VetchVesper

Thought I'd give my two cents on the 2020 Weenies, since I decanted most of them.  Of course, fragrances can vary wildly with chemistry, and there are a plethora of tastes out there, but these are the perfumes that struck me as leaning classically masculine or gender ambiguous.  

Dead Leaves and Cinnamon Buns - It's foody, but the dry cinnamon and dead leaf note are far more prominent to me.

Dead Leaves Leaves on Fire - Like, really good barbeque smoke.   

Dead Leaves and Black Licorice - To me, this smelled amazing.  It's got a classic men's cologne vibe, with just a twist of licorice to make it unique. 

Dead Leaves, Tunisian Amber, and Smoked Balsam

Pumpkin Smut - This one's damn sexy, and I think, just earthy enough guys could wear it if they're comfortable with foodiness.  Same goes for ...

Pumpkin Booze - Spices, orange peel and booooze.  Definitely festive.
Bookcase Passages - Wood and book smell.

Creaking Floorboards - Woody overall, and classy.

Doleful Pipe Organ - This one's real weird, but would be fun to see how it plays on a guy.  Lot's of stuff going on here.

Endless Corridors - Another one that would be interesting on a guy.  Beeswax is vanillic and leans sweet, but the vetiver is just smoky enough that I could see it working on a dude.

Icy Drafts - A chilly, minty vibe that just seems like it would be a good aromatherapy sort of blend for a lot of folks.
Sinister Groundskeeper - Pine and earth

Toy-Strewn Attic - Leather and dust.  There's a bit of rose, but it wasn't real recognizable to me. Nostalgic, atmospheric, and interesting.

Unsettling Portraits - Another weird one that has really grown on me, and I definitely wouldn't describe as "feminine."
October and Samhain are both BPAL classics, and I would say they are gender neutral.

P.S.  I'm curious as to which Weenies men ended up liking, and if my list lines up.  Any guys out there want to add their two cents?

So yesterday, I crept from my cave and did a 30 minute walk as part of my New Year's resolution to getting back in shape.  The weather is being co-operative.  It's chilly, but clear and sunny. 

Thanks for the tip on the Adrienne challenge, @Kelthara.  That might be just what I need.  I'll check it out!

@Amazonia I'm glad DL and Blackberries found a loving home!  It smelled so yummy in the bottle, but just went sharp on me.  I'm not sure if I frimped you Kabe Ni Mimi or not.  If I did, it probably would have one of my decant circle labels on it.  I do love that one though.  Also, I'm guessing you are already aware, but just in case, Neko means "cat" in Japanese.  Very cute nickname.  😸

This really is lovely.  It's an unusual, silvery floral with a touch of gentle powder.  I suspected muguet would make this smell soapy on me, but it hasn't, and I'm waffling on needing a bottle.  I'm almost positive this has cucumber in it, giving the blend it's shiny, slippery, sort of synthetic feel.  It's also probably what Casablanca was picking up on as "aquatic", which I can get behind, but think more clear freshwater pool vs. briny ocean (a.k.a. soap) aquatic.   

This was VERY smoky on me.  Like - %99.9 char.  While it was evocative of the DL on Fire concept, it was a bit much.  It might be worth revisiting in a few months, once the perfume has had time to settle, but for now, this year's Midnight Bonfire is my pick for when I want to smell only a little bit on fire. 

ETA:  It might be fun to try out DL on Fire as a SN, mixed with other blends.  

This was a surprise standout for me.  I was expecting lots of pumpkin spice, and to be bowled over by cinnamon.  Surprisingly, I got very little cinnamon on my skin, and while the spices are very present, they are balanced with the other notes, buttery bourbon and vibrant, orange zest, to make a fun, foody, and festive elixir perfect for the holiday season.   This ended up being my pick for Christmas Day.  I got 3 compliments and one, "you smell like food."    

Perfumy, but in a good way.  The dead leaves are prominent at first, but after a few minutes, the three notes blend seamlessly into something new.  DL, BC & GC is floral, but tempered with some sharpness from the dead leaves, and a dark, dry tartness from the black currant.  It smell expensive and very autumnal.  It's also probably the most unique of the DL blends this year, in that it could pass for a non - dead leaves blend.  I haven't decided if I love it or not, but I'm glad I got to try it.  

