Casablanca

Sugary honey with a touch of the floral. This reminds me a little of lavender-infused honey. It doesn't smell like lavender, but it does smell a bit like how lavender-infused honey tastes. The sugary quality of this reminds me of O. Honey Hard Candy isn't quite as heavy or sugar-crunchy as O, and it has this bit of a floral quality that I don't get from O. But I would put it in the same honey family. This doesn't change much during its life on my skin.

This smells serene, remote, mysterious, and compelling. The cade, juniper berries, and pine together add a deep blue-gray-green to a vague sense of ancient stone and cool water. A stone scent is prominent, the scent of water more subtle and conceptual -- this doesn't read as an aquatic perfume, but I could see it labeled as a stone perfume. Rippling Water smells like the ancient stone fountain with cool, clean, curative water that your D&D party discovers. This is the spa sent of an ancient ruin or dungeon.

Freshly applied, Raucous Games is a gorgeous plum and white ginger blend on my skin. The plum is ripe and luscious, and reminds me of both wine and raspberries. It actually smells like a blend of plums and raspberries, perfect together. The white ginger reminds me of that in Implacable Beautiful Tyrant hair gloss. Behind these, I find a delicate white tea, a faint whiff of smoke, and a complex, hard-to-distinguish background. The plum and raspberries fade quickly, leaving little ghosts of themselves. The blend becomes more about the white ginger and incense smoke at this point, though the red fruits still linger a bit. This one is a beauty, though I hope the plum lingers longer in age. I may need more of this than my friend's decant I borrowed to write this review. 🙂

Freshly applied, Cycling smells like I encrusted my arm with sea salt. I tend to amp salt to the moon, but this fragrance listed some interesting other notes, so I wanted to see if this could work on me. It doesn't. Throughout its life, Cycling is crusty sea salt; after drydown it becomes crusty sea salt over corn chips. That's the only story this one tells me.

Warm, toasted sandalwood laced with saffron. This is serene and cozy. In drydown, amber also warms up and comes out. I think I also get a little fuzzy brown musk. No such note is listed, though it would fit with the art. This sandalwood and saffron are beautiful together. I'm not as much into the fuzzy brown musk impression I'm getting, but I love the rest.

This one doesn't show up as anticipated. Black pepper and pickled cucumbers is an apt description for how this reads on my skin. (Book pun not intended, but I'll take it!) In early drydown, I find the smoked oud, which makes me think of chimney sweeper socks — a bit footy and sooty, perhaps, but not fecal. The cucumbers fade but the pickled quality lingers. I can tell this one isn't quite working for me.

Oh, this trots out quite a few notes at once. Goat's milk and honey dust lead the first impression on me, but at the back of the inhale lurk cardamom, vetiver, vanilla, and oak. Famous Kabuki Actors both charms and fascinates. Surprisingly, when the blend dries it becomes mainly goat's milk and honey dust, with a hint of complex woody tobacco. I don't really find the other notes anymore, so I'll see if this one adjusts with more rest, or if my skin will keep eating things.

Freshly applied, Fracas brings out a sweet, creamy toasted almond with a side of hay. I get a soft, cushiony floral in the background surprisingly early — the mimosa sort of waggling her fingers "hello" — but the creamy almond dominates the scene. The blend softens a lot after drying, becoming something relaxed and warm, albeit still mostly about creamy almond and hay. I love that Fracas succeeds in smelling like both spring and autumn at the same time.

Travelers Under a Tree is an utterly delicate and lovely white tea with a delicate and lovely rice milk. It's lightly sweet – kind of like a coconut milk sweetness — and also turns a little astringent on my skin after a bit. In drydown, the white tea becomes softer and the rice milk comes out more. Light, simple, delicate, and probably suitable for office wear.

The first impression I get on skin is black pine standing out against juniper. It's a dedication to evergreens. Uncomplicated evergreenery. But then a beautiful, caramel-toned honey beeswax comes out and changes everything. It reminds me of the honey and beeswax in Dalliances by Candlelight from the Lupers... three years ago. (Really? Was it that long ago?) When I'm reading as a caramel tone is at least partly the balsam. And the way the honey-balsam blends with the evergreens is divine. The trees become secondary, a faint backdrop for the honey and balsam. I wish they remained a little more up front, but it will be interesting to see how this one changes with more rest.

