bheansidhe
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Everything posted by bheansidhe
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Dead Leaves, Green Tea, and Tahitian Ginger
bheansidhe replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Halloweenie
A gentle offering; a grassy-sweet, realistic green tea beautifully wedded to a dewy white ginger blossom. Here, the role of dead leaves is played by fermented black jasmine tea, merely added to the fresher notes to give them depth and cradle them like a cup. A lovely autumn Shunga offering a breath, a pause, and a palate cleanser to balance the heady excesses of the season. -
There is a LOT going on here that isn't teased in the title. I didn't even peg it as a dead leaves blend at first, second, or fourth sniff. Fresh from the drawer, this is a highly perfumed wool and cashmere jumper -- who knew wool could smell so rich and sweet? In fact, it strongly evoked the vanilla and undyed wool components of Greige Dragon. I skin-tested them side by side as I type this, and they're unmistakable perfume cousins on my skin at first swipe (YMMV!). The drydowns veer in opposite directions, though. DL & WJ is fuzzier, more muted, more overcast autumn sky tones than eggshell. You'll be tromping along for quite a while in cuddly warmth before you notice the leaves piling up on your path. After a long and meandering walk, you'll find yourself on that familiar path through the woods, where oakmoss grows on damp twigs and the stream pushes the fallen leaves into wet ropes. By the end of your stroll you'll be wearing a sweater that's half wool, half wet leaves, half lonely man in an Irish tweed jumper gazing over the mist-shrouded cliffs, and half warm café that serves almond biscotti on sandalwood trays. This is a RIDE.
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Hungry Ghost Moon: Oven-Warm Pizza Crust and Oregano
bheansidhe replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
I love this so much that I bought two bottles, and am strongly contemplating a third. I love this so much that I put a tester of it in every package I mailed out in August and September, just so I could spread the word to those who might otherwise overlook it. The first time I opened my decant of Oven-Warm Pizza Crust and Oregano, I put it on my wrist, left my office, got in my car, braved midtown Atlanta during rush hour, and drove to Antico Pizza Napoletana -- one of the few pizzerias in the USA that is a rated as a notable destination BY ITALIAN FOOD CRITICS -- and wolfed down half a Margherita D.O.P. I smelled exactly like the yeasty dough - sea salt, yeast, and imported San Felice flour - slathered in Peitro Coricelli EVOO, not so much baking as effervescing in the custom stone ovens (built from actual volcanic rock sourced from Mt. Vesuvius). My friends, THAT was the exact impression conveyed by this perfume. I have never had such a strong Pavlovian response to any scent, ever. Lavender Rosemary Baguette taught me to love bread perfumes, but I figured I could never use a whole bottle. Lavender Avocado Toast expanded my savory bread perfume repertoire, but remained an amusing spin-off to my collection. Now Oven-Warm Pizza Crust and Oregano has confirmed that bread is a key vowel in my personal perfume syllabary. -
Golden peach, tobacco absolute, tonka bean, and honey with a squirt of red musk. Fresh in the bottle: peach and tobacco and red musk. There's a heady nose to it, like 80 proof liquor. Wet on the skin: at first it's intensely peach and red musk. And then tonka and tobacco roar up like a slow-motion fireball, obliterating all other scents in their path. For a few minutes peach is completely subsumed. Then it bobs back up, and there's this sinuous wrestling-in-a-sack thing where Peach is intensely juicy and female and Tonka/Tobacco are very masculine and between them they make a scent as androgynous as Tiresias, which is to say not gender-neutral at all, but rather a fierce yin/yang whirl of woodsy and juicey. Somewhere in here things start to heat up and become *really* good, if you know what I mean, like a gorgeous low warm haze on the skin. ...and then my nemesis, honey, arrives in a rain of fulminated cat pee. *sigh* Twelve hours later, there is still a noticeable whiff of peach-tinged tobacco on the skin. Drydown never smells *dry* per se; it's peach-soaked to the bone. There is the *perfect* amount of peach in this one. And tobacco makes peach's butt look amazing. Peach and/or Tobacco fans without my peculiar chemistry may wish to beg, borrow or steal decants. Red musk fans may be sad, as it's never prominent in the blend for me.
