ShadowEtienne

The greatest of all Aztec cities, and capital of their empire. Amber, hyssop, coriander, epazote, Mexican sage, prickly pear and Mexican tulip poppy.  Oh huh, I'd sniffed this from a friend before, possibly even tested it on the skin, and been uninterested. Giving it more time on the skin was a really good idea. It's pretty muddled on my skin for the first bit of time. But after about 30 minutes, it settles into a lovely sage, poppy, and prickly pear fruit scent with some other herbal undertones and a gently resinous backdrop. I don't love this enough for a bottle, but I'm happy to have the imp!

This is truly deeply beautiful and very much in line with what I love... i think I've found one of my perfect jasmines, and of course it's no longer available. The green tea is the scent that carries everything else, wafting lightly from the skin (it doesn't have huge throw). Jasmine and orange blossoms (neroli) are freshly blooming right outside the open window. Lemon verbena grows in the window box of that open window, and a few leaves have been recently crushed. It's a fresh airy tea scent, filled with growing floral and herbal scents. I would be immediately buying a full bottle if it still existed.

Peach trees, wild roses, and myrtle grow intertwined in a grove by the sea. The water is still today, but its still depth and chill blows in on a gentle breeze. The peach trees and the roses are blooming. There is a sweet herbal undertone here that I attribute to the melliot. I'm getting almost none of the pomegranate, only perhaps a slight sweet tartness. This is lovely, and I'm very excited for the imp I was gifted. Might try to pick up more of it in the future.

Ooh this is lovely! I've never been even close to the Carribean, I've spent my whole life living on the West Coast, so no clue how accurately it reads on that front, but it's a wonderful marine aquatic scent. It reminds me of kayaking and canoeing in sheltered areas along the NorCal coast watching out for sea otters amongst the seaweed on a foggy morning. It's a very clean, salty aquatic with several different but tangled seaweed notes. On me, it's very much in the same family as Cthulhu. I'm really glad to have gotten an imp from a lovely forumite of this discontinued scent. I'm glad I have other things in this family though, because otherwise I'd be desperately in search of a bottle (mind you, I wouldn't mind a bottle, this is definitely my sort of thing).

Asphodel is in the lily family, so I'm not surprised that the primary note on my skin is a soft white lily. I concur with others who mentioned jasmine, specifically it rather reminds me of night blooming and winter jasmine, just softly in the background, supporting the lily. The floral floats in a gently flowing freshwater stream. The water seems almost still and quiet, but there's definitely more a moving water than a still water smell. The flowers grow right on the banks and the petals fall in and drift slowly down stream. There's definitely a coolness and gentleness to this scent that reminds me of a cool clear night in early spring where everything is softly lit by the full moon. This plays nicely with my skin chemistry and is a very me sort of scent, very glad I picked up a bottle.

On first application, this was all sweet crushed rose petals. Giving it time to settle in, the peony really took over to my delight. The sweet crushed rose petals settled into the background and a realistic cut peony, almost fully opened took the lead. There is a whisper of something soft, dry, and cool in the background that makes me think of ceramics. I'm not sure I'd call this a cacophony, but it is a lovely floral, very peony forward on me.

This is lovely. The slightly lemony amber provides a resinous backdrop paired with the evergreen trees. Neither is a loud part of the scent but they ground it overall. It brings to mind emerging into a sunlight meadow from the woods. In the meadow, there are lilies and other white flowers blooming. I think there could be a tiny touch of moonflower in this because my brain definitely thinks this shares a floral note with A Little Silver Scimitar that I tested yesterday. There may also be a hint of jasmine, but it's not one of the main florals on my skin. To my relief, the laundry note has subsumed by the laundry. There is definitely a soft cotton drying on warm dry grasses in the sun vibe to the laundry scent. It's clean and soft and makes the scent gentle. I like this, it's really pretty!

Dragon's blood and blackcurrant are the leading notes in this on me, but all of them are present and gorgeous. The dragon's blood is richly resinous and almost tart, and the deeper quieter frankincense adds some warmth to the scent, backing up the resinous notes of the dragon's blood. The blackcurrant is juicy and tart, backed up by a rich syrupy blackberry that elevates the tartness and keeps it from going sour. The sugared violets are a delicate waft over the rest that is fairly subtle on my skin but really adds an airier lighter note keeping the scent from being sticky. There is just the hint of something green in the backdrop of this scent, perhaps the leaves of the violet are here too, and it helps keep the scent fresh despite the elements of resinous sweetness.

