Little Bird

The blood musk is metallic, but in a silvery, cool, cologne-like way instead of smelling coppery or like iron.  Metallic cologne, a hint of red musk, amber that comes off like dry woods and dust, and an odd drizzle of sweet honey and savory saffron.  I actually find the overall combination to be really off putting and dirty smelling.  I normally enjoy all of these notes, but this blend feels really disjointed to me and the thick dusty/powdery quality of the amber isn't working for me here.  

Goes on with lots of powdery, sweet orris and a bubblegummy-yet-clean floral scent that makes me think of the High Strung Daisies blend.  I also keep catching whiffs that smell like brown sugar.  As it dries down, the rose comes out and it's a lovely mix of fresh and sweet, touched with that toasty brown sugar type of scent that I would normally dislike, but I'm loving it here with the floral notes.  The orris also sticks around as a shimmery, powdered sugary, silvery veil.  I love sweet, gourmand florals and this definitely leans into that territory.  It's a scent that makes me think of a shimmery unicorn lazing about in a fairy garden full of fat bumblebees.  I didn't expect to love this as much as I do, but I wore it while gardening this morning and it really put me in a planting flowers mood and it was strong and long lasting even in the heat and is still going strong 4 hours later.  A beautiful, gourmand floral.

I usually hate root beer / sarsaparilla scents, but Native Gold conjures up this old Western vibe that I really enjoy, transporting me to an old, dusty mining town in the West of old Hollywood movies.  It somehow really does smell like dusty minerals and the scent of standing just inside of a cave, this chilled, rocky, ancient scent that I love.  The dry cedar and sweet tobacco conjure up the images of an old wooden saloon.  The sarsaparilla smells like root beer, but leans more towards dried herbs and old apothecary than a root beer float, which I prefer more than the impression of the sugar drenched drink.  As it dries down, this is also reminding me of Essence by Reminiscence Paris, which is one of my favorites.

The first minute on my skin is delightful with the burst of realistic, juicy, tropical guava and a vanilla sugar and cognac that reminds me of Black Lace's flankers.  It quickly fizzles out, though, to a loud and baby powdery white sandalwood and warm vanilla sugar.  Bpal's white sandalwood has ruined more blends for me than any other note over the years.

Sweetly floral in the best way, like realistic daffodil and honeysuckle flowers, wrapped in an elegant, perfumey bow.  Creamy, sweet, pollen-y, and full of sunshine.  A little of a slightly powdery vanilla and clean musk undertone.  Very strong and long lasting.  I keep thinking that this smells like something that Marc Jacobs would come out with (somewhere between Daisy, Perfect, and Decadence).  I got this as a free bottle in one of my latest huge lab orders and I really love it. 

I got a bottle of this on the lab's etsy and it's such an odd scent for only having two notes.  At first, I was sure that I wasn't going to like this, because the first 10 minutes are all mahogany and it's a dark, bitter, sour wood note until it settles in on the skin.  After about 10 minutes, all of a sudden, a charred sweetness pops up and it seriously smells like roasted marshmallows on my skin.  Roasted marshmallows and glossy, dark wood that starts to smell more cologne-like than bitter.  Something about the deep sweetness and incense-y character of the myrrh reads as blackened marshmallows on me.  Once the sweetness comes through, I find this scent really addictive and attractive.

I like Jaunty Tater a lot more than Dapper Mandrake.  This one is a smoky vetiver cologne.  Like blackened meadow grass set on fire with plumes of black smoke rising into the sky and a generic, musky, watery men's cologne that's unpleasantly dry.  It reminds me a little bit of Dee, but I much prefer Dee's complexity and subtle sweetness, which it feels like Dapper Mandrake is lacking.

I recently picked up a partial bottle of Amor To Show and I absolutely love it.  I wish that this vanilla cream showed up in more fragrances because it's like a strong, gorgeous, lightly sugared cream that's cool toned and sweet without being cloying at all.  Like whipped cream, but the best whipped cream ever.  The honey cakes smell like perfect, dainty, yellow cakes topped off with honey flavored sugar, all deep gold and warm.  I don't get any lemon or floral and that's fine for me.  

