ShadowEtienne

Saffron in this is definitely the spicy floral note that reminds me of the whole saffron crocus. Its sweetened and made more floral by the honey, but it's a light, not cloying honey that is almost nectary. The ti leaf adds a vibrant growing greenness to the scent that really works (a lot of green leaf type scents just overwhelm anything else on my skin, but this melds well with the rest and is in balance). On my skin, the sandalwood is nowhere to be found and I don't mind at all. This is bright and cheerful and soothing, and I'm very very pleased with it.

A thin, sinuous, creeping chill, the scent of glee-filled undeath: white iris, osmanthus, Calla lily, tomb-crawling ivy and a coffin spray of gladiolus, lisianthus and delphinium. This smells like a flower garden in bloom on an early morning in the fog. The cala lily and gladiolus are the most distinct floral notes for me, which is delightful because I love both. I can definitely get the iris and delphinium floating just beneath them. It's a light and airy and quietly peaceful sort of smell, and very much in my wheelhouse. I got this imp from a friend, and it's definitely something I would consider a full bottle of.

Woody, spicy, resinous incense in an open window near the sea as a storm blows in. It's not raining yet but you can smell the storm in the air. The resinous incense softens the sharpness of that storm tang of ozone, blending into something airy like the stillness before the storm. It definitely feels like night is falling, things are quiet, but there is anticipation in it. I was uncertain how I'd feel about this one from reviews, but I've been having pretty good luck in the Picnic in Arkham scents, and this one sounded like a maybe. Overall, I quite like it. It's very evocative, and I am very fond of that watching a storm blow in mood.

This is a sweetly blooming meadow of wildflowers in a deciduous forest for me. There might be one pine tree in the distance somewhere, but the tree notes are mostly maple and birch on my skin and too my nose. The trees are in the background though, and the wildflowers take center stage. They're dewy and freshly bloomed in the morning, and it's hard to pick out any single wildflower, they're just growing together in a cacophony of florals. This is nice, but I think I'm going to need to try layering it with something, possibly an aquatic to make it feel a little more right to me. Not my favorite Picnic in Arkham scent, but I'm glad I've gotten to try it.

I was too curious not to pick this up when I got the chance, and honestly, slightly to my surprise, I adore this! Resinous ginger is what the entire scent is based around on my skin, reminding me of the ginger chewy candies, the ones that aren't really that sweet but instead are delightfully punchy ginger. They've been covered in tart spicy peppers and my beloved anise, and it's like nothing I've ever actually smelled before while also somehow smelling exactly like the the spices in a Chinese grocery. I love this, I'm glad I took the risk on my curiosity.

The pomegranate in this is the seeds freed from the rind. Its sweet and fresh but not yet dripping its juice. There's a subtleness to the scent of just the seeds, still whole. There's also an almost floral element to this pomegranate that I'm enjoying. The juniper takes back seat to the pomegranate on my skin, but it's fresh and crisp, with just a hint of sap that one might get if a twig had been freshly snapped from the tree. Overall, this is a bright and fresh blend, and I really like the way the notes work together.

On me this is pretty well balanced between the mango and the green tea. It's a very ripe, sweet, floral mango. The sweetness is tempered and made not sticky by the airy floral green tea. This is simple, but a lovely blend, and I could see it layering really well.

On my skin, coconut is the base that everything else builds off. There's just this lovely underlying wash of coconut, very fresh and creamy but not sweet. Jasmine and plum blossom waft over it, floral and freshly blooming and airy, but very present. They meld beautifully with the creaminess of the coconut. The ginger and pink pepper are almost floral, but also a gentle spice added to the floral creamy mix. Orris root, oakmoss, and benzoin never show up to the party, though they may be what is holding back any sweetness from coming into this scent. I'm honestly not missing them at all here though. This is a beautiful fresh scent!

I was recently at the Portland Chinese Garden while the lotus were blooming so the scent is pretty fresh in my mind. That fresh lotus bloom scent is definitely present here, and is to me the predominant note. There's a host of other flowers, definitely some lilies to my nose, possibly some star jasmine. It very much smells like a Chinese garden but standing near the blooming lotus. The resins are a soft background note, grounding the rest of the scent. I only get the barest hint of citrus, to the point that I can't identify a specific citrus, just a vague hint of tartness. Overall, this is lovely, and I'm excited to have it!

My favorite GC with cinnamon is Wrath (Sin and Salvation/Seven Deadly Sins) - dragon’s blood spiked with black pepper, clove, and cinnamon. I like BPAL's dragon's blood note a lot, and I like spices but not at all foody as a scent type.

Cedar and pine are there in the background on me, but upon hitting my skin, a sweet soft floral note that reminds me of Prague and Cloth of Gold and I'm pretty sure is crocus rushes to the front, dragging a soft slushy ice of a melting river with it. This scent is the end of winter in the woods to me. Flowers are just starting to bloom, the sap is moving more vigorously in the trees again, and the river is melting and cracking and there is slush all along its banks where the flowers are bursting from the melting snow. There's a bare hint of mint in there, just adding to the coolness of the scent. This is delightful and I love it, but it isn't what I was expecting. I'm glad I grabbed a bottle!

