patina

Snake oil's spice and depth is present, but the Bordello-ish plum is strong here. The plum has a bit of a waxy note, like lip gloss but it's powerful and pretty juicy too. Right now I'm wishing I had a Sugar Plum Goblin sample to compare, and to see whether the patchouli there blends better with the plum than these spices do. Don't get me wrong, it's good and I'm sure it'll be amazing after some aging.

Edit: it was.

Cherry? Plum??? Dragon's blood? I don't even know where I'm getting those notes from but that's what this smells like. This honey smells crazy fruity to me.

After drydown it changes into a recognizable brown musk but that was crazy for a while.

Anyone know a good sandalwood and honey or patchouli and honey scent they can recommend, with maybe other notes like amber? Or hay? Or cacao?

I am missing Thrice Plowed Field.

Today I put on an aged Drink Me and wondered why I'd ignored it so long. Without looking at notes I get apple cider, caramel, coconut, and butterscotch, but blended in the best way.

Looking at notes: okay yeah, there's the cherry that usually blends with the cider and occasionally rears its head as a medicinal smell. Otherwise, this is delicious. I could see pineapple being here too. Not my favorite fruit to smell, but hey. It doesn't stand in the way of the absolute cake party that is going on on my wrists.

TLDR: Cake party!

It's a three way custard fight between cherry, chocolate, and pumpkin flavor. I don't know who's winning. Probably not chocolate. But I smell great.

First sniff: It's leaf. I don't know what I expected.

Specifically it's the dead leaf note from Dead Leaves, Red Musk, and Neroli. This is softer than that scent though.

A skin test brings out a soft red musk and the woodsmoke. Not perfumy (at least yet) This might be considered masculine by some because of the smoke and the patchouli darkness.

This is everything I hoped for. Right now, in its fresh state I get mostly fresh woody Cathedral with a slight background of sweetness and sugar. It's sort of a burnt or brown sugar incense.

Edit: I just remembered what this reminded me of: Halloween in Innsmouth. Not the fishy part, but the incense plus baked goods.

Violet smells clean to me. Like shampoo without being soapy. Spanish moss is far more airy and than oakmoss. It doesn't have much of a presence yet but it may be giving a faintly green edge. Put them together and you get something light and fresh that nevertheless would feel eerie on a rainy day (at least to me.)

The inky black part is gorgeous. It's got a soft brushed by a raven's wing feel. The sense of purple fruit is good too.

This is very perfumy, surprisingly perfumy for a Lilith. It must be the champa that makes me think there's jasmine here. It doesn't smell like jasmine exactly, but it's close enough. Also I think my chemistry might not be playing nice with the lavender. Boo  It's still gorgeous, just a bit "scratchy."

Now to age and see how it works.

The comparison to The Elephant is Slow to Mate is apt, though this is somewhat less over the top. That one also threw me off a bit with how very perfumy it was.

Edit: If I didn't know better I would swear up and down that there's vetiver here. There's no char but the patchouli may be standing in for vetiver.

Months later:

Much better. Before it was screaming perfume, now it's Violet jelly with soft roses and maybe a hint of woody patchouli. Of course dark resins and black musk turn to candy on me.

Ahh. BPAL's luring me back once again with my love of frogs and green musk.

First applied, this is a bright, lemony spring green. I can certainly smell bamboo and all the other stuff too. It gives the scent a deeper cologny edge and doesn't let the green musk turn to drier sheets...at least so far.

Super refreshing, aquatic and a little foresty. This is a green musk holy grail so far.

Waffle cone? Wafflecone! Also thick mint cream and chocolate. I can occasionally get a slightly lemon green tea but it's very faint. This is really fairly sweet for me, but the green tea tones that done.

I get alternating dirt and dandelions, though there's more dirt. There may be cumin in the dirt but it's not overwhelming on me. Also there's more blood than I expected, but my nose is very good at picking up the Lab's blood note. Fairly simple, pleasant and spring-like.

My impression of the original Smut was simply dark sweetened musk. It's the sort of thing I like, but it's a bit flat.

Licorice Smut isn't very much different. The licorice is strong and adds more complexity, but ultimately it fades too far in the background to give this much dimension. Oh well. It's not bad at all.

Damp melony, cucumbery grass. This is very different from my Easter Egg Hunt Grass Stain SN. Far less sharp and more gentle. I want to say there's a floral here but I have no idea which one it would be. Maybe there's sage? Probably spearmint.

I get no dead leaves.

Green scents often don't work on me but this one does. It's lovely.

in the imp I get the bell pepper note I sometimes get from leaf blends. On me it's almost...lemon? There is cinnamon here but I'm wondering if my decant was labeled properly. I seem to get a bread or pastry note at a distance, so maybe? Will update.

Edit: leaves turned to dirt eventually then disappeared. In the morning I got something a bit like cinnamon King Cake. I love King Cake but I'll stick with that one.

Freshly applied this is sawdust and raisin cinnamon toast.  I don't amp cedar so while it's certainly around I don't get a whole lot of it. I do get piles of cinnamon though.

To me this is (appropriately) a prop carnival haunted house just off the midway rather than a stately manor that happens to be filled with funnel cake. But also there's a lot of cinnamon.

I get something medicinal. I can see how some people would get something a bit like licorice. But on me it's medicinal in a pleasant way. I do get black tea and traces of tobacco staining wood. Wood often goes very faint on me so I'll have to return to this review later, but for now my impressions are that this is relaxing and would be perfect for a dark rainy day.

EDIT: I really love this one, actually. I suspect the woods are teak and oak. They work well with the tea and ashy tobacco. It doesn't have super wear length, but it's probably my favorite "creepy house" scent.

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.