ShadowEtienne

There is definitely some skin chemistry magic happening here. In the bottle and when very first applied, like those above me, this scent was predominantly a rich, fruity red wine. Interesting and pleasant, but not necessarily something I'd reach for often. Then my skin happened to it, and other notes rose to prominence. Ylang Ylang blooms fresh and bright and tropical, blending with a herbal-spicy-aquatic ambergris with a hint of oakmoss combo. This is less creamy than some ambergris on my skin, but still lovely! The Spanish mandarin is being peeled right nearby, and behind its sweet tartness is a gentle backing note of that same rich fruity red wine, still a beautiful note, but very much in the backdrop. This is not at all what I was expecting sniffing it in the bottle, but it is delightful.

This scent is much gentler than I would have expected from something called Implacable Beautiful Tyrant. I never experienced the original hair gloss, so I can say nothing to the comparison, but i am enjoying this scent for itself! I do get all the listed notes, or at least implications of them, even if it wasn't quite what I would have expected. The base of this on my skin is mostly frankincense, but the gentlest frankincense I've ever encountered! It's a softly creamy, resinous, spicy layer. It's warmed by soft amber that adds to the gentle resinous creaminess. There is just a hint of slightly sour wood from the oudh that adds a layer of interesting contrast. The white ginger sits on top of this creamy resinous base as a bright, sweet, zing of fresh white ginger. It's much more delicate than some gingers, almost slightly floral, but it is bright and harmonious with the spiciness of the frankincense. Frankincense and ginger continues to be a winning combination on my skin, even if not in the way precisely I would have expected from this name and description.

This starts with rich warm wood notes from the teak and cypress. They are distinct but blend well. I suspect that the amber oud is adding to the warm woodiness, but I'm not getting distinct notes of that. Behind it is a fresh, almost watery green that brightens it from the bamboo and ti leaf. The crystalized ginger is a wonderful spicy tang of ginger that is the star of the scent dancing on top, and it is the main waft of the scent once on my hair. This is only my second hair gloss, but it will definitely fill a niche with matching many of my scents. Ginger is a prominent note among my scents, and this seems to be coherent with a lot of the other ginger notes, especially since it's somewhere between the earthier and brighter gingers.

Ooh interesting! The Sea Foams Blood is one that I've never tried, but I may have to look into. Tweedledee and Baobhan Sith are lovely and I have imps of, Tweedledee may at some point get upgraded to a bottle. Snooty Rose is also lovely but more my sister's scent than mine. Leanan Sidhe, I expected to like, but on my skin it smells almost exactly like how cilantro tastes to me, and it is baffling. The Froth of the Serpents of Pleasure is currently on its way to me, and I'm very hopeful for it! I'll have to keep an eye out for Right Atrium though because that does sound lovely! (And you are on the nose with me loving all the citrus three notes.) Sea Foams Blood is definitely one for me to aim to get a chance to try though. I think I've been antsy about it in the past because I wasnt sure what the blood note was going to be like.

I'm intrigued enough to try this. I feel like I'm pretty good at figuring out what I will like, but maybe someone will point out something to me that I wouldn't have thought of: 1. Lunar New Year Scents (Water Snake is probably my most favorite, only partially because Snake is my year) 2. Cthulhu (both in perfume oil and beard oil form) 3. Night-Gaunt 4. Aizen-Myoo 5. The Hound and the Milk White Doe Trying to make a list of five is hard! I kept adding things and replacing them and feeling like I was leaving things out. (I have a whole list of hard-no notes, either due to allergies or just strongly disliking a note, but I figure I will leave them off for now and see what happens)

I was going to come in here and recommend Dee, which while it's isn't one of my favorites seemed to fit the bill of what you were asking. I'm fascinated to see it described as sweet or vanilla, because while I've got more impression of it as a beard oil than as a perfume oil, it mostly gives me rosewood, incense, and something a touch spicy and tannic. This might just be a skin chemistry thing, but if some of it is readily available for you to test, it might be worth revisiting. Otherwise, I wonder if some of the Picnic in Arkham scents might be an interesting possibility. I think of this partially because Cthulhu is my favorite beard oil (and one of my favorite perfumes), and I feel like anything that ends up in the beard oil category might be a possibility. The others in Picnic in Arkham that I could maybe see being worth a thought: Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, R'lyeh, and Y'ha-nthlei. I'm not sure this will be the right vibes, but they seemed worth putting into the ideas being tossed around. Also just in general looking over some of the beard oils and seeing if they give you ideas to reference back into perfume oils.

