Casablanca

What can I add here — La Pierreuse is dark red roses soiled by a rich, chewy tobacco. But I also get a brown sugar-maple note such as what LiberAmoris mentions. It feels to me like a smoothing and blending influence between the roses and tobacco. This is a heavy scent with moderate throw on me. It has a lot of depth in a way that reminds me of Peacock Queen. I feel like I’m sliding into a pit of dirty rose petals; I never quite reach the bottom, and the only way out is to stop inhaling. I went back and forth about whether to get a decant of this, ended up cutting it, and then just bottling it later. I’m glad I did, as it will make a nice occasional alternative rose.

In the bottle: Aquatic? A sweet and slightly soapy floral aquatic. Wet on my skin: Almost strawberryish freesia -- and a creamy, yellow floral note that seems like the daffodils -- in a dewy spring bouquet. A couple weeks ago I searched Google for "spring flowers" images for a new phone background, and the image I went with is now the visual I'm getting for this scent: lots of bright flowers, some of them tulips. Dried: The creamy yellow floral is strongest on me when Qui Aime has dried, but it blends seamlessly into a subtle, pale grounding note -- I really love the "blonde woods," whatever they are, and how they work in this scent. The pale honey is also barely there for me, and a blending influence between other notes. Lovely spring scent.

Creamy vanilla jasmine has been in the sweet zone for me lately, as I recently picked up Peach VIII (2014) and now La Prostitution. Both are lovely. La Prostitution has a softer jasmine than Peach VIII, reminding me of the jasmine from Winter Jasmine SN -- that softer jasmine family. Peach VIII had a likable but high-pitched jasmine for me, while this one shows a soft restraint. Peach VIII also gave more of a whipped cream impression with its cream note, while La Prostitution is a gentle, creamy swirl, and a bit sugared rather than peach flowery. I get a hint of anise beginning in drydown and continuing through dry phase. It stays subtle on me. Gorgeous.

On the wand: A lightly honeyed green tea with a hint of wasabi around the edges. Wet on my skin: About the same. The wasabi comes out a little more. Sometimes wasabi is mainly just a little grainy texture in my nose, but this one smells like a green wasabi. It's strongest during this phase but doesn't dominate the blend. Dried: The wasabi mostly recedes, just lingering a bit. This settles into a lightly honeyed green tea and at this point reminds me of the green tea note left mostly alone (but smelling a little honeyed) when Jinbari has been dry for a while. Fades to a faint skin scent on me in an hour. I like this, but I don't know that I'll go beyond the decant.

Bright, sharp strawberries rolling around on a mallow pillow. This is sharper than I expected. It smells kind of like the sharp bergamot from I Too Beneath Your Moon, or maybe a petitgrain like in Road to Versailles -- something like that blended into the strawberry. I dig this sort of sharpness sometimes, and love strawberries, so this is a sweet spot. Speaking of sweet, I pick up the sugar, but it's not as powdered sugar on me as I feared it would be. The sharpness fades out like a top note as this dries, leaving a soft strawberry-mallow mix. This isn't a fluffy-sticky-candy mallow for me, so I can see how it's a blossom. Regardless, it makes me think of a fluffy scented pillow I'd like to lie on.

This opens on me as creamy, honeyed lilac with just an eetty beetty nip of cardamom warming its edge. I was thinking when I first read the notes that cardamom and lilac was an odd combo, but the cardamom is so subtle on me that it works out OK. It's not as natural a spicy floral as the eugenol/clove thing in carnation, but the spice is pretty delicate on me here. The cardamom also works well with the honeyed part of the blend. Anyway, I think this is dreamy. It doesn't change much on me during its life. Too bad it lasts under two hours for me.

On the wand, this smells like lush, creamy apple with a bright, higher-pitched bergamot. I get a little lavender nearly hidden between them. Wet on my skin, it’s the same, except a lovely lavender like that in Pere Noel wafts out. Surprisingly, this goes initially lavender-dominant on my skin, brightened with bergamot, with a creamy apple in the background. The high pitch of this bergamot reminds me of some jasmines. As it dries, the blend becomes mostly a high-pitched, almost medicinal mix on me for a while, not objectionable, but something to be in the mood for. I wish I were getting more of the creamy apple, and the white patchouli has made no appearance. Once the blend has completely dried, its medicinal vibe fades and the creamy apple comes back out to play, with just a hint of white patchouli. It lasts under two hours on me, but I like it.

On the wand, this is primarily a woody lichen blend, with a little ivy, and reminds me of Robin Goodfellow. But there’s a smoother, darker Sleepy-Hollow-woods mood to it. On my skin, this is barely detectable at first, but comes across as a dark green ivy-mossy-lichen blend with a little benzoin vanillic sweetness that grows during drydown. There’s a dark woody background. Lovely for a dark and green woodsy mood.

