check out. A dab on the sternum should do the trick.

this is pretty light on rose, but the nutmeg/smoky amber combo is delightful. easy to wear and unobtrusive, but not plain. 

The Lantern Bearers is giving me some serious indole attitude in the wet phase, but I love the payoff, and honestly I kinda like the funk too. It feels like maybe an odd alignment of lemon-plum-orchid, like one of the puzzle pieces is not quite in the right place, but then it clicks, and it's gorgeous. I'm such a sucker for an orchid like this one, and it never lasts very long on me but I don't care, especially alongside this dreamy lemon amber. It gives me maybe a half day of wear, or it could be an evening going out scent, if I was still an evening going out person.

most folks, myself included, are probably not browsing BPAL for a typical "perfume" blend most of the time. my motto (maybe the lab's secret motto?) is give me something warm, lusty, strange, or musky, but this all of those things! it makes me want to saunter down the stairs in my sweatpants as though I'm cosplaying clementine pennyfeather, repeating her preposterous programmed dialogue. 

this is maybe in my top three favorite things BPAL has done with a cherry note? of course I'm not super into cherry in perfume, and this probably isn't a typical use of it. the cherry and sugar maple sap do not remain in their expected candy-sweet realms. and I don't think I'm usually seeking out teak either, but whatever alchemical secrets and/or rough hands have been employed here, these notes have been wrangled together into a gorgeous foil for the perfumes of imaginary bawds. there might even be some sawdust on the floor? it's very UNF to me. 

in summary: sexy, nicely balanced, and dare I say SFW. I suspect it would smell good on a wide range of people as well, whether you consider yourself more of a bawd or a gentleman caller on any given day. swing open that saloon door and give it a go. 

I am unexpectedly but completely in love with this blend. the TL;DR: a cool sweet carnationberry that wears beautifully all day. 

A Doll's Doll is delicate and gently sweet without being overly sugary. what in the world does a snowberry smell like? I'm not entirely sure. it's not evergreen to my nose, but I agree with Geminirubyshoes that it seems to mash up with the carnation into a blush of something like a doll's idea of strawberry. I'm calling it carnationberry even though that doesn't make any sense! it's just the right amount of carnation to put the pink in your cool porcelain cheeks, where it lingers perfectly for hours on end.

also, for anyone who treads lightly around a BPAL snow note: I'm not getting snow, or at least this doesn't wear like Marshmallow Snow or Snow White in my experience. both of those have a drydown that disagrees with me in the same way, and this is decidedly different. 

I need to retest this, and I don't love posting partial impressions, but I had to share one thing I absolutely loved the first time I wore this: after the initial burst of juicy grapefruit, the scent of fresh grapefruit pith lingers alllll day. That zesty freshness you get on your hands after you peel a citrus fruit has been magically trapped in this bottle. Of course then there's also a lovely black licorice in the mix, and I failed to retain any useful or coherent information to share about how they work together but! I think if you're interested in both these notes you will dig this blend.

I can't hang with Dorian. I want to, but my skin chem seems to shift it into a higher register than I can tolerate. Now, make a Dorian donut filling, and that is apparently something I can do.

That's what this one smells like to me: instead of a lemon filling, it's a lemony vanilla tea filling, surrounded by pillowy soft musk and a suggestion of fried dough peeking through the haze of powdered sugar.

I haven't tried all of this year's dead leaves scents yet, but so far this is my favorite dead leaves scent!

This has the perfect dry crunchy leaf, exactly as advertised, gorgeously rounded out with a hint of leather, cardamom, and just the right amount of molasses sweetness. As with Witch Milk, I don't get much of the milk in this one at all.

The woodmoss and bergamot were the two notes that gave me pause when I first read the description, and as this dries town I get a sense of them plotting a coup in the wings, but they seem to be content on the periphery for now.

Oooh this is a good one. Feels like a bonus entry for last years witches in art history collection. It isn't milky or cloying on me. After the ooomph of sweet creamy honey subsides, the mandrake and black pepper come to the fore against a murky but cozy backdrop of smoky witchy goodness.