Casablanca

In the bottle, I get mostly an oudh, one of an unpleasantly indolic nature in the neighborhood of Bestla and Nevertheless, She Persisted. I feared I was about to get burned by an undisclosed-note-in-a-blind-bottle again, and procrastinated this blend's testing. When I apply Earth Pig, finally, I get a fair amount of this body-earthy oudh, but also a serene and pleasant orange, tangerine, and plum blossom mix. The oudh is thankfully not quite as fecal as it smelled in the bottle, though it has a somehow bodily nature. In early drydown, the oudh calms considerably and then the blend becomes cheerful with orange, tangerine, mandarin, plum flower, peony, and something that smells like golden frankincense. From that point on, the blend is very wearable and a relief.

White sandalwood, champaca, snow mint, and thyme. This blend started mostly as a curiosity for me, and it turned out enticing and pretty. In the bottle I smelled mostly the snow mint, with hints of other things. But on my skin, this turned into a finely balanced fragrance. I could pick out the four listed notes. Snow mint and thyme were perhaps a little stronger, and then sandalwood, and champaca being the most blended in. But the balance of notes really just made something new and pretty on me that was its own. The blend lasted 2 - 3 hours, which for me is just a little longer than normal. It didn't change much on me during its life.

I've tested this several times, and it's just not really showing up for me. Everything is very faint on first application, and is already nearly gone in a minute or two. For a few seconds I get a sheer, almost silken vanilla, rice milk, pale sandalwood, and a hint of clove. Then the sandalwood and clove slip away, and I just get a thin, faint vanilla rice milk. Then that, too, is barely there. I hope time helps this one become less shy.

I let this sit almost the longest among the blends before reviewing, because Snake Oil. First on my skin, it's pretty quiet, but this looks to be a very base-notey blend. A softer top-note phase doesn't surprise. But it warms up quickly, and then out drifts a cloud of dark vanilla with hints of smoke, caramel, and oak, all wafting over Snake Oil. Damn... That's good. In drydown I start to get oakmoss and a little tobacco, adding to the earthiness. I find ambergris when I look for it, but really, this is very well blended. After this dries, pinpointing one note is a bit like finding one piece of a table-wide jigsaw. I'll probably need at least one bottle of this snek. This is Snek++.

The first whiff on me is just of the pine resin. For some reason, I'm getting a little pine, and also a lot of something odd that reminds me of yew berries. That settles down quickly, though, into a faint, gentler pine. Magnolia and a mild jasmine come forth. From that point, the blend is a very pretty, soft white floral, though it doesn't last an hour on me.

On the wand, and fresh on my skin, I get lots of fresh grapefruit. Grapefruit SN. In drydown, I get a faint salty air hint. Still mostly grapefruit, with faint ocean air. Once this dries, I get fading grapefruit and a breath of faint ambergris. Then it fades out, leaving a dot of nondescript sweetness. My eat eht it.

I'm not sure I can get enough wildflower honey. Sweet wildflower honey, creamy vanilla marshmallow, amber, pink-scented cherry flowers, and a touch of lotus. Pink lotus? That's about the order of strength for the notes on my skin at first. The blend is creamy, honey-sweetened, and pink. The creamy vanilla and lotus part of it reminds me of the gentle blend Poor Monkey. As this dries, the mallow calms down and blends in more. I really like it then. When this is dry, I get an artful teak hint when I look for it. It does somehow smell like a pale teak and adds a little complexity. I like the way it works with the lotus. This smells like kindness. 🙂 It keeps putting me in mind of Poor Monkey and its theme of compassion. I'll need more of this one.

Red mimosa, pink grapefruit, and ... an actually airy white cedar. The mimosa has a reddish sweetness to it, especially in the first couple moments after applying. It seems that red mimosa is to mimosa as blood orange is to orange... This reminds me of the reddish, almost raspberry sweetness that blood oranges have versus oranges. This seems like a mimosa analog of that... The pink grapefruit smells just like it does out of my pink grapefruit EO bottle. Sweet, fresh, wakening. The cedar smells actually airy and white: like cedar, and yet not at all like heavy reddish cedar. I don't catch any amber until drydown. Its paleness has it blending in well here. But also in drydown, the blend turns a little tart, and then increasingly powdery. The powder reminds me of white musk but there could be another culprit. Pretty soon it's all fruit powder. This started out fresh and pretty, but it isn't a match for my skin.

