Estamets

I disagree with so many of these notes, but I love this blend. There is a lot going on, and the overall effect to me is a woodsy-fragrant liquor, the kind you sniff and sip and swirl and savor, served in a darkly paneled personal library with well-oiled leather-and-wood armchairs, near a fire that's trailing slinky, perfumed smoke. The fougère behaves. The whiskey gives me aged wood more than booze. The florals don't turn into potpourri OR a funeral like they usually do on me. The overall effect is smoky, slinky, woody, flower-fragrant without being floral (I know that doesn't make any literal sense, but it's what I've got). It makes me feel rich.

Hot, spicy sandalwood. Golden, floating, incense-like… this is an airy scent: a windy ship deck, not a closed up sauna. I also get black pepper from this- or maybe red? I may be anosmic to the hemp: there is nothing earthy, funky, or alive/growing in this, nor do I pick up any of the oil that finished hemp rope has. It’s pure dry spicy woods, or sandalwood incense. Great throw. Simple and beautiful. I would wear this at the beach or to an outdoor tropical bar where the primary light source is tiki torches and it’s okay to wear your bikini under your dress.

This is a beautiful, extra-vegetal, orange blossom cider snake oil. It’s the strongest snake oil note of the bends I’ve tried. WET: it leans *almost* dark-tobacco-funky (that effect was mitigated with a vigorous bottle shaking). I expect the honey note is a very dark, intense honey, and adds to the depth of this blend. Everything else is quiet. DRY: the orange blossoms find space to breathe once the vegetal funk subsides. Now this is deep orange blossom with a snake oil anchor. More of an orange blossom concentrate than fresh orange blossoms on the tree. Any cinnamon is a grounding background player- it’s not spicy or even identifiable, just a bare hint of… red? weighting the orange blossoms and contributing to the cider vibe I’m getting. The overall effect is gorgeous, and I can’t wait to age with this baby.

This is extra-vanilla-y snake oil rubbed onto soft brown leather, in a landscape of desert sage. The sandalwood is there in late drydown, but it reads as dry, fresh desert air. This beautifully evocative of my Southern California desert home, and I need to always have a bottle.

“warm. Honey, spice, a hint of beeswax. floating golden amber. Everything about this is lovely.” Those were my notes from my original test of a decant, in the middle of which I bought a bottle because I loved it so much. Then I got my bottle. I immediately wand-capped it (which I only do with Keepers), and let it rest quietly after its travels. After a week or two, I slathered my wrists and BAM: earthy, round, pale tobacco. (The label image is accurate.) It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the uplifting airy amber I so fondly remembered. This isn’t the funkiest tobacco, and there were some other notes in there but I was so disappointed that I didn’t keep track of them. THEN - and, friend, here is the rub - I gave the bottle an 8.0 shake. Like, in acting class where you pump your fists back and forth and release your jaw and say “arglblarglgarble”… I did that with this bottle. Vigorous. Committed. Waking my dearest love from shock on a plummeting airplane. In short: I SHOOKETH. And, with champagne-sized bubbles still rising through its smooth oily decadence, I re-slathered. BAM: AMBER. That tobacco-ish vibe is now identifiable as smoked coconut and smoked vanilla. And now the other lovely notes have room to breathe: I get the honey, a hint of blossoms, a breath of musk and, as it warms up, light airy amber. Beautifully blended. Poetic in effect. verdict: this one needs to oxygenate or age, but hot damn once you get there it’s gorgeous.

Mulling spices in apple & pear cider. This is sweet, spicy, and light. Great throw. This is a cheerful atmospheric scent I could see wearing for manifesting purposes in conjunction with one of my faves as a perfume. Will update if any fantastic breakthroughs occur!

Clove. Blood. Fur. In that order. A little frost in the distant throw. This is beautiful and cozy, but not cuddly cozy.... I want to wear this while huddling in a cave wrapped in scraps of fur and gnawing on the remains of my last kill. I received this as a frottle along with Pumpkin Spice Sanguinem Menstruum. The latter was too bloody for me, but this one is a more balanced blend and might be a keeper!

Bottle straight from the Lab and rested 5 days, though the level was really low so it might be somewhat aged. In the bottle: Milk! I'm excited! I can glimpse a fragrant oil in there as well, and the faintest tang of copper. On me: Incense! Where TF did that come from?! The milk and blood hold it in check so it's not nauseating... but barely. (I understand how the reviewer above got white florals from this - it's sharp and fragrant.) 2.5 hours in: the incense has faded, and the honey has arrived! This is quite lovely! Dominant honey, flavored with oil and blood. 4 hours in: Similar to above, but less: a honey-dominated skin scent with enough oil and blood to make It feel very grown up and not overly sweet. Verdict: I really want to love this, and I can smell the potential underneath the incense. For a person who loves fragrant incense, this is a great smell!

Elegant honey marshmallows, served alongside chilled peaches and bright berries and exotic flowers that have never seen a garden, and a lover’s dewy skin in golden sunlight. This one is almost painfully beautiful. The honey is so light it’s closer to spun sugar. There’s a ripeness that suggests perfectly pregnant fruit without being “fruity”. The cedar and sandalwood prevent it from going gourmand without dominating, or even being recognizable. There is a floral hint to this, but it’s incredibly well behaved- this is certainly not a “floral” scent. Perfectly blended to my taste: the whole is so rich it’s hard to believe it’s made of distinct parts. This is my skin, but during an avant-garde sex scene in a french film. brb, buying a back up bottle while I still can! ETA: maybe it’s mango, not peach. Papaya?