On my skin, this is predominantly an airy waft of fresh lilies. It's a soft lily scent, but definitely maps over the other notes on my skin. There's a creaminess to it that I tend to attribute to BPAL's ambergris note, and the barest hint of a light slightly spicy wood that brings out the slight spicy lily note that I attribute to sandalwood here. It's interesting to see how much of a difference skin chemistry makes because unlike the reviewer above me, everything else is in support of the lily on my skin.

This is far and away predominately green tea on my skin. There are hints of lemon verbena (lemony and a touch mint adjacent) and just bloomed honeysuckle from outside the window, but the cup of freshly brewed green tea is right under my nose. This is exactly what I'm looking for when I need something that smells like home to my brain, it's simple and elegant and just so much delicious green tea (it specifically smells like a pan fried Chinese green tea such as Long Jing Cha / Dragonwell).

The sunken city of the Great God Cthulhu. A hellishly dark aquatic scent, evocative of fathomless oceanic deeps, the mysteries of madness buried under crushing black waters, and the brooding eternal evil that lies beneath the waves.  This is fascinating! I've liked all the aquatics I've tried from A Picnic in Arkham so far: Cthulhu, Yha'nthlei, and now R'lyeh. This one is more different from the other two than they are from each other. This invokes dark still water of the ocean close to shore, perhaps even lapping it's way into a cave. I get wafts of salt, kelp, and something deep and resinous and smoky that I think might be opium smoke as a note because it reminds me of A Forest Reverie. There's a bare hint of something fruity that adds sweetness and reminds me of dried, candied pomelo or maybe grapefruit, but a particularly sour one. There's also a floral touch that reminds me of wilting lilies (a good smell, but one that also is somehow appropriately ominous). This is fascinating! I think that Cthulhu is my favorite of the Picnic in Arkham aquatics that I've tried, but R'Lyeh is interesting in how it is different!

Aquatics in general do pretty well on me, as do citrus and eucalyptus, so I was excited to smell this when my sister got a frimp to the point that I ordered an imp to have around and do a proper wear test of it. Yha'nthlei and Cthulhu are definitely cousins of scents. The smell of Yha'nthlei reminds me of being on the water, bot to far from the coasts where you can still smell land but the scent of the saltwater is deep and fresh. The ambergris gives this a smoother feeling than Cthulhu, but it still has the aquatic sharpness that I'm fond of, that the eucalyptus meshes really well with. This is definitely entering my ongoing rotation of aquatic scents with Cthulhu and Lightning (and probably more to come).

I never got the chance to smell Blood Countess, but it sounds fascinating! Depending on what you like about it, and how things play on your skin, I wonder if The Forest Reverie (GC - Bewitching Brews) might give some of the same vibes.

The lab's dragon's blood note tends to work well on me, it's sweetly spicy and resinous. That makes up the base here, definitely noticeable and identifiable. The galbanum is there adding more layers to the resin and a slightly sharper more herbal resinous note. I don't think that I'd like the galbanum note much alone, but as a supporter to the Dragon's blood in the resinous backdrop, it brightens and sharpens the scent in a pleasant way. Growing fresh and sweet and in full bloom atop the resins are an entire lilac bush and sweet freshly bloomed lily of the valley. This is definitely the scent of the whole plant for both, not just the flower. The greenery blends well with that herbal resinous element of the galbanum, and the two flowers play very nicely together on my skin. The scent is very true to its notes, and I'm very pleased with it.

This one takes a little while to settle on my skin, but I do really like where it ends up. As it settles in, all the notes that end up being there take turns being out of balance. I was worried it was going to not turn out great, and then about 15 minutes in, everything balanced out into the really lovely, evocative scent it landed on. A sweetly spicy resinous smoke with the barest hint or rose wafts through a clearing in evergreen woods where long overgrown grapevines are surrounded by sweet fresh lilies. It really does evoke a dreamlike place in the forest. Liles as always amp on me, so they bloom sweetly here, but the rest of the scent holds up to them. This is delightful! I am very very sure looking at the reviews and also just with the wildly unbalanced settling phase on my skin that this is one that will be wildly different on different people.

This isn't a scent I normally would have picked out, but I was frimped it by the lab in an etsy order, and it's one of the GC beard oils (though currently out of stock so I will get to see if it comes back), and one of the few that sounds tolerable and I need a new beard oil. Leather is usually a note I avoid, but I was glad to have a chance to sample this imp to see if I would be interested in getting the beard oil if/when it came back. On my skin, this is primarily soft woods with rosewood taking center stage. I like the way rosewood smells, so I'm pretty pleased with that. It has undercurrents of smokey-spicy incense and something tannic (probably leather, but the good part of leather smell to me). It does smell a little bit of old library in a good way. While I'll probably not be wearing this as perfume (and will likely pass it on to someone who will get better use of it), I'm definitely interested in picking up the beard oil. I'd like to switch to a BPAL beard oil, and this is better than the only other readily available ones to me which are basically fell face first into several trees. I can see why people are super into this as a scent too!

