Little Bird
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Everything posted by Little Bird
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Beautiful myrrh, fruity rose, and red musk with hints of patchouli in the drydown. I love black currant, especially when it's jammy and sweet like it is in this blend, and it melds into the rose so perfectly into a dessert type of scent. For the first couple hours, it's delicious black currant syrup with hints of red rose and a backdrop of sweet myrrh that's just ever so slightly incense smoky. After that, the rose fades considerably and I can smell hints of earthy patchouli instead of hints of rose. The crimson musk doesn't seem to be the usual, heavy red musk, but adds a little sultry warmth that holds everything together. The black currant and myrrh stay gorgeous the whole way through, disappearing around the 5 hour mark. I really enjoy most of the Haute Macabre scents, and Garnet is currently my favorite ❤️.
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Pine wood (no evergreenery, just the wood) and creamy sandalwood with the growly, earthy, patchouli-dark-musk and slight spiciness of the new version of Snake Oil. A little smoky. Hints of cucumber and waxy lipstick that I don't love, but the musk and smokiness eventually overpowers the weird tones. It's the scent of building up a wood pile in fall, woodsmoke in the air, and snakes cuddled into the wood and fall leaves, everyone preparing for winter. I like this and I think it's a very unique Snake Oil variant. Kind of reminds me of Satyr more than Snake Oil.
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I was really confused when I tried on my decant of Carrotberry Pie and it smelled of strong, sharp spices. I had to go back and reread the notes. I guess the 'pumpkin mash' is pumpkin spice. I never smell any carrot or anything vegetal. It's mostly tart, tangy, sweet cranberry jelly and lots of sharp, dry, cinnamon spice. More cranberry than blackberry to my nose.
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I want to love the 'blow mold' scents, but the literal plastic note makes them hard to wear. If I say a scent is plasticy, I usually mean I dislike it. It takes fragrances into a cheap, candle-like scent category for me. Vintage Snowman is a sharp evergreen and ice scent, more aquatic/ozone than minty. The touch of plastic makes it smell like an old, forgotten evergreen candle turning to dust in the bottom of a christmas box in the attic.
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Maple Pie is so sweet that it's nauseating to me. I can smell the molasses, brown sugar, and maple syrup, and they're very cloying and strong. I was hoping the salt would cut through some of the sweetness, but it never shows up to the party. I love to make desserts with maple syrup; I just don't seem to want to smell like maple syrup. Toothachingly sweet and makes me think of candle fragrances.
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I was excited for the 'apple custard,' but I don't smell anything creamy or reminiscent of custard in this blend. It's very boozy and slightly pukey smelling on my skin with an apple air freshener and slight lemon scent. No pie crust or custard. My husband said it reminded him of bad Febreze. Apple notes are iffy for me and I don't like this one with the sherry and sharp lemon.
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My favorite of this series of Pie scents, but it still leans plasticy and artificial to me, unfortunately. The chocolate has a waxy, chemical-y edge to it, like chocolate lip balm mixed with chocolate scented markers. The mint and marshmallow meld together into a creamy mint scent that I enjoy, but the other notes kind of ruin it for me, with something turning very plasticy in the drydown. Grasshopper Pie is also very light on my skin, only lasting about an hour with not much throw.
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Coffee Cream Pie smells so artificial and plasticy to me. The chocolate pudding smell throws me off because it really does smell like the cheap, wobbly, room temperature, artificial chocolate pudding you can get at the grocery store that's unrefrigerated. Then it has a plasticy tone to it and a strong, dry, powdery, dusty yet cloying scent to it. The coffee is a little sweeter than Bah and it lacks the edge of toasty bitterness and warm milk that makes me love Bah. I don't know what is turning to plastic and weirdly dusty to my nose. Too sweet, the chocolate pudding thing is unappealing to me, and then the weird plastic and dustiness just makes it unbearable. None of the pie scents in this series smell good to me
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The first hour is a sharply salty, soapy, dark blue aquatic with sandy undertones and what smells like ink on my skin. After an hour, I wondered what smelled powdery and floral until I realized it was me, wearing this. Powdery, sweet-ish, and floral without being noticeably rose scented. It has a cool aspect to it that I like and it makes me think of porcelain dolls.
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To me, Ariel is nearly identical to the GC bpal "Sea of Glass." I get the same bright, cool aquatic with a lemony/bergamot citrus cologne lilt to it and hint of salt. Ariel just has a tiny hint of dry, woody, incensey oud that gives it a darker undertone than OG Sea of Glass.
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My old bottle of Ryogoku Bridge was all about the powdery amber and an oddly dank, moldering teak note. My bottle of 2024 is all about the gourmand facets, and I am thrilled with it. First applied, it smells like marshmallow mixed with a cool white floral perfume, like a bouquet of lilies and some creamy white musk. Bpal's lotus usually smells like bubblegum on me, but this is lily-like, super creamy, and cool toned along with being sweet. Dries down to a perfect sugared sweet cream scent with golden undertones. The amber is a golden halo enveloping everything in romantic candlelight. Beautiful, and it lasts all day on me. Hoardworthy.
