bheansidhe

"Psionicist, but make it steampunk." Or, possibly, "Steampunk, but make it blue glass instead of opaque brass." Or maybe "Perfume, but not for humans; this is blended for and by sentient robots who want to smell like pretty metals and gears." This has a steampunk vibe, but in a completely new olfactory colorway. When wet I get a clear viscous motor oil, a glassine metal musk, ozone, and blue light. (This artificer makes elegant ballroom jewelry that hides clockwork spy instruments or tiny mechanical poison dart throwers.) It has a light but steady throw and doesn't seem to morph, though the oil loses its chemical edge and becomes more of a watery dew. It continues to smell blue and metallic, but never sharp or cold.

Comfort smells like buttery shortbread cookies soaked in lavender syrup. I know there's lavender in the blend because my particular bottle is about half plant material. It manages to be warming and cooling at the same time; jammy, thick, yummy, and yes, comforting.

This smells like the highest of high-end, bespoke bath unguents, sold only by a discreet proprietor in Mayfair who keeps a hand-written list of clientele and posts no shop hours. If you even know how to find the storefront (the 17th-century one, not the modern one), it's because your grandfather brought you along when he stocked up on his favorite shaving cream and pomade. It is not herbal; it is not soapy; it is not faintly resinous; it is all of those notes, swaddled in fig as dark as the fumed oak table in your grandfather's study, flecked with olive blossoms that breathe notes of the fruity oil instead of the flower. When someone smells this blend on you, they will know (without a word being spoken) that University of Oxford has at least one reading room and an endowed philosophy chair named for your direct ancestor, and also, that you are luxuriantly clean, well-read, and a touch indolent. Alas, the blend is a push-pull between two notes that never love me - orris and ambergris - against a quartet of notes that normally play very well on my skin. It loses the high-end-shading-to-masculine feel and edges into my grandmother's dusting powder. Still damn expensive dusting powder, mind, but not anything I can wear.

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.

This is more like "Gingerbread and More Butter" when freshly applied. As it dries it becomes less baked good and more sweet candied ginger with a lemony bite. Gorgeous in both stages.

It's always fun to run across a BPAL blend that doesn't smell like anything you've ever tested. I get the lavender when the blend is wet, but on my skin this is a billowing dusty-sweet rosin, balsam, and white sandalwood, sharpened by a bit of worn leather in the background. Whoever's wearing the leather might have just sauntered through a sun-warmed field of lavender, but it's just clinging to the background. The blend has an almost foody vanillac warmth while still coming across as a mix of rosins and resins. White sandalwood can be powdery, but the sappiness of the balsam keeps it from going to baby powder. It cuddles down warm and low on the skin. This is a great everyday scent, gender-neutral, and office-appropriate. Sadly, this rosin seems close enough to the beeswax/honey notes that inevitably doom a blend. For me it's the Alan Tudyk of notes.

Pure cedar-frankincense love. The cedar is dry and woody and sweet, and the tobacco gives a round warmth to the back end. I don't get any cognac (which is for the best honestly), but I do get a pungent black pepper sprinkled on top. It does remind me of the cedar in They Lie Thus Chambered and Cold to the Moon, which was another personal favorite.

Wet, this is a deep, austere incense over gritty musk. The cardamom-clove-pepper mix smells rich and toasty-bitter (in the way that roasted chicory coffee is bitter), not gourmand or foody. Unfortunately, black musk usually smells like scorched hair on me, so this is not a chemistry win. The drydown is a spicy incense blend with a meditative quality, like silence at dusk. I agree it starts off rather harsh and masculine (not cologny), but the finish is gender-neutral. I have other incense blends that work better for me, but this one is definitely worth trying if you play well with black musk.

This is beautifully reminiscent of the discontinued blend The Jester (Huckleberry and red currant with the incisive bite of neroli.). The vetiver isn't in the forefront; it's just present enough to keep the sharp-sweet currant and raspberry realistic and rooted on the vine, so that they don't spin off into Jolly Ranchers territory. The drydown is soft, fruity, and slightly herbal.

Black rose, dried apricot, and black fig. Because I ran a decant circle, I had the chance to sniff (most) of the perfumes and compare them with (most) of the matching hair glosses. (I don't wear most rose notes or hair gloss myself, so my reviews will be more nose-test and less wear-test.) Huit-the-hair-gloss opens with the black rose in front and a woodsy-green fig note behind. It smells like a rose-toned black Gothic funeral veil. It smells like the shadows in the beautiful but evil queen's formal robe. The secondary notes stay woodsy rather than fruity. Huit-the-perfume needed time to rest after the mailbox, or maybe after the stress of its creation. On first decant it was a black and severe rose with bitter, woodsy-green fig behind and no juice at all. After the dregs sat for a week in the bottle and breathed, the fruit came to the foreground and Huit overall became more rounded, balanced between sweet, but not too sweet, apricot in the front, and black-rose-green-figwood in the back. The rose component stays a flat ROSE throughout - kind of a matte rose scent? - but definitely black and straight rose with no fruit or tea. If you love the notes but the wearing experience isn't what you wanted, you should definitely try layering the two.

