patina

I have a super aged bottle. It starts out as wet violets and dank sandalwood. I can't really pick out the neroli. The musk combined with the violets smell like...hair...oil? I've never smelled hair oil in my life, but I imagine Victorian men would wear something like that. On drydown it goes a bit powdery. Not baby-powdery, but like a dry attic trunk filled with sandalwood. This might sound less than appealing, but for me it's a go-to comfort scent.

Fuzzy brown husk and sweet patchouli. This goblin's a small hairy Scottish brownie type fellow. It's good, but it's almost too simple. There's a similarity to Banshee Beat but this isn't as rich or quite as dark.

HI I AM FAKE NEWS PAY ATTENTION TO ME I AM FANCY AND EXPENSIVE AND FANCY DID YOU KNOW PINK PEPPER CAN CURE CANCER!? This has an insane throw on me. As others have mentioned the patchouli smells almost but not quite like chocolate, the white tobacco is dry and wafting all over the place and the pink pepper gives this a lovely bite and mischievous edge without being hard on the sinuses. I wish I could tell you what the gold element was. I can't. It's kind of metallic without being super ozony. It's a lot like department store perfume, but the ideal of department store perfume. Super dry and cutting on drydown.

I mostly smell dark musk and cashmere. No kidding, it smells just like a sweater. I can understand this being called a clean or skin scent. I thought the amber would smell more polished, but it's there in the background blending almost seamlessly with the patchouli and tobacco. The tobacco leaf must be providing a bit of extra woodiness. There's something very old fashioned about this somehow even though it doesn't smell exactly like an old perfume. It reminds me of the smell of National Geographic magazines from the 50's and 60's. Hopefully that doesn't make anyone think that it's not sophisticated, because it is sophisticated.

This does remind me of Old Moon 2011, except that scent was ruined for me by it's plastic-ness. It smelled like old plastic photographs and film. This is just very soft leather and dust and tobacco scented paper. Edit: Sometimes bone and wet leather show up too. Sometimes it's overwhelmingly almost-vetiver and leather. This is a morpher. For whatever reason this doesn't turn chemical at all on me. It's comforting and the truest book scent I've smelled so far. (I haven't tried the Bugger Alle Thys Bible or the one from the Paranorman collection however.) This smells like the Cryptkeeper's more genteel and scholarly brother.

I loved The Inexorable Finger. Anyone have other Patch + Oude recommendations? Especially if a resin or two shows up to the party.

The richest, dirtiest Fig Newtons ever. It seriously smells like the fig cookies, except I never liked those and this is a lot better. It's not completely gourmand though. I'm surrounded with a halo of amber and fig, but the beige oude is keeping the richness and sweetness from getting out of hand and adding a dry element. If you like purple fruit, patchouli, oude or semi-gourmet scents you might want to try this. The only downside to this is that the environment you wear it in and possibly your skin chemistry can affect your perception of the scent. I was changing a vacuum filter and the sour dust smell blended in seamlessly with the oude. For hours afterwards this smelled sour to me.

I'm not a big fan of citrus though herbal citrus can be okay. I dislike most chypre scents I've tried. Patchouli is pretty good, but not always. It's surprising that this was such a winner on me. It does have a lot of lemon verbena and the "candied lemon" thing is accurate. It adds a lot of sparkle and zip. Normally I associate lemon with cleaning products. And...to be honest it's not completely unlike those. But there's enough of a difference here to matter to me. There's an almost "clean" patchouli. It seems bashful, but then patchouli doesn't amp on me. But the chypre is my favorite element. It doesn't smell of all moss all the time- rather it's the best combination of woods and ferns and maybe some dusty moss, it's not clear. But it smells like a lovely backdrop of soft, tiny delicate creeping plants. Mutable earth indeed. I think that there's an understanding of the sign better than that behind many other Virgo scents I've seen. I was afraid of straight up cleaning products. This lifts my mood and I feel more cheerful and alert while I'm wearing it. And yes, clean, but there's a grounding effect as well.

Black plum, black currant, opoponax, olibanum, sinuous labdanum, and opium tar. Perfumy dark fruit. To me this is Isidore's Phoenix: The Atmo. There's no violet but it's still a dead ringer.

Welp, that is some patchouli. Gnarly brown and wooden but somehow smooth as well. The oudh is breathtakingly dry, like dark dirt landscape that hasn't seen rain in fifteen years covered with cracks dry. I don't get much obsidian, but it's there somewhere, probably smoothing out the patchouli. Edit: The oude is very sophisticated here and I keep wanting to wear this.

