Casablanca

The Last Unicorn is iconic and inspirational, so I wanted to sample it. But many of the notes aren't as much my thing, so I didn't expect to love it like I do. When I first opened the decant, I didn't remember the notes, but I assumed they would be cool lilac and orris and such. You know. Unicorny things. And I just smelled... chocolate? A slightly floral chocolate? Saywutnow. But on my skin it transforms into something delightful and quite different from many other blends. A little wave of creamy white chocolate, then a fresh, dewy, sweet witch's garden of lettuce and greens, cool coconut shreds, white orris, touches of purple lilac and iris. On my skin I smell sweet, fresh lettuce as the standout note, with everything else a supporting swirl of creamy white and purple. It reminds me a lot of the fresh witch's garden feeling of Blue Moon, with its lettuce, cucumber, and green tea, but with a lot of creamy white background. The orris does lean toward powder for me, as it often does, and I think violet is adding a bit of an aged vibe I don't usually go in for. But I love the fresh lettuce and creamy aspect, so this might become a bottle.

On the wand and on my skin, this comes out as potent lilac, some green grass, and a little whiff of... blue musk? Bluebell flowers? Blue evening breezes and shadows. On me, this is mostly about the lilac from start to finish, but I enjoy the evening vibe surrounding that.

The Butterfly reminds me of the Lab's Genius Loci butterflies: a blend of notes that read as a bit quirky and off the track, but somehow naturalistic. Fresh on my skin, this brings lots of fuzzy, dusty brown tonka and a fizzy orange tang from the bergamot and petitgrain. The nutmeg adds a brown spice and some extra quirk, and amber is a smooth background presence. The overall impression is of a brown and orange butterfly flapping by and leaving wisps of brown and orange powder in her wake. This one lives hours on my skin, much longer than most blends survive on me.

Scorched oak and a gentle tobacco with a tone of an almost butterscotchy vanilla ... Mmm. Scorched and butterscotched! Strongly evocative of a mood and scene, this smells like a classic and timeless wood-paneled study of an individual with highly refined (and specific) tastes. Golden-blond wood with dark wood accents, a Victorian sepia-colored globe, an antique and unused cigar dish, late afternoon light slanting in between heavy earth-toned drapes to illuminate dust motes drifting in the air... I like it. It matures on my skin into more of the butterscotch tone over time, a refined butterscotch wood.

If a country-bramble witch made sugary treats for kids, the treats might smell like this. Caramelly sugar over stove-warmed blackberries. Nom. (Love it.)

Brown saddle leather dominates, cinnamon supports. This was cozy and homey and welcoming on my friend's skin. On my skin, it went full tack shop, right out of my horse-riding youth, with a little spice.

Much more the driftwood than the orange flower on me, this one is mostly salt and parched wood. The citrus sweetens the blend with a little levity and the warmth of spring. I liked this, but it was too salty, and then gone from my skin in 10 minutes.

Rice Milk and Mango is, as others have said, more the milk than the mango. Delicate rice milk wafts up, just warmed and made spring-like by a little glow of golden fruit. Pretty and I would bottle this if I didn't still have the rice milk with pear in a bottle of Kitten with a Shamisen.

It is what it says it is. Floral and floral. The balance is skin chemistry-dependent: It came out about even honeysuckle and wisteria on me, but mostly honeysuckle on my friend.

Rich, round, sultry dark amber with a lovely sugary edge. Gorgeous amber, though perfumey. I'm really all about the sugar. I want to hug it. Amber rules this space, though. This is one for the amber lovers and the sugar-friendly.

I got this because I wanted to smell osmanthus more isolated than it usually appears, and this one delivers on that. The flower reads to me like a mix of mimosa, orchid, apricot, mango, and citrus: full, sunny, and fruity. I don't notice other notes.

Bright, mossy-green bamboo musk. The green is bright, but not strong -- the sillage is fairly close to the skin. I think this must share some notes with Emerald Lace; I'm reminded of the greenness in that one, but this almost leans aquatic rather than having EL's vanilla-tobacco-cognac thing. In drydown, most of the scent fades out. There's a wisp of dried grassy moss, maybe?

She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted. A rallying call: golden oudh, frankincense, iris, and steel. Proceeds from this scent benefit EMILYs List, an organization that supports electing pro-choice Democratic women to office. This hasn't been long out of the mailbox, but it's late in the day and around 60 F outside, mild and temperate. In the bottle, I smell soft resins and a hint of metal. Fresh on my skin, this smells to me like the oudh from Bestla, but lightened and softened considerably. The slight fecal note in the oudh is quieter and burns off almost entirely from me in a couple minutes (Bestla's ripe phase lasts longer on me). Frankincense is there, golden-toned, and the rest is so far just a faint softness, barely showing up. Once this dries it fills out nicely. The oudh abides, like the Dude. It's only a little stronger on my skin than the frank, and there's a vanillic golden impression that reminds me of benzoin. Iris I find at first only from hunting around: it starts out more or less on the outskirts of the blend, adding a little powdery femininity, but after some dry-time it comes out more. There's also a grey metallic background that brings Ganymede to mind. Nevertheless' wet phase underwhelms for now, but I think its full life on my skin will likely improve with age. I like it already, though.

I initially passed over this out of fear of poud. Then I blind-bottled it based on earlier reviews, and they were right -- this is not the dread poud. 😅 This is not the tart blackberry I've gotten from some blends. Instead, this one is quite sweet. Sugary, actually. When this first arrived, the oud was a pleasant woody one. I still get some woodiness, but also some of the inkiness mentioned earlier. I love this. Sugary, blackberry ink woods. It's delightfully fay and between-the-worlds.

