marared
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Everything posted by marared
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This doesn't smell ANYTHING like I expected - it's unpleasantly medicinal. It's the same strawberry in Strawberry Moon, but it smells like a cough drop or strawberried Vicks vapo-rub. Very high pitched mentholated zing to it. Labdanum is usually pretty fun and effervescent and I do not smell it at all in this. It's SO weird, and I very much have ragrets at ordering this. It gets a little less medicinal with time, but it's still kind of a cough drop strawberry. Eventually, it mostly fades and the labdanum starts peeking out, but the end results are not worth what it takes to get there.
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Frottle! This is a weird and interesting scent. In the bottle, it's dark and herbal: pine and musk are the first impressions. On my skin, I get mint, but it's planty mint, not sweet mint. Something else in this reads to me as ... myrrh? It's not very strong, but it gives a dark, cool, resinous quality underneath the green plants. There's a spice in there too, but I can't decide what it is - it's one of the baking spices. Probably not cinnamon as I amp that pretty hard, maybe nutmeg? Dark fruit, too, although it's way down there in the mix. Definitely one of the more unusual BPALs I've smelled.
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In the bottle: a light, calming spa-quality scent that's not quite fruity and not quite floral, but somewhere in between. On my skin: hinoki-sandalwood incense, with the white tea giving it an airy quality. It's funny how different this is from the bottle, but I love this. If you like Embalming Fluid, I would highly suggest checking this one out - they don't really smell anything alike, but the tea is refreshing in the same kind of way. I would love this in an atmo spray or a hair gloss.
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Freshly applied: a blast of ginger and patchouli, and then Snake Oil with a touch of molasses right behind it. All I smell is the spice; I don't really get any cookie/pastry out of this until much later into the drydown stage. At that point, it's basically Snake Oil with extra ginger and a little molasses. I do get the red musk - with the caveat that I amp red musk in general - but it subsides fairly quickly. The patchouli is still quite present, though, This is one that I'm going to have to put away and test every six months for a couple of years and see what changes - I have a dodgy relationship with Snake Oil in general, and have found that if I'm gonna like it, it needs at least two years of age.
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I love Pomegranate Suf. I hated Raspberry Apricot Suf. Blackberry Apple is a “like” - mostly low-key apple with a touch of spiced pastry and just a hint of blackberry, which is odd because BPAL blackberry is usually VERY LOUD - but this is still not quite as delicious as the pomegranate. After about ten minutes, I'd say this has way more noticeable pastry scent than the other two, as well - the others were very strongly fruity, but this is much doughier.
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I have not really worn this since I originally got it. With a year and a half of age, it's bright blood orange and labdanum - the peach is there, but this is distinctively more tart-citrus with the labdanum making it quite effervescent, and the sandalwood is a nice smooth base. Within ~10 minutes or so, it loses a lot of the brightness, and at this stage I like it somewhat less. I don't dislike it, but not sure this is something I will reach for again.
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Mandarin, Black Vanilla, and Patchouli
marared replied to Seajewel's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
I don't know that I would have bought this on a blind sniff. BPAL mandarin is a chilly sort of citrus here, rendering the bottle very cool and honestly a little intimidating. On my skin, it takes a little while, but the mandarin recedes to the background, the black vanilla warms things up, and makes them almost a little toasty. The patchouli never really comes out to play - it's there but it just grounds the scent and adds to the overall toasty impression. Don't get me wrong, this is not gourmand or foodie-sweet at all, or even particularly cozy, but I went to sleep with the test dab on my hand, and it was really nice when I woke up. I'll have to try it again in a few months and see how it's changed. -
Chocolate, Cinnamon Bark, and Chipotle Honey
marared replied to Silvertree's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
From the "I Forgot I Bought This And Should Probably Test It" files. In the bottle it's a dry and spicy chocolate, definitely a Mexican hot chocolate scent as has been mentioned by others. I don't really get the chipotle or the honey, just cocoa and cinnamon. On my skin, it's much less chocolatey, gets even drier, and there's the chipotle peeking out. If you liked Caramel, Smoked Chili, and Black Vanilla, but wanted something less SWEET but still gourmand, this would be a great one to try. -
Mallow Flower, Honeysuckle, and Vanilla Bean
marared replied to Silvertree's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
I completely forgot that I ordered this, until I went through the upper shelf while looking for scents I don't wear as often. It's had a good six months to age, which is why I think I put it up there in the first place: to let the florals calm down a little. At this stage, it's a sticky-sweet, feminine, white-gold floral. Sharp at first, but it softens over time. The honeysuckle is there, but it takes a back seat to the mallow flower and vanilla - it's too flowery to be marshmallowy to my nose, but it's definitely sweet and summery. The scent is loud on my skin, and it's got quite a lot of throw even without being activated by body heat. -
Dirty hippie scent is right up my alley! The patchouli is calm and self-possessed, not fresh and stanky, the vetiver joins the frankincense and myrrh in giving it more depth but none of the vegetal or scorch that most people hate nor any of the powderiness that the resins can leave, the labdanum perks the whole scent up with just a hint of effervescence, and then amber just kinda blurs through the whole thing adding warmth. It's a very grown up, give no fucks kind of scent. If you hate vetiver, I don't think this will change your mind, but if you're on the fence, I'd give it a try.
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Piercingly sharp white floral, I'd classify it as almost aquatic. Mums are usually much richer than this, but the aldehyde is so harsh that it puts a damper on the flowers. The whole scent puts me on edge and not in a good way.
