Astarial

Sniffing the imp, most of what I get from this is honey, with just a hint of tobacco. Wet, the vanilla joins up with the honey for a sexy, sultry ménage à trois that lasts all through drydown. It's rich and sweet and warm, but never cloying. Very nice for snuggling with a lover, wrapped up in a blanket on a cold day. I never get any of the champaca magnolia (unless I'm confusing it with the vanilla), but that's okay. This is gorgeous as-is.

In the imp, I get mostly a gentle chamomile with a touch of peppery spice hitting my nose, which I think is the nutmeg. It's sort of ethereal too, which might be the effect of the chapaca.

Wet, the champaca and amber come out more. It's warm and light, but the chamomile gives it just a hint of freshness. For a while, they all combine to make me think of the smoke and warm wax of a candle that has just been blown out.

The dry stage on this is really hard to describe. Still light, still fresh, still warm. I'll have to retest to see if I can get a better impression of what's going on.

In the imp, LAAAAAVENDER YES HELLO I AM LAAAAAAAAAAVENDER! My brain seems to associate lavender with something about babies.. I'm not sure exactly what, maybe some kind of powder for them? I don't know babies. Regardless, it's not an unpleasant scent, just a little bit confusing on my brain.

On my skin, the lavender backs off and the ginger comes out to play for a while. It doesn't stick around very long, and is replaced by I think the rice wine. I don't notice any plum blossom during drydown, but it's possible it's helping to keep the lavender in check and providing some of the floral sense to this scent.

Overall, it's very pretty and elegant.

I don't really get the rose or the leaves explicitly, though I can kind of get a hint of floral and green. Mostly it's a sweet and slightly salty aquatic. The scent doesn't seem to morph at all from application through drydown.

I like it aquatics, and this is a nice example of one.. but I also tend to amp the water notes in a way that erases a lot of the distinctions between many of them. I'm not sure it's distinctive enough, on me, to merit purchasing... though I do agree with lavenderfrost that this would smell amazingly sexy on a man.

In the imp, this is fruity dark chocolate. This is what I've been hoping for from most of the chocolate scent's I've tried. Once applied, it gets richer, with a bit of spice.

The fruit backs off as it dries down, while the spice continues to amp up. After a while, the chocolate disappears entirely (as chocolate always does on me), but the fruit and spice remain. It's dark, rich, and delicious. I wish I could eat actual Blood Kiss bonbons... but I'll have to settle for this.

The red musk is strong in this one.

It's all I smell in the imp, though when I put it on, some of the myrrh and cacao come out. Musky, and nutty, and a touch sweet. As it dries down, though, all of those go away and leave just red musk. And a kind of stinky red musk, at that.

This isn't a huge morpher at all, to my nose. From imp through drydown, it's aquatic and salty, with a hint of fresh sweetness. It's well blended too, so it's very hard to pick out the individual notes in play.

Edit: I think it reminds me of what I was hoping for with Spell of the Eastern Sea. Where something in that (maybe the salt + willows) smelled weirdly foody, the salt musk in this avoids that. This one has the fruity and musky notes that the other one doesn't, but they really are light enough that they simply enhance the impression of fresh sea, rather than making you think "sea + other things".

In the imp this smells of mandarin and passionfruit, with a hint of woodiness.

The mandarin really blooms when applied to my skin, and for a few minutes it's a pure, sweet, tart orange, before being joined by the rose and amber. Unfortunately, this doesn't do it any huge favors, and it turns into an odd sort of creamy baby powder combined with amber powder (yes, they're different powders to my nose), with a slighty overlay of orange and rose. The passionfruit never reappears.

Not really what I was hoping for.

I don't really know why, but in the imp this gives me the strongest impression of Lilith vs. the Giant Crab. Something about how the notes combine would make me swear there was tangerine in it. I think it must be the apple blossom combining with a touch of the tea? The only note they have in common is sandalwood, but I'm not picking up on any of that.

That impression disappears pretty quickly on my skin, and the tea and bamboo come out more strongly while the apple blossom takes a good step back from "tangerine" and stays more true to what I expect it to be.

As it dries, it continues to mellow out, though happily the sandalwood never plays a leading role. The bamboo, I think, comes out and lends a little creamy woodiness to the party, grounding the tea and apple blossom a bit. I can see the comparison to shampoo, but it's like someone took that smell and classed it up a bit. Or a lot. It's very pretty, delicate, and springlike, without a ton of throw.

I like it, but I'm not sure I love it.

Green tea! Green tea! Green tea! And then slightly spicy woods, with no tea in sight.

