Little Bird

Sharp, dry cinnamon and hints of a smooth, golden, sweet frankincense. Too much cinnamon for me. It does remind me of a more cinnamon-y Faustus.

Plasticy peach and that cranberry jelly scent of Mason & Jenkin's. As the fruits fade, the cigar smoke comes out more and more, and smells warm and sweetly smoky, with a hint of ashes. Not much throw and fades very quickly on me, after the initial, intense burst of fruitiness.

I don't get any pie crust notes and wish that this were sweeter, but it's like a sharp, cinnamon-spiced apple with a hint of sour, green grass on my skin. Mulled apple cider, maybe, with sour green grass. It ventures into holiday spice candle territory on me.

I was hoping for lots of leather, a little cocoa, and little to no gin, but this is the opposite of that. It's tons of gin (that kind of fizzy, kind of evergreen-ish, kind of juniper-berry-y smell) and a hint of stale, waxy chocolate with no leather. I'm not really enjoying the fizzy chocolate scent.

No patchouli or vanilla for me. This is a big blast of smoky, overwhelming, heavy, black vetiver, smelling like charred bbq. I don't like this kind of sharp, heavy smokiness with nothing to soften it.

Cotton Phoenix reminds me more of Dana O'Shee than Snow White or Snake Oil. It has that creamy, sweet, honeyed almond thing to my nose, but this also turns rather soapy on me, I guess from the 'cotton blossom musk.' It's like Dana O'Shee and soapy laundry. Fades very quickly on me, gone by the half hour mark.

A very dry, spicy carnation scent with not much patchouli to my nose (unless that's the extra bit of dry, dusty earthiness to the carnation). I don't smell corn chips either, but there's something of a soapy, perfumey edge to the carnation. More elegantly old fashioned and perfumey (almost a little sour and chypre-ish - dry and mossy) than a sweet or fresh carnation.

Soapy lavender and a hint of sweet strawberry that dries down to a sort of powdery pink bubblegum scent on my skin. The drydown reminds me a lot of the bpal blend 'Motherhood.' Fades very quickly on me.

The cinnamon in this caused a bad reaction on my skin, so there's definitely a good dose of cinnamon in that sparkling apple cider. The sparkling cider dominates and is like a slightly soapy gingerale or champagne note. Cake-y, vanilla-y notes hang out in the background at first, and turn into a sweet, baked apple aroma in the middle stage, with sugar and spice. Dries down to a sharp cinnamon and soapy champagne scent on me, with the vanilla and cake notes pulling a disappearing act.

Intensely tart fruit, smelled almost sour and lemony to me, with no cotton candy to be found. Sour lemon and tart sugar plum type of scent.

No Dorian or clove as far as I can tell. Spinning is a cold, mentholic lavender and green, herbal, minty presence with a pine/evergreen-ish note from the cypress. Cold, medicinal. minty and herbal. I need to stop buying things just because they mention Dorian in the description.

No leather, no bourbon vanilla, no honey, and only the cinnamon part of cinnamon buns. The whole scent comes off as a very sharp, woody cinnamon. It reminds me of plasticy craft store wreaths and cinnamon potpourri oil.

Aged, this has become so intensely satisfying to me. It's Dorian with the milky vanilla turned down (but still vanillic thanks to the Antique Lace) and the white tea turned up with a freshly sliced lemon. Fresh and aged, there's absolutely nothing in this that reminds me of Formula 54, lol. The lavender gives it an edge that's cool and breezy. White tea with vanilla and lemon. I'm hoarding my last 20mls of Dorian since it's been sold out for so long, but I've been able to snag a couple bottles of this for $40-50 a piece and it fills the clean, cool vanilla niche in my heart

Simple, soft, low throw and only lasts a couple hours on my skin, but it's a pleasant sandalwood & myrrh where the sandalwood doesn't turn to pure baby powder on my skin. The sandalwood is a warm, toasty, and dry wood note, and the myrrh gives it a dark, rich sweetness. It's one of those fragrances that feels like a warm glow on the skin. A little bit of a dusty, dry, incensey note in the drydown.

Similar to Spiced Rum Buttercream on me (very dry, spicy, lots of sharp cinnamon), but with a hint of sweet apple. I was hoping for more of the vanilla and butter notes, but this is mostly spices on my skin.

A very sharp, tart, slightly sour lemon on my skin, with the hint of clove making it medicinal and strange. I don't get anything like orange or orange blossom. Only lasts about 20 minutes on me before it's just a barely there smudge of sour lemon.

This one is not working for me at all. It smells so cheap and waxy/plasticy on my skin, like a generic vanilla buttercream candle, with a heavy handed wallop of sharp cinnamon potpourri.

Clean, tart apple that doesn't turn full-on soapy, but it always seems like it's on the verge. It smells green to me more than red, and a little apple blossom-y. Makes me think of green apple and apple blossom scented air fresheners. Clean and tart, but still very sweet.

