tziporra

Okay, On the Balcony. I don't fear you and your "rose infused amber". Let's do this.

 

Wet:

Gah! Sharp rose! All rose! Dear copal, myrrh and laudanum, please save me!

 

20 minutes:

Some pleasant Incensey drydown starts to happen. But it is still dominated by sharp florals. I would never wear this when I could wear Sheol.

 

In a scent locket:

On the other hand... It is just stunning in the locket where my chemistry isn't around to destroy the beauty of the rose. I wouldn't mind if my linens smelled just like this. I might try scenting a sachet with it. Or if I see a DISO I'll just swap it.

 

Tzi

Tried this at BedlamBedlam today while picking up an order.

 

At first I could not figure out why the fig didn't go all dusty and wrong on me like in every other fig scent on the planet. Then I get to reading the notes and I see it is "figgy vanilla" which kind of makes me want to go make some pudding. Right now.

 

 

Okay, back.

 

Dry, this is a very dark fruity scent, without being the least bit plummy, which is nice because while I like my fruit dark and melancholy, it's nice to have a break from plums every once in awhile. I don't get a lot of chocolate in the drydown, but I feel it is what is blackening the pear and quince so they are all moody rather than their usual happy bright selves. _Not_ a sparkling pear, in case you weren't reading that already.

 

Ultimately, it doesn't read as a springtime scent to me, and it is very similar to one of my box o'chocolates, so I'm not springing for a bottle today.

 

The future though..... Looks like next fall will be an Uncle Traveling Matt kind of season!

 

Tzi

I searched all over the forums (search terms nude, nudist, naked) and could not find a thread recommending scents to wear when you aren't wearing anything else.....

 

I don't want sleepy time scents here, I want the kind of thing you'd wear when standing at he kitchen island on a fresh spring morning and you just got out of the shower and can't bear to have anything next to your skin for awhile and are eating oranges and dribbling juice onto your bare stomach.

 

Sensual naked, not sexy naked. Scents that feel undressed without being aroused, if that makes sense.

 

Thanks!

 

Tzi

I want to tell you an embaraasing story. We'll call the story "Tzi's Expectations and Suceptibility."

 

I got home from a weekend trip at 4am and tore into my bpal package containing my VERY LAST NOT ORDERING ANYMORE NOPE NOSIREEBOB Lupercalia order.

 

I slathered on Rigorous Love not remembering any note but coconut (in my defense, the package was at my bedside, not sitting out in the mailbox).

 

This is not a 4am-after-an-all-night-drive scent.

 

Ewwwwwwwwww...... I thought, what is that? Tea? Why did I buy a tea scent? I don't like the lab's tea note and now it is amping to the sky and just general wah I'm going to hafta swap this and why did I buy it un-sniffed?

 

It's not tea. It's lemongrass (how on earth did I read that as tea?). I bought it because I wanted to smell like lemon. Specifically creamy lemon coconut, like a flan I make using coconut milk instead of dairy, and doused in lemon syrup. Oh. This smells just like that.

 

It is _very_ bright and _very_ lemony in that lemongrass not quite as flowery a little more herbal than a lemon but not as herbal as lemon balm kind of way. This is an amazing scent to put on say, when you want to wake up after four and a half hours of sleep because you drove all night.

 

My only request from the scent universe is that the balsam and anise will peek out just a bit more with aging and give the lemongrass something to settle onto.

 

Not swapping. Keep!

 

Tzi

 

ETA: not punctuation, obviously. Just some verb agreement to make this somewhat readable

CAN I WRITE MY REVIEW IN ALL CAPS PLEASE?

No?

Fine. But while you read this please imagine I am bouncing around the room squealing and flapping my arms in that very particular fashion of someone who has filled a long neglected niche in her life.

Do you have a tuberose niche?

I do. Mine is shaped like the scent (don't ask me the shape of a scent, just go with me here) of buttery tropical florals warmed by the midday sun and wafting through a screened window into the coolness of a shaded room....

Laid with cookies and tea?

Apparently my tuberose niche was born in a British colony? No matter!

Wet I get the heady blast of tuberose familiar to lovers of tuberose perfumes (Kors Michael Kors comes to mind, but the drydown is nothing alike so don't scold me for the comparison later). Then I get an oddly wonderful moment where the butteriness of the cookies amps and melds with the tuberose in a way that smells of the most intense perfumed shortbread ever concocted (I make rose shortbread cookies, and this like that, but with tuberose).

