Little Bird

I love vanilla aquatics and gourmand aquatics (my favorite is Solstice Scents' Sea of Gray, followed by Molinard's Vanille Marine, 4160 Tuesdays' What I Did On My Holidays, and Reminiscence's Etoile de Rem). The touch of salt and freshness mixed with something like sweet vanilla or caramel is just so attractive to me. I wore The Storm to my massage therapy appointment a few days ago, and I laid here for about a half hour into my massage just wondering what essential oil my therapist was using that smelled so wonderful and relaxing. After a while, I realized that it was The Storm wafting from me that smelled so dreamy and spa-like. I like Lyonesse and Sea of Glass, but The Storm is better than both of those blends to me. Lots of creamy, sweet yet not sugary vanilla, a touch of salt, and an impression of serene, cold water. I'm surprised that there's no blue musk in this. It's so calming and lovely.

The Mummies of Mexico City brings up images of walking into an old wood and cobblestone building with decades of resins that have soaked into every part of the structure, standing in a large room with wooden rafters, flickering candles, gold, and dust floating lazily through a beam of sunlight from a stained glass window. I think this smells like sweet frankincense and slightly lemony, slightly pine-y, slightly smoky copal (very slightly smoky), a golden and lightly powdery amber that conjures up sunshine and dust, old books that have that aged vanillic scent to them, and a hint of beeswax candles. Very pretty. I'm happy to have this in my resin/incense collection.

I wore this blend today without checking the notes and all I had was "sour plums? metallic cigarette tobacco?" Must be the currant and vetiver. I love bpals leathers and patchoulis, but I didn't get those notes at all. No pink pepper or amber for me either. Kind of odd and turns a little too sour on me, and also only lasted a couple hours on my skin.

I get absolutely no coconut, plum, jasmine, almond or tobacco. The white amber is annoyingly powdery in the opening, but fades to the far background pretty quickly to let this be all about the vanilla fougere. It's like a smooth vanilla and aquatic men's fragrance. Reminds me of OG Dorian. Several hours into the drydown, it also reminds me of another of my favorites - Atelier's Vanille Insensee. A smooth, cool toned, airy vanilla that's sweet, but not sugary, and a little powderiness around the edges from the white amber. Sticks close to the skin, but does last around 8 hours on me.

Fearlessness has a deep, red, spicy scent. I get a strong dragon's blood incense with rose geranium that's both rosy and slightly herbal toned, and dry, spicy, slightly earthy saffron mixed with clovel and a pinch of black pepper. The spices smell dried and tucked away in an old, wooden spice cabinet. The dragon's blood is slightly floral and a little sour, very red toned, and a little incense smoky. I really like the spices in this. It reminds me of going through my mother's jars of dried spices, herbs, roses, and incense powders when I was little, trying to commit each one to memory.

Red rose, a sweet and juicy pomegranate, pink pepper adding a spicy bite, and the honey and lily adding a sensual complexity to everything, all on a bed of beautiful, resinous, sweet myrrh and amber. I really love the peppery notes in this blend. I love how all of the notes play together, actually, supporting each other perfectly. It's very much a romantic date night scent, seductive and flirtatious, warm and red. Around the 2 hour mark, it fades a lot and smells more like just a sweet, red to pink rose scent, but it's still charming, and it's worth reapplying to me.

Sometimes bpal's pumpkin notes smell like pure, melted butter with some sugar, and that's the kind of pumpkin that I get here. The black incense keeps making me think of an abandoned old house that's caked with dust, grime, hints of fecal matter and urine, and rotting wood and fabric. Slightly nag champa-y, but also very dusty and leaning animalic / indolic. Mixed with the sugary, melted butter, this is really stomach churning to me. It takes about 45 minutes for the cloying and indolic parts to calm down to where I'm left with a dark, incensey haze, what smells like dried grass with hints of green grass, and a hint of butter. I actually like this somber, dead meadow and spooky incense stage, but it's rough getting there for me.

Every time that I wear Lydia, I wonder why I do not wear it more. Opium is one of my death notes, but it perfectly cuts through some of the sweetness of the sticky, slightly cola-ish myrrh, awadh that smells of sweet-yet-dark-and-slightly-earthy chewing tobacco (reminiscent of French Tobacco single note), and the resinous amber/labdanum. All of the notes are dark, strong, and on the sweeter side of their spectrums, which I love. Good throw and staying power and doesn't change much through hours of wear.

