Little Bird

I can smell all of the notes listed in this at first, and it's so yummy - toasty, creamy, comforting coffee sweetened with melting, warm, sweet milk chocolate and hints of chewy patchouli over a base of furry, warm, slightly powdery, brown musk and dry, woody, slightly resinous smelling oudh. It's like a coffee house in an old book store. I wish that the coffee and cocoa stuck around longer than they do, but I'm left with a powdery, warm musk and woods after about twenty minutes. A little too powdery for me. By the half hour mark, it smells like I dusted baby powder through my hair, and I really miss the sweeter notes.

I really enjoy Samhain 2016 from this year, but my Samhain hair gloss doesn't smell right at all. It's weirdly metallic and just smells like cheap, generic hairspray and something dusty, musty and medicinal. Chemical and white. I can't even smell any of the spices from it, and no apple or pumpkin. I guess maybe I got a bad bottle.

I'm really happy with this year's version of Samhain. It smells similar to my bottle from its first year release and doesn't have the harsh smoke or unpleasant, damp earthiness or any medicinal tones to it, which is why I haven't enjoyed it in other years. This smells like spicy, crunchy, dead fall leaves, a hint of cider spice, sweet apple, creamy pumpkin and a spicy, warm sort of patchouli. Gets a little bit of caramelized smokiness in the drydown, like burning dead leaves. Samhain 2016 is like every generic fall thing, but not in a bad way, because the gourmand spice, apple and pumpkin don't overwhelm, and it's dominated by that dark, earthy, dead leaf spiciness. A gourmand, spiced patchouli playing in a pile of dead leaves.

Green, damp, sour moss with lots of dandelion (but a strangely dry dandelion, like they've been pulled up and left to wilt in the sun all day) and a musky, slightly soapy, cold kind of aquatic scent. It's all cold, droopy greenery, but with a sour quality that keeps it from smelling really clean, even though it's soapy. Not for me. I definitely prefer the foodie hair glosses.

This starts off as cinnamon and nutmeg, and I was worried, but the spice surprisingly fades really quickly and I'm left with a delicious, tart, red currant and sweet strawberry cream. It smells like a red berries and cream hard candy. Really fun. Doesn't have much throw and only lasted a couple hours on me, but I like the vanilla cream edge in it. Red currant is usually too sour for me, but the strawberry cream sweetens it up and I actually enjoy it here.

I usually love every note listed in this, but everything here is very sharp. The musk reminds me of a cheap, hazy white musk, and I get lots of sharp pepper and not much else. It's dry and musky, but not the blood musk that I'm used to (which is more like a metallic red musk with cinnamon). I was hoping for more patchouli, and this just doesn't have any sweetness to it, which makes it unpleasant to me.

I don't smell smoke, paper, leather, cake or whatever ectoplasm is, but if you wanted an atmosphere spray that was lots of heavy, super sweet honey/beeswax, then this is for you. It actually smells exactly like The Lights of Men's Lives to me. Waxy, almost oily, super-sweet honey. Starts off very strong, but faded to almost nothing on the throw pillows I sprayed it on after about a half hour.

I love and hoard French Tobacco and don't think that this smells like French Tobacco it's lots of cinnamon, a citrusy men's cologne smell, and something like the lab's fizzy gin note. My bottle of it has a huge men's cologne and citrus scent mixed with cinnamon. After a half hour, it's just left a cinnamon/pumpkin spice scent lingering in the air.

I made sure to shake this up a lot, because it has blobs of cocoa absolute in it, but I can't smell the cocoa or caramel at all. I tried this out in my hair and it made my hair feel sticky and stiff, which is strange (usually makes my hair very oily). My man asked what it was and then said, "Oh yeah. It does smell like a dead life pile. In your hair. I don't know how I feel about it." It does smell like dry leaves, but also sort of musky (like men's cologne musk), and I don't like the tobacco in this, because it really smelled like stale cigarette smoke in my hair after a while. It doesn't smell like French Tobacco or Bulgarian Tobacco at all. It's the scent that gets stuck in your hair when you're around a smoker.

Smells like caramel popcorn coated in cinnamon, but a bit off smelling. The spice is just a little too sharp for me, and has a chemical quality to it that's sort of stifling to me. I spritzed this a couple times and kind of had trouble breathing for an hour or so until it dissipated. It makes my throat feel scratchy. My man said it smelled like butter, cinnamon and permanent marker fumes, which made sense to me.

I bought three bottles of this and have re-homed all three. I was really hoping that it would smell like the French vanilla in Joyful Moon, but it doesn't at all. It smells like a watered down version of Love's Philosophy, which I already didn't enjoy. It's sort of a creamy vanilla scent, but it mainly smells like chalk dust and powdered milk, and has a weird spiciness that reminds me of root beer/sassafras. Powdery, dry, weird root beer and underwhelming on me.

I feel like my Halloween reviews are very short this year, but I'm not having great success with them. Haunted Beach is soapy aquatic on me and that's it. Laundry soap. I don't get the musk or ambergris.

