Little Bird

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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 ❤️

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.

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.

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.

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...

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).

I thought that fig and guava was an unusual combo, and it is odd for the first hour.  Woody-raisin fig with a guava note that doesn't smell like ripe guava to me, but does remind me of the taste of the mini guavas I got from Costco last fall - sort of tart, crisp, and a little watery, refreshing, and a tad herbal.  The almond cream is not a strong cherry/almond extract scent, more of a cool, clean, creamy milk with an impression of grainy almond and a drop of almond extract (whiff of cherry every once in a while).  There's a soft, brown, earthy patchouli behind those notes, and the sandalwood bolsters the woody elements of the fig. 
After two hours, this is mostly a fig and milk scent, with the fig smelling more pink and sweet rather than woody or of raisins, and the milk note smells very clean, but still rich and creamy.  Almost shampoo-like, but not soapy at all.
I just wish that this weren't so light on my skin.  It's one of those blends that I can't smell unless my nose is right against my skin.  I'll have to try making it into a spray and using it in my hair.
In the same family as blends like Nonae Caprotina and Milk Moon 2020.

Dusty Funnelcake takes me back to being a child in southern Arkansas during sweltering August, visiting my dad's extended family.  We went to a fair one night that had an impressive assortment of carnival rides, snack booths, and souvenir booths.  The 'patchouli, desert dust, and chaparral' in this blend is the exact smell of the parched August earth, dead grass and soil turning to dust in the heat and the drought.  Then there's the fried dough smothered in a crust of cinnamon sugar, accidentally dropped into that dusty earth.  I really love how atmospheric this blend is.  It's the scent of a summer fairground.

The cinnamon in this does really irritate my skin (raised, red welts where it burned), but I keep dabbing this on my jackets because the earthy scent is gorgeous and the way the cinnamon sugar plays with those earthy tones just smells amazing to me.

Calvin Klein Euphoria vibes.  Lots of bright red, sweet pomegranate juice, made slightly darker with the plum, on a bed of dry, powdery amber.  I can smell the sharp tuberose at first, but it quickly disappears.  The powdery aspects of the amber get stronger over time, and I don't really like powdery scents, but it's mostly pom on me for 6 hours until it starts to fade.

I don't actually get any lychee from this, though it does have a pleasant fruitiness to it that reminds me of unripe Asian pears (sort of a watery, tart apple tone).  Then there's tons of creamy, fluffy floral with a hint of clean, making me think of white peonies.  The floral scent is like lily and peony had a baby and it also reminds me of LUSH's Sultana soap (the creamy, white, clean undertone that the soap has).  The rosehip tea is well behaved and not particularly rosy on me, but more an impression of honeyed tea next to a bouquet of big, white flowers.

Not what I expected from the listed notes at all, but is a very pretty, clean-but-not-soapy, floral & tea scent.

Flowering Plum Twig is a pretty spring scent, I just wish that it lasted more than an hour on me. 
Dark, sweet plum fruit, subtle vanilla, and hints of spiced, dark tobacco and breezy plum blossom (but only small hints that waver in and out of the scent to me).  I was worried about the brandy, but nothing here strikes me as alcoholic or harsh.  The plum smells like black plum to me, but perhaps a bit sweeter.  It's juicy, dark, and luscious.
I liked this enough to track down a partial bottle, but I have so many other plum scents that last all day on me, so I'm not sure how much wear this one will get.

The most beautiful, sweet, almond flavored frosting (and this coming from someone who usually dislikes almond scents) on the most lightly-spiced-spice-cake. Yeasty pretzel in the bottle, but immediately transforms on my skin through a phase of chocolate brioche and then settling into the sweet, whipped, almond frosting and hint of sweet cinnamon. I was just sad that it only lasts about 45 minutes on me.

Something like a strawberry and pineapple Starburst candy, slightly sour. Dries down to all sour pineapple with a slightly fizzy, clean edge to it. Makes me think of pineapple flavored bubly water. Nothing that smells like lavender, vanilla or cake to me at all.

A little sweeter, a lot stronger, and just all around better than the hair gloss, in my opinion (and I like and still have a half bottle left of the hair gloss).  It is the scent of the hair gloss, but it's longer lasting and has a chance to play out on the skin in this format, so it really shines.  There's the clean - but not soapy - skin musk and tons of sweet, thick, dark honey.  I like sultry honeys that don't smell like freshly squeezed honey, but are more sweet, sensual, creamy, and dark.  Bpal's O is the epitome of that honey (darkened with amber, fleshed out with creamy, sweet vanilla), and Hair Loosened is in that same family for me.  It doesn't go soapy or powdery to my nose, though that clean skin musk is definitely very present throughout the hours of wear.

The amber, honey, and vanilla smell just like O to me, with the addition of an earthy yet smooth patchouli that smells like its been roasted (the way tea leaves can be roasted to be warmer and richer) with a hint of cedar in it.  It's been forever since I've had a decant of the original Feed Me, but I do remember the amber in the OG going way too powdery for me.  This starts off a little powdery and concerning, but within a couple minutes, it shifts into a rich, honeyed, vanilla-y, dark, creamy, amber-y glow.  It's very reminiscent of O's thick sweetness and warm amber, but with a wonderful patchouli note swirled into it, making it even more amazing.  Possibly multiple bottle hoarding worthy for me.

I don't remember trying the original Our Lady of Pain, so I don't have any useful comparisons to the OG.  I didn't really enjoy the 2013, according to my review, and I do like this one, though.  So perhaps the blend has changed and/or my tastes & interpretation of the scent have changed and matured.  I am much more into floral blends than I was back in 2013.

The 2024 version, in the drydown, strongly reminds me of Tom Ford's Black Orchid, but not as complex, smooth, or rich in feel.  It has a similar juicy (fruity leaning), musky, dark orchid and earthy, raunchy patchouli thing going on.  Perhaps the blood musk is adding some of the incensey spiciness that's reminiscent of Black Orchid as well.  If I smelled Our Lady of Pain '24 without knowing what it was, I wouldn't guess that it was Tom Ford's Black Orchid exactly, but I would guess that it's a dupe of that popular scent.  It comes very close to hitting most of the main notes of Black Orchid.  

For about the first hour, the patchouli in this is quite funky and animalic, but it settles into a dark, earthy, slightly chocolatey patchouli (also reminiscent of Black Orchid) that's very sexy, and it's mixed with the juicy, musky, shadowy, femme fatale orchid and undertones of metallic yet spicy and slightly incensey blood musk.  I don't really smell the lavender or opium tar, and those were the two notes that my review mentions as bothersome in the OG.

It feels like a mature, sensual, gothic, dark floral that's confident and expensive.  I like it a lot and I can see myself wearing this blend on days when Tom Ford's Black Orchid is too strong for me and I want a similar feel, but with softer throw (I find that all of my favorite Tom Ford fragrances will last for days on my skin and months on fabrics, so I have to be ready to commit, lol).