In the bottle: rich buttery milk, frothy with cream; a little coconut that reminds me of the creaminess in Goblin's coconut; plain rice milk; a very soft, almost spiceless carnation and... a lil white honey? I don't usually describe bottle sniffs because they're so closed in, but this is lovely and I'm reluctant to put it on my skin and have it change. Ah, yeah, no change. I need to wear this with Young Man with Long Hair HG, because the two would be gorgeous together. I get more sugar at first as this dries down, and then the sugar and carnation both drift away, and it settles into a simpler buttery coconut cream and rice milk. Glorious while wet, more comforting when dry.

Definitely golden incense! This champaca is ready and willing. I get a golden incense textured with sandalwood like an incense stick, maybe filled out with a lil amber, edged in flakes of white coconut, and lying on soft leather. I also get musk coming out in the drydown. This is headshoppy for the office, but I love it. As others have said, champaca is the queen player.

I'm having a half glass of blueberry wine before an almost-spring blizzard. There's no better companion scent for the scenario. I get a rich blueberry musk and pink lotus blooms tucked right in, like hidden charms. Is this blue musk? Of course it is. Blueberry and blue musk and lotus? It's lovely and fun and well-matched. This is the second perfume I have that strongly evokes blue and pink colors in my head, and I love both blends. (The other's the 2015 Midnight on the Midway.) Behind these is a splash of green tea, which seems to have something like white honey in it, coming out in drydown. The blueberry and lotus are so forward and vibrant, though, the (white honeyed?) green tea falls to the background. Also in drydown, the lotus fades. I get a little less blueberry and a little more blue musk. It reminds me of Tres Riches Heures without the snow. Our local clouds will provide the snow shortly... This is some goodness.

Peach VIII’s jasmine appears to be a high-pitched variety, rather than soft like Winter Jasmine, but for all that I still like it, especially in this blend. The jasmine dominates a beautiful whipped vanilla cream dolloped on a non-pulpy peach. Lovely. I don’t pick out vanilla orchid by itself, but there’s a nice blending from the edge of the jasmine through the peach flower that seems like it includes one or two other flowers. I only get the very faintest ghost of frankincense. This blend (mainly its jasmine) has a life of several hours on me. It hits a sweet spot for my taste this spring and makes a great alternative to my favorite peach, Peach I (2016).

I love Moon Reflected! From the notes, I thought this might be a vanilla powder bomb, but ordered it anyway because I love vanilla and rice milk. And it smells like creamy malted vanilla rice milk powder -- if there were such a thing -- without that much powder! I suppose it's like the drink has been mixed: you can smell that it came from some malted powder, but now it's smooth and vanilla and creamy. The rice is subtle after it dries, and the iris keeps it from seeming foodie to me. The musk doesn't stand out at all.

Pink lemonade? I get strawberries, but on my skin, I read Kamisuki as something like strawberry pink lemonade. No lemony sourness or sharpness, not even really lemony, just an overall impression. I haven't played much with lab or post cherry blossom, so maybe this is just what it does on my skin. Young girlish and a bit artificial; the latter is an impression I hope more use of it will get me past. I may end up adding a little Vanilla Orchid SN and seeing what that does. My favorite art of the Lupers this year.

Wet on my skin, this is dark, pine-pitchy, sappy cedar. I was worried about dirt for this one, based on the description, but I smell none of the sort of microbial-rot dirt that scares me away from some other BPAL blends. Instead, I seem to get maybe a pinch of comfy garden dirt between the trees, or something that reminds me of it, and I like it quite a lot. If this is a bit of dirt I smell (and I'm not sure), it’s my kind. Mostly, though, this is a woody blend, with a wisp of smoke. The cedar is right up front, edged by sticky pines and a little general woodiness that could be just oak, or oak and other woods. Dried, Of Earth is similar, but develops just a tiny bit of vanilla-toned, white-floral sweetness among the woods. I didn’t expect to find the muguet at all, so this is a surprise — and it’s not soap on me! It adds a little intrigue, but mostly blends into the smell I’ve been reading as sap. It doesn't last long on me, though. Later, I finally smell a little light tobacco, very light. I never find amber. Like.

Fresh on my skin, this is a dreamy-soft jasmine. The lab’s general catalog jasmine blends tend to have what to me is a sharp, high-pitched, overpowering jasmine, but this is fairly muted and cushiony. It carries a light greenness. I don’t find anything wintery in the fragrance, and it reminds me of spring and early summer. The bottle sniff was simple, pure, and light, but on my skin this leans toward both a clean astringency and soap without completely reaching either. After drying, the near-astringency and soapiness fade and this settles into a cloudy romantic jasmine skin scent. I like this phase. Winter Jasmine lasts a couple hours on me.