This is indeed magical! The ambergris and oris team up to make a creamy, foamy aquatic scent. The fir and cypress bring this to the wooded coast, fresh and pleasantly sharp in their evergreen nature and well balanced between both types of trees. The addition of moonflower takes this somewhere very special and magical though. It's a subtle moonflower, not heady as it can sometimes be, like just opening buds. This is perhaps a witch's garden in the woods by the sea, a peaceful place but one that seems a slight side step from reality.

This is 100% a California peach as backdrop. This is stunningly the scent of eating a peach while out hiking in the California chaparral! Sage, citrus rind, and poppy dance over the peach backdrop in this on my skin. In the background, there is the hint of lilac on the dry breeze. There's something very dry about this scent, that is reminiscent of that California chaparral. I'm not getting much currant, but I suspect it's helping round out the fruitiness of the peach and citrus. I love this and am very excited to have some!

This scent is very true to its notes. It's a tangy slightly sour but in the best way yellow peach and bright tart just bitten into kumquat. This is actually less sweet on my skin than in the bottle, and that's a good thing. All the slightly candied edge to the scent in the bottle vanishes on my skin, ending up with a scent very close to the actual fruit. There's no stickiness to the sweetness that remains, making it a very refreshing scent.

I was gifted a 2005 bottle in the wonderful @CardamomVanilla's PIF. Having looked back over reviews, someone who noted the comparison to the aquatic of Cthulhu but in a winter wood sense made me excited to smell it even before it arrived. I am thrilled to report a similar experience. I smell the birch and fir, softly blanketed in snow, but there is an underlying somewhat marine aquatic that makes me think of being in the WA coast woods in the snow, just near enough to catch a bit of the ocean smell, but eith the rich scent of the woods enveloping me, and minty herbal notes richly being brought out by the icy snow. This is delightful and reminds me of winter (cabin) camping trips. If this gets made again, I'm likely to try to pick up a bottle of the newer formulation.

I'm not personally familiar with Tom Ford Lost Cherry, but looking up the notes it looks like it's cherry, almond, vanilla, amber as sort of the predominant note set. Looking through the General Catalogue, here are some possibilities that might appeal based on the notes (this is very not my scent profile, so I can't speak to most of these scents): ▪︎Kabuki (Ars Amatoria) - Compelling, complex, and utterly enigmatic: a luxuriant, exotic blend of cherry, red musk, and star anise. ▪︎The Red Queen (Mad Tea Party) - Deep mahogany and rich, velvety woods lacquered with sweet, black-red cherries and currant. ▪︎Blood Kiss (Bewitching Brews) - Lush, creamy vanilla and the honey of the sweetest kiss smeared with the vital throb of husky clove, swollen red cherries, but darkened with the vampiric sensuality of vetiver, soporific poppy and blood red wine, and a skin-light pulse of feral musk. ▪︎Blood (Bewitching Brews) - A vital, bold scent, throbbing with sensuality. Essence of dragon’s blood resin, thickened with myrrh and cherry, with a trickle of clove. ▪︎Vice (Sin and Salvation) - Voluptuous and indulgent! A deep chocolate scent, with black cherry and orange blossom. ▪︎Hollywood Babylon (Wanderlust) - The essence of innocence shattered: glittering Egyptian amber and heliotrope, infused with the sweetness of strawberry and vanilla – dragged into debauch by lusty red musk and a dribble of black cherry. There might well be LEs or special collections that aren't available as imps that are a better fit. I know that this year's Lupercalia collection had a lot of cherry scents in it.

I got this as a frimp, and while I'd sniffed it before, I'd not given it a proper test. On my skin, the copal incense is a lightly smoky resinous waft. There's a slightly metallic tang to the scent that underlies it, but is also a touch jarring. It's not bad, but it's not great on me either. I'll be passing it along to someone who appreciates it more.

