Little Bird
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Everything posted by Little Bird
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I like how all of the Lunar New Year scents smell similar, but there are subtle differences along the line of them. Water Rabbit is sweeter than many of the others and has a juicier, happy, sweet fruitiness, and it doesn't come off as soapy as many of the other Lunar New Year blends have on my skin. This one is juicy, shimmering, orange jellies, tropical lychee juice, a hint of watery green from the bamboo, and a little bit of warmth, intrigue, and red glow from the dragon's blood incense. Very pretty, playful, and cheerful.
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I just got a bottle of this and I'm confused by how clean, sharp and cologne-like it is. It's a sharp, watery type of cologne scent with lemony tones and a soapiness that makes me think of creamy bars of generic white soap. A freshly scrubbed and topped off with axe body spray type of scent. Of the listed notes, I can maybe smell a whiff of leather at first, but I get no patchouli or warmth from this scent. It smells very chemical and clean.
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Cacao, Sweet Patchouli, Clove, and Green Cardamom
Little Bird replied to Seajewel's topic in Lupercalia
My favorite of this year's chocolates, and I almost didn't order this one because I figured I have enough patchouli and cocoa blends and I'm tired of cardamom in perfume. I think that this one is a very sensual and grownup cocoa, though. It's plush like fine cocoa powder, but has a little sweetness to it and isn't bitter, and the patchouli just rounds out the natural earthiness of the cocoa. As it dries down, it smells like there's a tiny hint of caramel in it as well. The clove and green cardamom meld together pretty seamlessly and I like the green cardamom more than the usual, overly sweet cardamom note. The spices feel mellow and calming. After a half hour, there's a little sweet smokiness in here as well, like smoked sweet clove. The overall feel of the blend reminds me of Mayan Chocolate with Annatto Seed, Anaheim Pepper, Cinnamon and Vanilla Bean, and I've been missing that scent for the past couple years, so I'm happy to have this as a replacement. -
The sweet myrrh in this is so strong and beautiful. It smells thick and rich, like sticky amber paste, with tones that are slightly clove-spicy, sweetly vanillic, and reminiscent of warm, sun baked woods, and it's all deep, dark, and resinous in a rich, heavy way that makes me think of sap. I love myrrh and this is my favorite kind of myrrh with the complexity of the sweet and spicy tones. Lasts all day on me and makes me feel powerful.
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I can only smell the candy sweet cherry for about the first 10 minutes and then it's all about the sweet, powdery notes. The white sandalwood does its usual baby powder thing and then orris root comes in smelling like powdered sugar and silvery floral. There are hints of sweet honey and floral ylang ylang, but mostly it's very powdery and dry.
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A little cherry/almond extract in the vial, but I mostly smell the cinnamon and sweet buttercream once applied. Buttercream frosting dusted with sharp, dry cinnamon. Cinnamon usually amps up on my skin, though.
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I almost full sized this because of the name, but I'm glad that I went with a decant because it isn't very complex on my skin. It smells rather like lemon scented dish soap and a hint of powdery sweet tarts candies.
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Methods has the same issue for me that Neglected Calligraphy does, which is that the citrus (lemony bergamot) and green tea overpowers the other notes on my skin and I don't really care for the perfumey, sour, dry tea note. I get a sugary, realistic honey for the first few minutes and then it's gone, and I don't really ever smell the incense notes. A lot of the Shunga blends this year have come off really flat and single note-ish on my skin where I was hoping for more complexity.
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I wish that the green tea didn't completely overwhelm the other notes in the drydown. I love the glowing green, sweet pine sap, juicy, thick evergreen and hint of dark ink in the first 20 minutes or so. Then the good part just disappears suddenly and completely and I'm left smelling like Elizabeth Arden's Green Tea + black pepper. I don't like the musky, perfumey, warm, citrusy, artificial tea smell at all. I don't think that it smells like real green tea at all, but it is absolutely that artificial green tea scent that's super perfumey and dry.
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Jaunty Tater is surprisingly beautiful. It's an earthy scent, but warm and snuggly and sunny. The vetiver, patchouli, and mossy chypre give off the scent of warm, sun-baked, clay soil with hints of dry moss and roots. If I didn't know that this had 'french fry' in it, I would never look for it or place it, but there is a warm, toasty quality and hint of salt. Not an oily, fried mess or greasy smelling, but warmth and a touch of salt. I really like scents that remind me of the smell of clay soil and the dried creekbeds where I grew up, trees washing out and their roots reaching down into the creekbed. I'm happy that I was able to find a partial bottle of this blend.