On the decant wand, this is the pure, bright color green. The brightness of the green in Emerald Lace. Put it on, though, and it leans toward green tea blend: light, floral, and a bit grassy, but coquettish rather than naturalistic. More the green of the flower than the green of the grass. Its sweetness is floral rather than sugary. In drydown, the blend brings out more moss on my skin and a whiff of faint ivy bitterness now and then. It has moved more toward the other plants: the moss, the grass, the ivy. The overall effect is a commitment to green, though the details shift a bit. It's a lovely expression of the artwork.

Oh, mm. Creamy pink and blue lotus. Soft, cushiony, billowing floof-pillows of creamy marshmallow pink and blue lotus. When I saw @DiesMali's review, I thought I might be in trouble here, because Poor Monkey is much in my wheelhouse. And, actually, pretty much every part of that review is summing up my experience with this one, right down to the Lucky Charms milk soak. That phrase about lip colors: "My lips but better"? This is "my Lucky Charms but better." The one drawback is that Vaginal Tales becomes quite strongly musky-perfumey on me in drydown. I will need to tread more lightly in the application of this one next time, even if the opener is divine. Heed ye the reviews: This one packs a punch. Thankfully, the musk-blask eventually relaxes, leaving behind a less overwhelming beauty.

Freshly put on, Flowering Peonies is quite fresh: clean, water-speckled lychee with cool green tea on a background of flowers. I'm getting a freshness almost like melon or cucumber, with a hint of citrus from the bergamot. Really lovely. Really perilous to my budget. Ung. This is good. But... I'm waiting for the tuberose to run in and trample everything in drydown, like a rhino putting out a fire. ... Is it dry? Yes. Still fresh? Yes. Inducing tuberose headache? No. I can smell tuberose, but it's staying pretty well-behaved, and the water-freshness lingers yet. If this decant keeps playing nice through testing, this will get bottle-fied.

Mm. Tart green apple comes out strongest, but there's a complex, creamy-smooth, and cushiony layer behind it. Creamy vanilla, ylang ylang, and yellow sandalwood seem to form a golden main support of the background. I can pick out the tea, jasmine, and lilac only because I think to look for them, as they're well blended into the florals. The whole of the blend is quite sweet, and there might be some sugar hidden among the flowers. I like this enough to put it in my cart, even if I end up cutting it to be proud of myself later.

Mild, mature florals on a mild green tea. That sounds pleasant, if a bit unexciting? That's my reaction to this one at the moment. Orchid and butterfly jasmine are approximately the most obvious notes; the former brings a maturity while the latter is surprisingly light and spring-like, compared with some other jasmines. The champa blends well, and also isn't nearly as loud as she is in other blends. The tea is a most welcome respite from the flowers, but it is also soft, and just not enough to draw my affection here. From the look of my cart at the moment, it's a relief not to want a bottle of everything.

I love a good spring morning blend of brightness and glee. Sugary pink grapefruit and yuzu, surrounded by a joyful presence of other fruits not yet coming forward. In drydown, I get much more of the mandarin, but also find lemon and raspberry. I especially love what the raspberry adds in this fruity mix, and the way it blends with the plum flower when that emerges. I would (will, actually -- I will get this one) put this next to Sugar Phoenix in my perfume box. They will be sugary grapefruit BFFs.

This oil is bright orangey-yellow. Freshly on, it only smells like peppery ginger root. Peppery like the heat of raw, dry ginger root, but also like wasabi, or like the way that good-quality olive oil tastes a bit peppery. Dried, the orange blossom and a little clove have come out. Balancing makes me think of cooking a gourmet dish with spices and orange olive oil. I don't ever notice benzoin or get a candied impression of the ginger.

This bread lands butter-side-up for me. At first, it's a lovely creamy, yeasty almond bread, lightly toasted from an oven. No spices. In drydown, I find cardamom briefly, then it flits away. Add butter. Add more butter. Slather it... or, eff, just put the whole stick on top of the bread. Why work at it? That's what my skin does to this: creamy, yeasty almond bread dwarfed under a huge, whole block of yellow butter. Eventually, it's just the butter.

Cold white juniper tea, slightly astringent and powdery. A sweet and sugary lemon peers out in drydown. Somehow it's reading more as sugary lemon drops to me than lemon peel. I get no impression of frost or snow, but the scent is cold and white, and then cool, bright yellow when the lemon appears. This is a blend for late winter/early spring.