For a moment I am concerned by the foodiness and beg the cookies to behave themselves. Please! Cookies! Do not get out of control!

And there is the tea, coming to my rescue. Lab tea has not agreed with me in the most heartbreaking of ways, especially since in my commercial perfume days I was in love with Eau D'Oolong which was, as it sounds, all tea (and figs). She has been too sharp in the past and I've shrunk from her strictness. But this tea is so proper, so perfectly mannered, she marches the cooky and the tuberose and the magnolia - now shyly beginning to peek out - into line and begins to read them a lesson in etiquette.

But as with all rambunctious children, though they are _really_ on their best behavior and dressed up in their Sunday clothes, these notes are still all tumbling over one another in their eagerness to make themselves heard.

There is Tuberose! There is Magnolia! There is Cooky! And they are all delicious and charming and lovable that you don't mind the clamour and ruckus they are making on your arm.

Especially when your husband takes a deep breath of the fragrance and says, "this one reminds me of a lasso." A lasso? "Yes, like you are going to lasso me in and never let me get away."

Yes people, it is that good.

Drydown reads as a beautiful magnolia, with a buttery backdrop, an overlay of tuberose and the strict schoolmarmish tea still holding everyone together. The children really have settled down and are now ready for their photo op.

I haven't read the source material, and I can't speak to the scent's power to evoke its muse. Someone else will have to write _that_ review. I am just so happy to have found "my" tuberose, easily accessible - unlike my beloved Kataskopia, which I can now hoard.

<still squealing. still flapping.>

Tzi

Have you ever tried a lovely aquatic that seemed like it was going to be perfect on you but one note spoiled the whole effect? Say Waves of Mist was ruined by the lilies, or Angry Crab by the Petitgrain?

 

No more, my friends. Run out and immediately snag yourself some Ambergris Accord.

 

I can see up thread that some reviewers have gotten a marvelously beautiful and complex scent, but for me the single notes really have remained single. This note is absolutely the primary scent I get in most oils labeled "aquatic" on the forum. As I'm sitting here sniffing it I tried to figure out if I would ever have labeled this scent as aquatic all on my own - does it really smell of the sea or am I conditioned to believe it does because it is the main note in some "sea spray" perfume?

 

I have a large bottle of single note amber from an oil supplier, and with this single note I can see why people first named this "ambergris" or gray amber. This is a soapy, soft amber, with none of the earthiness I get from actual amber. Amber set off to sea, as it were.

 

From a perfume standpoint what this boils down to (very stretched pun intended) is a soft delicious subtle soapy muskiness that my husband adores. It very much reads as "perfume" (this is important to me as I dislike smelling like food or weeds). It's the perfect everyday scent, and while I find it simple, I can't imagine layering it with anything. I just really want to smell like whale vomit and nothing else thank you.

 

So glad I snagged this. Could become my signature.

 

Tzi

This was a frimp from the lab. Because I know that none of the Mad Tea Party scents have ever worked on me, and therefore none ever ever will.

 

Especially this one! Red Musk?!? Isn't that the note that ruins all those really popular bpals for me (Smut, Lips Full of Lust and Laughter, I am looking at you)? And sugar! I can't wear sugar!

 

So goodness knows what possessed me to try this.

 

Wet, it is a dead on ringer for the spicy linament smell of the treatment rooms in an acupuncture clinic I used to work in. I think it is the lemon and cassia that are combining to evoke that scent memory for me. I look back on that time with fond regret, so the association is lovely and bittersweet.

 

Then the mango comes out. And I must amp mango, because while I'm not seeing a lot of other MANGO comments in this review section, this is now like some kind of trail mix with cinnamon spiced nuts, mango and citrus (sandalwood is contributing the nuttiness, but it's not going peanut butter on me). Although I don't associate mango with cooked fruit, the warm spiciness of this definitely doesn't read as fresh mango.

 

The musk is well behaved, never veering into plastic doll territory, just adding to the overall warm deliciousness of the blend. And I can't detect the sugar as a separate note at all. Dry, it still has the medicinal edge I am reading as citrusy, but much softer and it blends nicely with the rest of the scents.

