bheansidhe
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Everything posted by bheansidhe
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The first wave is a sharply bitter floral soap; the bitterness may be a tannic lavender of the kind described as "herbal". I'm not sure what's causing the soapiness, because it's not the jasmine. Night-blooming jasmine usually reads as "nutty and warm" on me, while it's the more traditional jasmines that cast a soapy vibe. Fortunately, once this untangles itself and gets its sea legs, it becomes a much gentler bouquet of lavender and rose hips with some kind of complicated cool white floral thing happening way in the background, and a slightly salty, slightly green-grassy moonlit dew.
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This reads as a sexy, sultry caramel -- or possibly maple syrup, as another commentator noted. I get the comparison, and maybe that's a better choice, because there's no butter in the mix. Let's say, then, that it's syrup distilled from amber and sandalwood, sun-warmed and honey-dusted. I normally can't wear any of the Lab's honey blends, but "honey dust" seems better-behaved on my skin, so I have VERY hopeful hopes here!
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This is not at all angsty; it's a rather peppery, pithy grapefruit and red ginger (more rooty and spicy than the white kind?) with sweet, bracing fir needle and rhubarb, anchored by some kind of tree bark. I'm never quite sure what balsam is supposed to smell like, so I can't tell you if that note dominates. There's a particular patch of forest I hike in central Oregon where the air smells of fir needle, and that's definitely the conifer here - not pine or pine freshener. As it dries, it turns into an achingly gourmet, small-batch rhubarb ginger ale - the kind you put into a $25 cocktail being served somewhere foody. (Now that I think of it, I need to try brewing a rhubarb ginger ale.) The final drydown is gently woodsy. So much more cheerful than the painting, but I'm not mad about it.
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*heavy sigh* Gonna be another one of THOSE reviews, I can tell ..... Okay. This smells like the Gingerbread Man after you're finished f&cking him. (It's a fairytale, okay?)
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Sniffed: this is SO pungent in the vial, about 50% sharp clean clary sage (sweeter than white sage) and 50% rooty, resinous notes I don't recognize, even though I know (and enjoy) vetiver. It's herbal, but not like tidy dried bundles, and more like you yanked a handful of autumn-dried stalks from the ground, root and all. Applied, it takes a moment to settle on my skin, where it turns into something oddly reminiscent of .... bronze? the actual metal bronze, the smell of a temple bell in your sweaty palms. It's bronze-tinged musk. There's the funky vetiver, finally, layered with the sun-warmed bronze, the clary sage, and the brown patchouli root. Willow boughs could mean salicylic acid, which would account for the tinge of aspirin bitterness amid the herbs and roots. The musk smooths everything together in the end, but it's a dark and austere smooth over a dark and thrumming base. I don't get cypress per se, but I get what Beth has described as "funeral vibes" in the mix. It doesn't smell menacing, but it smells dark and quietly unfuckwithable.
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Boney Moon: Spiced Chestnut and Honey
bheansidhe replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
Do you know how some patchoulis are described as "chewy" (looking at OG Banshee Beat / Revenant Rhythm here)? This duet has the same sweet, chewy quality as that patch when first applied, while not smelling one bit like actual patchouli. Honey and chestnut notes both hate me, so there's a brief discordant arm-wrestle with my personal chemistry where I get a treacle-y molasses cut with a strong potpourri note, which resolves into nutmeg, ground ginger, and a touch of what's reading as bay leaf. The spices are warming and culinary-adjacent, but not baking spices per se; this isn't another pumpkin spice iteration. It's spiced like the Silk Road, not like Starbucks. It's wearing down like a big, round, sweet, chewy, kind of REALLY funky caramel incense overlaid with chestnut toffee and ginger beer - a little like Red Lantern. I can see this as a demented dark circus food stall. -
This painting's canvas is firmly in the "scorched milk" family of Snake Milk, Ghost Milk, Mummy's Milk, etc. It's layered with a soft iris that, combined with the white tea blossom, lends an Earl Grey bergamot vibe, like tea mixed into clotted cream. There's a perfumey musk middle section that I assume is the ambergris. Overall low throw, but very discernable on the skin. Verdict: soft, creamy, "if milk was a perfume."
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This is a cold white floral AND a sweet incense smoke AND a spicy clove-blackened lavender at the same time, all bottled up in orris root soap like a trio of baffled genii. It's clean skin, but also a clouded smudge of myrrh. The clove never dominates, but lends a spicy quality to the floral notes. The lavender is astringent and herbal, but also mild. This winds up smelling like a really, really expensive French soap on me.
