ShadowEtienne

I am very much not familiar with this perfume, so my thoughts here are based on looking at the notes you so helpfully provided (thank you for that, I usually have to go looking for those to give helping people with these a shot). The very first thing that I want to point out is an LE scent that just dropped but seems to potentially fit the vibes: Equivalent No. 314 (An intangible vapor, an obfuscating mist: grey iris, ambergris, mallow blossom, white tea blossoms, and scorched milk.) It certainly won't smell the same, but it seems like something that might appeal based on the overlap. Another fairly recent release potentially worth looking into is Lorrainna (An early 19th-century Italian perfume dabbed on black satin and lace – magnolia blossoms, lilac, orris root, and ambergris accord) from the Skull Masquerade collection. Another fairly recent LE that might appeal is L'Homme Fut Solitaire Dans un Paysage de Nuit (Lilac-stained labdanum casting a long shadow across a flicker of frankincense smoke and ambergris accord.) A GC that shares some notes and might be worth checking out since you could start by getting an imp, but I suspect might have different vibes is Brusque Violet (Violet petal, violet leaf, osmanthus, orris, mint, and opoponax.) from the Mad Tea Party collection. It has enough overlapping notes, that I feel like I should also point out The Last Unicorn (Frosty lilac petals, iris pallida root, orris, violet leaf, white chocolate, coconut, wild lettuce, white sandalwood, white gardenia and oakmoss). This may run towards a sweeter or greener (depending on what you amp) scent type. I've focused here only on things that are currently available, and I don't know that there's anything among them that is a truly good match. You may end up needing to look into layering or searching for something that was a previous LE. Hopefully some of that is helpful!

Did you see The White Chocolate Rider from this year's Lupers/Box of Chocolates? I feel like it might fall into this niche, though I can't speak for it personally.

There's one other lilac I noticed in the new Lupers: Battledore and Shuttlecock Perfume Oil Calla lilies, green tea, peony milk, and blue lilac. This is likely going to be one of my blind bottles, granted for the other notes, but I'm hoping it's a lovely lilac as well.

I blind bottled this rather nervously, every note but vetiver in this is usually either incredibly good on my skin (cardamom, ambergris, cedar, pepper) or pleasantly neutral for me (sandalwood, orris). Vetiver however often does not smell the greatest on me, or just takes over a scent in ways I'm not looking for. But I loved the art, and cardamom + ambergris was too tempting not to get it. I opened the bottle to something smoky and woodsy, and I was a little bit nervous, but I could smell a hint of creamy spice underneath, and I was also hopeful. If it went right on my skin, and the notes balanced out, it would be really pretty. I tested it a few times before leaving this review, but it has indeed gone right. Sweet cardamom spice, a very similar cardamom note to my adored Sugared Cardamom Tea Beard Oil, is the most forward note on my skin, closely backed by smooth, creamy and just hinting at something aquatic ambergris and orris. The two notes blend beautifully, and I might think that it was just an ambergris going in a specific direction if this hadn't been how the orris + ambergris combo had gone for me before. This is all backed up by a softly smoky, hinting at spice woodsy scent, which I must assume is the rest of the notes working in excellent concert. The vetiver has just mellowed into the cedar and sandalwood and black pepper combo, adding a little bit of smokiness to them. My best possible vetiver outcome. Overall, for me, this scent could be a cousin to my much beloved The Hound and the Milk White Doe. I don't like this one as much (that would be hard), but it falls into the same family of scents in a wintery sort of way. I'm definitely glad I took the chance on this bottle!

In the General Catalogue (so you can get imps and see if you like them first), there are some really lovely lilac scents! It sort of depends on what other notes you might like with them. The one that immediately came to mind with this description was Les Fleurs du Mal (The scents of the blossoms of darkness, condensed into one perfume. Features a rose base, softened with lilac and wisteria). The three florals in it are really well balanced. You also might want to check out some of the scents in The Last Unicorn collection (Lady Amalthea, The Last Unicorn, The Lilac Wood), which are ongoing collections but not available as imps.