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Clove tries to dominate this right out of the bottle, as it does, but wait it out - the aloeswood shows up and calms things down and it's quite lovely. If good quality Japanese incense is too pricy for you, this would be a great alternative to drip in an oil warmer. While I would classify this as quite masculine, it's honestly very atmospheric - I would love for my whole house to smell like this in its drydown stage.
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An Aroused Prostitute From Maruyama Yukatu and a Merchant From Qing
marared replied to Seajewel's topic in Lupercalia
This smells like a Bath & Body Works candle - not a generic statement, there is a very specific scent this reminds me of and I cannot for the life of me think of what it is, but it's probably a Halloween scent, because I am totally parsing this as pumpkin rather than peach, and I have no idea why. It's loud and spicy, no cream to speak of, doesn't have a lot of depth to it - at least not so far. -
Contest of Colors, Pink Peach Blossoms and White Plum Flowers
marared replied to Seajewel's topic in Lupercalia
I originally almost posted this under Aroused Prostitute From Maruyama, because the bottles were sitting side by side and it made sense with the notes! My first impression, without checking the notes, was peach tea - it reminds me of my bag of peach oolong but less astringent. The amber comes out almost immediately and makes the peach warmer and fuzzier, and does that "expensive dryer sheets" thing that amber sometimes does, but the labdanum takes over after a few minutes and pushes the amber down. It takes a while for the other florals to peek through and they're very low-key. It's just a very warm resinous peach, and I bet this will be smashing to layer with! -
Orris root is about 85% a death note for me and I'm always a little nervous ordering something with it, but I had to give this one a shot. Loud, sweet pear, and it smells realistic at the forefront of my nose, but when I get a deeper inhale, ehhhh there's the orris root. We'll see how this develops over time. The honey, vanilla, cream, and musk are thoroughly blended and no one note really peeks out over another, it's just a very nice undercurrent to the pear. As long as I don't inhale too deeply, the orris root behaves, but I'm going to be giving this one side-eye for a while.
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Fresh out of the mailbox: absolutely delicious honeyed vanilla with just a slight bit of effervescence from the labdanum and the pink pepper. I've never smelled bushman's candle and there's nothing in this that hints at something different from the rest of the scent. The honey is NOT overpowering or sticky, but it does develop an aspect that makes me think of vanilla flavored hard candy. It's not the same vanilla, but this is what I hoped for from Love's Philosophy back in the day - I had to sell it off because it just didn't work right with my chemistry, but this is niiice.
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On me, this smells like cheesecake with strawberry compote. No pastry note that I can detect. I like Pomegranate better, but this is still super delicious!
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Dirty desserty patchouli is the ODDEST thing. I think what I am parsing as dirty is the "oily" benzoin, and the marshmallow fluff definitely qualifies as sticky. No caramel here, just gooey fluff. I'm getting some kind of soil aspect to this too. It makes me think of the marshy area around a pond where I used to go hunting for tadpoles when I was a kid. I don't know. It's so weird. Not at all what I expected!
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I am having a hard time picking out any of the actual notes except the hazelnut, but boy, this is delicious. Warm, friendly, fuzzy but not TOO fuzzy, with a little cool and bright zing from the mandarin cutting through it all. After several minutes, the "peppery" part of the musk shows up and the hazelnut and mandarin recede a bit, but it's still so so good. It's fairly strong on my wrist, but not a huge amount of throw.
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I did not parse when I first ordered it that this was blended with Snow White. I hate Snow White on my skin. It is one of the (relatively few, thankfully) scents that goes stale/sour and requires multiple scrubs to get off. So I tried TKSnow with an awful lot of trepidation, and surprisingly, it does not behave as badly as SW does on its own. There is is a period of about ten minutes where I can smell the SW and the ick is lurking, but it gets subsumed by a cool dark vanilla. Regular TKO cycles between marshmallow and lavender on me, but this one stays mostly low-key sweet.
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Fruity and cheerful! It reminds me very much of Invisible Gingerbread Man without the gingerbread and I am assuming it must be the same lemon note. BPAL's blackberry can be really loud, but here it's pretty well tamed under the lemon, and I can't even pick out the blackcurrant. It's a delightful lemon soda, something I will enjoy wearing in the spring or even just as a pick-me-up.
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Kind of a cranberry Crayola crayon, at first sniff. It's cooler than I expected - skin musk is usually very warm, but the cranberries are cold. It's a bit of okay, nothing exciting, will need to stash it for a while and see if it improves with time as musk often does.
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This one is a bit odd and I've had a hard time putting my finger on it, even after letting it sit for a few weeks. It is definitely cool blue and airy, but I don't really get the ozone or the opoponax. Vanilla is there, yes - this particular vanilla reminds me a bit of Ghosts of Aldershot without the mint. I think "medicinal" is the right description here, but I've never gotten that from benzoin, so maybe it's the tobacco giving that particular impression on my skin? After about 10-15 minutes or so, there's the tobacco - it gets darker and more masculine, but there's still that creepy blue zing underneath.
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2022 version: The pomegranate incense is what makes this for me. It's not very strong, but it's there, and it really elevates the blend. The pumpkin and leather are the strongest right off the bat, and the patchouli is an undercurrent, not too loud. After 20-30 minutes, it's mostly patchouli and leather, with a bit of butteriness from the pumpkin and the incense.
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If you like the original Oblivion, you definitely want this. Apples really elevate this into something beautiful. It's almost like a high end craft cider - smooth, not too sweet, no effervesence, just really good apples. I've been waiting it out to see if the apple turns funky at all, and thankfully so far it does not. The apple has receded after a few minutes and the wood and spices peek out. The whole scent fades quite a bit 10-15 minutes in, but it's still lovely even close to the skin. I gotta run back to the Lab and order a couple more.