marared
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Workman Displaying His Sexual Prowess and Gigantic Size of His Member in a Variety of Situations
marared replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Lupercalia
Dude, I love BPAL's apricot. This is bright and fresh apricot-tinged ginger, and I feel like this would make an ah-mazing variation on a mimosa. Not particularly alcoholic right off the bat, but the sandalwood starts moving in after about 1-2 minutes, and yes, that is vanilla *soaked* sandalwood - this is not vanilla-sweet, but it's there as a supporting note, and I find it's more apparent on a really deep inhale. It's 80 degrees today and this is just a great warm-weather scent - while it is not cool, it is definitely refreshing. Downside, it seems to fade pretty quickly. I've had this on for five or six minutes and my skin started eating it around minute 4. It's still there, just cool apricot and ginger left. I am definitely going to hang on to this and test it over the next several months to see if it gets stronger with time. -
Right out of the bottle, it's a light, fresh, delicate, juicy single note apricot. Absolutely beautiful and wearable just like that. Within 5-10 minutes, the cream musk makes itself known, making the scent ... creamier. Still very fresh and springtime-ish, just less juicy. The vanilla is very light, the bergamot isn't even noticeable, although the scent definitely has a golden feel to it. Feminine, pretty, not too much throw but plenty noticeable at the wrist.
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2025 version. Rose and I don't generally play well together, but every now and then I'm pleasantly surprised by something, so I try decants from time to time, and this has been so popular that I figured I'd give it a shot. I chose poorly. This is absolutely ghastly on me. In the imp it's not too bad - creamy rose, but there's a weird shot of something like shortbread cookie in it (maybe the mallow?). Surprisingly, the jasmine is not indolic or overpowering. But as soon as I tried it on, I had to go scrub it off. The second it hits my skin, it explodes into ultra concentrated rose-and-shortbread-cookie scented laundry detergent with massive throw, and it took three washes with Dawn and scrubbing my arm with a Stridex pad just for 2-3 wipes of an imp wand. Wow. I'm gonna save this for a friend who wears rose well, but until then it's getting buried in a box.
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I agree with Numanoid that this is reminiscent of Boomslang. I went through a phase a couple years ago where I ordered a bunch of coffee-themed BPAL, and they were all just okay, but this? This is amazing. Deep rich chocolatey coffee, no weird fruity zing that some types of coffee beans have. It starts out somewhat bitter as advertised - in a good way - but gets a little sweeter and caramelly with time, and it's reeeeally putting me in the mood for an affogato.
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Freshly landed decant. I ordered it partly because I'm a long-time Loreena McKennitt fan, partly because I love oakmoss. I sniffed without checking the notes and I was like "this smells like ... cloth?" How does Beth DO that? It literally smells gold and green. The cloth impression goes away as soon as it hits my skin, and the oakmoss picks up steam almost immediately - which is just fine with me. I am not really picking up the balsam, but this is overall very dry, warm, resinous, and I don't know if I'd call it Christmassy but it works fine for a winter season scent. It is quite strong on my wrist, but not a whole lot of throw, although that might change with some body heat. After about five minutes - oh, there's the balsam. It's still very oakmoss heavy. Adding a full size bottle to my wishlist pronto.
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Extremely plummy indeed, and something in this smells of old-school BPAL. It takes me straight back to 2008. Bright juicy plum, spicy clove, sweet with honey. Very spring floral, quite a lot of throw. I was surprised to find out mogra is Indian jasmine - jasmine can be kinda poopy on me and this is definitely not. I wouldn't call it delicate, though; it's pretty strident on me.
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This is a very dry scent. Low-key leather and incense is at the forefront for the first couple of minutes, and then slowly the beeswax starts to sing. The vanilla is not particularly strong, but it lends a very gentle sweetness alongside the beeswax, whereas the galbanum imparts the earthiness. Snooty Bat is much louder, sweeter, and generally demanding of attention, whereas Nouria is content to just do her thing in the background. I like this a lot. Edit to add that it became a lot more strongly vanilla later on.
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Unlike Opium Poppies, this announces itself as Snake Oil right off the bat. It's red and spicy and floral, very strong, tons of throw. Not as much clove as I was expecting, much more of the allspice. Snake Oil often goes a little play-doh-y on me, and I do detect a bit of dough here but it's well camouflaged. More sugared vanilla than patchouli, too. I don't think I'm going to reach for this very often, but I think it will be quite popular with the SO fans.
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As the others have mentioned, this is not really an identifiably Snake Oil blend, at least not on the surface. Once it's had a chance to sit on my skin for a while, the SO is there when I sniff really deeply, but the main presentation is plum and poppy with the dark and drowsy opium/laudanum running through it. I thought this would be similar to Strawberry Moon 2024 and I was correct - this is cooler and more purple in feel. Much to my surprise, it even reminds me a little of my beloved Penumbra.