In the imp, this is floral and figgy and creamy. I want vats of this! I need it on me now!

Wet, it's definitely very sweet, but it's not at all cloying. It's rich and glorious, creamy and soft. The ylang ylang and orchid are definitely present, but they don't make the blend at all floral... rather, they seem to add some depth and complexity to the sweetness. It gets even creamier once dry, and the sweetness abates a bit.

Overall, Love and Sleep is incredibly warm and comforting. This would make a wonderful bedtime perfume. Wearing it is like being wrapped up in a tender, loving hug and softly sung to sleep.

In the imp, I get mango and some creamy nuts! It smells delicious.. I'm not sure if I want to eat it, or slather it on my skin. I went with slathering.

Wet, I think the mango and fig might be combining and giving me the oddest sense of banana.

Dry: The fruit slinks into the background, and mostly what I get is hazelnut and cream (and I can smell both of them distinctly). Mango and fig don't go away entirely for quite a while. They keep lending some sweetness and brightness to the warm nutty cream for a few hours. In the end, it gets a little bit woody - I think that might be the patchouli coming out. I never get any of the white chocolate as far as I can tell.

Gorgeous, though I like the earlier stages better than the ultimate drydown. Will have to retest, and see how it goes in a scent locket.

I'm not sure I can describe what this smells like in the imp - it doesn't smell like absinthe, but I also can't pick out any of the notes in particular.

Regardless, as soon as it's on my skin, it's a genuine absinthe smell - complete with flambeed sugar and added water. I'm certain, because I drank a fair amount of the stuff just last week.

I never get any of the white chocolate, sadly... I'll have to compare this to the GC Absinthe and see if I can detect any differences.

I'm having a hard time coming up with a single scent that I think fits all the impressions you suggested - to me, "calm blue skies" and TMBG don't really equate, for example.

But let's see... For "old English botanist", I immediately thought of The Apothecary (tea leaf with three mosses, green grass, a medley of herbal notes, and a drop of ginger and fig). That shares at least the tea note with Theodosius, the Legerdemain(Earl Grey tea leaves, a white fougere, jasmine leaf, pearlescent white musk, and vanilla bean), which is currently discontinued but should (we hope!) be back this summer, and which I find reminds me of a very eloquent, collected, rational man.

For calm blue skies, I might suggest Water of Notre Dame (brings peace to the spirit, a sense of calm and fulfillment, and attracts the aid of beneficial spirits) - reviews mostly describe it as greener, rather than bluer, but it fits the calming description, and an increase in calmness can also increase one's ability to think straight.

I'll keep thinking for the others.

Are there any other GC recs for beautiful aquatics (that aren't manly)?

Cthulhu! It's lovely, not dark or creepy at all. It's very gentle, and slightly sweetly floral, but not really overtly feminine and definitely not girly. It's very clean and light, but at the same time, somewhat evocative of mystery.

You might actually be interested in the lab's Aquatic Imp Pack. It does have The Sea Foams Milk in it, which you've already tried, but if you don't want another imp of that you could do a custom imp pack with the other five and add a sixth of your choosing. The pack contains:

Cthulhu

A creeping, wet, slithering scent, dripping with seaweed, oceanic plants and dark, unfathomable waters.

Egle

Ocean water, hyacinth petals, star jasmine, and fir.

Pool of Tears

A sea of salty tears drowning out Alice’s light floral perfume.

The Sea Foams Milk

Milk cresting on an ocean wave.

Sea of Glass

A scent of inimitable purity, crystalline grace, and limitless light.

Windward Passage

Breezes blowing off of the waters of the Caribbean: marine accord, seaweed, and bladderwrack.

Edit: Scrolled up and saw you've already tried Sea of Glass.. so here's a few recommendations to replace that and The Sea Foams Milk.

Amsterdam

Tulips, peony, fresh flowing water and crisp green grasses.

Very cheerful, perfect for springtime.

Olokun

His ofrenda is the scent of the lightless deep: the glorious, unknowable gloom of the ocean floor.

I haven't tried this one, but the reviews describe it as a sweet, grassy ocean.

Vial of Holy Water

The gleaming, indescribably clean scent of purified, ritually consecrated holy water.

Another one I haven't tried, but it looked like reviewers thought it smelled like genuine fresh water.

Dragon's Tears

Bittersweet yet powerful: salty aquatic notes and bursting with dragon’s blood.

I love this one - it's hard to describe the feeling it evokes, for me, but.. it's like bathing in a pool heated by molten lava. Aquatic, but red and warm and inviting.