I wasn't sure what exactly to expect from this one, but I was quite curious.  Pumpkin Gazpacho is odd, fun, and lovely.  It's definitely pumpkiny, but in a very sweet, roasted squash sort of way vs. the typical pumpkin pie sort of thing.  It's creamy with hints of herbal greenery and a cool freshness from the cucumber.  Over all, it just smells homey, comforting, and friendly and I'd love to marinate in a bath oil of this stuff.  It's also not a scent combo I've ever come across before, which makes me appreciate it all the more.  All you veggie lovers, check this one out, and if you're looking for a different sort of pumpkin, here it is.  

Whew!  Got the rest of those leaves raked yesterday while wearing Sinister Groundskeeper.  It's a nice, earthy blend with a bit of pine.  I like it, but I don't love it.  It was a good leaf raking scent though! The leaves took an hour or so.  Then we had a wind storm last night!  😅  That's ok.  I'm just glad my grass can get a little light, and today's weather is beautiful.  Hoping to get a walk in.  

@Kelthara  I actually enjoy raking leaves when the weather is nice, and I have someone to help, and leaf blowers are so noisy.  I do kinda wish I had one to get the leaves out of my bushes though.  I have a bunch of big holly bushes, and the dead leaves really get stuck in there.  Speaking of which,  @Lucchesa, when IS the best time to prune?  I need to prune my holly bushes (all my bushes actually) but I don't want to just hack at them.  I've heard around Valentine's Day is good, but by then, it's usually getting pretty warm here.   

I'm going to have to check out Adrienne's weight loss stuff.  I haven't been doing and yoga this last month, and sure enough, my neck and back have started hurting again.  Back to it, then! 

P.S.  I've got a Yule decant circle up, if anyone's interested. ❄️☃️❄️ 

I did 2 HOURS of leaf raking, while wearing Honey Taffy Smut, which is absolutely lovely.  I kept getting little golden whiffs of it.  So far, it's my favorite of the smuts I've smelled.     Also... I'm not done raking yet.  😭
 

@Amazonia, donuts dipped in snake oil sounds pretty adventurous to me!  And glad your package arrived!     Currently, Houston covid cases are supposed to be on the rise, so I'm mostly gonna duck and cover for the holidays.  If you open a can of whoop ass on some anti-maskers, remember to log your time doing it and let us know.  😜 

@Lucchesa, Sorry to hear about your shoulder.  Morning walks by the lake sounds like a grand 30 day challenge!  

On 12/20/2020 at 4:39 PM, Kelthara said:

 

Oh my gods Vetch you are too sweet for checking in on me, and meanwhile I just entirely dropped off the face of the earth!! I've been doing good just very, very busy, and needed some time away from screens in my down time. 😊I've been getting back into yoga last week, yay me! Although today was a gross rainy Sunday kinda day haha. Hoping to start strong again tomorrow though! I'll keep y'all in mind to motivate myself.

 

It finally got cold enough here to break out some cozy scents and/or some sweet favorites that I don't really like wearing in warmer weather, so I wore V'al HaNissim out on a walk the other day and it was perfect! Glad to be back, hugs all around 

Right back at ya.    Glad you're doing well, and don't worry, your not the only one to do a disappearing act.  ...

😜 It's nice to hear from you again, though.

So odd.  It has a powder, minty, minerally quality that is just very hard to describe and categorize.  Unique and atmospheric.  Unisex.  It reminds me a little of the smell of makeup.  It's a little bit green, but definitely not in a juicy way.  Verdigris works.  If I wanted a perfume for the color and texture of rust on copper, this would do nicely.   I like it, but less as a perfume and more in the way that I like the smell of Sharpie markers.    Someone wearing this would smell unsettling.  Like - "What is that fascinating smell.  Oh, it's you?   Humans aren't supposed to smell like that.       ...Come here, I want to smell you some more."

ETA:  This has actually really grown on me.  It's so unusual, and has a very good wear length.  Late in the dry down, it becomes more obviously a warm amber, and is a bit more traditional.  It takes many hours, so if you can't get past the strangeness of the earlier stages, the amber's not going to be worth the wait, but for me, it's an added bonus.    

ETA 2:  Yeeeah...  I bought a last minute bottle.  It's just so utterly odd and unique, and really is a fascinating smell.  

Oh man, this is strait up Cinnabon at first, right down to the gooey frosting.    There's definitely some cinnamon going on, but it's not bowling me over, and the pumpkin spice seems less prominent than here than it is in the Chocolate Pumpkin Pie perfume.  After a few minutes, the fragrance softens significantly, and I get less frosting smell, and more general cinnamony baked goods.  Too foody for my fancy, but if you wanna smell like cinnamon buns, you'll be happy.   