Just juiced and zested limes, just zested blood orange, currently in the process of being juiced. The blood orange fresh juiciness is the strongest note, but the fresh tart lime is also very present, and the zest and oil notes of both fruits are amplifying and complementing the juice notes. Ylang Ylang is the quietest note here, but it is a beautiful and identifiable floral note wafting over the citrus and blending nicely with them. Well balanced citrus forward three note, and I'm definitely distinctly getting all three notes.

When it first touches my skin, I get a wave of too sweet for me syrupy pomegranate that reminds me of homemade grenadine. Fortunately, it settles down pretty quickly and the over sweetness backs off. I'm left with fresh pomegranate juice, just cut into wild plums, and a delicate, airy pan roasted green tea that balance into a fresh, tart, juicy, and light scent that is really lovely. Very true to the notes and not too complicated, but that is excellent!

I love Delirium, and champagne has been a solid note for me, so I was very excited about this scent! On me, the apples are the star of the show in Delirium, and they are not too sweet, perfectly ripe pink skinned apples, probably pink ladies. That crisp fresh wonderful apple note is still here in Champagne and Delerium, but the champagne note twined with the lemon peel rises to equal it in prominence. The champagne is light and fizzy and bright, and the lemon is the bright fresh smell of the oils released from the zest. Roses are a soft airy background note of lightly crushed petals that helps create a beautiful balance. I like this just as much as Delirium, but I appreciate the way that it is decidedly different. This is Delirium at a fancy cocktail party, and it's a really fitting New Year's scent. I think that it will be delightful year round though because it's bright and fresh.

I ended up with this bottle in a small mix up, but figured it smelled nice enough in the bottle that I would test it before passing it along to my sister, who loves rose scents. I do tend to like the balance of BPAL's chypres, and on my skin, this is a tart, bright rose, fresh and a little herbal. It's lovely, and I entirely see the appeal, but rose doesn't tend to be something I reach for as a dominant note. I think for the rest of the day, I will go reach for something to layer into it, and I will indeed be passing the bottle along to my sister as intended.

On wet, this was all wild plum and white mint. It was a good start, but not the level of complexity I'd hoped for. As it settled in, the cassis and red currant unfolded, wonderfully tart and juicy, rounding out the fruity elements of the wild plum. The green tea, peppermint, and neroli are soft in this, and take a little while to show up to the party, but they mesh really well with the white mint, balancing it out, and giving it floral and herbal depth. Altogether, they lend a certain airiness to the scent that I love. I like all the stages of this so far, but I'm really most pleased with the balance that it's settling into: tart and fruity and minty with tea and floral, and nothing too sweet. I'm really glad that I landed a bottle of this off the lab's eBay.

I'm going to give this an attempt since no one who knows the original scent well has stepped in. Doing a little digging through the review thread for this scent, some scents that it was compared to that are still around are: Fae [white musk, bergamot, heliotrope, peach and oakmoss] Tamora [Amber, heliotrope, golden sandalwood, peach blossom and vanilla bean] Aglaea [Three golden ambers, bright musk, peach wine and myrtle] The official notes were: attar of rose, calla lily, palmarosa, peach blossom, wisteria, rice flower, and black musk. Depending on what amped on you and how it balanced, I could see this going in lots of different ways. Sticking to mostly GCs here, and things readily available in general. If you like the calla lily, rose, and wisteria combo and are down for resins, I could see Seraphim [calla lily, wisteria, white sandalwood, Damascus rose and frankincense] being worth a try. This is a very lingering scent on my skin, and has a good deal of throw. Obviously skin chemistry varies. For peach blossom in a fruity-floral-resinous blend, it might be worth checking out the current Lunar New Year scent, Wooden Dragon (or other LNY scents if you can find them to buy on the forums). From Picnic in Arkham, Shoggoth [white amber, green coconut meat, iris, palmarosa, Chinese peony, lime, water lily, snowdrop, muguet, lemongrass, osmanthus, wisteria, glassy musk, and hinoki] shares some notes, including the wisteria and palmarosa and a musk. I hope someone who was familiar with The Temptation comes across this and can give you some more insight!

Based on what you've liked, a few of the Picnic in Arkham scents (GC) might appeal to you: Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, and maybe R'Lyeh or Nyarlathotep. It might be worth checking if there are notes that are showing up a lot in the stuff you are liking (for example, glancing through things you've liked, I saw a few with vetiver as a shared note), and then looking at other GCs that have that note. Having a list of notes you tend to enjoy (and finding shared notes of things that you don't) can help make it easier to spot the stuff that will appeal to you.