I got this as a frimp, and it seemed worth testing out. The description is interesting but not super helpful in guessing what it would smell like. Amber is an iffy note for me, and I think that this is one of the amber notes that turns odd and gummy resin on my skin, with perhaps a tiny bit of offputting to me sharp sweet myrrh (a note that truly hates my skin). Not for me, I'll pass it along to someone whose skin chemistry doesn't play so poorly with whatever's in here.

The cala lily is the leading note on this for me, unsurprising as I tend to amp lily, and excellent as I love lily. This is a freshly bloomed cala lily and it especially reminds me of the darker varietals. It's a soft, spicy-sweet floral on my skin. The slightly peppery chrysanthemum supports and complements the cala lily beautifully. This is perhaps my very favorite of the lab's frankincense notes as well, a softly spicy resinous warmth that acts as a base for the two star flowers. The daphne and rose while present are very much in the background of this on my skin. They add to the overall floral, gardenlike element, but aren't prominent. The amber mostly just seems to be powering up the resinous notes of the frankincense for me because I'm not getting any distinct amber. Overall, this is the lovely cousin of the GC Seraphim for me. I like this better because it's smoother and more balanced towards my favorite notes, but I appreciate that Seraphim is more readily available.

A storm is blowing in over the ocean, carried on salt sea air. There's a distant ozonic note that heralds the storm. Standing amidst cedar and cypress grown on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Their scent is partially whipped away by the breeze, but it remains a soft backdrop. Snowdrops, soft and floral and fresh, bloom along the trail and the cliff face, their scent softening the edge of the oncoming storm. I get very little in the way of berries or aloe from this. Perhaps the aloe is adding to the aquatic element of the scent, but the berries just aren't showing up. Overall, I love this! It's very evocative of being near the ocean and a type of weather I love, and snowdrops are an excellent note for me.

Soft lotus blooms in a breeze at twilight. The wisteria and cassia blossoms are blooming further off and wafting on the breeze. Cymbidium and bamboo grow along the shore of the lotus pond adding floral and sweet green freshness to keep the lotus from getting too sweet. This is beautiful and evokes a cool and breezy evening. Definitely glad I was able to get a hold of it through Etsy!

Since I'm not personally familiar with CK1, I went and looked at reviews to get an idea of the notes and see if it seemed to align with any GC scents that might be interesting to someone. The impression that I've gotten is CK1 is citrus + floral + green notes with some warmer/woody/resin scents underneath. Going through GC scents that seem to have similar vibe (I'll note personal recommendations): - Muse (Ars Amatoria): A light, invigorating floral and citrus blend. Tuberose, lotus and jasmine with a hint of lime. - Embalming Fluid (Ars Moriendi): A light, pure scent: white musk, green tea, aloe and lemon. - Fae (Bewitching Brews): A brilliant, ethereal scent: white musk, bergamot, heliotrope, peach and oakmoss. - Zephyr (Bewitching Brews): A gentle white scent, breezes laced with the scent of springtime blooms and citrus. Lemon, lemon verbena, neroli, white musk, white florals, white sandalwood, China musk, bergamot and a drop of vanilla. - Baobhan Sith (Diabolus): Grapefruit, white tea, apple blossom and ginger. [I personally find this one lovely and light, and definitely would recommend it!] - Aizen-Myoo (Excolo): Yuzu, kaki, and mikan with cherry blossom and black tea. [This one is a personal favorite and has some lovely citrus-floral going on, but low on greener notes.] - Croquet (Mad Tea Party): Pink lime, pink grapefruit, white nectarine, wild rose, sage, woody patchouli, bergamot, and ornery hedgehog musk. - Tweedledee (Mad Tea Party): Ridiculous! Kumquat, white pepper, white tea and orange blossom. [I love this one, but it smells wildly different on different people.] - Night Gaunt (Picnic In Arkham): Their scent of their slick, rubbery hides is bittersweet, ticklish, and skin-creeping: something akin to yuzu, white grapefruit, and kumquat mixed with the snow-dusted flowers of Mount Ngranek. [This is a personal favorite and is pleasantly sharp and airy, with a lovely kick of citrus and white florals. Don't let the Picnic in Arkham style descriptions through you off.] - Shanghai (Wanderlust): The crisp, clean scent of green tea touched with lemon verbena and honeysuckle. [This is another one that I like a lot! It's beautiful and airy and fresh.] - Whitechapel (Wanderlust): A gentlemen’s blend, possessed of dignity, charm and refinement, but in truth masking a corrupted, hideous, soulless core. White musk, lime, lilac and citron. Since these are all GC, they can be gotten as imps, and if the person really likes them, they'd be replaceable. Didn't through the long term collections or the LE scents. Hopefully this is a useful starting place to dig through reviews from!

