Casablanca

Sunrise Kimono opens on me with a burst of bright citrus and warm golden apple. The lemon, bergamot, and apple are coming out strongest, but I find a pretty and clean grapefruit when I look. 

It isn't long before mimosa and a soft cedar make an appearance, both warming the blend further, and the latter adding a little rustic, woodsy something. The grapefruit strengthens, bringing a brisk, almost astringent cleanliness that reminds me of some white tea notes. I actually feel like I'm smelling a little white tea hiding in this sometimes.

I never notice amber, but there are plenty of yellow and other warm tones to this scent. It smells like breakfast-time, and could fit easily anytime from spring through fall.

Sugary banana-nana-nanana rum. Although I'm not really getting a pastry note, the sugary banana with a bit of spice keeps bringing my brain back to Banana Bread, which I finished a whole bottle of at some point. I keep thinking this is a rum-spiked Banana Bread---never mind the reality of the notes.

As usual for the fruit, the banana is fairly short-lived. When it flies south for the winter, it leaves behind a warm, mildly spiced vanilla-poof rum, a rum with a sugary bit of marshmallow floof and, later, a hint of white frankincense. It's soft, and an enticing skin scent for summer. While I liked the opening, I'm actually most drawn to it from this point on, and considering a bottle.

Warm cocoa with a powdering of quite dry cinnamon, sweetened with dark honey, almost like a buckwheat honey. 

This is pleasant, but it's quite heavy with sweetness, and somehow also bristle-dry. When it first came out, I assumed I would want a bottle and threw it in my cart, but resolved to try a decant first. And I'm really going to enjoy this decant, but now that I have it, its qualities are sitting a bit strangely with me, so I may not upgrade.

Intense, musky, ultra-pink cherry blossoms at first blush... But the scent quickly falls back into a powdery, generic floral for me, like a cake collapsing.

Dry incense smoke wafts out as the backing for the flowers before long. I think of an ancient temple behind blooming cherry trees. It wants to work, but for me, this is too musky and powdery.

Syrupy-sweet, creamy vanilla amaretto with cherry hints. A heavily almond amaretto.

Yep. It's... basically all those things.

So, if you like these things, you're likely to be quite happy with this. But if you do not...

I'll enjoy the decant.

Lots of sweet, creamy lotus and almond, with vanilla amber also in play. A pinkish rose is apparent, but not the star of the show---it softly blends into the lotus.

Veers a bit powdery with wear, but the creaminess tries to make up for it.

Sweet, creamy floral with pink and ivory tones.

Usually, Snek variants are mostly variant and very little Snek on my skin before they have aged. I like that --- because I have a lot of these variants around, and too much Snek would mean too much sameness between them.

Snake Milk falls outside this norm. On me, it shows up as nearly all Snek. It's lots of Snek and a little toasted brown sugar.

I'm surprised to find I get almost no milk from this while it's wet. It's Snake Sugar... not as much Snake Milk.

Once this dries, though, a soft, caramel creaminess comes out; the toasted brown sugar grows, too. I love all sugar and most milk notes. The dried Snake Milk is the Snek I sought.

Last night I layered this with Milk, Burnt Honey, and Ambrette Seed for an even warmer variant on this Snek theme. The burnt note in MBHAS is harsh, but once the early phase passes, these two blends make 'licious companions.

ETA: After this sits around for more than a week, the condensed milk note comes into play and the Snek settles down some. Really love this now.

Yabluchnyk was a surprise hit for both my friend and I (I test her decant now). We'll both get bottles.

It's boldly fruity, round-bodied and jovial in the nose. On me it comes out most strongly as peaches, and my friend's skin brings out the cherries most. Besides those, I get cinnamon-spice apple cider softened with brown sugar. 

After perhaps an hour, it smells rather like a fruity apple wine on me, like a bountiful autumn sangria of peaches, cherries, and apples floating in apple wine. Which... sounds decadent and like an actual plan for later this year, really.