YEESSSSS!!! I’m testing it right now- I dabbed it on, took a nap, and woke up to the sweetest, most lovely cozy scent. It gets nugglier as time goes on, too. A great addition to this list ❤️❤️

Vanilla cream. Husk-dry. Buttery leaning towards yogurt. I can’t pick out the sandalwood, but it’s probably contributing to the light, tart yogurt sensation, which prevents this from being super sweet or cloying. This is a lovely wrist scent- low throw but I can sneak in a secret sniff whenever I want.

If you told me this was a carnation SN, I would believe it in a heartbeat. All the complexity of carnation is there: spice, sweet, herbaceous floral, a vanillic underpinning. I absolutely get herbal incensey cola in the throw. This one is a long-lasting mood booster! ETA: This is the center of a Venn diagram of spicy carnation, cola resin, and almost-too-funky jasmine.

@alterosen thank you!!! I actually do have an imp of Pumpkin Latte 🎉 and UPDATE: I got another imp of Miskatonic from the Lab and it’s not cheesy. The cheesy one is up for swaps if anyone wants it!

Comfort baking without being foody. This is soft, delicately almondy, and starchy. The coconut husk keeps everything dry. The sandalwood stays quiet on me. The overall effect is almost milky. Very “loving embrace from a lactating mammal who spent the morning making marzipan”.

Delicate, pale, smooth. There’s a fat-free, weightless cream to the rice milk, a dry earthy sweetness from the coconut husk (which is nothing like coconut meat, for anyone worried), and the tea adds a transparent note that’s not quite bright, but is watery and light. lovely, easy to wear, and perfect for sushi nights.

This is a beautifully sweet patchouli. I usually find patch to be overly aggressive, but this is delicate and light while retaining patchouli’s long throw and unmistakable personality. Make no mistake, I still smell like a hippie, but a hippie that’s had a long bath and is now wearing an elegantly effortless silk shift dress to a cocktail party. The black coconut adds a creamy smoothness without being identifiable as coconut, and the benzoin brings sweetness and a glimpse of resin now and then.

*sad wombat* This one turns immediately into baby wipes on me… and stays there for the duration. Sour and powdery at the same time. I had to wash it off. ETA: I got this effect from my first imp, and assumed it was over-aged or something. Finagled another decant to test, and the same thing happened.

Any sweetness of the sugar, honey, and condensed milk is tempered by the saltiness of coconut meat - like the chunks you get at the bottom of really fresh, unsweetened coconut water. I think that salty note is what's making the milk seem sour for some folks - the dairy aspect leans towards goat milk, while the sweetness of condensed milk joins forces with the honey. I don't get much vanilla or benzoin, but I'm discovering that those notes on me are like a really good personal assistant: they make all the other notes awesome without being detectable themselves. If you like non-foody, not-super-sweet milk notes, this is a great smell!

I love all the ones I’ve tried so far: Death Adder, Western Diamondback, Boomslang. I would also add Please Scream Inside Your Snake Oil and Snake Smut to any list of snake oil must-tries.

Wet: florals + sharp greenness from the cardamom pod. Redolence, like walking through a hot house during flower season, with lots of moist potting moss. dry: mossy white florals. I can’t pick out the beeswax or orris, but something is smoothing out the florals enough that I don’t completely hate them. I wish I got some smoke or cedar, but I’m amping the florals here, to the detriment of every other note.

You know, I don’t actually get coconut from Obatala! And I don’t get vanilla from Tombstone 🤷🏼‍♀️ I love scents with those notes, but I often can’t actually detect it. Like, give me a vanilla smell any day and I’ll love it, but I’ll never guess there’s vanilla there. Adding Unicorn Junk to my ISO list! It sounds beautiful.

I absolutely adore this scent when it’s wet – there’s a beautiful spice to it, probably the teak but it reads as warming spices on my skin. The lilac and rose are lovely tangy backnotes that balance the spice with lightness. However, when dry, all the spicy wood goes away and I’m left with a bouquet of funeral flowers that have been left in a hot car for a day, which is what my nemesis osmanthus always does on my skin.

@hhelix I’ll keep an eye out for The Bear Prince! The cardamom in Rabbit Moon did some funky stuff with the other notes on me, unfortunately 😭 @artisjok *takes notes* thanks for the all the cozy recs! I would add Judgmental Longhorn, as well, as a super cozy scent with no fur listed ❤️❤️

Sharp green cardamom. Sandalwood warmth underneath. On me, the cardamom stays strong and a touch astringent through dry down.

🙋🏼‍♀️ PETITION FOR THIS AS A BEARD OIL This one is exactly what it says on the tin. Everything leans sweet on my skin so this is like smoky, woody, leafy hard candy and I’m very here for it. Now, I will wear anything that I enjoy smelling without regard to “gender”. But my spouse (who only wears scents when they are conveyed via beard oil) sniffed this on me and said “oh!” Sniffed again and said “that’s almost manly.” I told him what it was called and he said “yeah. I would wear that in my beard.” Hence my petition. Though I might nab a 5mL and mix up an oil of my own, since I know the chances are slim 🤔