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I love this and love what a unique incense scent it is (while still smelling so familiar). It's incense, but done with a fun, playful, youthful twist. For me, this is dead-on the scent memory of finding incense sticks in the local mall when I was in high school. Nag champa, powdery amber, and strawberry candy scented sticks that dry down after a half hour to all of that plus a soft, romantic, powdery rose with a hint of tart rhubarb. It's a mishmash of those sweet, powdery, so artificial smelling incense sticks, but I really enjoy it. It's nostalgic and fun to me. I remember being in high school and my friends and I were always searching out the incense sticks and sitting and smelling all of them with each other (along with everything in Sephora and Bath & Body Works). I remember how excited we were when one of us found 'fizzy pop' incense sticks and we marvelled over how something dry and smoky could also smell bubbly and wet like Sprite. Roses, Pearls, & Rubies conjured up those memories for me. It's a fun fragrance for the nostalgia and also because it feels kind of goth, but also kind of rainbows and sunshine. I have a partial bottle and think I'll full size it before Lupers disappear.
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The black sesame and clove are so savory and strong, like I've made beef dumplings and a spicy black vinegar and soy sauce mix and then smashed and poured them on to my skin. It also kind of smells like bitter, dark coffee beans in the drydown and turns rather sour to my nose. I think the green silk is the high pitched, soapy note that I'm getting. Then there's a little bit of woody smokiness from the sandalwood and agarwood. I had really high hopes for this and it just smells so strange and unpleasant to me. It doesn't make me think of books... more like bitter, black coffee, burning wood, soapy and starchy fabric, and seasoned meat.
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The Corn Spirit makes me feel sick to my stomach when I smell it. It's so cloying sweet to my nose, but then with a strong, dusty undertone and sudsy, creamy, floral soap. Vanilla frosting, extremely dusty soil, and the floral soap. I'm not getting corn husk or hay at all, and was hoping this would be more like a corn field scent with tilled earth and drying stalks. I miss the GC Scarecrow that filled that niche, but The Corn Spirit smells like a chaotic mishmash of random notes, not what I expected from the listed notes. It stayed very strong for the hour that I wore this, but then I had to scrub it off.
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I added this to my last minute Halloween order because Butterscotch and Blackbeetles is one of my favorite bpals. I would say that this is in the same family because the burnt coffee bean comes across as dark and earthy (not a burnt or smoky/charred smell at all, which is what I was worried about; it's simply the scent of gourmand-ish, earthy, dark, toasty coffee beans). The butterscotch smells like a mix of butterscotch and soft caramel melting on a stovetop. The apple is green apple candy at first and then dries down to a breezy apple blossom-ish scent, which comes across as smelling like apple blossom air freshener after a while. What I really love about this scent is that it's somehow foggy, cool, and spooky in feel. The scent of a peculiar, melty, butterscotch-caramel confection as you're wandering in the woods on a foggy night. The sweetness feels out of place and that makes it creepy. I love gourmand atmospherics like this.
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Starts off as sharp, green bell peppery, cologne-like dead leaves. I immediately looked at the notes list again and screamed "noooo" inside my own head as I read 'decaying leaves.' Bpal seems to either use a realistic, crunchy, spicy dead leaves note or it winds up being this bell pepper cologne thing that I dislike so much. That said, I feel like it's actually on theme here (watching cicadas lounging around my yard on all of the greenery) and the greenery fades quickly, so it doesn't bother me much. 15 minutes in, the greenery is already nearly gone to make way for a dusty, well worn, brown leather fragrance that's sweetened with a little vanilla and cozy, warm amber/labdanum. The earthiness is dusty and parched and there is a mineral feel to this as well that makes me think of cicadas crawling through earth and stone to reach the surface and unfurl their little wings. An hour in, it's dusty soil that still has that cool, mineral, rocky quality to it, paired with warm leather and powdery amber. The oakmoss and clary sage add a soft, dried, herbal quality as well. To me, this is all about cicadas journeying through the soil, drawn to the surface by the promise of green leaves and socializing. I've always loved cicadas (even their 'singing' has never bothered me, not even when they descended like a plague in the Ozarks during my childhood and their sound seemed to pulsate through the trees and have its own heartbeat) and I think that this perfume is a gentle ode to them and their journey. The rocky soil and lightly sweetened leather with warm amber is so cozy and I love it.
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I'm kind of surprised that there's no clove listed for this scent, because it's so spicy, warm, and powdery on me. I love the Japanese cedar because it's aromatic like dried cedar planks (and perhaps that's where the spice is coming from?). The first time I wore this, I got green cypress and some smokiness, but I don't smell either of those things today. The leather and patchouli start off slowly, getting stronger over hours of wear, but they still stay more muted than usual. The leather is well-worn and soft and the patchouli is like the earth in a forest clearing, with wood, pine needles, and rich soil warming in the sun. It's a warm, enveloping scent that keeps making me think of laying outside on a sunny day. I like this, but I have so many patchouli and leather scents that I would reach for before this one.