And then hours later, it becomes a gorgeous, mildly fruity creamy vanilla on me for a while before fading out. The blend never went cakey for me, but I eventually get the vanilla in a surprising and dreamy way.

This scent is the spirit of wandering and imbibing in a pick-your-own apple orchard during the bright harvests of late summer through fall.

Warmed, creamy vanilla cheese Danish. Hints of lemon waft in and out. Tasty, at first.

After a few minutes, though, something in this turns a bit off and cheesy-rank (cheese a little past its prime) on my skin. 

Every now and then, a lovely little creamy lemon returns and distracts me in a way I appreciate, but there's still something not working with my chemistry.

TIL rye is sneaky. Stealthy tip-toed bread.

Chocolate babka goes like this: chocolate marzipan, chocolate marzipan, chocolate marzipan... RYE. 

Well, the chocolate is still present. But in a burst of scattering crumbs and crust-flakes, rye jumps out from behind marzipan and stands in front of it, relegating it to obscurity.

So, sort of kinda chocolatey rye now.

Freshly on, this is mostly warm, glazed pastry --- lightly spiced with cinnamon and a little nutty --- with some honey further sweetening the dish.

The pastry is realistic enough to give me an immediate head-picture of pulling off a piece, seeing the cinnamon-flecked, moist bread stretch and tear unevenly, feeling the stickiness on my fingers. (And... I'm noticing that it's about time to come off the intermittent fasting for the day and have breakfast! But who's hungry? 😏)

The balance is consistent on me through its wear, which is fairly short on my skin (less than an hour?).

Cozy, amiable, hunger-inducing.

No lie: I got a sample of this just 'cause I liked the phrase "proto-baguette."

"Proto-baguette." [Sold.]

So, I guess I had a personal, hidden "proto-baguette" button that could be pushed and I would buy something. I did not know.

Freshly applied, this smells like baguette. Very a lot like baguette: crusty crust, bready bread. For a second or two, I fear that the sharp, newly broken edge of the crust will damage some soft tissue in my mouth as I take a bite. There's a little dribble of cream, but mostly, this is baguette.

Then, y'know, my skin happens. Butter. All the butter... Butter for miles, butter reaching forward to the future and arcing back to the past. Proto-butter.

Maybe this wasn't a win exactly, but at least the proto-baguette button got its due.

A delightful, fresh, springtime deli scent.

Newly applied, A Meal Interrupted brings on the fresh cuke with dewy, cool lettuce, soft black pepper, and a short-lived little burst of green musk. Hunting around, I find breathy touches of green onion and melon, but no sesame or cardamom.

This is a scent of fresh, dewy, edible greens. The green musk in the opening is like the green from the lovely Emerald Lace, but it only lives a handful of seconds on my skin. When it's gone, it leaves all the paler green things that you can eat, and a pinch of dark pepper spice.

As this dries, I realize I can find the sesame seeds in this, and in the oddest way... they just keep appearing in the foodie head-picture this scent gives me. I needed to notice them in that visual to sniff again and find them in the blend. Cool!

I much like and appreciate this one.

At about a month of rest, Cacao, Palo Santo and Copal blends well into its own thing, rather than showing up at your door as three distinct notes. The mix is a dark, dry cacao incense. The cacao and spicy copal are apparent, while the palo influence is more subtle. The lemony hint in beautiful palo santo is reading as a slightly odd contributor in this blend, I think. 

I enjoy these three notes, and dark cacao incense sounds amazing to me, so I thought I would love this. And, I like it... it's interesting. But the notes aren't currently gelling for me as well as I imagined they would. I'll see what more rest does with them.

Kerosene?

I can tell this is meant to be the black leather, but this particular leather note is going all garage chemical on me. I had this result about a month ago when I first tested this blend, and the time hasn't altered things as yet.

In drydown, I notice a hint of cacao. But kerosene continues to overwhelm the rest of the scent. 

Cocoa powder drizzled but not yet dissolved in warm buttercream.

Some of the cocoa. Alllll of the buttercream.

Rich dark chocolate with nice depth, and some hot-beverage-vibe hazelnut cream. 