In the bottle, this smells like sweet pine sap, soft cedar, white sage, dry grasses, something vanillic or benzoiny, and something like chaparral or cactus flower. Possibly with a glint of amber? On my skin, it's all that, and so softly cushiony! Not weak or thin at all, as some blends come out at first, but full and soft. I also start to think I'm getting a little blue mingling of spruce-juniper in here with the rest of the forest. The mood of the blend reminds me of the soft pine-sappy forest of A King Pursued by a Unicorn, but softer, sweeter, more complex, with even less camphor. I might need a backup.

Limbourg Brothers Crystalline blue musk arcing over a blanket of snow. The conceptual scent of a snowy winter night with still some lightness in the sky. Snowy, medium-blue musk. This snow has a slight graininess in its texture in my nose sometimes. It's a lightly minty-vanilla concept smell pervading a soothing blue musk. Lovely.

I’ve wanted to try this one for a while, so, yay! On the wand, this doesn’t smell as expected. I’ve enjoyed blackberry in other blends, like Lady Una and Bewitched, and I liked the heather in Carlin. But this just smells… weird. Thin, perfumey, and purple. On my skin, this smells perfumey, lightly purple, and breezily aquatic. It doesn’t smell like berries or heather specifically, but instead like a sort of artificial perfume of purpleness and sea spray. It’s even a tiny bit salty. This dries into a sweet, slightly heathery, green aquatic on me. This one isn’t for me.

On the wand, I smell each note in the exact order of their listing. Wacky. This is pretty, but I fear that neroli and verbena will take over on my skin. On my skin, this turns to a sort of washed-out, herbal lemon dish soap smell. It doesn’t smell like skin soap — just that sort of watery, slightly waxy lemon scent of dish soap, plus herbs, and a pinch of frank. In early drydown, neroli blooms open and takes over, with lemon verbena second in command. I do smell a little frank, which is pretty, but neroli and verbena dominate. I barely smell any lavender now, and no rosemary. By the time this dries, it’s all lemon-tinted neroli, all the time. I guess that kinda went as I thought it would.

I don’t usually buy blends that list no notes, but I have this frimp, so let’s see what happens. On the wand, this smells like some sort of sandalwood incense, lightly sweet with something floral and something like honey. And maybe some other wood: sometimes I think of the Himalayan cedar in Kathmandu, and sometimes of the blondewood in Dragon’s Bone. Either way, this is summery and soft. Wet on my skin, it smells like a sweet vanilla-sandalwood incense, maybe with Himalayan cedar. Dreamy and pleasant, and plain. This gains some strength on me as it dries. Lots of sweet vanilla now! Vanilla has taken charge, with woody incense secondary. Pretty. Time will tell if I need a bottle.

On the wand, dragon’s blood, a pale, dry sandalwood, and a white-smelling orris, in that order. I like this sandalwood. Wet on my skin, this begins as that red, sweet, cherry-like floral thing that is the lab’s dragon’s blood, with a little sandalwood beneath. And then, abruptly, the sweet cherry tone burns off, and the blend turns a bit sour. As Bone dries, the sandalwood grows. I start picking out a wood blending into it that’s really nice, and realize that some of what I’m liking so much as sandalwood is probably the blondewood mixed with it. The two are lovely together. Unfortunately dragon’s blood and this faint sour note aren’t quite my thing.

On the wand, sweet cherry almond marzipan sort of stuff. When I apply this, I don’t even need to raise my arm to sniff. I’m getting a blast of syrupy cherry almond already. Except… there’s red rose, too. So I sniff. Cherry-vanilla amaretto red rose, and maybe a backup flower or two. It feels like rose might not be the only flower in town here. And, once it dries, some amber or labdanum? Something resinous, anyway. This one isn’t my game.

On the wand, eucalyptus, lavender, anise. Maybe a bit of rosemary, too — or this is a really herbal lavender. Fresh on my skin, a bold, herbal lavender is strongest. This reminds me of the lavender in 2016 Pere Noel, but maybe that’s just because I wore that last night. And maybe because they both seem to have lavender and anise together. There’s an attractive anise-eucalyptus thing going on behind the lavender here, but the eucalyptus is much milder than it had been on the wand. Not so medicinal. The anise grows stronger as this dries. This is a light and pretty combination. I’m happy to stow this vial with the other lavenders at my bedside.

Freshly applied, King mandarin is king of this golden-orange blend. I smell the neroli, but other elements keep it from getting too orange lollipop on me — I think the mandarin lays over it strongly enough to temper it. The result is a sweet orange-mandarin on a sweet honeyed floral background. I catch a hint of amber at the start of drydown. Overall this blend is quite bright, and I don’t get any vanilla or saffron sense while it’s wet. As drydown progresses, a little creaminess sneaks in, subtly. We’re getting some creamsicle creep now. Hi, vanilla! Once dried, Flashing of Light is more vanilla-forward. The saffron seems much lighter to me than it was in Love’s Philosophy, but the initial flash of yellow-orange has also mellowed a lot. On me this becomes an orange-tinted creamy vanilla skin scent.