 

I am the type who wants my fruit scents to read as _really_ perfumey (and it helps if I also want to eat my arm), and this isn't. On my skin it stays nicely away from screaming headshop, but it is definitely in that direction. In other words, I think this is a lovely scent, and I'm happy to find a one in this line that isn't just washitoffrightnowplease, but I'm probably not going to need a bottle.

 

So glad I tried it though, I may have to explore MOAR mango!!

 

Tzi

Waaaaaaaay back when this was in the Lupercalia, it was a snap bottle purchase for me after sniffing it at will call. Now that my bottle is almost gone, it is definitely going on my ISO list.

 

I am a huge fan of the Michael Kors scent that is _all_ about the tuberose, and this bpal is sooooo evocative of it that I was able to sell my bottle to someone better able to stand alcohol based perfumes and wear this one.

 

From application to drydown, this is all TUBEROSE, very tropical and lush. The tuberose is beautifully supported by styrax, a note that loves me, and the fresh "green" musk, which really does evoke a veil of greenery from whence Kalaskopia watches. I can't pick out the other florals in the bouquet due to the domination of tuberose, but I definitely feel the are there, rounding out the big white flower explosion.

 

This doesn't feel like an innocent floral to me, or an elegant one. This floral is grounded and extremely sensual. This is a floral that knows what she wants.

 

Best,

 

Tzi

I find there are two honeys on my skin. There is the creamy fruity honey that for all the world smells like apricot sherbet. I call this the "good honey". It is rare and lovely.

 

 

More common is the honey that goes on smelling a bit like cat vomit and dries down smelling like I just spend the last two days rolling in the sheets with myself. I call this the "wicked honey"'. Naturally I amp it.

 

 

Despite the very unattractive description of the wicked honey that I have provided I actually like to have one hanging around for dirty sexy days. But I really only need one, so when Skuld went on smelling like cat vomit I knew it was going to be a pass. C'mon, flowers! No? Hardly a whiff? If the ylang-ylang had come forward a bit more i would have traded Osun in for this one in a heartbeat on the theory that floral sex is sexier than herbal sex, but alas.

 

Tzi

 

What is this I smell? Some beautiful creamy new note that I have not smelled before? What is it?!? It's awesome!!! And it accompanied by some lovely fruity floral scent that is going to make this just amaz......


AND THEN IT IS STOMPED OUT BY THE FRANKINCENSE MONSTER OF DOOM.

Oh, hi Frankie.... Didn't see you there in the notes list. Ha ha. I guess this is going to be swapped.

BUT. On the bright side I have found a new wonderful note of win. Off to find more oils with beeswax!

Tzi

Wet on my skin this is a dead ringer for Laila, so if you are a fan of that fragrance or know someone who is you should immediately buy six bottles of this one.

 

After the initial blast of LILYLILYLILYLILYLILY there is a moment of the most amazing Egyptian musk that mixes with the florals so beautifully that I want to go buy those six bottles myself. Instead of the pure innocence of Laila, it reads as a very grown-up scent, a woman in her forties, hanging out with her tween daughters, still their best friend, wanting to wear something accessible to them, but entirely her own.

 

By the way, this scent is unabashedly feminine from start to finish, in case you weren't reading that from other reviews. And while I am having a floral moment right now I still can't see myself straying this far from my beloved cologne scents.

 

Unfortunately, the phase is short lived my skin just devours the drydown (story of my life lately, I am going to try the hydration thing and see if that helps keep the scents around a little longer).

 

Tzi

If this were my daughter I'd tell her to stop smoking so darn much opium.

 

I agree with an earlier reviewer that this _should_ be full of win for me, the notes list look like "something Tzi will really really love" but I just get a blast of opium (which would be fine if it were then tempered by some other note, I adore opium) and then nothing..... Happy I just got a decant!

 

Tzi

Found a new one!!!

 

Bottle art notwithstanding, I think L'Inverno is the ultimate representation of the crone in scent form. When I put it on, I can feel my power shifting to something wiser and more independent. Sooooooo awesome. As someone else mentioned here, it is an incensey floral, so maybe that is why I am getting the association. But <guh> LOVE.

 

Tzi

One cold but bright winter day Tzi bounced down the road to her Grandmother's house.