Yellow cake topped off with the most gorgeous whipped cream and dusted with dark gold honey sugar.  All gourmand and creamy and I love it.

I love the lab's wild plum note because it smells like a perfectly ripe, juicy, dark, sweet plum.  Very deep purple.  The tea here starts off screechy and lemony, but quickly mellows out to a scent that smells delicately green and grassy, more like green tea, with a pinch of white ginger to give off a little spiciness and heat that dries down more tropical floral to me.  In this stage, it's like slicing into a perfect plum with the juices running over your fingers, sitting next to a steamy cup of green tea with hints of tropical florals coming in through the windows on a cool breeze.  If it stayed in this stage, I would be in heaven, but around the half hour mark, the whole thing starts to go very powdery (probably the red sandalwood) and loses all of its complexity and more interesting notes.

I prefer the "Wild Plum, Green Tea, and White Jasmine" trio for my wild plum and tea fix.

Reminds me of the GC blend Imp at first.  I have trouble wearing a lot of bpal's peach blends (tend to go plasticy or sour), but this is a juicy, sticky-sweet, ripe peach that smells delicious.  It might be getting its sweeter, juicier qualities from the lychee because it does have a tropical edge to it.  The black oudh, to me, is giving off black patchouli vibes (this part reminding me of the GC blend Depraved), something like fruit juice soaked black leather, but it's more noticeable in the opening stage and barely there at all in the drydown.  Bergamot is also barely there, though I catch whiffs of its citrus cologne sometimes.  The auburn musk takes over the drydown and smells similar to golden musk to me, sort of powdery and warm, but more sophisticated and slightly spicy, not sharp or baby powdery.  The overall effect is very elegant, even though it has sweet, fruity notes.

I got a bottle of No Pls from the Lab's etsy page.  First on, it's a big dose of creamy, sweet orange blossom that threatens to go soapy at the edges, but in a pleasant way, like orange blossom turned into a luxurious, creamy bar of moisturizing soap.  As it dries down, it starts to shift and pick up a sweet cigar tobacco and dry cedar that's super smooth like a good quality sandalwood.  The honeyed orange blossom in the drydown stage actually starts to read as a really beautiful jasmine tea type of scent on me, losing the soapiness and going more dry alongside the cedar note to make me crave a cup of jasmine tea.

I expected this blend to be more spiky, chaotic and odd than it actually is.  It's very mellow and pretty to me.  The dry woods, sweet cigar tobacco, and beautiful orange blossom go really well together and are delicately sweet, smooth/creamy, and easy to wear.

This is a lot like the French Tobacco single note, but not as sweet, more washed out, shrill, and sharply smoky.  The tobacco is almost like dead leaves - slightly spicy, dry, lightly sweet.  I don't get vanilla or amber from Snaky Hair'd, but the incense smoke comes out more like actual cigarette smoke to me.  I'll probably never reach for this over any of my sweeter tobacco fragrances.

Dry, musky, powdery white floral that's lightly sweetened with the honey.  The musk reminds me of white musk more than ambergris.  I get zero plum and zero tea.  If there was ever any plum, it does not exist anywhere in my aged bottle. 

Powdery, clean, lightly sweet, musky floral.

Very realistic cookie dough.  It smells just like making cookies and adding in the chocolate chips and vanilla extract to get that soft vanilla chocolate aroma.  As it dries down, the freshly baked bread note makes an appearance and starts making me crave chocolate brioche.  Chocolate brioche and raw chocolate chip cookie dough.  I think it's cool that the cookie dough never takes on a baked cookie scent and never goes caramelized or toasty on the edges.  I'm really thrilled that I tracked down a bottle of this.  The fries and cotton scared me off initially, but neither of those notes make an appearance on me anyhow.

As everyone else said, LUSH's Honey I Washed the Kids (sweet honey toffee with a citrusy twist), but with a hint of tuberose that's actually playing nice on me, smelling creamy and dry and perfumey in a sophisticated way rather than being screechy.  It's weird how much this smells like a LUSH dupe.