Hope that helps at all!

51! Or if you can find it, Serpents with Glittering Eyes and Forky Tongues.

Edit for notes:

51: Green mandarin, neroli, honeydew, white amber, guava, freesia, white and green musks hovering over desert scrub, smashed wood, and the dry, biting scent of night air over the Groom Lake salt flats.

Serpents with Glittering Eyes and Forky Tongues: Serpentine green herbs, glistening red currant, sparkling yellow lemon rind, green musk, lime, and snakeskin.

I hopped on my bike and rode to work and that little bit of physical activity revived it enough that it was back up in full glory and it was still going 6 hours later when I put something else on over it.

 

EXERCISE. I'm going to try this with all of the oils that quickly fade on me.

Gingerbread Snake was allllll gingerbread on me, with only a hint of snake.. and then I went and did some, ahem, vigorous physical activity ( ) and afterward it was seductive gingery snake.

Now I should try that with Braving the Ice and Peppermint Creams, just to see if I can get any mint from them at all.

Ohh, this is amazing! Lots and lots of white tea, with the eucalyptus bringing some shine and the ambergris adding an aquatic note. It reminds me a lot of Embalming Fluid and Whitechapel, but without the lemon/citrus that made them both a bit too sharp.. and it reminds me a bit of Dorian, too.

If Dorian is a guy being super cuddly and affectionate, Eldritch Drunken Constellations is the same guy all cleaned up, dressed in his nicest suit, taking you out for a night of dinner and dancing. They're not really similar in feel at all, since one is snuggly and warm and one is cool and charming... but they're kind of two sides of the same idea. And I'd take both of them home with me, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

I have a bottle of the 2008 version, and a decant of the 2013 - I did a side by side test of them.

ITB: I don't remember exactly how the 2008 was when I first got it, but I don't remember noticing the mint. It's here now when I sniff it though, but the 2013 is a stronger mint.

Wet: 2008 is wet grass, a touch of mint, and a hint of sweetness. 2013 is wet mint, a touch of grass, and definitely less sweet. Neither of them is icy, barren, or desolate - they remind me of standing in a field of lush, green grass with melting slushy snow sogging the place up.

Dry: Both of these continue to change a bit over the course of the day - sometimes grassier, sometimes wetter, sometimes sweeter (I noticed a particularly yummy stage of the 2013 that smells like brown sugar). Mint tends to disappear on me pretty quick, so they both lose the mintiness. They're never quite identical, but they're very, very close - if you missed out on the earlier one, the new one is definitely a pair for it.

I was excited for this one, but it was a bit of a dud on me. At first this was a bright, bracing peppermint-grapefruit, then the peppermint amped up for a while, and then it all but went away. There's a little bit of curranty-plum hanging around still, but not lots, and it's not really remarkable. Ah well.

In the decant, this is strong caramel with a hint of cookie. Once on my skin, it becomes a salty, sometimes aquatic caramel. Very little morph even over an entire day - just plain old delicious salted caramel. In tandem with Dia de los Reyes, I smell like a salted caramel mocha.

2009 version:

In the bottle: Cocoa!

Wet: A dusty cinnamon cocoa, with a touch of brown sugar.

Dry: Still cocoa! It gets sweeter as it dries down, and the cinnamon stays gentle and not overwhelming at all. I wish I could drink myself.

Lots and lots of carrot seed! It's vegetal, without being fruity, planty without being flowery, and sweet without being, well, sweet. As it dries, it gets a touch more floral and a lot more aquatic. I'm not sure if that's the "sea" part of the sea buckthorn berry or not. I don't get any of the frankincense, iris or jasmine, except perhaps a touch of the latter two in the slightly floral quality of it.

Pretty, and sad, and contemplative.

I think it's the mugwort I'm smelling that makes this so herbal and sharp - it holds strong for quite a while, actually, from decant to partway through drydown, with the wet stage being a bit bitter, salty, and definitely cold. It's much, much gentler once that goes away, though I can never explicitly pick up on the mandarin or the rockrose - I think it stays mostly blue musk and snow.

Edit: While the mugwort is still hanging around, it's a lot closer to Black Ice than I was expecting it to be.

This starts out as a sort of wicked rose - something leafy, maybe thorny, about it. Once on my skin, the patchouli joins the rose, and I get a very strong cacao note as well. After it dries down, though, it just kind of... disappears? There's a hint of something when I sniff really close, but I can't actually pick anything in particular out... more a general "this used to have a smell" impression.

Edit: Every so often I get faint wafts of rose, but not much else.