sprout

Necrobump!

 

 

I've recently fallen madly in love with red musk. Currently my favourite is Now Winter Nights Enlarge - I love the combo with caramel and honey. I think I like sweeter blends containing red musk. I have Mme. Moriarty as well, but she's mostly currant and patch on me.

 

I am trying to track down The Elephantine Colossus, because it sounds like exactly everything I love.

 

Any other recent recs for me? I've tried most of the GC blends with red musk, though Hollywood Babylon is still on my list. Love Snake Oil, but it's not musk heavy on me.

 

If anyone has any LE recs from the past few years that may still be possible to track down, I'd be grateful!

Aged Mme Moriarty

Fenris Wolf

Great Sword of War

Lucy, Kissed

Hollywood Babylon

Bloodlust

Bathsheba

Any thoughts regarding a replacement for Nocnitsa? I love the smell of moss in a forest, at night?

A Specific Aberration has shot to the top of favorite scents and I think it is due to the ambergris!

I think the Lab's ambergris accord is similar to the white amber accord I love in The Girl and Hunger Moon too.

So, if I can necrobump this thread, I'd love to hear about newly discovered ambergris (or Grey amber) blends that are beloved.

Necro bump. I know Spring is still technically two and a half weeks away, but it's been unseasonably warm here courtesy of La Niña.

What are some good Spring scents? Of course I am digging out last year's Shunga and Rose Red will be worn, Budding Moon, and Peony Moon. Fairy Thorn seems a clear choice.

I'd love more inspiration.

My faves:

Count Dracula (from the long ago Halloween series, Order of the Dragon)

Lucy, Kissed (also old, from the Post)

Carfax Abbey from Order of the Dragon for a vampire's castle

I second the recommended Ava and Butterflies Flowers and Jewels Attending and add two of my favorite oils: Stardust and Radiance of the Opium Dream

This thread does not need my review but I feel compelled to express my love. I mean, I'd be exaggerating only a little bit by saying that I heard angels singing when I opened this.

This smells like marshmallow cream, the ice cream topping, but no dairy products here. Then there is the fabric note. I can describe this as more wool like than linen. There is a similarity to the pillowcase note, in Sticky Pillowcase. But more wooly.

The drydown is exquisitely vanilla plus wool. Which doesn't sound appealing but it is. So, this oil, unaged (I let it rest a week, but otherwise it is quite fresh) on my skinistry, is Vanilla that is foody nonfoody, sans butter, sans cake, sans crust, with a modest dose of sugar, and a hint of wooly fabric. I'm amazed at how the wool has a texture, created olfactorily. Which is not technically even a word. I just made it up, that is how inspired by the majesty I'm feeling here.

If you wanted pure unadulterated marshmallows without any milk, butter or other foody complexity or burnt notes, this is your grail. Needless to say, I totally love this and purchased an unprecedented amount of back ups. I never want to run out and imagine aging will just make the vanilla sublime. Don't even get me started on the layering possibilities/mind blown. The sillage is respectable, but they won't smell this across the room. The lasting power is quite respectable too for such a young oil. I predict aging will improve both of these parameters.

I think that the wool note adds needed complexity to the simplicity of the sugary marshmallow topping. Epic fucking delicious!, which is my buzz phrase of highest praise.

Oak Moon...

Fairy Bites is nice for a blend with osmanthus.

I found single oil of osmanthus on Eden botanical website, quite reasonable. I'm considering an order, I think it would be even more affordable to buy and split if anyone else is interested...

La Ronde Du Sabbat

Satan Summoning his Legions

Satan Starting from Uthuriel's Speer

Pan Twardowski and the Devil

Witchcraft Scene

Mars Corotiacatus

Midnight Mass

Autumn Fancies (grass)

Autumn Coolness (grass)

Interfector

Prosperous Flowers of the Elegant Twelve Seasons

Doc Constantine

Organ Grinder

Visions of Autumn VII

Looming Spectre of Inutterable Horror

Ian

This is Your Wilderness

Streets of Detroit

Wild Indigo Duskywing

Ichabod Crane

Tatie Bogie

Cuchulain Fight with the Sea

Marche Funebre

Graveyard Dirt

Dawn: Cernnunos

Young Pine Saplings

WILF

The Christmas Tree phobia scent from 2014 Yule that I cannot spell

If you like musk, Faunalia

Bloodlust Bonbon

Memory of Primal Secrets

I'm a chic, but I do love masculine scents, especially leather, incense and wood

These are from more or less the last 5 years

Katie Fulton

Hunger Moon is my frosty Winter sky scent. No berries, mint, holiday spice or pastries. Just the smell of the cold sky with a hint of ozone.

I've tried many, many Winter scents in my quest to find that crystalline, pure sky scent like the space between the stars. This one does it for me, maybe it is what you're searching for...

Any of the BPALZ dirt blends feature a prominent petrichor note?

