Lucchesa

I got a testable empty of this one from my decanter, and it was surprisingly harsh on me when it hit my skin. ih8perfume is right: this is no tame supermarket honey but something much wilder and more bee-adjacent. And I don't get sweet orange either but something more like a bitter Seville orange, and almost no orange blossom (a note i usually avoid). So this actually ended up working much better on me than I would have guessed either by the notes or the opening. Dark primal honey with a hint of bitter orange. Like many honey scents, Honey, Sweet Orange and Orange Blossom has good staying power on me.

Hmm. A smoky aquatic. This is interesting, and something I wouldn't have chosen for myself (I got decants of the whole series). It does have a fair amount of oakmoss, and it does not turn into cleaning products, probably because of the anchoring smoke. This has excellent staying power on me. I'm not sure when I would choose to wear it, but I'm glad I got to try it.

There are a bunch in the GC that have just this vibe. Villain. Wilde. Whitechapel. Highwayman. Vicomte de Valmont. John Watson. Dorian if you can handle the sweetness. If you like leather, the White, Black and Red Riders (the last doesn't work on me, but I love the other two.) Bow and Crown of Conquest -- leather and carnation. Oh, and Crowley!! Lordy which benefits the ACLU but which some people thinks smells like cucumber. I haven't tried Boney Was a Warrior because jasmine, but it might scratch that itch, too: A fresh, light Napoleonic-era cologne with hints of rosemary, almond, oakmoss, and jasmine. And Kit from OLLA is very dapper in an old fashioned way: Mysore sandalwood, a tattered and patched 16th century waistcoat, inkstained, still scented with the marjoram and benzoin dry perfumes of his youth.

Cinnamon and Leather is lots of leather on me, not much cinnamon. A really, really nice soft brown leather, very cozy, totally unisex, and it lasts a long time. I really like this one.

Captain Cully is squarely in my wheelhouse and does not disappoint. The primary note on me is the soft, worn brown leather I love. It’s warmed by the tonka and made even more outdoorsy by the woods. I’m not sure I’m really picking up the porter — must test again with the notes in mind — but it’s probably contributing a bit of sweetness and warmth and extra coziness. Unisex leaning masculine, and really really nice.

Blossoms are hit or miss on me, but I received The Stream and the Waterfall in a blind bottle swap, and it's lovely. Wet I get a hint of peach or nectarine with gentle pale spring blossoms -- I'm not actually making out the neroli, just the peach and cherry blossoms. But there's a cedar mulch under those blossoming fruit trees. The cedar and dry woody frankincense don't take over; they become the base notes with the blossoms floating over them. The combination of a strong wood note in the cedar with the delicate blossoms doesn't sound like it would work, but it does. I need woods or resins to anchor my florals, and this fits the bill nicely. Not tremendous wear length on me; I had to reapply in about 3 hours.

I am coming to terms with the fact that I like the idea of the tomato leaf note better than I like it on my skin. I want it to be that weird wonderful green tomato leaf note that calls to mind tomato worms, looking for ripe red fruit in a tangle of vines, childhood in California. Like zanzoku_zen, while I can smell tantalizing hints of that, it goes soapy on my skin. I rarely smell the pepper note, so I was expecting hay and tomato leaf, but I'm getting hay and tomato leaf high-end spa soap. Sigh.

Nimue the Blood Queen is a femme fatale. In the imp it's very fruity, but on my skin Nimue is elegant and velvety. Smoky incense and dark fruits, mainly plum, not too sweet. There must be some opium among the poisons, and starbrow's description of a siren in an opium den is dead on. I had no problems with the oudh; it's just a deepening note here. It doesn't last as long as I would like on my middle-aged skin, but it's worth reapplying.

The green lotus is a really interesting note, not as bubblegummy as regular lotus but still sweet and tropical. I'm getting more orris and less Egyptian musk than I was hoping for. A nice summery scent and a hard one to pin down -- not your usual floriental. Wear length is only so-so on me.

Honey Marzipan is exactly as advertised. Lots of honey, and in the opening lots of marzipan too. My skin tends to eat up almond notes while honey lasts and lasts on me, so I expected this to quickly devolve into just honey, but the marzipan sticks around although as a secondary note. Great wear length, and it makes me smile all day long.

I am a sucker for the beeswax scents, and I love evergreens too (though not usually juniper), so Discarded Sandal was a no-brainer. At first I got juniper and pine -- and maybe hinoki, is it a little astringent? -- overlaying the beeswax. But it didn't take long for the beeswax to warm up and take over this scent. I never made out the lily of the valley, which is fine, just the beeswax and the woods, like a meditation space beautifully cared for with beeswax-polished floors in a forest. And it lasted forever -- I can still smell the beeswax on my wrist 24 hours later.

I was interested in Famous Kabuki Actors because of the mix of the goat's milk and honey notes with the masculine woods, tobacco and vetiver. My skin didn't really allow me that experience. It started out all the former, in the vein of Harlequin Milk or Jupiter Nourished, and it stayed foodie for a long time. The darker notes didn't appear until late drydown, by which time the goat's milk was gone, so they just shared the honey. It's nice but more gourmand and less masculine than expected.

I don’t know what milk bread is, but there’s a NYTimes recipe with almost 1500 five star ratings, so I’m going to have to try it. But I enjoyed the Lilith Bread, and this is very much in that vein on me. It is more savory than sweet — neither the star anise nor the amaretto lasted long on me. But I got a lovely buttery yeast bread with a hint of almond and cardamom that lasted for hours. I think if I wore it in a public setting I would make people hungry.

I agree that this is an odd duck. I’m getting that tinge of cucumber that the other reviewers described, which makes this more of a green scent than the shadowy bookish blend the notes led me to suspect. The vetiver is the grassy kind, not the charcoal kind, paired with a gentle frankincense. I’m not making out any oud or patchouli, and I tend to be anosmic to the pepper note. Shadow Pictures faded fairly quickly on me. It’s quite nice but not quite what I was hoping for.

Second review in a row where I find myself in lockstep with @starbrow. This is a stunner from the get-go. Rich dark red musk. Rich dark red fruits. A backdrop of my favorite resins, patch and tobacco. I generally avoid rose but this blackened version is stunning. Terrific throw — I could smell it while masked. Pouting lips painted darkest red, a big velvety red wine, gorgeous in its complexity. Just yes.