Lucchesa

My decant of Gingerbread & Lemon Sugar started out exactly as advertised. Sweet lemony gingerbread, more of a gingery gingerbread than a really sticky molasses gingerbread. And it lasted this way for an hour or two before my skin turned it into... banana bread? Oops, banana is really not for me. So I loved how it started out but not where it ended up. But I'm thrilled I got to try it thanks to a very generous forumite!

I don't even remember what update Melancholy Inferno is from. I received it from the Orphanage -- many thanks!!! -- and was interested primarily for the unusual tomato leaf note. I love that smell! But all I really get here is charred red musk. I laughed when I read the first review describing it as a tame starting point for folks afraid of red musk. My vial or my skin must be the exception. Red musk and burned wood -- I really wanted that tomato note so badly!

The Madam is not in my wheelhouse, but was kindly given to me. I imagined the jasmine would ruin it, but no, it's the rose, going all sour on me. I'm not actually getting jasmine at all, but the rose/sandalwood combination is going wrong on me, and no amount of patchouli, tonka or musk can save it. Oh well, I didn't have high hopes for this one, and I'm delighted I got to test it!

I'm so glad I got the chance to try this long-discontinued scent. It's all berries at first, a tricky note on me, as it usually ends up as berry candy. The musk helps keep the berries in check, and it's reminding me of Bewitched. Unfortunately, I get hardly any carnation, my favorite floral note. I suspect it's faded with age and would have been more of a player a few years back.

I didn't buy To My Dear And Loving Husband because champaca is usually terrible on me and agarwood is oudh and can be stinky. All the other notes are well within my wheelhouse, though. I was lucky enough to be given this by a marvelous forumite. The agarwood behaves here, and at first this was really promising, with the vanilla-copal-patchouli combination reminding me of Kabe Ni Mimi, with tea, except that bourbon vanilla is more reliable on my skin. Tea rarely lasts on my skin though. And then the champaca came out to ruin things. Champaca is rarely quiet on me, and it upsets the balance here. I'm so glad I got to try it, and it almost worked! I think this would be lovely on a champaca fan -- don't be scared by the agarwood, it's just a deepening note here, not a fecal one.

Kabe Ni Mimi just missed my short list of Lupers I was buying decants of; a super generous forumite gifted it to me. Similarly, it kind of just misses on my skin. My first impressions of Kabe Ni Mimi were vanilla, copal and gnarly patchouli. Now that I know it's there, the sandalwood is obvious, too. The opening is promising, and the late drydown, mostly that vanilla sandalwood, is gorgeous, but it goes through an awkward phase on me where the vanilla-patch-copal combination is just not gelling on me. Some vanillas go weird on my skin, and that's happening here for a time. If I could eliminate the middle, this would be a great scent.

I don't usually wear fruit-only scents, but fig and cherry are two of my favorite fruit notes, and an ultra generous forumite passed this decant on to me. It's a satisfying dark chewy fig well balanced at first with a rich red cherry. There's a slight almost Jolly Rancher tartness to the cherry, an earthiness to the fig. Delicious! But because I wear fruit so seldom, I will probably pass this baby on.

I'm surprised no one has compared Die Flamme Reinigt Sich to Chestnuts and Hearth Smoke from the most recent Yules. They are very similar, or more precisely, Die Flamme is similar to what C&HS smelled like last December. Now, months later, C&HS is richer and rounder, though still not chestnutty enough for my tastes. This is lots and lots of bonfire smoke with the nuttiness of roasting chestnuts and slightly bitter acorns. After two or three hours, the smoke has receded somewhat, as have the nuts, and I'm left with a smoky frankincense note. Amber, cedar, labdanum and vanilla are missing in action on me, unfortunately, but I have a feeling this will age beautifully.

Tiresias on me is caramel and woods (which could be teakwood, but I checked the components, and no, it's caramel, sandalwood and patch). Then it's caramel, woods and tobacco. Caramel can go off the rails on me, but this is really nice; the woods restrain it, and then it melds right into the sticky tobacco, which I adore. So it ends up not foodie at all on me. I'm not getting cinnamon, currant or lily of the valley, but those are the three notes I wasn't particularly interested in here anyway. After an hour or two it's a skin scent of caramelly, woody tobacco with a slight hint of spice -- delicious.

L'Heure Verte 2017 is heady. I rarely wear florals, though I like lilac -- Eusapia and Cave of Treasures are favorites -- but L'Heure Verte is like sticking your head in a vase full of just-cut lilacs. It's a little over the top for me. Lilac, sweet floral opium that flirts with soap, and cool sugary absinthe. I can't make out the rosewater but I imagine it's adding to the florals. I will probably keep my imp because I'm very low on Eusapia and there might be a few days in spring when the lilacs are busting out all over when I might want to smell like this, but it won't be something I reach for often. If you love lilac, though, you need to try this.

I am SO confused. Testing A Kneeling Child blind, it started out all red musk. More of a dry red musk than a grape-y one. Eventually I could smell the licorice I knew I was supposed to be smelling, as it was one of a batch of licorice themed frimps VetchVesper had bestowed on me. But still subsumed by red musk. I checked the notes and was flummoxed. There has to be red musk in here. My nose is far from infallible, but we're talking red musk. None of the caramel/polished wood accord that teakwood normally produces on my skin. Very strange. Could VV have mislabelled the frimp? And then I read her review above, specifically the second paragraph. Yep, if you told me this was Satan Starting from Ithuriel's Spear (Golden amber, carnation, blackcurrant, aged black patchouli, red musk, and vetiver), I wouldn't blink an eye. Red musk plus other stuff that's usually delicious on me. Mostly red musk. Yep, that's my impression of this decant. ETA the image is pretty great:

Licorice Bats starts out with a dry cacao note, then it's cocoa-coated black licorice, and eventually the chocolate fades away to the faintest hint and it's all black licorice, all the time, sweet soft black licorice. Delicious!!! No throw (normal on me) but good wear length. So glad I got to try this one!

The Silence of the Woods reminds me of The Earth Mother (patchouli and clary sage with a host of dark mosses and lichens, wild grasses, warm acorns, dammar, burgundy pitch, pine needles, mandrake root, hay absolute, and sweet vetiver) with less vetiver and more soil. I'm not getting wine at all, which is not a note that works well on me, and I just looked up burgundy pitch and found it is hardened spruce sap, which makes more sense. This is a lovely variation on the Lab's many lovely forest scents. I can't say I am getting any berry or fruit; there is an eventual softening and sweetening of this scent on me over time, but that invariably happens with the pine note as well. Beautiful and meditative.

I'm interested in learning more about the carrot seed note, but Solitary and Abhorred didn't give me enough to go on. At the beginning, I did get the bitter carrot seed with some patchouli and balsam. Dark, bitter green and black notes -- I'm really not able to make out the white tea at all. But soon enough the patch takes over, and it becomes almost a single note patchouli, dark and wild, which is no bad thing. Maybe the carrot seed is keeping it from sweetening at all on my skin.

I received a barely testable bottle of Rapture Pig as an Ajevie freebie and applied a tiny drop to the crook of my elbow. This baby is strong! Think CD Hope on steroids. Jammy, sugary rose. This is so far out of my wheelhouse, yet I understand its greatness. If candied rose is your thing, this is amazing. It is hard not to smile with this wafting around. And yes, the label art rocks.