On my skin, this is based in a cool, resinous, creaminess, which I suspect is amber + snow. I don't get vanilla in that creaminess, for which I am grateful because I hate vanilla, but perhaps tonka or some other somewhat vanillic resinous note that fortunately doesn't read as vanilla to me. Overlaying that is rich and sharply sweet cardamom, with a touch of citrus zest (guessing that's from the bergamot). It manages to stay balanced towards not too sweet for me though, even if there is some sweetness to the spice and bitter. The florals have the most throw on me, predominately the lily, which like all lilies on my skin is rich and juicy and slightly spicy. It's an arier lily though, which is augmented by the more subtle olive blossom. Lily and cardamom and creaminess is the final take away of this on my skin, which suits me. They're the notes of this that I was the most excited about. I really love this, and this is especially a beautiful cardamom note.

This is my first Hair Gloss from BPTP, and I'm very pleased with it! I'd sampled one of my sister's HGs a while back and determined that it is too light for my hair within about 48 hours of a wash, but I have other products for that. For me, this is a later in the hair cycle product, and it is sitting really nicely on my hair, soothing out frizz and fly aways without making my hair oily. It's refreshingly light while still actually doing its job. The scent is very true to its notes for me: a floral leaning white tea and fresh sage, slightly crushed. It's not too strong a scent, which is good for a hair gloss, especially since it took about 10-12 spritzes to work it through all my hair. This meshes well with my go to beard oils and most of my favorite scent profile, so I see it getting a fair bit of use. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for more hair glosses that suit my tastes.

The first thing out of my sister's mouth upon us opening this to sniff it was "This smells like a drink [cocktail] you would make." She was of course quite right. It is delightful on my skin, and just the hoped for amount of bitterness. There is a zesty, approaching floral bright pink grapefruit, freshly squeezed. The licorice has its almost biting spice, deep and complex, perhaps backed by some anise, and it balances beautifully with the grapefruit. There is no extra sweetness here on me, just the natural sweetness that is part of grapefruit, and I am happy for it. I was hopeful that this would not turn into its candy self on my skin, and it did not.

Cthulhu is one of my favorite and most reached for GC scents, and I was thrilled to see it become available in beard oil format! I have a lot of beard and I have found that BPAL's beard oil formulation works very well on me. The scent is very true to its perfume oil counterpart, and I'm going to quote my description of that here: The beard oil scent is very similar, but it is a touch more mellow and a touch more herbal. I am happy that it is a beard oil with a reasonable amount of throw and scent strength (not too much, but enough to be a pleasant experience for me). I predict this is rapidly going to become my most reached for beard oil. I'd love to see more of the Picnic in Arkham scents as beard oils as well!

I'm not sure that I ever would have taken the chance on testing this if I'd not been gifted an imp in an order from a lovely forumite. I'm really glad to have gotten the chance to try this though! The white tea, angelica, and angel's trumpet are definitely the leading notes on my skin. It's a lovely fresh and airy white tea that ties the anise adjacent sweet angelica and slightly heady true to the flower angel's trumpet together. (I love anise and anise adjacent things, and heady is a good thing here for me.) Because of the white tea, it's not too intense or sticky of a smell. Behind those airy floral-tea elements, there's a rich woody, spicy resinous scent that is definitely most recognizable as olibanum and basalm to me, but is drawing elements from sandalwood and oude almost certainly. There is a tiny waft of violet hiding in the background that is a lovely addition to the other florals, and smells very fresh on me. This is lovely, and I may seek out more when this imp runs out!

I was very excited for this in the bottle, and it got even more magical upon hitting my skin and settling in. It's very fresh young ginger and green cardamom pods forward on my skin, backed by a soft creamy tea sort of note. I definitely see then comparison to Thai Tea, but the focus is very much on the two spices for me, so that's not quite where the balance lies. I absolutely adore this and am so glad I got the chance to pick it up from a lovely forumite!

I got a decant of this from @crystaltongue (so same bottle as review above). It interestingly is quite different on my skin. In the bottle/decant, I have a similar impression of the light floral soaps that were popular in the 90s, though also of a specific Chinese rose soap that was wrapped in floral pink paper that my foster family often had around as a kid. On my skin, it turns into a hummingbird garden in full bloom, quite appropriately. Honeysuckle and lilac and a delicate rose and some sort of lily and trumpet flower and lotus and wisteria and honestly just an immense array of blooming flowers. I imagine a garden filled with hummingbirds and butterflies and bees. There is a wetness to this scent like it has just rained, and it brings out the green nature of the stems and leaves of the plants. Through the magic of skin chemistry though, this has quite a bit of throw on me and isn't fading pretty much at all over the time I've had it on, which is not what I was expecting considering other reviews. Granted, I do tend to amp several of these flowers that I'm getting. This is very much a springtime scent to my mind, so I'll probably wear it more then, and I have other things in this genre that I like the balance of better, but I'm very glad to have my decant and will definitely be wearing it when the weather is a bit more in line with the scent.