Tea roses, honeysuckle, heliotrope, olive blossom, milk, and honey. I splurged at Dragon*Con on the set of four (the labels are GORGEOUS, by the way). Maiden was actually a pickup for someone else because I am not a fan of rose in any incarnation, and honey is typically awful on me. Typically, floral honey blends go one of three ways: -cloying, -musty, or -sour. But I've learned my lesson and I always skin-test even the most unlikely suspects. Sure enough, this was the one that appealed least on paper and worked the best on skin. Maiden stays sweet, but never cloying; light, but with hours of stay and persistent throw. It has the milky smoothness of chalcedony or opal. It's just so.. so darn...pretty. Not frilly or bubbly or girly; just clean and serene. Even drydown was graceful; it didn't change, just gradually faded away. The top note is tea rose - definitely tea rose and not damask or any other type. Tea rose always smells "rosiest" to me; it's clarion, not unbearably heavy. The heliotrope and honeysuckle stay light and delicate, and the olive blossom (which is a favorite note) lends a beautiful round fullness. The milk-and-honey background is similar to that of Dana O'Shee, but somehow never goes feral on me the way that blend does. How does Beth do it? No clue. But I am abashedly fond of this beautiful blend and I predict it will be a real favorite.

White rose, gilded carnation, brown oakmoss, and velvet oudh. This is gender neutral and divided into three equal parts woods, oakmoss, and rose, with carnation enhancing both the heaviness of the rose and the spiciness of the oudh, but never playing a major part. This doesn't read as specifically "masculine" to my nose, but it has a definite Renaissance gentleman's vibe; it's a rose scent that reminds you why men wore rosewater as cologne for much of history. It smells smooth and brown; I don't know that I would specifically pick "rose" out of the notes after a few minutes of wear, but my skin test was iffy so I have to go with sniffing. Looking forward to seeing some actual wear test reviews! (I didn't decant this perfume, so I can't compare the formulations.)

Thirding the idea of this being an Urban Outfitters prototype / unreleased cousin of Banshee Beat. The meat of it is that gnarly, gritty hippy patchouli, but where BB is softened by vanilla, this one is roughened at the edges - it's like comparing hot chocolate mix to pure, unsweetened Dutched cocoa. Speaking of cocoa, I can get a black cocoa husk or cocoa powder in there. I also get tiiiiny bit of vetiver pungency (but only when wet - it vanishes on drydown) and something like the "stone" or "concrete" accord - which, taken together, are giving me a "Streets of Detroit" vibe. Drydown is just that gritty patch and ethereal dry, blond wood notes (possibly cedar, possibly a light sandalwood). I finally get some vanilla in the finish - just enough to fuzz up the edges, though; it never emerges as a distinct note. So, somewhat-less-sweet patch-heavy Banshee Beat / Streets of Detroit, plus some other wood or resin binding it together. I definitely recommend seeking out a decant if that intrigues you! It smells like something that will age (or already has aged) very well.

Because I ran a decant circle, I had the chance to sniff (most) of the perfumes and compare them with (most) of the matching hair glosses. (I don't wear most rose notes or hair gloss myself, so my reviews will be more nose-test and less wear-test.) Huit-the-perfume needed time to rest after the mailbox, or maybe after the stress of its creation. On first decant it was a black and severe rose with bitter, woodsy-green fig behind and no juice at all. After the dregs sat for a week in the bottle and breathed, the fruit came to the foreground and Huit overall became more rounded, balanced between sweet, but not too sweet, apricot in the front, and black-rose-green-figwood in the back. The rose component stays a flat ROSE throughout - kind of a matte rose scent? - but I can see where it would lose dominance to the fruit notes after wear. With Huit-the-hair-gloss, the notes open in a different order and it's much more rose-forward from the start. It smells like rose-toned black Gothic funeral veil. The secondary notes stay woodsy rather than fruity. If you love the notes but the wearing experience isn't what you wanted, you should definitely try layering the two.