 

Tzi's grandmother is a stately woman, and her beautiful cottage is filled with bouquets of lilies, bowls of sugared plums, and orchids. A lovely wreath of pine boughs decorates the door.

 

"Tziporra! So lovely to see you!" Grandmother envelopes Tzi in a warm embrace of all her grandmotherly scents and Tzi wants to stay there forever. Then Grandmother holds Tzi at arms length and wrinkles her patrician nose just a touch. "I don't know why you insist on wearing those masculine leather based scents darling. You should try some of my L'Inverno"

 

Perhaps I will, Grandmother, perhaps I will.

 

Tzi

 

ETA: I love this scent even though it is completely the opposite of everything I've been wearing lately, in case you couldn't tell.

I tried this at a will call a couple of years ago and bought it when the drydown was in an intensely beautiful floral honey stage. Unfortunately, it went all sour rose on me immediately afterward and I never wore it.

 

Today when I pulled it out it was largely a repeat of this experience. Wet it is tons of honey; there is a brief stage drying that the floral blooms beautifully and the fragrance is transfixing. Then it is all strong sharp sour-sour floral on me like the worst rose ever and I go wash it off.

On my skin this is WHOA HONEY!

 

The apricot blends really nicely into the WHOA HONEY and rounds it out, so that it is a very fruity aromatic honey. The cayenne doesn't exactly marry well, but sits on the bottom as another reviewer stated. I'm hoping that age will help.

 

I do _like_ honey scents, so the WHOA factor on this one is not throwing me. Probably will keep because it is so distinctive and yummy.

 

Tzi

I just had to add: Osun ( ... Her ofrenda is thick with honey and herbs of love, passion and desire) is the most beautiful herbal honey on me, perfect for summer. It is like liquid gold bottled in a scent. I can't wear O, but this one more than makes up for it.

 

Tzi

Dear Mr. Herbert West,

 

I regret to tell you that I am writing to tell you that I wish to never see you again.

 

Oh I know I was initially so excited about our relationship. You arrived on my doorstep so unexpectedly, so well- packaged, with an overall air of impishness that I found irrestible. And you were so very charming; fresh and lighthearted and fun. We seemed to have so much in common; our interests lay in much the same directions, or so I thought. But that was before I got you under my skin, before I found out how you were with _me_.

 

I must confess, Herbert, I think the problem is your aftershave. You might think it trivial of me to quarrel with you on such minutiae, but the scent of it grew and grew until it overwhelmed me. Is that rose in there? Why didn't you say something about it to begin with before it went all sharp and nasty and altogether rosy? I know I've tolerated some roses in my life before, but they were very special, and your aftershave just isn't.

 

In any event, I find I must (literally) wash my hands of you altogether. It's not you, it's me, etc.

 

Regards and best wishes in your future endeavors,

 

Tzi

On me this is Kali with a slightly darker (more bitter) chocolate and cherries instead of roses.

 

Yum. Yum. Yum.

 

I don't have any wearable cherries either - they've always been too scented plastic doll on me. But apparently chocolate and wine can just make anything behave

All those lovely notes and this is just WHOA LEATHER on me.

 

I had really been hoping for a Clockwork Couture: Male vibe, but even though this looks way more complex on paper, CCM is much more interesting on my skin.

 

I like the dood fragrances (which explains why my luper order contains exactly zero flowers), so that this reads masculine is not really a problem for me. And I do adore this particular leather note, I just wish it wasn't so one dimensional and that I got some of the lovely depth other reviewers did. I am going to try layering it with my chunk of amber resin to see if that helps.

 

Will update.

 

Tzi

(2013)

 

This is very very orangey on me. I can pick out the leather, but not any wood at all. It's rather like a creamsicle at the moment, with the leather taking place of the vanilla (if you can buy that). It reminds me a little bit of Tom Ford's Violet Blonde (bottom notes of Suede and Cedar), but with citrus instead of flowers (better).

 

I really love it, but the throw is so light compared to what I usually wear that I don't know if I am going to keep it. It would actually make an amazing bath oil.

 

Tzi

 

ETA (yes, this is the section of the review where I come back a week later to say, THERE is the wood!): THERE is the wood! It turns out that what I was reading as bitter orange is actually pine so newly cut as to be citrusy mixed with some actual citrus. The woodier it gets, the more masculine it goes on me, and it is incrediblely delicious, but in that weird way where I keep looking around for the hot guy who smells so good. Maybe it needs chocolate.