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A Guardian Angel Serves a Small Breakfast
bheansidhe replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Limited Editions
AAAHHH, THIS IS SO GOOD, THIS IS SO GOOD it's .. gingersnaps? Peppery crispy gingersnaps, butter, a little waft of coffee steam, and something I can't name but makes me want to drag my waffles through it, and then my whole entire butt. Why the hell did I type that? What unhinged review is this? I'm snorting my arm like a truffle pig. What am I smelling? Oh, there's the musky component, and the cream, and the spices, and the amber, and now the gingersnaps are something much closer to the magical sweet buttery dough note in Lavender Lussekatter, sans lavender. Rosenkuchen apparently has rum, poppy seeds, almonds, and/or raisins, depending on the recipe, and now I'm getting a German bakery vibe, but primarily? It smells like angelic pastries for breakfast and MAGIC. -
From start to finish, this blend reads like "honey plus" - and as noted, this is a viscous forest honey, almost as funky as a chestnut honey; pungent, distinctly musky, but still definitely a *honey*. Sniffed, it's dark honey plus lemon blossom and neroli. On my skin, it's honey plus tree-sap resins and a touch of floral sweetness like honeysuckle blooming in the background. For a moment, confusingly, it's honey plus a very realistic salted black licorice. On drydown, it's honey plus a resinous musk, still viscous and sweetened, but not cloying. I never get a separate note of ylang ylang or amber. It's low, golden, and darkly warm; really an interesting play on honey variations. ETA: the next day I still smell it, and it's now honey plus amber.
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Sniffed: a dark purple Snake Oil variant. Applied: a medium-bright Snake Oil overlaid with a floral pollen that's almost bitter, like angelica root, but gradually softens and opens into both a lilac floral and a vegetal green vanilla musk. The lilac is realistic, but not shrill, bright, or soapy; it floats like a leaf on the Snake Oil river. This is overall a softer and slinkier blend than I was expecting, with the vanilla musk and some chewy patchouli notes carrying equal weight with the lilac.
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This one confuses me a lot (without offending me in the least). Sniffed, I get .. sexy ginger ale without the bite? A very green, vegetal vanilla note? Something powdery and light blue? What it IMPLIES is that you are floating across the sunny lawn at a garden party wearing a giant, GIANT flower-bedecked and tulle-veiled hat, something that treads the line between 40s starlet and 80s church lady, an ankle-length sundress (not a caftan), and comfortable -- yet kittenish -- strappy sandals. While sipping something refreshing, ginger-infused, and deceptively non-alcoholic. Enjoy. ETA: creamy, powdery, sweet ginger-ale musk at drydown.
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For a relatively short (low-throw) perfume, this blend announces itself with BIG shouty cassia and cinnamon notes when it hits the skin. Fortunately, they're muffled by the waxen lipstick accord. There's a touch of bright citrus at the edges, but as it wears, it fades into warm, spicy, slightly powdery, cassia-scented stage makeup. I don't specifically get myrrh or lotus, but I get a fringe of glamour. 100% wear this if you want to feel like Liz playing Cleopatra.
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Russet musk and earthy patchouli root, with a slight rustle of rose silk. Slightly sweet, slightly spicy, very much in line with the "shaggy" or "furry" musks of other animal-themed blends like The Bear Prince, but with a Valentine spin. As another reviewer noted, this doesn't read like the notes usually labeled as red musk by the Lab. It's not my usual type of perfume, but since I had a sample on hand and the reviews were so conflicting, I thought I'd weigh in. It's warm, furry, subdued, mildly spicy, and perfectly pleasant.
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This is mostly a gin-coded perfume on me with fresh laundry notes - like Swank crossed with Dirty. There's vanilla silk at the drydown.
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Your ENTIRE body is sinking slowly, softly into a vat of body lotion scented with coconut and cool white tropical florals. Your nose just breaks the surface. You're going to get out any second now. Any .... second ... now. (*glurg*) An hour later, I emerge to discover I'm wearing a creamy stock perfume. Stock, dianthus, the carnation-like flower with the clove scent - that's what I've got now; like Alice, but with tropical seduction in place of rose.