Green mandarin is Queen on my skin -- a very green, but not bitter, mandarin. I'm loving this note and the green and orange colors is brings to mind. This is a beautiful green mandarin green tea with refined hints of rosy woods. I don't pick out distinct woods, except for something like a rose-tinted rosewood. The honey's touch is light enough here that I only notice its sweetening effect in the blend when I look for it. I love this in all its parts: the way the green mandarin blends into the green tea, the relaxed elegance of the woods warmed and given joy with a little rose, the restraint of the honey. I will need more of this one.

I like how different this one is from any other blends I've tried, thanks to this rice. On the wand, this is a strong basmati rice, a nutty and buttery grain. A little honey sweetens it, but this is really all about Queen Basmati. Wet on my skin, I get a little more honey, but it's still just warming and sweetening the dominant rice. The rice is nutty, and a little popcorn-buttery. After a while, it develops something like a curry note on my skin. Champaca is scarcely attending, and is just a hint of its usual self. I'm a little relieved when the honey asserts itself a bit more in drydown. The basmati is good, but it overpowers at first. This seems to be the same honey as in Honey, Hay Absolute and Amber. It's sweet and mild, rather than heavy or sugar-crunchy the way O smells to me. But that curry-like odor also hangs in on me... and it wins out in strength over time. I'm glad I tried this, but it's not a match.

[No additional description provided.] This one is coming out different than the imagined. On the wand, I get golden honey over a hay-and-greenery vibe. I wonder if this greenery impression is from the hay being an absolute. On my skin, the greenery wins. It steps forward as green, a little sour, and a little tart. Somehow it smells like a mix of recently cut and dried grasses or shrub leaves. Yup, this is pretty much greenery and I don't know where the honey and amber went. Ah, there's the honey amber, peeking out in early drydown. The tart greenery settles. Later, this is just a super soft honey amber, with a scarce hay hint. I'm going to chalk most of this up to my skin.

White tea, Mysore sandalwood, orris concrete, rice absolute, hinoki wood, and amber. TIL the junk of a pegasus is glorious. Creamy rice, orris, and amber lead on my skin, with hints of white tea and wood. The creamy rice is really the Empress of this domain. For the other notes, the orris seems to contribute to the creaminess, and does not go powdery on me. I pick up a bit more of the tea on the wand than on my skin in this case; the tea and wood are part of the background. This is so smooth, creamy, and cultured. This could be a sister or cousin to Alabaster Vulva (white amber, sheer vanilla, orris butter, Italian bergamot, narcissus); they're of similar moods and I'd put them in the same family. The rice and wood give Pegasus Junk more of a Shunga feel; it seems that the pegasus is the spirit creature of Heian-era Japanese aristocracy.

Sexy, honeyed, amber-yellow flowers with hints of fig and apple, and the lightest breath of sage. The jessamine smells closer to honeysuckle to me than jasmine, like a sort of wildflower-honeysuckle scent. This beauty is a huge profusion of ultra-golden flowers drenched in lightly fruity honey, touched with gentle sage. This smells like something bees would swarm over, and that tends to mean I love it. Bashful—sip thy Jessamines As the fainting Bee— If I were a bee landing on this, I would faint straightaway. Gorgeous golden floral that will morph into a bottle for me.

Creamy lemon curd, white tea, and a touch of delicate lotus root. My experience is like VioletChaos's: a creamy, curdy dessert lemon coupled with the clean lemony note of white tea. Much more cream from the amber cream than amber. The eastern touch of this lotus root is delighting me in this combination. It's subtle on my skin, but it's an out-of-the-ordinary twist. This is more gourmand than I expected -- from the curd -- but it's just gorgeous. This is a perfect mood blend for the winter-to-spring transition. Very pleased with this blind bottle!

Mm, delishus restaurant coffee and vanilla ice cream. A little musk blending in. I get a hint of nutty chicory in the coffee, like in some other reviews. It's not a heavy chicory like I once smelled in a coffee, but a light and toasty touch. I'm down under half on my Jiaolong and was looking for a similar-but-different replacement. One with less overt black musk. Found it. ❤️