Soapy rose, baby powder and a sharp, screechy, white floral, musky/perfumey iris. This isn't as gentle as I was hoping it might be. I like dusting powder, cosmetic powder, and lotion type scents (Perle von Mauren and Shadowless Like Silence are two of my favorites), but this isn't creamy and soft. It's sharp and soapy on my skin.

Smells like that red, sticky, overly sweet, Hi-C fruit punch with a bunch of cinnamon potpourri dumped into it. It's cloying and tart, and the cinnamon smells like a holiday potpourri. I was hoping that this would smell like Gluhwein, but it doesn't at all. It's definitely more sugary fruit punch than wine. Burns my skin and itches where applied, from the heavy cinnamon.

2016 bottle (which I stupidly bought because it has owls on it, lol): Smells like powdery amber and a ton of white musk. Very perfumey, sharp and nondescript. Almost watery and washed out smelling. I smell like I dumped a bunch of drug store white musk colognes on myself and then ran through some baby powder. No pomegranate or myrrh. ETA: Around the two hour mark, this reminds me of Fledgling Raptor Moon's powdery, woody thing, but with sharp musk.

Lots of sweet, mushy, artificial, red candy apple with a hint of dry patchouli. I don't smell any vanilla, and the musk doesn't show up until about an hour in, and then it's a very dry, perfumey musk. Red musk is usually really strong on me, but I definitely am getting the white musk with this. The artificial apple, dry patch and sharp musk has a kind of potpourri smell on my skin. I don't think I'll be keeping my bottle.

Lots of sweet, waxy, warm, honeyed beeswax with baby powdery amber and hints of green. Reminds me of Burt's Bees products.

I missed the asphodel somehow when I first read over this description, and was confused at the screechy, sharp, white floral tone in this. It cuts through the black musk, which is slightly powdery, almost resinous, dark and cologne-like. It smells black and inky, around the white floral perfume. The patchouli is more noticeable in the drydown - earthy, black and damp. I just don't like the floral.

This is exactly as advertised and exactly what I was hoping for - a dark, almost spicy dragon's blood note supported by resins and incense. The resins have a dry/dusty quality that reminds me of Midnight Mass, but the dragon's blood makes this darker and gives it more of a bite. It's also verrrry similar to Ketkrokur from last year's Yules.

Starts off smelling those apple hard candy suckers coated in caramel and quickly fades into a smoky, burnt snickerdoodles cookie. Cinnamon and burnt sugar cookie. Very light, though, even with the spice, and I can't smell anything after the one hour mark.

I have good luck with bpal's more unusual single notes (Disappointing Pencil!). My earliest Halloween memories are of my mom making little cloth ghost decorations and hanging them in the trees all around our house. I loved them, and she would always let me keep one of my choosing, and I'd carry that little cloth ghost around with me for months before she snuck it back into the Halloween decorations box. So this was a must-have for me. Cheesecloth Ghosts smells like chilled and freshly sliced cucumbers, cold air (but no soapy ozone), cold tree branches, new plastic shower curtain, and a hint of wet paint. It reminds me of some of the industrial/modern perfumes I've tried. It's clean, crisp and cold, but not soapy at all. Green from the cucumber, but not overwhelmingly green or simple. I really enjoy this. It smells like being outside, but also smells like construction to me. And I close my eyes and really can imagine the little cloth ghosts and plastic ties fluttering around in a cold breeze. It's a clean, green scent that I can actually wear (I usually go for orientals, vanillas, gourmands, resins). I'm thinking about buying another bottle or two. I don't like most of the Halloween blends that I ordered, but this one is a winner.

Melting butter, tons of sugar and lemon hard candies with a strong, waxy overtone. Dries down like lemon flavored jelly beans, butter and candle wax. It smells very cheap to me. I'll stick with Gobo for a sugary, gourmand lemon scent. I had to swap this one away. I love gourmands, but this just smells way too cheap, waxy and strange.

Humming Hive smells like a really dusty nag champa incense to me. I don't really smell beeswax or patchouli, which was what I was looking forward to. Only lasts about 45 minutes on me and doesn't have much throw Second full wear, this still smells very dusty and reminds me of burning nag champa incense, but it also has a perfumey, metallic sharpness that reminds me of hair spray and dries down with a sharp, soapy quality. I sold off my bottle already. Not good on me at all.

A slightly soapy, perfumey apple that really smells like apple scented salon shampoo to me. There's a definite sweetness, but I can't place it as honey, and the drydown smells rather waxy/plasticy to me, like melting candle wax. I flip between thinking it smells like apple shampoo to thinking it smells like apple scented holiday candle. I'm not really enjoying it.

I wound up selling all of my Dead Leaves blends from last year, because they were just too green and had that watery/aquatic cologne vibe that others have mentioned (which got overwhelming after a couple months of aging). I wish that they had the spicy, dead leaf smell of Falling Leaf Moon rather than this green, wet leaf scent. It's very sharp and sour on my skin, and the lavender is a medicinal, herbal variety.