patina

Cherry is always very loud on me, but here it doesn't overwhelm the cream and (later, on drydown) a buttery crust note. I said that Pumpkin Pie Musk was my favorite of these, but this is a very, very close one. I don't get wax per se, but there's maybe amber?

Butter! And caramel sweetness. Amazing. Unfortunately the leaves make it smell a little plasticy and burnt on drydown. I'm sure this sample will find a good home elsewhere.

The oud here is not rich enough to have an indole smell. It smells dry, a bit like old cardboard boxes, with some sugar (not enough to be truly sweet) and a toasted note. At first when I put it on it almost smelled soapy but that passed quickly. This is nice, overall but then I like cardboard box oud.

Pumpkin Pie. Sweet, very Pumpkin Spice and I can't separate out the musk. This may be my favorite of the three pies.

These fit together strangely well, like a grimy road strewn with wet leaves on a gray day, except the road is made of candy charcoal and all the grime is licorice, not petroleum based. This is not an especially sweet licorice. The leaves resemble those in October to me, with the same bell pepper note, except the licorice tempers them. This isn't bad, but a little strange. I think I'd prefer it with some other note to round things out.

Immediately I get patchouli and saffron (the saffron must be the oud). There's a suggestion of beeswax and indistinguishable dark resins. This is smooth and dark and a bit like skin musk. Very luxurious and as other reviewers have said, very close to the skin.

This smells of pear, blackcurrant and gardenia. On drydown I get cedar and moss too. This isn't very aquatic at all, but I think the aquatics are softening the fruit. Definitely more of a swamp aquatic than an ocean scent, but only if swamp water smelled of pear and blackcurrant. Something also reminds me of the poison berries in "Her Strong Enchantments Failing", which makes sense. This is a softer scent all around though.

Sniff: I'm immediately reminded of the dark plum in Crimson Peak's A Shadow in the Elevator. Is that violet? Wearing: This is a dead ringer for A Shadow in the Elevator, but lighter: less earthy no patchouli or oud here. Very seet and nice, for scent from a poem about fear and projection. Wearing and reading notes: maybe I've fooled myself into thinking there's plum because of the plum honey? Anyway, this is very sweet, sheer and purple-black. I feared the champa as a death note but it doesn't seem to be going off. I might actually like it a little more than A Shadow. This hole scent was made for me.

On sniffing: deep, a little spicy. i get swirls of incense, cacao and pine pitch. Application: Pine comes out strong, a fog slowly creeps in, incense spirals up from a burner, Sixteen second intro from This Corrosion begins playing, lots of unspecified depth and sweetness from incense. This is both heady and deep on me, I can see how it represents pipe organ music. Also the incense almost smells cherry-like. Weird. Dark, smoky, sweet, smooth, deep, EDIT: Bottle has settled, there's less of a whoomph! of incense on first applying. still settles down to be quite heavily cherry on my skin. Dragon's blood? EDIT EDIT: Further aging, there's no longer a dragon's blood stage. Instead this starts off as cheap chocolate and wax plus incense and settles into a musty vetiver and incense smoke. Not bad.

From other reviews, I expected a heavy wood and dust scent, but what I get is lighter than I thought. There's a lot of light, airy sandalwood combined with pages, oak, and dust, almost indistinguishably. I want to snuggle in with this, though far down there's a suggestion of band-aids that's probably the leather. Sandalwood, a big old book plus lots of polished wood. The amount of dust almost makes me want to sneeze at this point, but that may just be the power of suggestion. EDIT: There's a cold note on opening, like wood polish but chill. I'm getting a definite sense of draft.

My experiences with book scents: The Lurid Library (Halloweenie): very perfumy. Old yellowing paperbacks, but soaked in faded red musk. Dee (GC): paper, incense, leather and powder. sometimes this is faint enough to disappear, sometimes it becomes weirdly chemical leather but there's a nice mellow spot in between Miskatonic U (GC).I get milk and coffee, then on the drydown, cold coffee at the bottom of a mug. No books here that I can detect. The Book (Paranorman): I lost my decant, but I recall this was lots of mellow paper with some leather, very warm, very nice, sometimes fades rather quickly. The Gatekeeper: Maze of Games: sometimes wet ink, sandalwood bone, plus plenty of paper and leather. Something here occasionally turns unpleasantly grimy. Fitting enough but weird. Bookcase Passage (Halloweenie) Sandalwood dust for sure, but there's plenty of paper and wood here too as well as something faintly bandaid like. Not as mellow and sweet as The Book, probably because of the polished wood.

This reminds me of Organ Grinder probably because it's a dark scent with pine and tobacco notes together. However, Thunk is actually very different. Instead of the dirty patchouli, almond, and High John root there's just tobacco with a lot of purified pine resin and smooth, almost licorice smelling teak plus a dark cool metal. Dark, smooth, slightly medicinal without being dirty. The pine resin is toned way down from its tear-bringing turpentinw-y natural form but it's still pine. Very outdoorsy.

The cake is amazing, but the lavender without heavier notes to weigh it down is something I can't pull off at all, very bright almost medicinal. I'm sure someone who loves the lab's lavender would be very happy with this.

That is a lot of cake batter, though tempered by marshmallows (somehow I can tell the difference) and lots of dry cardamom. The cardamom does a good job of giving the scent weight but it also makes me sneeze.

This is the most delicious apple, tart but not too tart. So far nothing is overwhelming here. I don't directly smell the tea, but I know it's there. This is just well balanced and beautiful. It feels meditative. Like doing homework with elegant stationary. an apple snack, and expensive tea.