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- Past hour
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This is quite lovely. Soft peach, a bit of buttery cake & a hint of almond. Sweet but no identifiable honey to my nose.
- Today
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sardine changed their profile photo
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This one feels like home. It is a spicy, sweet, bright floral with milk and honey. It feels innocent, whimsical, and comforting, likely because the milk and honey is reminiscent of baby body washes from my childhood. Perfect for spring picnics in botanic gardens, and watching the snails go about their business after a summer shower.
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Just received a bottle yesterday! Dark woody sugar syrup, and honey-citrus cough drops. This has great versatility. It is a warm, golden, and clean smell that I would find pleasing and cohesive on anybody.
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I had been trying my imp of Snake Oil lauered with my imp of Fighter, which has plenty of leather, and loved that mix, so when I saw this was available for Luper 2025 I just had to buy a bottle. In the bottle I mostly only smell the spices of Snake Oil. A bit of the musks. It took me a bit to come to love Snake Oil, some multiple tries before I really liked it, but this one is quite beautiful even though it's barely aged. The leather blooms on my skin and I think it's black leather, so it smells quite different from the Snake Oil + Fighter combo I was layering. But still good. It tones down the sweetness of the vanilla, whih I do like in the original but I also quite enjoy this take on it. It has a fairly long throw and the patchouli and vanilla and spices are so, so good, supported by the musks and leather. The musks and leather are revealed more as I wear it longer and other notes start to fade on my skin. There's still some spices too. It has a long wear time of many hours, the musks linger especially long, I've still smelled them on my skin the moening after I've been wearing it. Very nice. So glad I got a bottle. I need a bottle of regular Snake Oil too, and I would like to age them both but this is so lovely as it is I want to keep wearing it over and over again!
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I only got this one yesterday, but it's too pretty to not talk about. This is a slightly damp but sweet and crisp floral in the bottle. It is subtle and chilling, but lovely and inviting. The scent rounds out on my skin but maintains a dominant sugary blossom and vanilla. This has a self-assured serenity and sophistication which I assume is imparted by the sandalwood. The wooden note resembles that in my Tam Dao dupe, and The Hunter by I'm Sole perfume, which share cedar bases. This perfectly catches Tomie's enchanting essence.
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In the bottle, I get tangy refreshing strawberry with the slightest hint of elegant cherry blossom. The smell for me is akin to Korean Vita500 drinks and makes me think of luminous pink konpeito, red sugar clouds, and pink ribbons. Unfortunately, my skin burns away the bright citrus, leaving behind marshmallow strawberries in a pink feather tiara sort of fashion. It is redeemed and given depth by the grounding amber base. I would still wear it, but wish my skin did not warm it up so much. I only received the bottle yesterday, so hopefully it'll work with my chemistry more readily as it ages.
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@MonBon woah, incredible recs!! I actually do have Resembling The Passion of Love & Bien Loin D’ici, both of which are gorgeous. I tried Le Léthe and wasn’t wowed by it but it was a fresh imp from the Lab & I wonder if I’d like the aged bottles… i saw potential in it but it didn’t live up to debauchery or bien loin
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I have had a bottle for two years. There was some inescapable note at the top for months that I found completely repulsive. I am grateful that it has melted away. This is a nutty and uplifting floral buttercream scent. It is joyous and playful, but not juvenile. This is a wearable and polite sweet scent. For me, it evokes images of white lace frills, shortbread, and wooden cabinets. Something feels weird and unusual but if I search too hard, I lose the trail and am met with a conventional candle or soap scent.
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This was the first purchase of my modest collection. I have had the bottle for two years. It is a unique and indulgently luxurious scent. In the bottle, the metal, leather, and liqueur are dominant and sharp. On skin, it captures my childhood memories of the specific incense burnt at my grandparent's Buddhist altar, enveloped in rich and dark cream, spices, and sugar. The depth is incredible. There is a brutal and insatiable quality which makes it difficult to picture a human who'd embody this smell. Other people who I've showed this oil to found it intense and almost nauseating, despite finding the smell indescribably intriguing, and not unpleasant. It starts off as intimidating, but dries warm and comforting. A little goes a long way. I find this one invigorating to smell through the cold winter.
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sardine joined the community
- Yesterday
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When applied, this smelled to me like a mix of popcorn and marshmallow, which was fun and unexpected! With a bit of time, it became all about sweet, dry, and very lightly spiced amber. Personally, I liked it but didn't love it--I was hoping for more rice pudding and cotton candy.