 

ETA2: This is one of those scents (first in a loooooooong time) that I start 'meh' about and end up OMGINEEDTHISEVERYDAY. Settling helped, layering with SN French Tobacco helped (although the last two days I've just worn it on its own). The thing is, I usually want my perfume to smell like _perfume_ and it is very hard to argue that this does. I wish I could describe better what it does smell like..... It's not atmospheric on me (although I can envision newly cut boards in a tack room), and it's not soapy (although I would pay through the nose for soap with this scent). It does absolutely make me think that I woke up in the bed of the hottest cowboy on the planet, took a shower in his bathroom and used all his grooming supplies, came out smelling like this. In his crisp checked cotton shirt. I need to go haunt swaps for a backup now....l

Okay, I tried this one straight out of the box without checking notes, so I'm going to give my impression of it first before I go look. So if I am 100% off, now you know why.

 

In the bottle I get fruity sweetness and not much else. Bpals really have to be worn to be experienced, I guess.

 

Wet it is _leather_ with something dirty peeking around the corner and the lingering sweetness I got from the bottle.

 

Then, woah boy, an explosion of creamy fruit that takes over. This is probably the best bpal fruit I've ever worn, what is it?

 

Dry down (while working out, so that may affect skin chemistry) I get the leather, the fruit, and that hint of dirt at the bottom.

 

Now I have to go look.

 

Lol. No leather. No fruit. That was a success, wasn't it? At least I found the patchouli (the dirt). Okay, so brown musks equal leather, honey equals fruit (which makes sense -- I wouldn't buy a fruit scent, but I love the honey). Must be the green of the galbnum on top that read as fruitiness.

 

This is just a lot brighter than I would have guessed from the notes. Honey and musk and cumin sounds like sex to me, but I'm not getting that at all. Definitely "cologney" but without the spiciness I wanted. Soooooooooo....., I don't know what to think. It definitely smells fabulous, but I'm not sure if I will wear it. It might be a summer thing, so I'll hang on to it and see.

 

Tzi

 

ETA: yeah. A summer thing. I cannot get enough of this scent. I love waking up to the last vestiges of it too - so sweet and dreamy and absolutely YUM. My first bpal patchouli success story!

This is ridiculously delicious and amazing, and very much TOBACCO on me. I get that it is an accord, but I feel like I've been tucked into bed in a cigar box or am swimming in a pouch of American Spirit. I think it will be amazing layered with, oh, any scent, but it is very difficult for me to imagine wearing this on its own because it so straightforwardly proclaims its origins. IM TOBACCO WANNA PARTY?

 

It is hilarious that every time I start thinking I want to smell like a single thing (amber, tobacco, or leather) and then I _get_ my wish I start fussing about how I need something more complex.

 

On me this doesn't change at all from bottle to wet on skin to drydown. I'm so glad I bought it and can't wait to start layering!

 

Tzi

Tried at Will-Call.

 

It has the word Rose right in the name! This will never never work on me in a million years. Lab roses go immediately sharp and awful on me, and I amp them to Jupiter.

 

But it is so amazing in the bottle that I have to try. Because secretly I want to smell like roses. Wet it is like an enormous bouquet of deep red roses, a week old, filling a room with their insistent scent. No sharpness. Things are hiding underneath the rose bouquet. Definitely magnolia, and then a very warm delicious musk. I huff my hand where I've tried it and instantly order a bottle, hoping that I can survive the drydown (please rose, behave!).

 

Amazingly this just gets better and better on me. There is a point where the rose threatens sharp rosy awfulness, but the other notes seem to beat it into submission. This is the rose oil I have always dreamed of wearing. It's so luscious and rich and sexy and wildly feminine. It's perfumey in a traditional sense (I really like scents that have a commercial feel to them), but in a powerfully unique fashion. I am afraid that when this bottle arrives I will never want to wear anything else. I'm going to need a backup (probably two).

 

I love this.

In the bottle and wet on my skin this is a riot of soft florals. Absolutely the floraliest of flower fragrances. And it starts to dry down that way too before it turns entirely to soap on my skin. The soapiest of soaps. I am really heartbroken. I am going to try it in a scent locket and in a linen spray before I give up on it, it is that wonderful. Before the soap, anyway.