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Vanilla buttercream frosting with frothy milk that cuts down on some of the buttercream sweetness. The honey is barely there in the opening and I don't get any bourbon, but the fig and patchouli come in subtly and mesh together into a beautiful, dark, earthy-woody scent melded into pulpy-sticky-fruit. I was worried that this would be cloying, but I don't get a powdered sugar scent to the buttercream; it's more of a whipped, creamy vanilla frosting, and the milk is warm and frothy rather than thickly sweet and caramelized. The fig and patchouli also help to even out the sweetness. So it's a strong vanilla frosting (I'd say it's 80% vanilla-y and 20% patchouli and fig), but the other notes keep it from being sickly sweet or too simple. I have a ton of vanilla and patchouli scents (and not enough patchouli and fig scents), but I'm happy to add this one to my collection too and will add a backup bottle into my next order.
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I love bpal's fragrances with notes that I commonly use for offerings. They feel spiritual, indulgent, and sensual to me. Enagismata starts off like tangy, strong, vibrant red wine and sweet honey mead + extra honey with a dark undercurrent of resinous smoke. As it dries down, the goat's milk comes in and softens everything, adding a strong, creamy, vanilla-y tone that also makes the scent feel more refreshing and not quite as dark and intense. Settles into a beautiful scent of honeyed, vanilla milk, red wine, and smoky myrrh. Strong and long lasting with good throw. Adding it to my list of favorites ❤️
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The weird fizziness that I've been getting from the Lab's frankincense blends lately is also in this, like a mix of champagne and soapy household cleanser. The honey is sickly-sweet and reminiscent of urine, unfortunately, which I haven't experienced from a honey note in quite some time. Then there's a super powdery base from the sandalwood and heliotrope. After about an hour, the honey and frank smell more like burning beeswax candles, but it was a struggle for me to get to this point. I still don't like how powdery it is.
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House Cleaning in Preparation for New Year’s Eve
Little Bird replied to Jenjin's topic in Lupercalia
Smoky, astringent, and bitter, like the taste of tea that's been made with water that was way too hot and then it was left for way too long. The pine smells like burning pine pitch and menthol. I normally love black currant / cassis, but I get the sour lemon and no berries for the first half hour. After that point, it's like sweet raspberry smothered in woodsmoke. It's not at all what I hoped for. I don't care for the harsh smoke or medicinal, bitter tones. -
The indigo and crimson musks in this are interesting. Paired with the strong, smoky, dark oud wood, the musks smell more like a black musk infused with purple grape and woodsmoke. The sharp, white floral narcissus gives the scent a hint of department store perfume, but it smells intriguing when it's draped in dark, heavy, velvety musk and black smoke. The overall scent has a dusty/powdery quality to it. I don't know how much I will wear this because I feel like I have better red musks (sweeter, creamier, fruitier) in my collection and the white floral and heavy, black smoke is too dry and sharp for me after a while.
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A Ghostly Encounter is pretty, but it has no staying power or throw. First on, the ambergris is slightly powdery and slightly metallic / aquatic, like if a gleaming mirror set in silver had a fragrance. Creamy, powdery, clean, white musky. I can smell the lemony tones from the palo santo and hinoki, along with warm woods, and I love this fleeting stage. After about 5 minutes, it's just a faint whiff of what smells like baby powdery, sweet, warm amber and dry wood. I couldn't smell it at all after the one hour mark.
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Roasted chestnuts and the excitement of bustling Christmas markets (which always make me feel like a little kid again). Chestnut Vulva is more than the sum of its listed notes. I feel like I can smell hints of pine trees, sweet sap, chilly air, and snow, infused into a strong, sweet, spicy, roasted chestnut. Toasted cardamom smells better to me than regular cardamom, maybe a hint of smoke and a peppery quality to it that deepens the whole scent. Caramel can be really overwhelming, but it just lends a creamy sweetness here, and I get more vanilla than caramel overall. Tons of throw and lasts up to around the 6 hour mark on me before it starts to fade. Has me craving Yules when we are still in spring...
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Love. The only thing in The Shimmering Mirror that I'm not wild about is the pine pitch, which comes in strong like I've set a pine tree on fire and the black smoke and ash are swirling all around. Thankfully, that disappears entirely within the first five minutes. Then, for the first hour or so, it's beautiful resins with that cola and Dr. Pepper undertone that myrrh sometimes has, on a bed of dry, vintage perfume smelling oakmoss, with the beautiful amber incense coming in as a warm glow that brings up images of chunks of soft amber resin and incense cones. Further in, it goes through a stage of strong, pretty Mysore sandalwood, and it's the type of sandalwood that feels creamy, softly woody, and lightly sweet rather than powdery. Then, just when I think I have the whole thing figured out, the sweet, vanilla-y benzoin floats in over everything. It settles into a really wonderful, sweet, rich vanilla-amber with sweet myrrh and hints of sandalwood, patchouli, and oakmoss. Warm, cozy, sweet, creamy, comforting. Definitely try if you like incense/resins (though it seems I'm getting way less pine than other reviewers).