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I got an imp of this both because I am searching out rose/jasmine combinations and also looking for a frangipani heavy scent. Unfortunately I don't think it's quite for me on either count. On me the rose is the strongest note, and it seems to be the same rose note that shows up in a number of the GC blends - Fleurs du Mal, Lucy's Kiss - and which goes a little sepia-toned on me, with a hint of ammonia. It's a rose note which reads to me very much as the idea of rose perfume rather than rose itself; not unpleasant by any means, but a little disappointing to me by contrast with the much brighter, more intense rose notes in other BPALs. I can also pick out a dry jasmine, and fruity tuberose. The frangipani is quite subtle on my skin. This is a reasonable floral perfume with nothing objectionable about it, but it's just not exciting me. I'll probably keep my imp, but I'll continue my quests for a frangipani scent and also for a creamier jasmine.
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Severin is a heart-throb. Wet, the leather component reminds me of a thick, hand-bound book. The heavy, thudding kind, for which you acquire special permission to check out from the University library. There's something glowing brightly around the leather's edges, perhaps bergamot as prior reviewers have mentioned. It's sharp in a masculine, cologne adjacent way. As the oil dries and the top notes burn off, things round out and Severin begins to smell like a dark-eyed poet. Perhaps he's a vampire with an extensive library of titles stretching back decades. The bergamot has seemingly curtseyed and sashayed away, peeking her head in shyly every now and then, and the leather smells almost like the soft worn leather of a beloved jacket or gloves. The tea is grounding and herbal throughout this entire experience- but late into the dry down is when it really begins to shine. Everything becomes sort of creamy and hazy at the halfway mark of wearing, becoming something less formal and a little more.... unbuttoned. Maybe now the vampire's hair is down. It's sexy and warm and inviting. The deep-dry down is reminding me quite a lot of Jareth. It's missing the lilac and oudh, which actually makes Severin a little less complex than Jareth, but they both share that "impossibly sexy" quality. Perhaps they both just make me feel impossibly sexy..... either way, I digress. Severin is an incredible fragrance, and I will forevermore mourn it's discontinuation. Sillage: Medium- But I am slowly realizing I may just apply much more perfume than other people. Longevity: About 4 hours. It was completely undetectable to my nose after about 5 hours.
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The scent matches the artwork beautifully. It’s decadent and plush and smooth all at the same time, and it does indeed smell very deep red. The red apple is central, though this isn’t a candied fruit scent. The resins, clove smoke, cashmere, and woods are in perfect balance. I am not usually a big fan of apple scents, but I full-sized this. It’s exquisite.
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Recently acquired a bottle from an Etsy drop & I'm SOOO glad I did! This is a morpher once spritzed on my hair. It’s, at once, sweet & woody with a bit of spice. Every component calms into a scent-melange of comfort. I get compliments on this whenever someone hugs me. I love it!
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In the imp, very woody and herbal, with a bit of green. On my skin, all of that but even moreso. I can't quite pick out individual notes. I don't get mint, maybe some eucalyptus, the wood is cool and dry and the leaves and herbs are very green and a bit wet. It provides a nice contrast. It's a bit sweet almost but not sugary at all. As it dries, the green leaves and herbs fade more and the woods fade too but more slowly, so they stand out. It gets more dry and warms up ever so slightly but is still largely cool. The throe started out maybe mesium to long and after a couple/few hours becomes a lot closer to the skin but I can still smell it without putting my wrist directly to my nose. I really, really love this blend and hope one day to get a bottle.
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Affirming that Deuteronomy 10:18 is amazing, adding in some other discontinued (apologies!) that have been my favorites~ •Dreams Shape the World (Amorphous streams and sparks of lavender fancies drifting through a moonlit musk, given form on this plane by fossilized amber and sweet agarwood.) •Inferior Vena Cava (a torrent of sweet oudh, patchouli, blackwood, red labdanum, and vegetal musk) •Aevum (was released only in imp size) (13-year aged patchouli, incense smoke, burgundy tar oudh, teakwood, scorched driftwood, and clove) •Sinister Restlessness (blackened vetiver, amber smoke, clove, and oudh) is another I enjoy, but don't get the oudh strongly. I’ll have to wear it again to see how it’s developed since I bought it! Shadow Snake and Snake Eyes Gleaming in Spring’s First Twilight are supposedly very oudh-y. There are lots of others the lab has made, they are just not coming to mind, at the moment…..
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Wow, I just realized I've posted my praises for Lavender Prickly Pear Shaved Ice everywhere but here 👀I don't get a lot of outright lavender from this one, but the prickly pear ends up smelling like a chilled honeydew and the lavender gives it a minty feel. This is an excellent green melon + mint salad, very refreshing, uplifting, and summer-y! I can see it going plastic/artificial for some folks - on me, it toed the line of fake melon & realistic melon, and I think the minty note helped it stay realistic enough
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Oud is incredible, I became obsessed when my friend showed me her oud collection, much of it prepared by her mother in Zanzibar. There is a Swamp Oud and Vetiver Root duet currently available - can't speak to the qualities of swamp oud though! Some other scents off the top of my head that might appeal: Hypatia (Rose water and a mineralic, star-dappled blend of white musk, crystalline amber, and sweet oud) and Deuteronomy 10:18 (Hay absolute, patchouli, agarwood, and vetiver), Also be on the lookout for agarwood in descriptions, just another name for oud.