There's a place near where I live that has a rocky waterfront beach park. A ways along the beach from the entrance, there's a place where a little stream tumbles down the rocks from the greenery covered headlands above, and has a short stretch across the sand to the Sound. The beach smells of sand and salt fresh air and the briny green of freshly washed up kelp, but that particular spot where there is always good driftwood to sit on, also smells of fresh water infused with the green of having recently been among plants. This hair gloss smells like that spot in the cooler months. It's a lovely, fresh aquatic with elements of both fresh and salt water, as well as sand and greenery. It works really well in harmony with other aquatics as well as with citrus notes.

The lemon blossom is a smooth, creamy, citrusy white floral. It's lovely and bright without seeming to be harsh or acidic. There's a little zing to the scent that does make me think of lemon zest as well though, but having been around blooming lemon trees, they can kind of smell like that, especially if some of the blossoms have been freshly crushed. This is a beautiful, fresh scent for a HG, and I can use a lot of it when my hair is being difficult without the scent becoming overwhelming. It's become one of my most reached for HGs.

The blood orange is bright and fresh, almost the scent of a blood orange being peeled or sliced. There's a lot of the oils of the zest, a little bit of sweet, tart juice, and a bit of pith balancing out the sweetness. The champagne note brings something bright and sparkling and floaty to this scent. While there's a little bit of sweetness, it balances more towards the sour and tart, for which I am pleased. It's a very fresh scent that I'm enjoying quite a bit. It's definitely in a family with Champagne and Delirium.

I picked up In Templum Dei because I was chasing some of the notes from The Hound and the Milk White Doe, most specifically Liquidambar which doesn't appear in many of BPAL's scents and I love. The overlapping notes are labdanum, sandalwood, and liquidambar, and like in my beloved The Hound and the Milk White Doe, the liquidambar takes the lead with a lovely spiced wood resinous element that the other two notes really support. The frankincense is very harmonious with it, also resinous with a hint of spice. This scent by itself is a little bit flat on me, but I think that it's going to make for a really nice layering base. Going to try to find some creamy florals to add more dimension to it and bring it more in line with what I love best about The Hound and the Milk White Doe in things that are more readily available to me.

This really beautifully captures hot spiced cider on me, but I wouldn't necessarily guess the alcohol elements if they weren't in the notes list. It's honestly more in line with the the hot spiced non-alcoholic cider that I get in the Pike Place Market in colder months. There's something very bright and fresh to the apple beside the warming spices. The ginger is definitely prominent here, but it's the earthier ginger of older ginger roots, and it blends really well with the more subtle cinnamon, clove, and allspice (the cinnamon and clove really do behave on my skin, and they can definitely be loud notes sometimes). The orange slices are a barely there hint of zest, but they're a really lovely element that rounds out the scent. The sweet woodiness of the oud (with just a hint of pleasant sourness) really ties everything together. Overall, apple and ginger are definitely the stars of this, which is exactly what I would have hoped for. I'm really glad I was able to get myself a bottle.

In GC, two scents that I like that have clove (and I find it noticeable) are Wrath (dragon’s blood spiked with black pepper, clove, and cinnamon) and Arachne of Lydia (dusty clove and blackcurrant). Clove is in general a note that I don't actively seek out, but I quite like in the right blends. Unlike others above, I don't find Arachne of Lydia to be a single note clove, but the clove is a lovely element of the scent. It's balanced out by a rich dark sweetness that is completely not a cloying sweetness from the black currant for me. Arachne of Lydia has a more dusty/drying clove note for me, in a quite lovely way. Wrath is a much brighter/sweeter clove (my general assessment of this one was a lovely bright spiced simple syrup full of warming spices, but again, somehow not cloying).

I have a couple of little bags in a box of the old caps uncleaned (so clearly I haven't really figured out what to do with them either), but they are an interesting combination of my scent profile/tastes over time. I'd say the first of the two little ziplock bags is a lot more discordant than the second when I on occasion open them to see what they smell like. I am kind of curious how cleanable they are, but I also kind of enjoy my chaos bags of original caps.

@Jarek BPAL'S Beard Oil formulation is fantastic (at least for my skin and beard). It properly saturates my rather thick beard without making it greasy, and it smells nice and has scents other than face planted into trees (which has its place but is often too strong and not what I'm going for). For the most part, I've found the Beard Oil to be slightly more mildly scented than its perfume counterpart which I appreciate with it being right on my face. Good luck with the finding of the harder to find perfumes!