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 received this as a frottle from a lovely decanter and I’m enjoying it, even out of season. At about 9 years old, Pumpkin I sits on me as heavy pumpkin generously spiced with cinnamon and warmed with hay and champaca. It’s easy to picture a candle-glow warmth to this blend, like a light in a jack-o’-lantern. The leather is absent. Really, this is straight up, simple Halloween. I’m okay with this.

A curious blend. The white mint is prominent, and a bit candied, like a fine version of an after-dinner mint. It's quite odd at first in this mix of notes, but as the perfume blends and settles, it becomes part of a greater whole. That greater whole, though, is like a milky, minty, fruity breakfast cereal? I mean. I can pick out the mint, smoke, tuberose, red musk, and a perfumey sort of chypre, but my brain is putting them together and saying breakfast cereal.

Mm. Smoky, smoldering wood and green tea? Sipping green tea beside a woodfire just gone out in a bit of dampness? So far so good -- although I'm also getting whiffs of pepper, which feels a bit odd with the other notes appearing so far. As a smoke ho, I'm absolutely delighting in this smoldering wood. My inner green tea lover is reveling in the clean, sweet, and slightly floral serenity of that note here. My red musk-hating skin is thrilled that I'm not noticing that note. OTOH, there is a lot more going on in this than I am teasing out and recognizing, and the red musk is a likely culprit in that mix. I thought this would bomb on me, because of the musk, but it's not. Instead, it's intriguing. Well, there it is. Eventually, drydown takes this into a heavy, albeit odd, red musk sweetness. This is a shifter. I would love to see this smoldering wood again with other companion notes.

Amoretti opens with a luscious red apple and sweet brown fig, rounded out by a perfumey, opium-like red musk. The effect is as sweet as honey, as opaque as smoke, as heavy as lined velvet. My skin being my skin, I'm anticipating that the red musk will turn to a ripe sort of body odor in time, but we're not there yet. There was an earlier comparison to pomegranate. Sometimes I think I'm getting some pomegranate hiding unlisted in the mix. This blend is a conceptual stand-in for the love often represented with apples, pomegranates, and figs. Later, the black vanilla and amber waft out, albeit well-blended with the other notes. But the strong apple/pom/fig and red musk continue to stand out. Very sweet, very heavy, and dedicatedly sexy.

This already seems better than when I first tried it a few days ago. On applying this, the earliest notes for me are those from Smut: sugary booziness. Then I get cardamom and a blend of leather and Snake Oil. Once dried, Snake Smut sits on my skin like sugar cardamom Snake Oil... In other words, delicious. Although the notes are different, the mood of this blend reminds me a lot of Dalliance with an Amorous Bat Demon from last year: pretty badass. Although, with the sugar booze from Smut, the vibe seems to shift a little from "Don't fuck with me" to "Don't fuck with me... unless I want you to." I was going to say no to a bottle of this, but now I'm not so sure.

This Tengu opens with lovely pine -- a triple-down on pine, with scents of sap, fresh needles, and wood. Eventually, after drydown, he develops a subtle but deep red rose, which adds a roundness and weighty floral sweetness, and a breath of pale sandalwood. From that point, the blend gives off kind of a woody resinous rose vibe, a forest floriental. Later still, the orris appears, a little powdery on my skin.

Gorgeous blend. From the first application, the sheer musk stands out, soothed and sweetened with honey and orris butter, warmed with cedar and vanilla. The olive flowers are also prominent, and I can find sandalwood if I go looking — a bit of pale, serene, grainy-wood presence at the bottom. This has a Mediterranean vibe that is at once sexy and calming. It could be the scent of a Grecian beach populated with beautiful people wearing softly blowing white linen. This doesn't change on me after drydown, except to soften considerably and... develop some fig? I'm not sure if it's how the other notes are combining on my skin, but sometime after this dries, I keep picking up fig. Pleased to have gotten to try this one.

Inspecting the Lantern leads with big poofs of the lovely incense smoke from Klosterruine from the 2020 Yules. I find whiffs of chamomile and cedar, and later, the fullness of tuberose; otherwise, the background on this one remains complex and inscrutable to me. I'm a lover of smoke notes, and this incense smoke in particular. But I already picked up a bottle of Klosterruine for it, and can't swing a second.

My first impression of this is a sexy leather oud, a little sweetened. The sweetness seems to come from a dark honey, not as rich as Pennsylvania buckwheat honey, but about as dark. And actually, once this has dried… The honey does start to remind me more of buckwheat honey. Opoponax may be adding to the depth of darkness. The oud is not poud, but it combines with the leather to remind of barns. This blend makes me think of Pennsylvania horse barns, but in a rugged, delightful way that brings back memories of when I first learned to ride in this state, on a buckskin pony with kittens in the barn always ready to play. All three of this Luper's honey collection that I've tried have been really distinct and enjoyable.

A gorgeous, mature smoky mahogany comes out on me first, when freshly applied. A medium-dark honey sweetens the mahogany smoke, but honey doesn't stand out as the strongest note to me. This is lovely. When I tried it among a million other blends, from the pooled decants of two people, this perfume didn't stand out as much. But this particular honey is such an elegant match to the mahogany smoke that it is getting a lot of attention from me now. Sometime after drydown, I don't really pick up the honey anymore, but the smoky mahogany lingers in a delightful way. This does fade quite a bit later, but traces remain, in a skin-soft way.