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Black Butterfly Moon: Vanilla and Tobacco Flower
bheansidhe replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
I used to grow nicotiana; the blooms have a syrup-sweet scent that I don't find here at all. As doomsday_disco noted, there seems to be a lot of gritty loam anchoring this blend at first, but I find the initial snootfull of dirt wears off. What I'm left with is a woodsy vanilla that's more like tonka bean (without the more cologne-like qualities of that note) over some kind of dry woody resin. It's not a foody or floral blend in the least. It smells like "tobacco flower" in that someone took twists of whole dried tobacco leaves and shaped them into a decorative paper flower (which would make an AWESOME fall table decoration, now that I think about it). It's autumnal, dry, sweet in a woody and resinous way, trailing vanilla bean and pipe smoke in its wake. When I adjust my expectations, I find this a really nice gender-neutral fall blend; it's warming and cozy and low-key. -
This is a surprisingly mellow and wearable blend. The cocoa butter initially gives me the feel of being slathered in white chocolate, except that there are no sugary or foody notes here. The coconut and tiare rise up and twine with the cocoa butter to recreate that childhood tanning lotion smell, but it stays low. It doesn't hit me in the face. In fact, it smells like pleasantly sun-warmed skin that's baking by the pool in the late August sunshine. The skin vibe is enhanced by the pumpkin note, which is mellow and vegetal, definitely squash flesh as opposed to pie. If you want to wear a pumpkin note but always amp the cinnamon aspects of pumpkin pie spice, you will definitely want to try this for a completely different pumpkin ride.
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Lightning Moon: Golden Amber and Plum Blossom
bheansidhe replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
I LOVE a big round amber perfume to roll around in -- but I wouldn't categorize this one as such. For me it's solidly in the floriental category, and the first act is all plum blossom. The plum blossom note initially gives me that sweet-seductive-but-bitter, "sexy assassin's perfume" edge that I caught in White Sandalwood & Black Poppy, so I'd call it an opium floral. The second act warms gradually on the skin, like plum blossom smoke rising from a golden amber lamp that's slowly being lit. The third and final act is recognizably an amber perfume, but a muted and mellow one, still twinned with the aerial note that cools it down. In this stage it settles low on my skin, a pleasant faint thrum. Balanced, gentle, equally good for date night or office wear. -
Having just pulled a leaf from my living sweetgrass plant and crushed it in my fingers, I can verify that this blend smells EXACTLY like concentrated sweetgrass essence. This oil doesn't have the mellow hay-like quality of dried sweetgrass, or the pungency of the smoke; it is fresh, grassy, herbally sweet, almost mineralic, with a slightly bittered vanilla component. So if you have only experienced dried or burned sweetgrass and are looking for that note, you won't really find it here - but you'll find a true fresh sweetgrass. Applied, it stays true to the sweetgrass note. I don't have a scent reference in my head for dandelion; I don't associate the flowers with a smell, and I just have a generic green-sap impression of the leaves' scent. I think it contributes an herbal (not floral) soapy note. It's not overwhelmingly soapy, just a slight impression in the back of the blend that anchors the sweetgrass. The dominant impression is the fresh sappy greenness and the complex herbal sweetgrass juice. Very springlike, but also surprisingly autumnal, because the green juices have that bitter, earthy, grounding quality to them. (BTW, I grow my sweetgrass in a large pot in a sunny area with a damp soil mix and lots of mulch. I bought the plants here: https://www.prairienursery.com/vanilla-sweet-grass-hierochloe-odorata.html )
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I really enjoy the darkly herbaceous, sap-sharp green notes that open the blend. Where "green" in a perfume most often means sweeter notes like grass or bamboo, this evokes tearing fresh leathery leaves in your hands, like ligustrum, laurel, or eucalyptus, and harvesting raw whipping cedar tips from young branches. The dark greens are wrapped in the sweeter resins and a note (the hyssop?) that's almost like a spicy dianthus or carnation, but not floral. It's a pungent raw herbal bundle to start, but softens to a light sandalwood and bay rum. I think this would pair really well with Aristotle beard oil and Socrates perfume oil.