Look, I was very curious about the combination of notes, but I really hate rose perfumed anything. Nevertheless, I skin tested! >LOOK You are standing in a formal Victorian garden. To your east is a green lawn. To your west is a brick wall. In front of you is a greenhouse. >LOOK AT GREENHOUSE You see an ornate wrought-iron and glass greenhouse. The glass is misted. There are blooming plants inside. >ENTER GREENHOUSE You enter the greenhouse. Oops! The door swings shut behind you, locking you in. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, though. Doesn't it smell pretty? >LOOK The greenhouse is full of pink and red roses in full bloom. They smell heady and lush. On the floor is a plate of shortbread cookies. They look mouth-watering. >GET COOKIES You head toward the cookies. You're having a hard time seeing them for some reason. What you thought was mist is actually steam. It's getting thicker by the minute. >LOOK INSIDE GREENHOUSE Behind you is a locked door. The eastern wall is covered in climbing roses. The western wall is thickly planted with shrub roses. The north wall has a potting bench, a sink, and a camp stove. There's something boiling on the stove. >LOOK AT STOVE You see a lit stove, a metal pot, and huge clouds of steam. Something is boiling vigorously on the stove. It smells like rose syrup. >TURN OFF STOVE I don't recognize that command. >LOOK AT POTTING BENCH You see a few empty plant pots and a huge knob of butter. Hm, that sounds dirty. >GET BUTTER You get the butter. Whoops! It slips out of your hand and lands in the boiling rose syrup, you butterfingers. >LOOK You can't see anything. You are surrounded by thick white clouds rose-and-butter scented steam. It's very pretty, but it's getting hard to breathe. >HELP I don't recognize that command. >GET COOKIES There were cookies in here somewhere, weren't there? Unfortunately, you can't find them in all of that rose and butter scented steam. >BREATHE STEAM You breathe deeply, filling your lungs. It's rich and heady, but too much for your system. You pass out. >LOOK You see darkness behind your eyelids. It's rose-scented. >LOOK AGAIN You open your eyes. You are sitting at a kitchen table. In front of you is a plate of shortbread cookies and a vase of lush red roses. Would you like to eat the cookies, smell the roses, or flee in terror? >FLEE Wisely, you decide to leave the delicious cookies and beautiful roses for a more appreciative audience.

DAWN: PRIESTESS Damascus rose, jasmine, myrrh, opoponax, white sage, and patchouli. Priestess is weighty, complex, and a morpher. I dislike myrrh and rose on my skin as a rule, but I love actual white sage and I liked the concept of the scent. Once on, I liked the feel of the blend, even though individual notes behaved oddly on me. Sniffed from the wand, the initial top blast is rose; if you figured the blackest burgundy of rose notes, you'd be right. It smells nothing like the rose in Maiden. I waved it back and forth for several seconds and each waft smelled different, spicier, with fruity resins (in the same way that wet tobacco is fruity, and not as in actual fruit). The rose binds everything together, but after the first whiff this isn't a "rose" scent; it's resins and darkness wreathed in the smoky medicinal tang of white sage. I didn't get jasmine at all except as a sharpness behind the rose. On my skin, this sank down amazingly low and took on a smoky, smouldering quality. This isn't cheap headshop stank; it smells like anointing oils and high-quality ritual incense. I can smell the white sage, which I love, but isn't everyone's cup of tea; it's nothing like cooking sage and more like sharp conifer sap. Smells like magic herbs burning on a dry fire. After a while this went unpleasantly close to body odor on me, which is the fault of myrrh, and then to dead, dusty roses. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

I am a huge fan of the Lab's snow note + anything atmos, so I tend to blind buy at least one of those per release. With the birch and willow, I was expecting something on the sharp herbal end of the scale, but The Snow-Covered Plains is lighter and sweeter than I anticipated. Wet, I get an initial combo of spicy snow and a cool wintergreen on the spearmint-y end of the scale (not camphorous). The middle is filled out by a surprisingly round, juicy note, and the finish is wrapped in dry greenery. Specifically, I get dried ivy leaves and bits of a mossy fougere from the green component. It's not *floral* per se, but you are definitely viewing those snow-covered plains from inside a high-end florist's shop. Because it's winter, it's filled with a wintertime selection of curly willow branches and ivy wreaths. Because the snow note always reads to me as "spicy," it's like the ghosts of cinnamon brooms are still lurking in the storeroom, even though there's none in the actual shop. I feel like this analogy ran away from me, so I'll end by saying that if you normally shy away from cold atmospheric scents, this is a warm and comfortable *painting* of snow-covered plains, and not actual freezing-your-eyelashes-off trudging-through-snow covered plains. Gentle coolness, slushy snow, spicy greenery.