Lily of the valley, peach petals, and creamy ambergris take the forefront on my skin. It's soft and airy and feels sort of like a walled garden near the sea, I can't smell something specifically oceanic, but the smell of this has that quality of air that you find in sheltered places near the ocean. The resinous elements of the amber are still airy, and while present are quiet, just bringing some warmth to the scent. The rose sandalwood is a very quiet herbal-floral-woody note that adds to the feel of this being a garden. I adore this, and it really favored my favorite notes in it on my skin.

A stone bluff in the pine forest surrounded by fresh mountain air. There is a bright crispness to this scent that I don't often associate with forest/woody smells. It definitely reminds me of hiking at altitude among pine trees, but specifically being above the main part of the forest. The breeze here is calm but moving, the stone is a bit sun warmed but not too hot. There are definitely some mineral notes in there from the stone, perhaps a mountain stream not too far away, but nothing notably aquatic, just that water has touched some of this stone, but the air is fairly dry, so not like it was rained on recently. It's a very evocative scent, really bringing to mind a place, and that's something that I definitely appreciate!

Muguet and Ylang Ylang battle to be on top of this scent for me. The muguet is winning very narrowly, much to my delight as it is a favorite scent, but there is quite a bit of Ylang Ylang. Together, they are a pleasantly sharp, white floral mix that is rather energizing. There is a soft waft of roses underneath that reigns in the sharpness of the scent just a little, but the roses are definitely an afterthought on my skin. I'm definitely going to be playing with layering this one (one of the things that I like about three notes and duets).

Someone early in the reviews mention Chinese dried salty plum candies, and that's definitely resonating for me! Even more so though, this scent reminds me of the aroma of making salty plum candies and pickled plums with my foster family. Really the only thing that it's missing is star anise to fully evoke that memory (I may try layering it with an anise forward scent at some point to evoke that part even more strongly). It's tart plums, warmed with brown sugar and clove. Sassafras lends some of the herbal, earthy notes of the other herbs and spices that would go in to the cooking down of the plums for candies and pickled plums. This is a delight, and while it is sweet, it's not too sweet.

Salty sea spray and slightly medicinal (but in a way I like) herbs from the bay rum. There's a salty dry wood note that is definitely present, and I'm not getting much of the leather note, which I certainly don't mind. I'm glad that I've picked up a bottle, especially as this is a beard oil that I can get more of, and it will be nice for when I don't want a fruity beard oil (my main non-BPAL beard oil smells of marionberries) or to smell like 10,000 trees (the only readily available to me in retail beard oil I'm not allergic to, I'm glad to be finding alternatives). I suspect that I will lean towards pairing this with my go to aquatics (such as Cthulhu and Sea of Glass) over some of my softer florals and fruit scents that it might overwhelm. It might do pretty well with some of my more resin based scents (I have a fair bit of stuff with Dragon's Blood, or maybe something like Dulle Grite). Jolly Roger isn't really a scent that I would immediately reach for as a perfume, but as a beard oil, it's doing a good job! It definitely has imparted luster to my beard, and I didn't need as much of it to get through my entire beard as I do a lot of beard oils (but having a dropper means that it was easy for me to get the amount that I needed, it's a much better beard oil set up than the type of lid that you have to shake drops out from). It absorbs well, not leaving my beard feeling greasy either. These are very good things with a beard that falls to mid-chest and is fairly dense. Formulation wise, this is one of the best beard oils I've gotten my hands on. I'm definitely planning on seeking out a wider variety of the BPAL beard oils that sound appealing to me, and hope to see more made at some point!

This reminds me of walking through an evergreen forest in the warmth of the afternoon after a morning's rain. There is fresh bright cypress and juniper, and in the understory there's some wild ginger (that's got to be the galangal), the eucalyptus is bringing that fresh steam in the forest note I suspect, but it doesn't smell like eucalyptus specifically. It's fresh and forest on my skin, and I very much enjoy it!