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Tart, crisp, juicy apples with the honeyed mandarin making them feel all golden and glowy. There's something almost fizzy and effervescent about this, champagne-like, but minus the actual booze part. I rarely enjoy apple scents, but I like this one. It's sweet and so cheerful and makes me want cider and fall weather even though we aren't even really into summer yet. The lavender and musk start to come through in the drydown and make me think of lavender oil on a soft sweater, slightly powdery-musky. Over a half hour, it shifts from the gorgeous apple opening to this lavender and powdery musk entirely. I wish the fruity opening stuck around for longer.
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Millennial me has really been enjoying this scent. I was worried about the white musk because it's a death note on me if it's sharp and chemical-y instead of creamy, and it almost always is the sharp, dry, cheap variety that gives me a headache. The white musk here is barely noticeable to me, though, and does come off as simply creamy and pretty, not sharp or screechy. The chocolate in this smells like the white chocolate in the original Thirteen blend, which I loved, because it smells pale and cool and not sickly sweet, like if someone made an elegant and grownup version of white chocolate that wasn't overly sugary. It's quite like if the original Thirteen had tasty raspberry instead of tangerine and mandarin. It smells like a mix of good raspberry jam and fresh, ripe raspberries to me with creamy, mellow white chocolate and creamy, pretty white musk.
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This smells musty yet dry on me, like old carpet that really needs to be ripped out and is full of decades of dust and dirt. Dry, dusty, powdery, and sickly sweet with a weird spiciness like old potpourri. I scrubbed this off after only a couple minutes because I just couldn't handle it. The sweetness of the fig with the powderiness of the amber and the dry spiciness of the saffron is not working for me at all.
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The Serpent in the Roses is the gothic, dark, incense drenched rose that I wanted Formula 54 to be. I'm surprised by how dark and incense smoky this is on me, actually. I can pick out some aspect of the Snake Oil if I try really hard, maybe, but The Serpent is really its own thing and I appreciate that. The rose is fresh, but also has a deep, wine-like quality. It really conjures up an image of someone handing me a glass of red wine and brushing a dewy, blood red rose across my skin in a dark room full of incense smoke (perhaps also a whiff of cigarette smoke or clove cigarette smoke). The smoke smells enticing rather than dirty or sharp, though. Hazy, dreamy and seductive. The Serpent in the Roses smells really unique in my collection and I might grab a backup bottle of this one. I've been collecting bpal for so many years that it's hard not to compare new blends to what I already own, but this one stands out for me as something special and original.
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Sweet Amber, Praline, and Patchouli
Little Bird replied to Seajewel's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
I love the lab's sweet amber and am always there for patchouli, but this is more a praline single note on me and it does smell really authentically like praline. The caramel with a hint of boozy butterscotch at first reminded me of the caramel in Red Lantern and it dries down to a fudgy caramel and something like creamy walnut and pecan. I think the amber and patchouli just add a slight, toasty, woody quality to the nuttiness. Very strong and sticks around all day on my skin. -
I don't think that To Lallie smells like Katrina Van Tassel because To Lallie is much sweeter and KVT only has a tiny hint of honeyed cream where this has a much stronger vanilla-d aspect. The rose in To Lallie is sweet in itself, slightly fruity and bubblegummy, where the rose in KVT is more mature and winelike to me. To Lallie reminds me of a lot of other indie perfumes that I've tried that were vanilla & rose, so I get what shadowlover is saying, and it does have a heavy-handed sort of bluntness that reminds me of a lot of bath and body indie oils. When I wore To Lallie yesterday, I kept thinking that it reminded me of Solstice Scents' Rose Mallow Cream, but way less complex and not as sophisticated, and the cool vanilla kind of reminded me of Solstice Scents' Nightgown as well after a while. To Lallie feels very heavy to me and I wanted it to have some complexity to it that it just doesn't to my nose. I don't get any amber, ambergris, benzoin or coconut. To Lallie is vanilla and rose on me in equal parts and I can't really pick out any of the other notes, so I feel like I already own this scent in my collection several times over. If you were looking for a very sweet bpal vanilla & rose, though, this could be worth picking up.
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I wore this without checking the notes and wrote down that it smells like cider spice scented potpourri (dry, woody, sharply spicy) and cigarette smoke with a bit of ash. I'm not really getting any fig or vanilla and the bit of earthiness leans dry, smoky and woody.
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I don't get as much lilac from this as I do from regular Whitechapel, though you can still pick up on the lilac's buttery sweetness and it's lovely. The citron and lime are strong at first and smell like freshly sliced lemons and key limes, sweet and slightly sour and bold. The snow part isn't Snow White, but a soapy, ozone-y snow note, which I actually think smells nice with the citrus and hint of lilac. A cleaner, more citrus forward version of Whitechapel that makes me think of limoncello ice. As it dries down, the cold, soapy snow note is strongest with the citrus and lilac floating around subtly in the background. I like this enough to keep my decant, but I have enough bpal snow blends that I don't need a full bottle. It's similar to several other blends with a dominant snow note.