This scent reminds me of coastal wetlands, the water more fresh than salt, but there is a touch of biting salinity there, some of it coming in on the air. Rich sweetgrass and florals, reminding me of all the blooming things in the coastal wetlands in spring, blur together to a pleasant, aquatic floral with some distinct greenness to it. The basalm is a quiet background note that helps balance out the sharpness on me and give a light woodiness to the scent. This does evoke something lovely and melancholy and just a touch sinister. It's a beautiful aquatic, and more on the freshwater side than many of my favorites which gives me some nice variety. I'm definitely glad to have my half of the bottle I split with a friend.

I love a lot of Picnic in Arkham scents, and I was curious about this one for a long time, but too nervous to get my hands on it because vetiver and I usually don't get along, and black amber can be iffy on my skin. I was able to do a quick test of it on my skin at a sniff things party with local friends recently, and the vetiver didn't immediately hate me, so I was able to take home a spare imp from a friend to give it a more thorough test. On my skin, the tangerine and saffron dominate. The tangerine is sharp and bright, and a little sour, with both the oils of the skin and the juice playing roles. The saffron is a delightful light spice that wafts over the tangerine. The other three notes create a backing that is dominated by the cedarwood, my favorite of the three. The amber is present in this being a more resinous note, but not distinct. The vetiver brings a smokiness to the cedar, but is itself subsumed into the cedar. Overall, I'm glad to have the imp, and I'm going to be less reluctant to at least skin test vetiver in the future even if I know it often doesn't work for me. I'm not going to reach for Azathoth often, but the tangerine and saffron combo is awesome!

With those notes as something that he likes, I do suspect that Azathoth would have potential to be a good fit! There's some overlap tangerine & orange zest (bright citrus) and both have cedarwood. Doing a bit of research, it looks like Ambroxan is a compound used to give ambergris as a note. Obviously, BPAL doesn't do top/middle/base notes, but I've found that ambergris tends to be a sort of aquatic creamy resinous note that other things build nicely on. A few other GC scents that seem like they'd be in the same genre as the scent you know he likes: - Vicomte de Valmont (Ars Amatoria) if he likes mint - A Countenance Foreboding Evil (Diabolus) - Caterpillar (Mad Tea Party) I hope you are able to find some scents he really likes!

There's quite a few threads on this over in Recommendations, some of which are fairly new. I'm a guy, but I'm not sure I'm great at answering this question because I'm very much lost on the idea of scents being gendered. Couple of questions to help narrow down what might be a good fit for your boyfriend: - What genres of scent has he liked in more mainstream colognes? - What are some scents he seems to like in daily life? The impression that I get is that a lot of "classically masculine scents" fall into aquatic, resinous, woody, and more musky/less sweet ranges. But again, I'm not sure that I know what someone means when they say something smells masculine or feminine (there are many scents that both my sister and I love and wear). If he likes aquatics, might be worth checking out some of the Picnic in Arkham aquatics, and honestly that collection in general for some scents that at least probably won't intimidate someone who does care about the idea of masculinity in scents. They're GC, so easy to get as imps. My favorite Picnic in Arkham scents that might be worth a look (there are others in the collection that might suit but aren't for me, and others I like but seem like they might not suit here): - Cthulhu - Y'ha-nthlei - Ry'leh - Nyarlathotep - Azathoth (not aquatic, but I think maybe people read this one masculine) Also, check out the Beard Oils section for scent profile ideas! Those in general are going to read more masculine probably, and could give you an idea of notes to look for. A lot of them also come as GCs that you could get as imps (there are a few GCs that come as beard oils that don't show up there like Cthulhu, where you can find the Beard Oil listing in the main listing drop down). https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/body-beauty/beard-oil/

@comebackqueen Some LEs with aquatic elements that you might want to look into: - To Lallie (I don't like this one for vanilla, but it is lovely on my sister, and has an excellent creamy aquatic if you like roses) - Conception By The South Wind - Mocking The Invisible World With Its Own Shadows - Sea of Tranquility - A Little Silver Scimitar** (like an evergreen forest by the sea, but definitely has some of that beautiful creamy aquatic) My sister adds that you might enjoy Collumns of the Temple of Neptune. Other things with that creamy-coconut thing going on that might appeal in recent LEs include The Hound and the Milk White Doe** (not inherently aquatic but shares some traits) and Mysterious Techniques in Lovemaking (has a lot of commonalities with Obitala but more floral). Ambergris, orris, and coconut might be notes to look out for with that creamy aquatic scent it sounds like you like. **LEs still available for purchase (Halloweenies this year)