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I was nervous to skin-test this one, as hazelnut usually stomps on all adjacent notes, but this is primarily a foody pear/vanilla crusted in white sugar crystals. The osmanthus lends a "floral water in the dessert recipe" note, while the frankincense and hazelnut remain a warm, pear-soaked crust at the bottom of the dish. This rides the line between foody and floral, but I appreciate how light the "sweetened" aspect is. It stays soft and low. This would be a good inside-the-shirt perfume for an occasional intimate puff of sweet air as you move around. ETA: Oh ... no. Hazelnut had the last laugh after all. It's a gentle hazelnut soaked in frankincense syrup, but still a hazelnut finish.
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Sniffed, I get the grassy sweetness of green tea, sugared violets, and jasmine. On my skin this is predominately violet, but balanced by a cool mint that is not so much minty as it is a freshness, a cool breeze that keeps the floral notes sweet, not shrill. I'd say I'm getting more lotus and violet in the middle than jasmine, rounded out by cream. It's heavy on the "sweetened" from start to stop. The vibe is slipping into a whisper-light green satin robe spangled with pink flowers.
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Call this Elizabeth Arden Red. It smells like my childhood memories of my mom coming home from the department store smelling like a mélange of faded perfume samples and high-end makeup, so it's sweetly nostalgic and again dead-faithful to the lipstick accord. Beyond that, I don't get any of the individual listed notes clearly enough to pick them out of a lineup - which is fine.
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I've never had it, so I'm still puzzled by what "ruby chocolate" is supposed to smell like (in perfume, and in life). What I get here are distinctly white-chocolate cocoa butter notes overlaid with pops of tart-sweet red fruit, a red musk, and a gentle balsam-and-moss fougere. I suppose the last note could be leather if I looked at it sideways, but it's more of a general moss perfume base note. There's a tiny drizzle of floral sugar-syrup after a while, but I wouldn't call it a floral perfume; it's more like a drip of floral-infused syrup topping the scent stack. The dominant notes are the ruby chocolate, berries, and musk. The drydown is unfortunately cloying on me, as with Millennial Pink. My usual chocolate chemistry fail.
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Horreur Chocotique: chocolate, but make it Jessica Rabbit.
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Leather first, chocolate second - and this is a black and crisp leather, a severe leather, a designer black trenchcoat equally fitting for a post-runway brunch or an S&M munch. The chocolate: also black and bitter; a confetti snowfall of Valrhona Guanaja Dark vigorously microplaned into the pockets of that leather coat -- FOR LATER, for a SNACK, for AMBIANCE, to flavor the pouch of TOBACCO you tucked in there for safekeeping and not for any, ANY, nefarious purposes whatsoever -- though you certainly SMELL nefarious, and dangerous, and delicious, and darkly resinous -- only from a close distance, mind -- and nothing like a dessert. ETA: while this has low throw, it has staying power! The next day I'm getting zero leather, just a gorgeous chocolatey amber with some dark notes underneath. I love love the second stage and am willing to put up with my least favorite iteration of leather to get down to it.
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For those of you wondering "What the hell...?", I am here to reassure you: yes, this perfume is wearable. On first application, it's a banana perfume. The banana part lasts for about fifteen minutes on my skin, and then becomes a softer, vanilla wafer-coded sweetness. But first, last, and always, this is a "silk" perfume. Have you ever smelled raw silk fabric? It's a little musty and dusty - but not in an unpleasant way! - more like in a "furry to my nose" way. This smells like the occlusive dustiness of silk fabric, plus the fig fruit (I'm not sure why this is a "fermented" fig - it doesn't smell alcoholic to me). The "mushroom dust" adds a slightly salty umami note, like miso paste. I'm just baffled at how much this smells like a bolt of raw silk noil, but in a pretty way. TL;dr weird, but wearable! The far drydown is "a slightly spicy, seductive skin musk."
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Sniffed: smells like blue cotton candy with interestingly powdery, white sandalwood-y notes as the core stem around which the glittering blue sugar-crystals whirl. On the skin: there's the raspberry, which are big translucently red-toned sugar crystals soaked in raspberry juice. I get some warm vanilla in the background, too. Fun, fruity, sweet, uncomplicated.
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Sniffed: a candied tart red fruit. On the skin: something like a cross between sugared strawberry and sharp cranberry with a sneeze of pink pepper, anchored by *some* kind of resin - I don't know that I would have called it out as patchouli if I weren't looking at the notes - it's more of a "coca cola resin," if that makes sense. Maybe I'm getting the hints of pepper and coriander that are in the Coke flavor blend. It's getting more resinous as it dries, but it's never reading like a patchouli to me; it's more like labdanum. Dried: an interestingly spicy red fruit.