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Snow White Rider starts off as a powdery, creamy sandalwood with a hint of smoke (like a hint of sandalwood incense smoke) and soft, white leather. Quickly dries down to all light, powdery, sandalwood, no leather or smoke anymore. Only lasts about 45 minutes on me before I can't smell it at all. I was hoping for Snow White + leather, but this is leaning more towards a sandalwood single note on my skin. Before it fades, it also takes on a plasticy, odd edge to it that I don't care for at all.
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Velvet Snow wound up being a scrubber for me. I could only tolerate it for about an hour. I get a whiff of waxy chocolate for the first couple minutes and then it's all "snow," but it's not like the lab's usual snow note (which is sweet and slushy). It reminds me of Windex, minty bathroom cleaner, and soapy ozone. It's very chemical and plasticy smelling. I wouldn't guess that this was supposed to be Velvet and it doesn't seem to have any Snow White in it either.
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Performing goes on like an absolute explosion of all of the listed notes. Sultry, warm, red musk, spicy and slightly earthy red ginger and peppercorn, a drizzle of golden honey, and spiced, dried carnation petals with a little powderiness from the golden amber and a tiny hint of fruity cassis. The red musk quickly calms down on me and I normally am not a huge fan of honey scents, but I really love the golden, sugared, creamy honey in this mixed with the dry, spicy carnation and fiery red ginger. I normally dislike a powdery amber as well, but the powdery, golden amber here gives this an elegant, perfumey finish. Sweet, spicy, dried carnation drizzled in the most beautiful honey with perfumey, elegant amber and hints of warm, red musk. I love it.
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This smells like it could be a fancy truffle scent or one of the Thirteen blends. A creamy chocolate center that's been flavored with sweet cardamom and a touch of black pepper, rolled in rich, earthy cocoa powder. The dry wood, sweet tobacco smoke, and amber musk give it an elegant undertone that reminds me of an expensive, dark, men's cologne. It's wonderful. I think Courtiers and Cats is my favorite of this year's Lupers. I have always loved wearing blends that feel masculine to me and I love them twice as much if they also have a bit of a gourmand twist. Dark and decadent.
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An Aroused Prostitute From Maruyama Yukatu and a Merchant From Qing
Little Bird replied to Seajewel's topic in Lupercalia
I don't like the variety of amber in this. It smells very powdery, dry, and sort of like cheap white musk, all sharp and hazy. I don't really like the peach note either, which smells like an unripe, fuzzy peach skin, where I wish it were more syrupy sweet and juicy. The sweet cream doesn't really seem to exist much at all on my skin for the first hour or so and then comes in as a sour baby spitup type of milkiness (and I usually get on great with milk notes and don't understand what people mean by them going soured). The overall effect reminds me of a scratchy sweater with milky baby spitup on it. -
I love red musk and it usually reads as sensual and womanly on me, and this has a noticeable, strong red musk, but I find it leaning more masculine overall and I really love it. On me, it's like a red musk mixed with masculine woods, black pepper, and a cool, deep amber. There are some men's fragrances that I love with black pepper, like Marc Jacobs' Bang and Comme Des Garcon's Black, because the black pepper is zingy, refreshing, cool and invigorating, and something about the wood here has that refreshing spiciness on my skin. Heartshow has sexy lumberjack vibes to me with the red musk giving a sultry edge and the cotton candy a subtle sweetness. I think that this one is really unique in my collection and it makes me want to snuggle up to myself. I love blends that feel to me like a sexy mix of feminine and masculine tones and Heartshow has that feel for me, with lovely, airy whisps of cotton candy thrown in to make it feel even more magical.
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I feel like I've smelled this before in a bath and body or candle form from somewhere else and I wish that I could place it. I get very sweet milk chocolate and an intense, sugary, candied berry (kinda like blueberry, but not quite). It's warm and cloying on me and doesn't really make me think of cereal because it's way more intense and syrupy rather than soft, puffed, or grainy. I think this has been my biggest letdown of this year's Lupers because I usually adore bpal's white chocolate and this is leaning more milk chocolate smelling on me for some reason, and I don't think that it really smells like a cereal note. I think that it smells really cheap and more like something that I'd want in a candle, unfortunately. It starts off very strong and overwhelming and then fades a lot around the 15 minute mark and also goes a little plasticy.