Blue Moon 06 was a nice pear, not sure how hard it is to find

This is an Insta bottle purchase for me.

In vitro: oranges! The oil is orange too.

Wet: sweet orange oil and zingy, effervescent tangerine!

Early dry: Each of the notes are discernable, orange/tangerine, anise, candy sweet lavender, cookies

Drydown: Father Christmas dries to slightly sweet pizzelle cookies. Lavender candies are like the Belfana note.

Final analysis: The notes are all present but combine to smell like a tray of delicious treats. This is perfect. The pizzelle cookies are dead ringers, slightly sweet with just a hint of anise. If you liked La Belfana and Sugar Cookie, this should be a no-brainer. I'd love it if the sillage was stronger, but aging could improve that. The only question I have to ask is do I need multiple bottles or not?

Pleasant Embrace, a Shunga from last year's (2015) Lupers was lovely, but hard to find, as it went out of stock before most people could test their decants.

LA Belle au bois Dormant is beautiful and easily obtained as it is general catalog, which is easily overlooked

Hi!

I'd recommend trying Antikythera mechanism, Haloes, Liz (Hellboy series) and Sachs.

For related, consider Dee, Tombstone, Le Serpent Qui Danse, Whip, Perversion, White Rider...

I tried Black Annis last night, and it is dirty, wicked sexy like a praying mantis or black widow who kills her mate after copulation. I love it.

Hmmm, I agree. Could it be the civet?

Fettered in the Shackles of the Drug comes to mind. It should not be hard to find a decant. It is better than Carnivale Diabolique but similar to my nose.

I just tested Paysage and I recommend it, but test first, if you are not sure about the mugwort. The drydown is sublime, though. It went from, "maybe I need to wash this off," to, "I think I need a bottle or two!"

Debauchery, Anathema, and Belle Epoque are all high on my list of favorites.

Finally, it may be difficult to find, but Radiance of the Opium Dream is exquisite, if tuberose isn't a deal breaker note.

Mum moon and Red Lantern are well loved and I think they're divine but the above are my off the beaten path recommendations. I had no idea how much I loved Beth's opium scents until just now!

Guess I need to track down Parliament of Monsters and Romanti_goth now...and The Snow at Dusk may be a winner, I've yet to try it but it's getting great reviews.

So, if anyone is tempted to take this deeper down the rabbit hole... here's a screenshot of how I track this stuff. Every new scent, once tested, gets logged under each note it contains, in the column that best describes my experience with it. I've found it really fun to put together and see patterns develop, not to mention very useful when trying to remember which notes I've had good experiences with. This first segment looks fairly ambiguous, but farther down the list, there are notes it's very clear that I like (Benzoin!) and dislike (Jasmine!).

 

 

No one's said it yet but I will, that spreadsheet is bloody genius!

This does not begin well, as it smelled like hairspray in the imp, but I persevered in the spirit of exploration.

Green initially while wet, an undercurrent of sweet from the amber, and hippy dippy patchouli.

Elemi gives this an almost citrus edge, with green aquatic suggestions from the? green amber and perhaps tobacco flower. Is an aquatic resin possible? The light of a smoky golden topaz, crystalized into mineral is the synesthesia I envision.

Drying, sniffing my wrist is becoming more compulsory. The tobacco flower with perhaps help from the vetiver are present as a contraposition to the crystalline elements of amber and patchouli. The ornate smoky topaz sits on a black velvet cushion.

Drydown, now this becomes exquisite. The green, aquatic edge has softened. Tobacco and patchouli are dominant but the champaca, darkened by vetiver are adding a smoky quality, without smelling of incense. The green amber is a new take on resin for this nose. It is green and vegetable but resinous and smoky at the same time. I imagine that this will age beautifully as amber and patchouli are wont to do.

I'm suspicious that this will be a sleeper hit as fresh can only suggest the magnificent olfactory glory this will likely become. I'll retest in about 3 months to get a better idea but damn the torpedoes, I'll probably need a bottle!

Black Annis is a personal favorite, if you like musk too.

Licorice whip is great too. I spray that on everything!

The Come and See series suggest the Apocalypse to me, literally:

Scales of Deprivation

Bow and Crown of Conquest

Great Sword of War

Death on a Pale Horse

Representative of the stages of the apocalypse, according to John, the Revelator.

And each one is a winner! Bow and Crown is my personal favorite.

Teak wood and blood musk perfectly melded. Initially the teak dominates, the musk on drydown. I didn't smell anything extraneous to the listed notes: no metal or blood. Teak wood is it's own thing, it smells like well polished, hard wood furniture: Slightly sharp and high end. Blood musk is less skanky than red, less citrus than black, and not high pitched like white. It strikes a balance between red and black, more like the feral musk in Baby Goat or Coyote, but slightly more mineral, and it hints of blood, like iron or red clay. It suggests these things, rather than smelling like them.

Perfect! Very bpal. Very woody. As I'm a woods and a musk girl, this is my thang. Bottle worthy.