Cthulhu is one of my absolutely beloved scents, I have it both as perfume oil and as beard oil (and if they ever made it as hair gloss, I would absolutely get that too). If I had to pick just one scent to stick with, it would be one of the ones I would seriously consider. I like Y'ha-nthlei as well, and agree with you that the two scents are very much cousins. Picnic in Arkham, and the original Springtime in Arkham from which they were derived have been really amazing on the scents list for me! Some other Picnic/Springtime in Arkham scents that you might want to check out if you haven't already: - If white florals are potentially of interest, available as imps in current Picnic in Arkham, Night-Gaunt might be worth a try. It's a different profile than these two, but it's got some of the same interesting biting elements, and I can see how they are a cohesive part of the same scent family. (something akin to yuzu, white grapefruit, and kumquat mixed with the snow-dusted flowers of Mount Ngranek) - Also current in Picnic in Arkham, Nyarlathotep smells like a storm brewing to me, and has some elements that resonate with Cthulhu and Y'ha-nthlei. (This is the blackest of ritual incenses charged with flashes of ozone) - Discontinued Picnic in Arkham (so a little harder to get but maybe not as much as ones that were never released in Picnic in Arkham form), The Deep Ones. This is very much the cousin of Cthulhu, Y'ha-nthlei, and R'Lyeh (which I saw that you tried), but it has a profile of it's own that is fascinating. (Black algae, drooping seaweed, salty brine, and crushed coral) - Going further back to Springtime in Arkham only scents, if you can find any Kingsport is also a fascinating member of that family of aquatics. (Salty ocean breezes touched by a numinous, incandescent mist) - Also from Springtime in Arkham, and one of the ones with some fascinatingly but appealing disconcerting notes for me, is Yog-Sothoth. It's definitely worth checking out the descriptions for that one in the reviews thread! (The perfume of eternity in vast, unknowable space. A glittering oil, ephemeral, iridescent, and horrifying in its immeasurable emptiness. This is the scent of air and darkness) As far as other GCs that you could easily get as imps, if you're good with ozonic notes, Lightning is probably worth checking out. (Lightning slashing the midnight skies over the endless reaches of the ocean. The electric tang of ozone, marine notes, and a drop of sharp rain) In the realm of long out of stock and discontinued GCs that might appeal: - In Wanderlust, Kumari Kandam (The hollow scent of a vast antediluvian civilization, now frozen and buried, smothered by a thick sheet of ice and trapped deep beneath the ocean. Thick incense, clay, stone, and hothouse blooms with a spike of frost, a hint of decay, and heavy, dolorous aquatic notes) - In Wanderlust, Windward Passage (Breezes blowing off of the waters of the Caribbean: marine accord, seaweed, and bladderwrack) In the realm of LEs that might appeal: - Talvikuu to me is Cthulhu in the winter woods (Skeletal limbs of birch and fir coated in a thick, impenetrable blanket of snow. This is the death of the year personified) - Halloween San Francisco is incredible at capturing the exact time and place that it describes, and really fits in with the Cthulhu cluster of scents for me while being entirely its own thing and very melancholic in some ways (Salt air wafting in from the bay. Rain falling on rain-soaked leaves) I hope that some of those are interesting to seek out!

Not one I can use personally, but the idea of it sounds up your alley and I wish it didn't have a note that hurts me: Bengal (A sultry and unruly blend that emulates the ambient scent of the markets in ancient Bengal: skin musk with honey, peppers, clove, cinnamon bark and ginger). Maybe I could see it being too sweet or too cinnamon heavy, but could be worth a shot. One that I like personally that could fall into this is Wrath (dragon’s blood spiked with black pepper, clove, and cinnamon). The three listed spices are really well balanced, and to me it isn't sweet at all. It's a pretty potent scent, but if applied without to heavy a hand hits a really nice balance point of good throw and staying power without being overwhelming. Another one that might be worth further investigation but I can't use is Molly Grue (An angry little beetle with her own kitchen beauty: fig, sesame, hazelnut, and cooking spices softened by rice flower) from the Last Unicorn scents. Might be too foody though.