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Fresh out of the mailbox, on first sniff I thought it smelled just like a Luper from three years ago, Penis Bound With Gold Ribbon, and in fact has mostly similar notes. I don't have it anymore to compare side by side - I sold it off because it didn't work all that well with my chemistry. I was a little skeptical of this at first because of PBWGR, but after a few days of rest, Seule actually works better on me. The skin musk is the most prominent, which is what I was hoping for - warm, glowy amber underneath it, with just a touch of lemon. Delightful spring scent. Not a whole lot of throw, wonderful for canoodling. I've also tried the previously mentioned White Honey, Lemon Peel, and Salt, but I thought that was a lot more bracing and tart than this. Another sister scent would be Sed Non Satiata - SNS is a lot more potent and more floral, but it has the skin musk.
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Boney Moon: Piñon and Blackened Lavender
marared replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
This was a little punchy on arrival and I had to let it settle down for a couple days before I could review it. In the bottle: very dry lavender. First on the skin: very intense dry lavender, with piñon wood behind it. After a few minutes, the wood comes to the forefront. The two notes battle it out for dominance - every few minutes they swap, and it goes on like this for 10-15 minutes until they finally decide to play nice together. Piñon is a southwestern pine tree with edible nuts. There's a wonderful incense of it that you can buy from shops in New Mexico, California, etc, and it has a campfire quality to it, with a hint of burnt sugar sap - I don't smell any of that that slight sweetness here. It settles into bone-dry lavender incense. There's enough throw that I can smell it when my hands move at normal working distance from my face. I don't find it "relaxing" in that I wouldn't wear this to bed the way I do other lavender blends, it's just a bit too strong and distracting. It's very pretty, though, after it's had a chance to settle on the skin. -
This was not at all what I expected in the end - I bought it to support the cause, but it was a surprise hit. In the bottle and freshly applied, it's very citrussy - bright, fresh tangy, a bit of powderiness from the amber, cool sweet musk. When it dries and has had a couple of hours on my skin, though, it morphs quite a lot - but in a really good way. The citrus mostly evaporates (as it often does), leaving the honey and amber as the star of the show, and they meld together so well that they don't even stand out as traditional notes. Champaca can be really grapey headshoppy, but here it's just a warm, glowing incense sort of smell. If you liked La Ofrenda, this has kinda the same vibe but less floral. I put it on before work this morning for the first time, noted that it was mostly citrus and musk, and a couple hours later I kept thinking "What smells so good? Is it me? It IS me!" and I was astonished at how much the scent had changed and how good it was.
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This was a surprise hit for me. I bought it because it had similar notes to Gloom Meeting, which is my favorite hair gloss. It didn't really work for me when I first got it, so I put it away for a while, and I checked on it today after fifteen months. Whoa. This is an incredible oakmoss wrapped in dark musk and amber - it's warm, rich, and velvety just like the description. My primary concern when I ordered it was the russet musk, afraid it would be too much like red musk, which I amp to high heaven, but it is definitely not. The sandalwood is very dry and it's there from the start, but it becomes more prominent over time and the whole impression becomes less sweet/resinous, but it's still extremely grown-up and decadent. Wear it on a date to a fancy restaurant! ETA: I've been obsessed with this all weekend, and it's gotten into my hoodie sleeves, where I notice "red" musk a great deal more than I do in the bottle or on my skin.
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Aged a year: This is all sparkly sugar plum. There's a little bit of stickiness from the marshmallow, but I wouldn't be able to tell you this had lavender if I didn't already know. It makes me think of Extreme Sour Warheads, with that sour powder coating and sweet candy inside.
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I got this a week ago and it was so powerful in the bottle I couldn't even try it on, I had to put it in a drawer to calm down a little. It's still pretty loud even now. Many of the Dead Leaves scents mention a bell pepper scent, which I had never personally smelled. This is not a Dead Leaves scent, but sniffing the bottle, it's almost all bell pepper. Once I convinced my nose to get past that impression, I mostly smell the black pepper and charred wood, and just a little bit of the vetiver and amber. On my skin, it changes dramatically. The wood is now at the forefront and no bell pepper, but it's a little weird. Peppery wood, but there's still a slightly vegetal zing to it and I don't like that. I let it sit for about ten minutes and that vegetal zing has faded, thankfully, and it has now morphed into smoky, scorched vetiver with an undercurrent of wood and amber. I have not been able to pick out the clove and nutmeg at all, the vetiver, pepper, and wood are so strong that they're just overwhelmed. This is not a gentle scent at all. The throw is not quite as intense as it was in the bottle when I first got it, but people are gonna smell you coming.