Starts off a little plasticy, a little spicy, and creamy/buttery, reminding me of a craft store in fall, so I was disappointed. The drydown, however, is more what I was hoping for. I love baking in autumn, making cookies and cakes with the windows open to get the cool air and crunchy leaf scent all through the house. That's what this reminds me of. Creaming butter and sugar together with the scent of crisp air, crunchy leaves (no green bell pepper leaves here, thankfully), and hints of fresh pumpkin. As it dries down, the cigar smoke's sweet smokiness just adds to the illusion, like I've removed cookies from the oven and can smell the smokiness of their browned edges. It has a toffee-ish scent over time. I was hoping for masculine, fresh pumpkin, but I'm not mad about this burnt sugary, buttery treats in autumn thing that Pumpkin Man is doing on my skin.

Refreshing, salty sea spray, a little mint, and crisp, clean, masculine musk with a sweet cigar tobacco creeping in as it dries. Soapy, cool, and crisp/sharp, sweetened with that lightly honeyed cigar tobacco. After a half hour, it's the same, but with the addition of unpleasant notes like burning metal, sharp white floral perfume, and cardboard. I never get any distinct lilac or tea, and department store men's fragrance vibes are, to me, not witchy vibes at all.

Amour Fou is one of my favorite retail exclusive blends. Many years ago now, I had a bunch of samples of vintage Guerlain fragrances, and Amour Fou reminds me of opening up that package and being so giddy over my new treasures. I would have guessed that this was oakmoss, a slightly smoky and addictive vanilla amber resin, and a drop of animalic leather. Also has powdery tones, but not baby powdery, more spicy, warm, and sensual. The drydown of Amour Fou, in particular, is like an extra vanilla-y dupe of Guerlain's Shalimar, which is something I have zero complaints about. I always smell scents in color and this one is brown and conjures up images of my mother's ancient bottle of Tabu, which was a dark, coppery brown in its violin shaped bottle. It's full bodied, rich, complex, and evokes an image of vintage femme fatales. Warm and enveloping.

I got a last minute bottle of this before Halloweens left the site, but I don't think that this smells anything like it's supposed to. It's soapy, cloying sweet, and has a strong, powdery, tart floral thing going on. Creamy, pink, tart floral soap, heavily scented, leaning feminine and generic soap bar scented. It doesn't change at all over hours of wear and it has massive throw and staying power (why is it always the blends I hate that stick to my skin forever and have to be scrubbed away). If I try very hard, I can maybe smell a dried hay note way in the background and some sour woodsmoke every once in a while. Myrrh is one of my favorite smells and there is no myrrh here, and nothing about it reminds me of Jack or pumpkins / gourds. Sickly floral soap, leans pink, tart, and powdery. I'm very confused by how it smells versus how it was described.

My skin seems to just drink this up. It has no throw to where I can only smell it if my nose is pressed to my skin where I applied, and I can't smell it at all by the half hour mark. A sour, sharp, cleaning fluid-ish pine needle, set on fire, with dusty undertones. Dries down to a sort of fruity, deep, dark musk with hints of tobacco-patchouli (but not strongly earthy) and what keeps reminding me of nag champa. Dusty, lightly sweet, and fades so fast.

First on, smells like creamy, honeyed, waxy, white lily and a spicy zing from the ginger. If it stayed that way, I would love it, but it goes through a mid-stage where is reminds me of rest stop bathroom cleaner and then settles into a very soured, hot, sharp scent. I don't recognize lily or ginger in the drydown, but get a soapy, sour, slightly rotten smelling flower, like it's been picked and left out in the heat to turn to mush. Reminds me more of spoiled roses and soured lemon than it does lily or ginger.

I have no idea what lye smells like, but this has a sour, sharp, metallic twang to it that I guess is the lye. Then there's powdery bubblegum that reminds me of some of the pink pepper notes that bpal uses because it's slightly spicy, warm, oddly pink bubblegummy, but very powdery and not as sweet as pink bubblegum. It's like pink bubblegum with most of the flavor already chewed out of it. Doesn't even last a full hour on me. I'm not a fan of this one. Chemical and powdery.