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La Prostitution et la Folie Dominent le Monde
bheansidhe replied to Bassmastadroog's topic in Lupercalia
I found this in a box of decants from 2017-2019 that I thought I'd lost forever. It's obviously aged and softened, but I wish I'd bought a bottle. I'm not normally a florals wearer, but this floats on the skin like a powder puff of purest vanilla sugar with just a murmur of jasmine and star anise enriching the edges. It's the vintage gilded and hand-painted ceramic jewelry box you found in a Parisian flea market, painted in lovely shades of amethyst and amber and gold over white bone china. The one you told yourself was too outrageously girly to buy and nothing like your normal taste - but you bought it anyway. -
Beaver Moon: Brandy and Apple Peel
bheansidhe replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
Sniffed wet, I get more an impression of fresh spring air than autumn harvest. On the skin this is realistic and specifically apple *peel* instead of flesh, juice, or flower. It has that slightly tart astringency of the first bite into a Rome or Black Arkansas. It's hard to find the brandy, except as a sweetness behind the peel. If you told me this was single-note Apple Peel, I'd applaud it. ETA: the brandy comes out more on drydown, but it's still more of a suggestion of the empty glass of Calvados, not a bartop. -
Circe Transforming Odysseus’ Men into Swine
bheansidhe replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Limited Editions
When I first tested Circe, it reminded me strongly of The First Veil (densely ruffled peppered ambergris, sandalwood smoke, and charred silk), even though they don't seem to have any notes in common. I tested them side by side, and sure enough, the shared notes of peppery spices and the occlusive (but not offensive!) charred / scorched organics made them sniffing siblings. First Veil is MUCH drier and more of a metallic tan smell, where Circe is MUCH sweeter and reads like shot-gold red satin, but they both have an intense scorched organics-spiced honey effect. (The "char" isn't a smoke note - it's more like charcoal.) The rest of Circe is dominated by fig, pungent sappy green herbals, and honeyed wine. Whatever "swine musk" is, it reads like a super-amped skin musk note, not a barnyard. I'm getting camphorous whiffs of Mediterranean herb from the marjoram and bay laurel, plus the sweet dark labdanum. Overall, it's well blended, but WAY too strong for me. Commanding female sorceress: yes. It stays spicy and honeyed through the drydown. -
Given the huge number of BPALs deliberately crafted to evoke the before, during, or after stages of coitus (plus the ones that accidentally conjure it *cough*DiscardedWeapons*cough*), I don't know why the name made me so nervous. But I was ... trepidatious ... to just open the bottle and get a raw facefull, as it were. Just exactly what kind of fucking were we talking about, here? How LONG had the fucking gone on? Were leather restraints involved? Had there been a pizza break at midnight, yes or no, and if yes, was Beth going to sneak in a complicated reference to Day-Old Ham...? Reader: I need not have worried. The answer to my questions, in order, were: 1. FEMME and FANCY FUCKING, INDEED 2. IT WAS A COITUS OROBUROS 3. NO 4. NO, THANK GOD, NO, THIS IS PORK-FREE PORKING 5. IBID The first impression is white musk and/or light skin musk, heavily juiced with soft tropical fruits and florals. I think I smell papaya, hibiscus, one of the softer tropical bark notes like coconut husk, and maybe orris or iris root. Nothing is individuated or obtrusive - I don't smell any one distinct note, just a soft sweet mélange. There's a U-turn into lotus root territory, anchored by a very tiny hint of bitter greenery in the back - tea leaf? Violet leaf? - and then it turns pale and powdery, like clean cotton sheets. So, depending on the stage of wear, this evokes either moist, heavy breathing and really juicy foreplay, or lying about in your juice-besmirched bedding and recovering your energy for a new wave of femme fucking. Very much in the vein of a lesbian Shunga, or one of the softer blends like Penetralia or Rose Milk Tea (while not smelling like either of those). Then - it just collapses into a heap. It's DONE FOR. It's gone, but it left its perfumed panties stuffed under your pillow. Hope this helps!