My Little Grotesque (cardamom cupcakes) is one of my favorite bpal foodies, and this is like a cousin of that blend. It's like buttery spice cake instead of yellow cake, and has more of an airy, milky smelling frosting rather than MLG's heavy vanilla buttercream scent. I can smell the cardamom in this, but there's a cinnamon note that's definitely stronger than the cardamom on my skin. Buttery pumpkin cake with a good dose of cinnamon and a milky glaze topping. Probably too much cinnamon for me to wear this a lot, but I think it would be great in an oil warmer.

I get a similar waxy, perfumey, burnt brown sugar thing that I got from Last Year's Stale Candy Corn, with a hint of lemon and a cinnamon note that amps up on me in the drydown. Weirdly, I'm not getting the dead leaves part at all. I would have thought this was one of the pumpkin blends.

The Sufganiyot blends and I have not gotten along in the past (Raspberry turned to plastic raspberry jam and no pastry note, and Strawberry was too cloying), but I took a chance on Blackcurrant, because I love the lab's black currant note. Unfortunately, this isn't the same black currant that's in every other blend I have enjoyed it in. It's nothing like Eat Me and doesn't have that rich, jammy, dark berry scent to it. It smells kind of like raspberry scented doll heads and fig newton bars. The pastry part actually makes it smell a lot like fig newton bars on me at first, but with some raspberry jam added in, and a little bit of a plasticy-perfumey edge. The berry is bright, red, sweet, tart and plasticy-perfumey. Drydown is all that berry note and no pastry, donut, or glaze smell. If someone tried this on me blind and told me it was Raspberry Sufganiyot from last season's yules, I wouldn't have argued. I have already found a new home for my bottle.

I love clove and was hoping that this would be like bpal's long gone Sweet Clove single note, but it is not. There's something watery and astringent about this, almost tea-like, and it has a dead leaf scent to it that I'm not loving. It also has a sweet cinnamon quality to it more than clove, as other reviewers have mentioned. In the bottle, this smells like all cinnamon all the time. On my skin, it's like a watery clove tea with sharp cinnamon and dead leaves. Dries down to something like a sweet cinnamon potpourri. I have a lot of clove essential oils that I like a lot more (and that were a lot cheaper than this blend). Essential Wholesale sells great Clove Bud and Clove Leaf oils and I can get 2 oz or 16oz for what I paid for this. I'm let down by the lack of clove scent in Indonesian Clove and regret this purchase.

Amber and balsam peru with patchouli, blood orange, and rose geranium. This was the luper that I was most excited for this year, because I adore geranium and patchouli. My only hesitation was with the blood orange, because citrus can go too sour on me, and I wanted this to be an herbal-spicy-rich-earthy-amber sort of fragrance. I thought that the other, heavier notes would overpower the citrus, but that is not the case. In the bottle, I get creamy orange and nothing else. On my skin, a big blast of sour, tart orange. 15 minutes later, still mostly orange, but I think I can pick out a sweet, smooth, chocolatey patchouli and dry, sandalwood-like wood notes. Sadly, I can't really pick out the rose geranium at all. I get none of its green spiciness. I don't get any green balsam notes either. A half hour in, this is a barely there skin scent that's mostly baby powdery amber and a smear of sour orange. My biggest hope of the Lupers this year is my biggest disappointment

A scent for all rabble-rousing, nose-thumbing reprobates: black plum, champaca flower, dark musk, patchouli, narcissus and scorched sandalwood. In the bottle and first on my skin, this actually reminded me quite a bit of gummi bears. It had a wonderful, fruity sweetness. But these would be gummi bears with an edge to them. These are purple gummi bears that are wearing a sexy musk fragrance. The sort of gummi bears that might sell themselves on a street corner for fun (no, I haven't been getting much sleep lately). After about ten minutes, this one gets much muskier and spicier on me. My mother sniffed it and said that it was too spicy for her tastes. It rather smells like pepper and patchouli to me, but with a heavy dose of smoky musk in the background. I do not really detect the fruitiness anymore, though there is a lingering sweetness that seems like the remnants of plum. After a half hour the muskiness has settled down (but it is still the focus of the blend on me) and this is started to smell sweet again, along with some of the sandalwood coming out. Black plum and woodsy, slightly powdery sandalwood. This is pretty strong on me and has a lot of throw for the first hour, but it calms down considerably after that. It still has a lot of throw, don't get me wrong, but is more subtle and closer to my skin. I'd classify this one as a spicy musk with a hint of elegant fruitiness on me. It actually smells more grownup and isn't as sweet or playful as the perfumes that I tend to favor, but I do really like it, especially in the first ten minutes or so. I wish that it would keep more of that initial sweetness and fruitiness.

Creates a veil of sexual allure and charismatic comeliness. Used for casting Venusian glamours and spells for beauty, charm and sensuality. Glamour smells like sweet, slightly powdery tea roses on me. Perhaps with a light backdrop of something like myrrh. It has that scent of a silky smooth resin on me, rather warm and pleasant. I don't know about the veil of sexual allure and charismatic comeliness, but this is a very pretty and girlie perfume on me. I wore it around some people that I was hoping to impress, and they didn't react to me any differently than they normally would. Still, this is a beautiful rose-ish scent on me. I find it intriguing and would definitely continue wearing it, it's a sultry sort of fragrance.