In the bottle, I'm getting lots of graham crackery chocolate.  On my skin it's all pumpkin spice with only a touch of chocolate peeking out.  Alas, not for me, but if your chemistry plays well with the lab's spicy pumpkin pie note, this probably delivers on foody goodness.

Ok folks.  I actually got a 20 minute walk in yesterday.  I was testing out the new Apple Spice Hard Candy, and it's a fun, cool, fizzy apple that was lovely for the clear, cool day.  It lasted for my walk, but not for long afterward. 

@Seajewel  Nice to see you back, and glad to hear you're injury is doing better and you've been able to work out.    It's wonderful to see the thread is still helping y'all, even when I've been neglectful.  😅  

I'd love to see more/new folks try it out, but it's been lovely to see @Lucchesa, @Madame Mew, and @Amazonia keeping up with it and doing so well.  Thank you ladies.  You are inspiring and fantabulous!  

Today I'm wearing Two Frames for the first time - which is delectably yummy.  I have a bunch of leaves to rake later today, so we'll see if it lasts till then.

Not as sweet as I was expecting, but still plenty sweet!   This reminds me more of sparkling cider than candy.  It's fizzy and cool at first.  (I guess there's an extra "hard" to this candy.  )   Folks who enjoy champagne might dig it.  The spice is very subtle.  I'm only getting a hint of it in the dry down, so if you were worried about being beset by holiday spice, have no fear.  This is sort of an apple-y Sugar Skull.  It's short lived on me, but fun while it lasts.  

This is beautiful.  The "dead leaf" notes BPAL typically uses, while they do smell autumnal and pleasant to me, don't actually remind me of dead leaf smell.  (Well, maybe occasionally the extra dry crunchy ones)  THIS does.  It opens right up with the smell of freshly fallen leaves still crimson, vermillion, and brilliant gold.  For me, this one is uncannily accurate.  it's a smell that's a bit floral, a bit green, and a bit tannic, and yes, as @groovyrooby said, a bit damp.  I would buy a full bottle of this in heartbeat, but unfortunately, it all but disappears on me within an hour.  Still, I'll be hanging on to my partial, and hoping a bit of age will give it some longevity.   

This one is a crazy fun time, and I swear there's a champagne note in it.  

At first, I get non-sweet cocoa from this, with a dark, rusty metal vibe and something that reads oddly fizzy to my nose.  (As the hours pass, this fizzy note becomes more prominent and blatantly champagnish to my nose.  And yes, "champagnish" is totally a word.) Then some incense starts swirling around in the mix along with hits of gear lubricant.  The vetiver is in there, but it's not prominent for me, and there's a lot going on.  The chocolate starts to back off and everything swirls chaotically, like notes from a crescendoing calliope.  I end up with a somewhat sweet, somewhat tart, somewhat fizzy, somewhat incensey blend of something-or-other that I find quite appealing.   

I like dark, bitter chocolate, but I have quite a few perfumes with that note already.  This one's stands out as quite different.

 

Rejoice beeswax lovers!  Beautiful, rich, and smoky candle wax.  I enjoy vetiver, but occasionally it goes sharp.  Here, it's subtle and lovely.  Endless Corridors has stayed pretty consistent on me for the last three hours.  I'm happy to have a partial of this as one of my few beeswax scents.  

I'm really digging the Haunted House collection this year.  Most of them, I don't need a full bottle of, but the scent experience has been great.  In general, they're very atmospheric.

I was expecting cedar from Creaking Floorboards (a troublesome note for me) but I'm not getting any here.  This is warm, dark woods at first, very smooth.  I don't get tea, but I'm getting a definite spice note that includes clove.  The cloves give the fragrance sort of a smoldering quality, like the cherry of a cigarette.  I really like this phase.  I'm not huge on woody fragrances, but this one strikes me as unusual.  It leans masculine and manages to be both comfortable and formal at the same time.  I could see this dude in jeans and a sweater or a tuxedo. 

The clove starts to lend a coolness to the warm wood, and then a bit of "blood" tang creeps in.  Finally, the wood turns from polished parquet to identifiable vetiver.  It's a nice vetiver, but I preferred the parquet.  It hasn't lasted as long as I'd expected (around 3 hours) but that may be do to my chemistry and/or might improve with age.  If you like woody perfumes or the smell of antiques and old houses, I'd try to get a sniff of this one.  