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This smells like the amped-up magical powerhouse cousin of Recovery Room and Blackout Blinds. I love it for work when the ambient noise of 2025 is jangling my nerves too much for me to really buckle down and hit my effective zone. The scent is herbal, zippy, citrusy, and gently sunny. I think it would be an amazing therapy adjunct.
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I absolutely adore this for the hour or so that it twines around my wrist before slithering away into the grass.
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I sniffed this at the DragonCon booth and my first thought was, "Wait, I thought I really disliked Fae Forest, but now it smells fresh and amazing!" Then I realized I had previously reviewed the ATMO, but my hand was holding the newly released HAIR GLOSS. I don't wear hair glosses except as a body spray, but this smelled intoxicatingly good. The last three RPG hair glosses (Fae Forest, Elven Glam, and Celestial Aura) have been solid rock stars. I look forward to reading some more hands-on reviews.
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Onnagata Making Love at a Tea House as Mane’emon Watches While Holding a Kite
bheansidhe replied to Jenjin's topic in Lupercalia
The sugared patchouli, caramel, and tobacco flower aspects create a Snake Oil-Lite variant on my skin. I can't wear Snake Oil at all, so it's pleasant to vibe along with the OG while that stage lasts. Overall, the blend opens and ends with a poof of soft orange blossom that's girlish but not cloying. -
Sniffed: musty roasted nuttiness, hearth smoke, soft leather book bindings, and parchment paper notes. Applied: all of the above, plus pale, austere beeswax. There's a light sweetness that's distinctly beeswax and not a honey note. Wear: very true to the notes. The gourmand and hearth/library aspects are so interwoven that it's hard to call the blend desserty or pictorial or both. However you characterize it, it never loses the smokiness, but the gusts of sweetness vary from sweet wax to sweet wood resins to sugared, nutty biscotti. It stays low on the skin, but smoulders a long time. The final effect of the smoke reads like hearth tobacco and teakwood incense.
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Lots of dried mango and spicy clove to start -- at this stage it reminds me of Vero Mango lollipops or mango chamoyada candy sticks. The rest of the blend is quite subtle, with a touch of floaty resins, but no big stompy notes. Fades to a gentle glow of mango and a dark resiny note.
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Last year the Lab released a Pumpkin Nut Bread Atmosphere Spray (Pumpkin-puree baked into a walnut-studded loaf, steaming with cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove) that was breathtakingly realistic and toothsome. Halloween Hagelslag hits the same way, but this time the top note is the melting bittersweet chocolate chips embedded in the loaf that you've just pulled from the oven. I feel like I can smell the chocolate layer as distinctly as if I were rolling individual sweet chips on my tongue, distinct from the not-too-sweet-but-sweet-enough pumpkin loaf (which smells like Pumpkin Nut atmo sans walnut). Delicious! Overall I find it has decent but not aggressive throw. I get mostly nutmeg, cacao, and buttery wheaten bread notes on the drydown. At this stage it's more like a chocolate-coated version of the croissant and baguette notes than a dessert.
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All of the Flash blends share the same blue-black India ink note, faintly acrid and cool-smelling (how does it smell cool? It smells cool like a fresh, wet sheet of ditto paper just pulled from the mimeograph machine - there's a scent flashback for ya). For Witch Flash it's paired with unapologetically smoky, acrid herbs, rushes, roots, pungent and ferocious, overlaid with sweet incenses. I get hints of grassy vetivert, the scorched husk of a burned cinnamon broom, hay, mandrake, and an incense note that manages NOT to smell like Nag Champa, but is somehow aggressively maroon (???) and tinged with classic frankincense, "if incense were distilled into a cordial" levels of intense. The smoke aspect is biting but sweet (more like The Lights of Men's Lives than Brimstone) The herbal/acrid/smoky aspect reminds me of -- I think -- Witches' Kitchen or The Witches Go to Market.