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I want to say that this is Columns of Neptune's freshwater sister- they're both atmospherics with mineralic, aquatic, and green notes, but Die Wunderblume is sweeter and fresher from the florals and moss. The white florals are under the aquatic greens- this is more about the river and moss. It's a bit soapy and strong, like laundry detergent and a little goes a long way. I want this as a room spray or body wash. I can see what the other commentor said about carrots- there is a little something in the moss and vegetation that has something sweet and earthy like what carrots impart. DW is the moonlit woodland river nymph to CoN's sunlit temple priest that lives near the ocean. Night and day.
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Wow! Tame and dozy florals, not indolic at all. The bergamot adds a subtle brightness to it at first, but it steps down as the scent settles. The jasmine is the most recognizable in the floral blend, but it's a very well-mannered jasmine. The musk is plush and velvety. Sort of reminds me of vintage perfume. Very much a nighttime scent, illuminated by soft, warm light. Very lovely on a cool evening.
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This was a frimp, and my goodness it did not work on me. It smelled like kerosene, salt, and a touch of leather, and it was very strong. Somehow my boyfriend liked it, but I had to wash it off after 20 minutes because I found it oppressive. I didn't get an aquatic or airy feel from it as others have described.
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I tried to use the search engine with multiple different keywords and choices and nothing would come up and...The posts I COULD find through google just have a bunch of people saying that oud smells like poop lol. So I hope this post is post is okay! I just bought a soap that has Oud in it, and I am obsessed. I assume that it is the Oud, anyway, because I've not really smelled anything exactly like it, and I NEED to find it in perfume form, or something very similar. I do not get the "poop" scent at all. I found a description of it that feels right on the money for what I'm looking for, and what I get out of it when I smell it: "Oud has an enticing aroma with a unique scent profile. It lends a woody warmth to a fragrance that often feels intensely earthy, spicy, and animalic. Its brooding smoky nuance gives it a church-like smell, ensuring a more complex, dark, and bold dimension to any composition." The only perfume that I've ever worn is "So Below"; the heady, velvety scent of it is just perfect but I want to branch out. I tend to like things like vetiver, amber, and more musky/velvety scents. If anyone has any recommendations that might fit the bill I would appreciate them
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Starts out with super sweet strawberry dominating until maybe 40-60 minutes in. Then the strawberry takes a step back, and I'm getting a sweet vanilla with subtle fruit which might be the mixture of lychee and strawberry. There are alot of different notes in here that my nose is not sophisticated enough to identify, but it's well-blended and definitely smells like a pink veil as the name suggests. Some hours later, I'm noticing the marshmallow and the whole effect is very similar to Pink Fuzzy Handcuffs (which I love). Joyfully girly! Note that this testing was one week after the bottle arrived, so it's had some time to settle.
- Last week
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bloodvisions joined the community
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In the bottle I smell wormwood and maybe a bit of orris or cardamom. On my skin the wormwood really blooms and takes over everything. It's quite nearly overpowering in a way I find similar to mint, but it's not mint, it's wormwood. And so while I don't quite love it I do still really like it. I can smell the lavender and orris with it more as I wear it longer, the wormwood is just very present. A bit of cardamom? Maybe? That one comes out even more as I wear it longer. It has a decently long throw and it lasts a pretty long time, the wormwood slowly backing off and still noticeable as the perfume finally starts to fade like five or six hours later, but not overtaking everything like it was. Not quite what I was expecting but I hadn't experienced wormwood outside of actual absinthe before, but still very ethereal and pretty. Spooky.
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While some are celebrating this month's Strawberry Moon, we've gone darksided and introduced Crow Moon Lunacy instead... and 13! In addition to the expected offerings, we've launched the Lab's very first LOTION blend (previously only available via Haute Macabre's launches) as well as a handful of summery hair glosses. Beth is planning to add a new Lunacy Duet lotion each month, and I'm very much looking forward to this slippery new chapter in our collective lives. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/june-2025-lunacy/ Here's your reminder that Yule 2024 will be leaving us on July 1st! This also spells the beginning of the end for our Boney Moon/Death Moon Lunacies, which will be departing at the end of next week. (The Prophet fundraiser oils, however, will be staying up all year until the set is complete!) As ever, thank you so much for helping us get the word out about new releases as well as things you've loved from past ones. Visibility and engagement on social media profiles has been especially low, and from what we've been hearing from other small businesses, we're not alone in this. Your signal-boosting always matters, and we're always grateful for it!
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