ETA:  Wanted to add, I think my nose was actually picking up the tea earlier, b/c I thought I got a faint tinge of anise, and then was like... naaah.    So yeah, the lab's black tea with the spiced quality (especially the clove) coming up strongest for me.  

So... I get coffee from this?  And then it becomes more like a caramel.  It's a lot richer and darker than I was expecting, but it does smell yummy.  Also, it LASTS.  Just like the real thing -- this stuff sticks around forever on me.

I get more candy here than Smut, but it's pretty perfect for foody lovers with a Halloween sweet tooth. 

ETA:  Ahahaha.  Just saw the other reviews.  Apparently, I have the same nose as @zankoku_zen and very different chemistry from @torischroeder9.  i've been blasting smutty candy corn for the last 6 hours, and it's still quite potent.  

More chocolatey smooches than smut.  "Fudgey" is a good word.  It's a very sweet, foody chocolate, but it's  dark and chewy smelling.  I'm not really getting anything else though.  On me it's chocolate Chocolate CHOCOLATE!  

... There are worse things. 

Hmmm... intriguing.  The melon's up front an center at first, but it softens considerably.  I think it's the oakmoss lending the fragrance a creamy/powdery texture, and I get a wee hint of apple.  It reminds me a bit of Titania and has a soft, luminous quality.  Not something I'd wear much, but Interesting for sure, and always fun to try something with melon.   

CHERRY.  Frick'n strait up, red twizzler, cherry candy.  Then it starts to go more generally fruity.  I'm pretty sure I'm getting some jammy strawberry.  There is something a little darker lurking in the background as this dries down.  Maybe black musk?  My brain might just be jumping to that though, because of the "velvet" descriptor.  Definitely a fruity, red blend.  Playful, but the background notes keep it from being childish. 

Chilly mint-ozone and white musk.  This is gender neutral and strikes me almost as an aromatherapy blend.  It's head clearing, though not medicinal.  The eucalyptus is present, but there's nothing screechy or in your face going on, and the whole thing has a hazy, airy feel that's very appropriate to its inspiration.  There's peppermint, but it's not sweet like the candy, and it seems fairly different from the Lick-It's I've smelled (though I've only smelled a couple.)  It reminds me more of Anesthesia without the lavender.  After 10 mins or so, I start to get something sort of lemony and spicy, which I thought at first was the cologney dead leaves note, but now I'm recognizing as the absinthe. 

I like this.  It seems like a great blend for destressing.  

Musky, lemon-drop candy!  It's nice.    Bright and cheerful.  Lemon grass tends to go sour and swampy on me, but so far, this is behaving itself. 

The bright lemon burns off, and I get sort of a musky, fresh herbal that makes me think of sunny kitchens, or the outdoors on a cold, clear day.  It's hard to pin down specific notes because they're well blended.  There's a bit of sweetness from the neroli, and a hint of lavender.  Maybe some fuzziness from the white amber and pepper.  I was expecting something sharper, but this is sort of light and airy.  I'm only getting a teeny bit of cedar in the crook of my arm, where it's warm.  I don't smell any on my wrist,  and I'm not getting the slap of "green" I'd expect from dandelion sap.  The fragrance stays close to my skin, but I've been wearing it over an hour and it's still hanging out.   Over all, the ghosts of the year seem to be surprisingly pleasant fellows!  

This one's ... interesting.  Very atmospheric. 

Up front I get soft leather and a dust note.  Maaaybe some beeswax?  I'm smelling without looking at the notes, but the "dust and rags" smell from The Old Robber Woman is prominent here, without the sharp tang of metal or oil.  Toy-Strewn Attic is sort of sawdusty vs. powdery.  The "chalk dust" note, from The Writing on the Slate also comes to mind,   After 10 mins or so, something sweet and oddly tangy emerges from the background and mixes with the leather, rags, and dust, along with something vaguely plasticy --  like a doll's head, but without a strong chemical component.     Can't quite put my finger on what everything is.    I wouldn't wear this as a perfume, but it does have my nose quite intrigued, and as a room spray (like the Deserted Theater Atmo)  I think I might dig it.   Like I said - interesting. 

Reads notes:  Oh...I guess that sweet tang was the blood and metal.     Smelling it again, I do smell a bit of rose in the beginning stage, but I didn't recognize it initially, and now I'm getting something sort of spicy?  Maybe the dry leaves?  This one's weird, y'all.  Quite the experience.  If you like soft leather, dust notes, or nostalgic atmospherics, it's worth checking out.