Honey flavored sugar, all sweet and cheerful and bright, sprinkled over sweet, ripe, milky fig, with an air full of meditative, calming incense.  All of the notes are sweet, but in a delicate, smooth, non-cloying way, and the milkiness of the fig makes everything feel so creamy and soft.  I didn't expect to love my partial bottle as much as I do.  I love creamy, gourmand notes paired with incense, making me think of sweet offerings and old temples.  

Blackberry Moon 2022 has vintage bpal vibes for me at first (the berry reminding me of the blackberry in Glasgow and kind of having a mellow, candied vibe like Jester).  I'm glad that the fresh, green notes that I was worried about don't show up at all on my skin (no tea, no bergamot, no green leaves) and the other notes (earthy patchouli, delicately sweet fig, musky amber) add a warm, earthy, perfumey base to the blackberry.  The berry turns more rich and wine-like over time and I'm still really loving the musky, ambered base and earthy tones.  The scent feels a bit mature to me, a bit vintage, deep and autumnal.

I loved the scorched milk note in Snake Milk, so I thought I'd enjoy this blend, but I don't get the same scorched milk note and I'm not loving the variety of chocolate used in this blend.  The chocolate in this is coming off as very artificial / chemical to me, like a fuzzy scented marker sort of chocolate, and it has an undertone of way too sweet caramel that comes off as a candle type of scent to my nose.  10 minutes in, it smells like a caramel scented candle and no chocolate at all.  Slightly waxy/plasticy.

The first 45 minutes are tangy, sweet raspberry jam and apricot marmalade.  Then the fruitiness fades to a more nondescript, slightly sour berry, and a somewhat musky vanilla sugar comes through in the drydown.  I wish it held on to the opening stage because the drydown is a little reminiscent of berry flavored cough syrup to me.  By the three hour mark, it had already faded away completely.

This is like 50/50 the perfect marshmallow and the perfect chocolate.  It's realistic like sticking your face into a bag of marshmallows, all creamy and sugary and vanilla-y, and the chocolate is like a perfect mug of rich, fudgey hot chocolate.  Very satisfying.

I can barely tell the difference between Cacao Pod and Boomslang, except that Boomslang lasts longer on me and I think that Boomslang is just a bit richer, smoother and more complex.  Still, I can barely tell the difference when Cacao Pod is first applied, until it starts to fade around the one hour mark.  The cocoa absolute, undertone of creamy sweetness, and dark musk are all very reminiscent of Boomslang.  It makes me want to dig through my packed boxes and find a bottle of Boomslang to slather.

I talked myself out of buying this so many times that it went out of stock and I wound up getting a bottle in the secondary market.  I love it and I'm glad that I finally took a chance on it.  It's so gourmand, sweet and creamy.  Sweet cream with a drizzle of honey, all sugared milk and snuggly.  The carnation adds an essence of warm spiciness.  The vetiver has a little smokiness to it in the drydown, but it never gets overwhelming on me (and isn't the variety that can smell like roasting cedar planks or mesquite bbq); it's more of a hint of sweet, caramelized smoke on my skin.  The peony is barely there on me, just a whisper of fresh floral that I catch every once in a while.  I really enjoy how it all plays out on my skin.

I have no idea why I bought a bottle of this because rosewater is usually too sharp for me in perfume (though I love rosewater in skincare products), gardenia is usually too bold and heavy of a white floral for my tastes, and I don't tend to enjoy powdery scents.  Young Woman Powdering Herself starts off scary, but a half hour into the drydown, does mellow out into something pretty and wearable.  It goes on sharp, like nailpolish remover, with sweet, chalky powder, and dries down a little less acetone, but still has a screechy hairspray quality to the white floral gardenia that never entirely goes away, though it does fade a lot over the hours.  The rosewater comes out and freshens things up in the drydown and, mixed with the sweet powder, smells like dewy, sweet, pink roses after a while. 

Candied pink roses, but still dewy and fresh, with a lingering undercurrent of sharp gardenia, and a sweet, powdery finish.

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.

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.