When this first arrived, I also got a lot of whiskey. But now it's been a month or so, and I'm not really picking that up anymore. This is okay with me... my happy is centered in the other notes.

Sans the whiskey, this has planted itself in foodie-land. It smells to me like a delicious hot liquid dessert, an unusually rich winter beverage.

From the first application: Warm-toasted kettle corn? But I can kind of break it down to mostly toasted rice and honey dust.

Warm, sweet toasted rice simmering in honey that has gone a little caramelized? That sometimes reminds me of like... stove-warmed Malt-O-Meal with honey?

Yes, that's about the way of it.

Martial Arts is lovely to try. Initially, I get a beautiful smoky note set against russet amber and lacquered woods. I often love smoke notes, and I certainly love this one and the way it complements the rust-colored amber and woods. 

This lacquer doesn't trouble me like the one did in Warrior Couple Preparing for Battle. While it has a chemical quality, the tone blends well into the other notes, which smell more naturalistic to me. 

I get some mushroom after Martial Arts dries, and it also blends well. I never get vanilla bean from the "smoked vanilla bean," but find abundant smoke. 

This is a unique one with a unique, specific mood. Lovers of woody or smoky scents should give it a try.

Juicy, grape-like plumeria, freshly applied. The plumeria I've smelled in person didn't smell like grape, and the grapey quality fades before long, though the plumeria blooms on. I'm s'posing there's an unlisted grapey note.

The plumeria gets potent in drydown, but this blend also reads to me as intensely musk-powered. Hellmouth goes straight to both heady and heavy, and as I keep sniffing it to look for other notes, I can feel a headache trying to form between my eyes.

To this one, I say: Nah.

Juicy, pulpy peach and bright blood orange. Froot! Very daytime froot for a night visitor theme.

The peach sings first and orange makes it a duet before long. Interestingly, Nocturnal Visitor starts out on me as super juicy and pulpy and bright, but soon shifts toward orange pith and peel. It's not quite bitter, but there gets to be a lot of pale pith overpowering the pulp.

And... that's more or less where this sits for me. I never find sandalwood or labdanum. It's juicy froot to pithy froot.

Liking or loving all listed notes, I thought this would be an easy win for me. In this case, that didn't work out...

Phallus is, for me, a snoot-full of conflict and overwhelm. The heavy berries seem to fight with the lavender and ylang ylang as they swim and slowly dissolve in vanilla milk, like an angry breakfast cereal. It all feels like a surprising and strange clash and struggle.

Some weeks of settling haven't soothed this blend as I hoped they would. This one isn't for me.

Holding Hands is a pretty and spring-like swirl of apricot cream, coconuts, and white tea.

After this dries, I catch a dry, herbal whiff of clary sage. I have a clary sage EO that is so very intense... It's amazing how soft it is here. By this time, though, the whole scent is so skin-soft I barely find it.

With its apricot cream and coconut milk, and delicate spring nature, this one reminds me most of The Secret Meaning Behind Flowers from the same release. Secret had a bit more carnality, with its fig, and it also lasted longer on my skin. Both blends are delicate... between the two, I think the tea and sage bring out more delicacy in Holding Hands.

Hi, I'm here for the plum juice.

What lands on my skin here is mostly an airy, powdery floral blend. I get wisteria and lily white-musky powder poofs in a faint plum flower cloud. 

I don't find any juiciness, but white musk-friendly lovers of pale, soft floral blends may enjoy this one.

Freshly applied, this one brings a lot of white tea on my skin, alongside cocoa and cashmere. It's at once very pretty and a little bit jarring, as it feels as though the white tea has such a different character than the rest, and tries madly to pull away from the crowd.

And... it succeeds? The cocoa and cashmere drop out and vanish, and quickly. Left to itself, the tea note thins and diffuses, becoming quite soft and almost hollow. At this point, I also get a floral hint. Peony-ish? Soft, pink. The scent thins out until it's scarcely there.

I don't think this one is playing as intended on me.