Like the other people have said it's a not really foodie licorice. The tea gives it a floral note.

Funny, I must have been the only one that didn't get cinnamon caramel popcorn. Instead I got pumpkin eggnog. It's good, though. A bit heavy on the nutmeg.

Green musk recs? Smite thy Borders With Frogges almost works but is too soapy. Laughter of Loki and Zombie Green Hair Gloss are amazing, though.

I had hoped this scent wouldn't be all smoke all the time, but actually on the first sniff, I get leather. The leather from Leather Phoenix to be exact. The same kind of sophistication. It also smells glossy and green in a way that could be called aquatic but isn't soapy. I'm guessing it's the poppy doing this, along with the ivy. After a little wear I get some smoke but overall this is low key. A deep scent without much throw.

Lovely dark spicy gingerbread. the usual smokiness of vetiver isn't distracting here, I can hardly smell any smoke but there seem to be undertones of peanut butter. It's the weirdest thing. As if someone smeared gingerbread cake with peanut butter. I like this, but Gingerbread Zombi is my one true gingerbread love.

Okay, read the label. There's your review. Actually, I find the industrial scent somewhat tempered by the mineral char. It's darker than Smokestack but not as offputting to me. It alllmost goes petrochemical but stops short.

Amber! Sweet amber. It almost smells like pink ambergris. As it dries I can detect a smoky note underneath, which is actually a lot like pine pitch but I'm guessing it's actually the oak. Oakmoss normally overwhelms everything but here it's more a backdrop at least for now. Edit: After some aging, the oakmoss comes out more.

Yellow cake + that French Vanilla that threatens to go plastic + buttercream mints, like those candies they put out at weddings + cocoa, maybe? The mint prevents the whole thing from going plastic on me. This doesn't have a great deal of throw but it still smells great. I happened to be making mint brownies today and this is not nearly as heavy on the cocoa, far more vanilla buttercream. But still delicious.

Sniffed, it smells like hay. Slightly dirty to me, although, yes, there is no poop. On me, this is black tea and cassia. Maybe because hay smells like both those things to me. It's bizarre and a little like Plunder, but still hay-like.

I tested this one along with the '08 version. They have all the same notes, but, I wonder if they're formulated differently. They certainly smell different. 08's is almost overwhelming frankincense, with loads of oakmoss and styrax. The current atmo is a soft slightly smoky clove. It could just be aging, some of the early reviews for '08 Yet to Come called the scent "faint". Resins and oakmoss are known for getting stronger with age too.

Okay I did a review but I deleted it because I can do better: This is spiced caramel popcorn with lots of cardamom. EDIT: Also this lasts forever by atmo spray standards. I love it.

Does Nanshe have clove in it? It smells a lot like Fruit Loops cereal on me. I forgot to mention Le Ronde du Sabbat, which is heavily frankincense and clove. Also it looks like Aquarius will have prominent clove this year!

At first it smells like straight up raspberry jam. It doesn't smell at all like plastic, faintly of wax maybe. Or maybe I'm conditioned because I had a raspberry lip gloss once. But this is gorgeous and edible. I don't get any dough but I do get sugar, specifically the flaky sugar glaze that goes on donuts. It's amazing how accurate that is. On drydown it seems to have medium to light throw on me. A "savory" note comes out, almost like some raspberry leaves mixed with the raspberry. Almost metallic somehow? I can see how if you squinted and had a certain skin chemistry it could smell like plastic. It could be that the vanilla's doing that but mostly it's just sweet pink sugary glaze. It becomes increasingly faint after six hours wear. Good, but I probably don't need a bottle.

Alfred Kubin Brown kelp and red algae streaked with black vetiver, driftwood, and sea moss. The vetiver isn't too strong here, it's really well blended actually. This makes me think of taking a warm shower with fancy expensive man soap after a day of exploring the cold gray outdoors or swimming in the ocean in winter. Salty, clean wood

Old Demons was a little too peppery for me. A little too sharp. But Blood was lovely if you like dragon's blood. The Hell Gate of Ireland was lovely with the black musk and labdanum though there was that sulfer note. The Imperfect Enjoyment smelled like darkness and clove cigarettes. The Smiling Spider was a woody mahogany/patch clove. In His Hands Thy Cruelties Thrive is a leather and bay clove. Gacela of the Dark Death was a bit too sharp and piney on me but I think it's currently a Yule. Pickled Imp is kind of snuggly and smells like oatmeal cookies on me. Go figure. As far as GCs go, aged Dracul is lovely after the pine settles down.