citharadraconis
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On me this is exactly as the description promised, and I love it: creamy chocolate and sweet nectar combined. It's not quite giving jasmine to my nose--perhaps honeysuckle or tuberose?--but definitely the syrupy nectar of a flower in that family. It reminds me of picking and tasting honeysuckle flowers off the vine on summer evenings as a child, with humidity and greenness all around. It's not overwhelming or powdery at all; it's very natural and very beautiful.
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This is so dang good I needed a bottle just about immediately. Echoing what others have said, I am one of the unfortunate souls who's been unable to wear any BPAL with milk or cream notes without smelling gross and sour. The two exceptions (so far): Glowing Vulva, and this. I don't know if they share any components, and they don't exactly smell alike (GV is glowing, feminine lotus and teak, this is more cozy dulce de leche), but they're both sweet, lushly creamy, and addictive on me. (Another odd factoid: they are the only two scents I've tried that not only don't go weird but, in an odd way, smell *better* on/to me during, uh, that time of the month.) DILF is rich and very moreish, but not cloying; lingering, but not overpowering. Delicious.
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Love love love. Often scents that are meant to smell like the holidays go Christmas candle or craft store for me, but this is the real thing. This is what a Christmas candle *aspires* to smell like; or the smell one imagines wafting from the Redwall Abbey kitchens when they're making up a batch of candied chestnuts. The sweet/nutty/spice balance is harmonious and just right, and it has gourmand vibes without being a disconcerting (to me) carbon copy of something edible. The allspice has cinnamony notes without actually being cinnamon, which can sometimes be overpowering on me. This is definitely a decant to keep around for conjuring up holiday coziness in front of a winter fire; I can almost hear the carols on the radio.
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Coucher de Soleil, Ciel Orange
citharadraconis replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Limited Editions
Exactly as I hoped, on me this is a more sophisticated sibling of the GC Akuma (blood orange, neroli, and raspberry). Akuma was one of the first scents I ever loved from BPAL, but I ended up swapping my bottle away--it was pretty much straight-up orange Tic-Tacs on me, and while orange Tic-Tacs are in fact my favorite and a personal comfort scent, I rarely want to go out in public smelling like them. Coucher de Soleil has Akuma's juicy citrus-candy notes, tempered and blurred by the musk, ambergris, and myrrh into a scent that remains cheerful and bright, but more complex and more wearable. I adore this. -
No reviews yet? I think this is quite lovely, soft and balanced: poised somewhere between sweet, green, and woody; natural-feeling as a walk in a garden or an orchard. It is a quiet scent to me, close to the skin (appropriate for work!). Maybe this is just because of the inspiration, but the scent and the passage both remind me of one of my favorite characters: Esther Summerson from Bleak House. Understated, wholesome, gentle, with a tender beauty and a glow at the heart.
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This is delicious. It smells like old Orthodox churches on me, but in a wonderful, evocative rather than photorealistic, sensual sort of way: lingering incense fumes, a touch of waxy sweetness, carved wood, silk hangings. Old cathedral, but sexy? I'm not very good at this, but that's what I got. Softens and fades into a lovely skin scent over time.
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Girl Holding a Snake – Innocence
citharadraconis replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Limited Editions
Objectively speaking, this *is* absolutely lovely, as OxfordComma says--especially in the wet stage with that rich vanilla cream and jungly greenness. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be reaching for it much, because especially on the drydown it's reminding me strongly of Umlaut (the Mütter Museum perfume). I assume it's the balsamic woods and vanilla combination. Through no fault of its own, then, it ends up giving me creepy Victorian corpse museum vibes by association. Perhaps it's the curator's creepy Victorian greenhouse out back. Anyway, if you like this, you might also like Ü, and vice versa! -
Seconding Ziggy on the "cacao-dusted Snow White." This is lovely! A holiday mouthful of high-quality dark-chocolate-covered marzipan, with a hint of winter night air. Not overwhelming or cloying, and very wearable.
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I smell olive blossoms too--this reminds me quite a bit of Like the Very Gods, though it is less sensual and more green and fresh. I would say unisex more than masculine per se. I expected heavier olive-oiliness or perfuminess from the word "anointed," but this smells mostly like leaves, sap, and flowers. I also get the faint salty/musky tang, somewhere between a sea breeze and clean sweat on skin. I can easily imagine this as a freshly woven wreath, laden with leaf and blossom, laid on the still-damp hair of an athlete fresh from a race and rubbed down with oil.
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On me, this smells almost exactly like my memory of Sea of Glass: luminous and fresh, evoking sunshowers or dew on lilies rather than the heart of a tempest. I don't have an imp of that handy to compare more precisely (this might be sweeter?), but the resemblance is striking. Both are beautiful scents.
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Oh, I like this! I can't pick out which elements of this are doing what, but it smells fresh and airy: a light, fine shawl that's maybe been kept in a drawer with a bar of high-end perfumed soap, worn out into the countryside on a dewy, misty morning.
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In the vial, it's quite sweet and creamy, all vanilla and very pretty. On me, though, the first impression I get is (of all things) grape Tylenol. I have no idea where that's coming from, but there it is. Grape Tylenol or possibly cough syrup; maybe it's the palm date combined with the dark sharpness of the oud. As it dries I get that Chapstick-like feeling that I got from Love's Philosophy and whatever that pear/vanilla Haunted House scent was, so I guess there's the same vanilla in this; and the cough syrup overtones still linger unpleasantly. I really wanted to like this (vanilla ginger? Yesplz), but I guess we're not to be.
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The lab frimped me this, and it's one I'd never have tried on my own, but this is definitely not what I expected. Apparently, "unadulterated spiritual purity" smells like...peaches? I'm guessing it's the olive--it's not quite peaches, a little greener, sort of fuzzy-smelling. Straight-up sweet and fruity in the vial, grounded by a hint of sweet incense once it hits my skin, which gradually takes over. I can't really pick out notes from this. It's surprisingly bright and fresh, and I think it would make a nice spring/summer scent.
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Stimulating Sassafras Strengthener
citharadraconis replied to flyingpizza's topic in Doc Constantine's Pharmacopoeia
Yum. This is terrific. First bottle I've sprung for from the Lab unsniffed, and it was the right decision. In the bottle and wet, yep, it's root beer. Delicious. As it dries, it acquires a little more complexity--it's still root beer, but it's the REALLY GOOD home-brewed kind with real sassafras, not too much sweetness, and a wonderful herbal bite to it. There's something earthy and almost incensy grounding it (the onycha?), the oak leaf gives it a woody, rooty smell, and the vanilla and presumably the butter are adding depth to the sweetness of the sassafras. I was worried because I can't stand overly-buttery scents and BPAL vanilla often turns to ChapStick on me, but there's none of that here. I want to drink myself. -
In the vial I get wood and perhaps tobacco with a hint of limey citrus--deep and a little sweet, but definitely masculine. On me at first it turns to aftershave and reminds me a little of the disappointment October was on me. As it dries and settles into my skin, though, it becomes rich, soft and creamy. I can't really pick out any of the notes; as others have said, this is beautifully blended. Tobacco is often headache-inducing on me, but I can't perceive it at all in here. It is indeed reminiscent of the ocean and tropical beaches, though not in a commercial-perfumey way, and it's definitely unisex. I like this a lot--very evocative.