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I love when Beth takes a challenging (or fun!) note and noodles with it across several iterations, playing the perfume version of "Will it waffle?" I'm specifically thinking of the recent variants on bread dough, lipstick accord, milk/scorched milk, motor oil, and kerosene/gasoline. Black Eyeliner is a complicated blend when sniffed, and I suspect it's a duo play on the kerosene (Bic lighter) and makeup base accords. Right off the (sic) bat, there's a note that reminds me of Prop Chainsaw or Pumpkin Gas Can (sans pumpkin), a waxen sweetness, and a definite pop of scorched plastic. It's overlaid with waxy, gothic black leather and what my nose infers might be rosewood or soft fir (to represent the pencil aspect?). When first applied it's sweet like sweet wood notes and sweet makeup base, but also petro-chemically altered, stoned to the gills on whatever was being passed behind the gym at fifth period (senior class), liberally wrapped in a worn black (NOT brown) leather cuff. As it wears, this smells like the back racks of PVC and vinyl fetish clothes at Hot Topic before it went sparklegoth. There's some perfumed makeup samples open in the store, sure, but you're pawing through the dino bones rendered down into gleaming faux patent corsets and metallicized black poly lamé, filled with offgassing and adrenaline, back when the suburban mall punk experience was as close as you'd ever get to Picadilly Square. I'm not getting any incense or headshop notes, but you could convince me there's a sticky resin binder in the eyeliner. (It quickly loses the plastic scorch, if that part worried you.) Now that I sniff some more, I think the sweetness reminds me of black anise or licorice, so that might be contributing to the eyeliner vibe (however, I wouldn't call this a licorice blend like Black Plastic Rats). There's a light infusion of Beth's mirrored glass or silver needle note, to represent the pyramid spikes (were yours hematite or stainless?). Anyway - artificial and offputting as a black mohawk, fun as illicit clubbing in high school, leatherpunk AF, and deeply nostalgic for this OG new waver. It smells about as dangerous as a goth My Little Pony, and it makes me want to pinch the cheeks of the precious baby batses clopping by in their 12-inch platform Docs. I don't know that I need a bottle, but I would definitely use it for layering on Halloween.
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Tested in the vendor hall, so I may have missed some nuances, but here's my fast impression: blackened plum curtains shielding the hidden doorway to an occult headshop. Only a hint of incense trickles out behind the clove, black fruits, and red musk. I don't get oud except for a hint of bitterness sharpening the fruits. No rust or rot - this is musk, sharp dark fruits, and essence of Goth, as advertised.
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This looks like a serene, muted, office-appropriate plum -- from a distance. In reality, it's the perfect shade to wear to the surprise funeral of your secret enemy. You'll look appropriately solemn and respectful -- again, from a distance. No one will suspect the glee behind your composure, or the insouciance behind your manicure. But once the rites have concluded, and you've stripped off your black gloves, you'll grasp your steering wheel and watch the sunlight dazzle and dance off the thousand rainbow shimmers swimming in the bruise-black depths of your nail beds, and you will smile. You will smile.
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If our eyes interpreted the lightless void between the stars not as black, but as pink, it would look like this pink. If you wanted your hands to cosplay Margot Robbie's cowgirl suit, this would be your pink. In fact, if Greta Gerwig fed every frame of the Barbie movie into a centrifuge until it separated into a spectrum of pinks, and then she made a nail polish from the densest pink particle she could extract, tossing in a handful of glitter from Barbie's dance floor, it would be this polish. So, as I mean to tell you, this is PINK. For a jelly, it's densely pigmented enough that I'd call it a crelly. I got one-coat coverage, though I'm sure you could add as many coats as your doctor allowed. It's not clear from the photos on the site, but it's actually packed with gold, lavender, and hot pink sparkles. This is PINK PLUS. This is the ENTIRE Pink Pony Club in a bottle. Drag queens, perkygoths, kindergarteners and kindergarten teachers alike: come and get your pink.