I think I just got peach-punched. Like, impeached in my face. Is that a thing? This perfume causes that to make sense? Whatever: The peach is potent AF. Somehow fruit-skin-raw and canned-sugar-syrupy at once, it overwhelms everything else in the blend when I first apply it. Upon drydown, I find peace. The peach begins to settle and shift toward a milder, fruity perfume, with more apricot, some gentle cardamom, and even a little whiff of rice milk. Once dried, this becomes comforting. It reminds me of a warm breakfast bowl of peaches and cream with spiced oatmeal (minus the oatmeal, but with all the comfort and warmth of the dish). My mission is to ponder whether the initial peach assault is worth the lovelier later life of the blend.

Creamy honeysuckle plum! My first thoughts are no more complicated than that, but the blend kaleidoscopes through its different notes each time I sniff. I find cherry blossoms and gardenia, but my overall impression keeps returning to the fullness, richness, and spring-ness of creamy honeysuckle plum. I haven't had a plum-potent blend that quite worked for me before, but this one's bringing it. This may become my collection's Plum Rep. So spring-like. CBV is a Luper's Luper.

Fresh, airy spring wildflowers scattered over a light, golden honey. This blend opens in a potent, glorious burst of Spring-whoa. Spring breezes, flowers, honey, all present and accounted for. The drydown drifts into the realm of powdery, spring-breeze dryer sheets on my skin. Flowery, spring dryer sheets over a light, golden honey. The amber comes out more after drying. My first impression was definite bottle (!), but I may second-guess that later because of the powder. It brings white musk powder to mind.

Perilous Fortune A hymn to avert misfortune and danger: honey infused with protective herbs and hope preserved in pale amber. Fortuna Dubia immediately reminds me of having a cold. It reminds me so, so strongly of an herbal tea I might make and then gooey up with honey for comfort when I'm feeling germy. As long as I can still sort of smell anything, I think I would reach for this, and also for Audumla (herbal milks), to help me feel better. And a hot toddy. Herbal honey, smoothed with amber.

Ivy League? Pshhh, the only book learnin’ you really need is the kind that comes bedecked with mythical beasts — preferably those armed with tusks, swiveling horns, and a totally unearned sense of importance. Vanilla bean and wild grasses. (This arrived just yesterday, so it hasn't settled much and this review is FWIW. I'll try to update here if there's much of a change.) From testing Smug Yale, my friend and I are both head over heels for it. This goes on my skin as the grasses I loved in Great Basin Woodnymph (hay, grasses, cacao, tonka). I even smell a bit of that other perfume's dry cacao mingling with them, and I'm unsure if I'm imagining it just because I associate this grass note with the cacao and tonka in Woodnymph... Behind these cacao grasses is a soft, creamy, and dreamy vanilla. Mm, this vanilla. This blend went more grassy on my skin, and more creamy, cozy vanilla on my friend's skin. But the blend was otherwise pretty similar on us. In drydown the grasses soften and vanilla comes forward. After the Smug has dried, the grasses are only faint and indistinct, and soon after that I just get the most cozy and creamy vanilla. Sometimes I wonder if I'm getting a little tonka hint with it. I would go bonkers for an atmo of this to spray all over my bed. Mm.

As I was carrying Lilith around the San Diego comic con, people would stop us and ask to take a photo of her cosplaying Wonder Woman. As I set her down, a change would come over her: she would light up, engage the person, and charm the hell out of them while the photo was being taken. She would be so charismatic and charming, and then would then come back to me, this shining, happy little kid, and ask to be picked up all over again. I was so proud of her, and I love my lil Themysciran princess. Rich, sweet, valiant amber, coconut milk, honeyed saffron, gleaming gold-gilded leather, and sweet olive blossom. In the bottle, there's the textured, golden scent of saffron over the top of an ambery blend. The way saffron feels in my nose often makes me think of the color and texture of dried calendula flowers, like how they might feel rolled between my fingers if I got some. That texture passes over amber and a hint of coconut. On my skin, the honey blooms instead, a golden-ambered honey. I get a little olive flower sliding underneath, sleek as oil, and a scarce ghost of coconut milk lingers. As the blend dries, the olive blooms in full. It was the one note I was iffy on, and I don't think I really love it here. This is a mild blend on me: not a puissant, bold Wonder Woman, but a soft, understated presence. I'll see what more settling does.