My first impression of this is that it definitely shares some notes with Prague, but the winter version. I suspect at least some of the floral in there is crocus (shared note, also would make sense with the label). There's a creamy snowy floral element to this too, and a hint of saffron. Overall, this is a lovely smooth floral, that definitely evokes the first blooms as winter turns to spring for me. I'm happy to have picked some up when it got put up on etsy.

I got a bottle of this off etsy just recently, slightly nervous from all the negative reviews, but knowing that lily of the valley is a note that works well on me from the lab generally, and I like it with resins. On me, this is a soft, creamy lily of the valley, still fresh but towards the end of it's bloom. That layers over a soft, spicy, fruity resinous scent from the opoponax. It's simple but beautiful on my skin. I suspect from the reviews that this is one that goes a lot of different ways with skin chemistry, but if lily of the valley plus resins is generally good for you, it might be worth a shot.

So I like durian, don't love it but like it, especially in the context of durian paste mooncakes which I've had a few times. Durian also doesn't smell vile to me fresh (I lucked out on the smelling front on that one), though the inside definitely smells better than the outside. With that out of the way, I was intrigued when I got to smell a friend's bottle of this, and was able to get a decant from said friend's bottle. This smells and tastes sort of like the paste made with durian for the inside of mooncakes to me. It's got that custardy tart very slightly musty but like in a good way scent-flavor from the durian and a bright warm sweetness from the honey while not being too sweet. The brandy is an interesting balancing note, bringing some more warmth and spice to the blend. I love this (more than I like durian of its own accord), and I am fascinated at how well it captures the best elements of durian.

This is lovely on my skin! The most forward notes are a pretty evenly balanced set of the floral and tea. The lily of the valley, is a gentle and fresh, the orange blossoms are sweet and lightly citrusy, and the jasmine tea is freshly brewed, it's aroma wafting through the garden where these flowers grow. The honey and apple both behave on my skin, which they do not always do, bringing a crisp juiciness of a just sliced apple, definitely green, but not all skin or too tart, and the soft sweetness of a lightly floral honey. The sandalwood is barely there, just adding a touch of grounding woodiness that helps keep the scent from getting too sweet. These flowers and tea notes tend to be winning notes on my skin, and I adore both lily of the valley and jasmine, so this definitely works for me, and I'm very excited for the decant that I managed to get a hold of!

I love the Lunar New Year scents and have at least small quantities of most of them at this point. Earth Dog was one that I was nervous about because patchouli generally does not love me, but I figured in such a complex blend, where the rest of the blend generally is things that work so well for me, I needed to try it (other LNY blends with things I'm iffy on have worked well for me). I was able to get a decant from a forum order (thank you!!!), and I'm so glad that I've managed it because this is indeed lovely, and the patchouli doesn't seem to be causing me problems. Like all of the LNY scents, the overarching scent profile seems to be the dried and candied fruit put out on lacquered trays at LNY with a backing of some soft airy peony, plum blossom, and peach blossom. Citrus is the strongly predominant fruit here, lots of orange/kumquat/mandarin, and the lychee while there is pretty quiet on me. The lotus note is an interesting addition to the floral, but it's not a loud part of the floral mix. The fruit floral combo is warmly backed by the resins and slight woodiness here. This is definitely the woodiest of the LNY scents for me. I suspect that the patchouli is playing supporting note to sandalwood to achieve this, but I'm fortunately not picking up any distinct patchouli. Overall, while this isn't my favorite LNY blend, I'm excited to have it, and glad that the patchouli didn't ruin it for me. I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye out for a bottle!

I love the Lunar New Year scents and have most of them in at least a small amount at this point. Water Tiger (2022) shares some really prominent notes with Water Rabbit (2023) and Fire Cock (2017), especially in that they all three have the "sticky rice cakes" note. Like most LNY blends, the overarching scent profile is citrus and the enamel candied and dried fruit trays that get put out for LNY, backed with some beautiful drifting floral and resin notes. So far, I'd say that Water Tiger is one of the most resinous and herbal smelling blends, which is not something that I would have necessarily expected. It really reminds me of the scent of freshly brewed sticky-rice pu'erh leaves! (The sticky rice scent in sticky rice pu'erh is achieved with an herb that has a scent and flavor very similar to sticky rice, and they've got that spot on here.) Citrus is a prominent player here, but the sweetness is less prominent than in several of the other LNY blends. It's an interesting addition to the collection of LNY scents, and I really like that I have a somewhat less sweet one that still has these lovely notes!