My nose reads this as gin-soaked Bliss from the bottle. Gin always smells fruity-sharp to me, instead of boozy like the Lab's rum note, so it's red fruit and milk chocolate forward at first. Then black leather unrolls in the background, making the chocolate deeper and the gin sharper, occasionally peeking out on its own. Certainly an unusual combination - unique in the BPAL lineup as far as I can remember. If you're a Bliss or 13 fan, this might be a winner. I'm neither, so it's off to swaps.

The scent of mad piety, blood and martyrdom, soul-crushing guilt, and frenzied devotion: frankincense and myrrh disoriented by labdanum, unsteady yuzu, shredded ginger, black cypress, and Aleppo Pine wood thickened with dragon's blood resin. Sniffed: wow, that's a brisk snap of the fingers under your nose. Peppery ginger, bright yuzu, and fiery red resins. This smells . . . martial and reverberant. I don't get any soul-crushing guilt, but there is indeed a frenzied energy to the blend. Wet: I. Love. This. It's perfectly seasonal, too - the yuzu and pine with church incense notes make it smell like a room full of evergreen boughs and brightly burning red Christmas candles, turned up to 11. The dragon's blood is fruity and round; it's almost got a bayberry quality. How on earth does something smell like candle flame? I hope this dries down well, because it wasn't even on my list and now it's shot up to purchase status. Worn: it gets drier and woodsier as it ages, fading to the ghost of burned incense. Really, really good incense. I'm not normally into the incense-heavy blends, but this is a winner.

This is the sweetest and lightest of the dead leaves this year, and is surprisingly lovely. It's like the perfect kid's version of Dead Leaves. This is not a soapy floral violet. This smells like Choward's old-fashioned violet pastille candies, which to me smell like happy road trip memories. After the violet wears off, you're left with a light, simple sugared dried ivy note. I'm still working my way through the Dead Leaves and Blackberries from last year, so I don't need this one, but if you enjoyed that one, DL VC & SC has a similar vibe.

This is an opulent, bitter purple-black blast of the back room at a Goth dance bar. It comes off my skin primarily as incense and dark plum, and less as dead leaves and clove, with a background vibe that reminds me of the commercial Opium perfume. It squirms around a bit to become spicy plum, then plummy oudh, then clove-tinged incense, but never strays far from its basic spike-heeled leather boots and purple velvet dance moves.

It's been so long since I've had candy corn (squished or otherwise) that I don't remember what it smells like. When I was a kid I would smoosh them on my canines like vampire fangs, then spit them out when they started to dissolve. Wet, this smells more buttery and sugary than dead-leavey. I agree there's some wax in there. It morphs dramatically on my skin to somewhat bitter, earthy dead leaves and caramel, with maybe some dry pumpkin spice blend in the background. Edit: dries down to a light, pleasant dead leaves and buttery caramel with low throw.

Golden juicy lychee and peach - the classic "Dragoncon peach" note - over dark wet musks, sharpened by bergamot. On me, this wears like filthy dirty sex with a spray of peach juice.

I absolutely love cedar - They Lie Thus Chambered and Cold to the Moon was a big bottle buy last year - so I was pleased to try this one despite its lengthy list of bad-for-me notes. Sniffed, this reads like one of the more elegant and cerebral Shunga blends. It smells like it should be named The Pale Naked Moon Maiden Scorning The Embraces of the Pepper Demon Askishikawa As They Struggle By Moonlight In a Black Cedar Grove. Like, there is just SO MUCH going on here: big perfumey blasts of white and blue and black musk, the light floral notes, the dark wet tobacco and the dry cracks of pepper. The honeyed orange blossom plays tug-of-war with the black pepper-tobacco, yanking the blend from masculine to feminine and back. Mostly, though, it's blue musk and cedar. "Perfume pencil" kind of nails it. I do love pencil perfumes, but Chambered already fulfills that need, so I don't need a bottle. I'm glad I got to keep an imp, though.

This starts as a blast of big, chewy, in-your-face caramel and sweet pipe tobacco with some spiced cocoa steaming in the background. It softens almost immediately to a dry, sweet burnt sugar-and-caramel dusted with cocoa, plus the mellow blonde tobacco that I associate with the Ares blends (closer the Bulgarian than the French, which smells like ashtray to me). After a while I start to get a black sweetened demitasse coffee note in the background, but at no point does this read as a coffee blend. The caramel-and-tobacco combination reminds me a tiny bit of Red Lantern, but the cocoa and milk chocolate notes stay in the forefront. I also get an on-again, off-again hint of spicy Mexican chocolate. Unlike 99% of the Lab's chocolates, it never goes plastic on me. So if you have that specific problem with blends like Bliss, it might be worth trying Badgered. Mellow, sweet, dry, and only slightly foody.