Lucchesa

Hi, everyone! Yesterday I wore Dumb Cake and rode my bike to the U District to pick up a couple things I needed. My fitness tracker clocked it as 2 17-minute bike rides. There are hills in Seattle so I got plenty sweaty. And @Madame Mew, I love your city too, and my son theoretically goes to college there (actually at the desk in his bedroom here), so when this is all over, I'm going to come take a long walk with you! Today's WOSOTD: Black Annis while I wait for Black Licorice Smut and DL & Black Licorice to materialize. Abby and I met my aunt, uncle and mother-in-law at the arboretum and went for about a 2.75 mile walk. The weather has been glorious. Later in the day did another brisk mile to run an errand, and ended up with over 10,000 steps for the first time in a few days.

The Contrast, which was a frimp in a recent swap, starts out almost all frankincense on me, a soft spicy frankincense, lovely. Gradually the vanilla benzoin comes into play. This is very pleasant and perfectly unisex. In the imp it's a very pale oil with globules of darker amber -- I wonder which is which. It doesn't have great staying power on me but is very nice while it lasts. So glad I got to try it!

Good job, @Madame Mew and @VetchVesper!!! Today I wore The Contrast and took Abby for a walk she didn't want to go on. About 30 minutes -- I put her in the car halfway through. And yesterday I wore Sissy the Ascendant, which is like smoky rootbeer on me, and did about a 40 minute walk. The weather should be dry all week!

I am going to be very boring here and suggest that you not overspend on a decade-old rare that you yourself admit you're not fully satisfied with. It's my experience with older bottles that the strength does not just keep increasing; at some point it starts decreasing, and you can't be sure how it's been stored and cared for. OK, if you have oodles of money, ignore me, but does that describe any of us at this point? Today's WOSOTD was Fake News, which held up really well to walking to a local park and then playing pingpong for over an hour with a friend who doesn't look like she should be able to play pingpong at all but who is surprisingly good, then walking home the long way. The breeze made things interesting. So I got my 10,000 steps in and got some sunshine.

I was only baking for myself and my kids, so I only made one pie. Pumpkin with a cocoa crust. The crust was good and easy, made in the food processor. I'm sure the filling would have been good too if I hadn't forgotten to put the sugar in. It wasn't terrible; we put powdered sugar on top.

Happy Thanksgiving, fragrant witchy workout friends!!!! Yesterday I wore Illustrated Woman and walked to the natural foods store with my little pull cart for my last minute Thanksgiving needs (including nabbing the penultimate can of organic evaporated milk). Then I got an impromptu invite for tea on my friend's porch and biked to her house (a hard 20-minute bike ride there, an easy 15 minute bike ride home). Today I put on Coiled Serpent and did an online yoga class with my local studio, one of my favorite teachers. It goes so well with yoga! I got sweaty (which brought out an interesting musk effect in Coiled Serpent) so I showered afterwards and now am wearing Pumpkin Spice Silkybat HG and Pumpkin Queen in the hopes that they will bless my pie baking.

Hi, everyone! @Madame Mew, did you decide to work out or to eat pizza? Yesterday I wore Tombeur, which I hadn’t worn in ages. So cozy and sexy! I walked to the drug store and back, not even three miles, but I had a talk to finish so I couldn’t do more. Tombeur held up beautifully. This morning I gave my talk, which was on Beatrix Potter, so I wore Mole from the Wind in the Willows scents, which was as close as I could get (actually, she raised sheep, so I could have gone with Two Sheep and Two Goats but I didn’t think of it). Mole did not last on me at all so I may be deaccessioning it soon. I’ll pick something else and go for a walk after dinner.

Hello, workout friends! Today I wore Falling Leaf Moon which is gorgeous! I walked around Green Lake, about 50 minutes all told.

I was just gifted a decant of Blessing Summer 2014. It is definitely heavy on the rose geranium, a note I tend to amp, and I believe there is frankincense as well as the sandalwood alterosen mentions. It's not the sort of thing I generally wear, so I'm going to keep this for its ritual purpose of healing and blessing new endeavors. There is a sense of psychological uplift when I sniff the wand of the decant!

I honestly didn't expect Bakeneko to work as well as it is. I love the black tea note but it's fugitive on me; same with tangerine. And cherry blossom is iffy. But amber musk sounded so good. And this is a terrific comfort scent, like Market Spice tea in a handmade mug with a wrapping of amber and gentle musk. I'm not getting cherry blossom at all. It doesn't last super long on me, but I've happily reapplied twice today, I'm enjoying it so much on this dreary, rainy day. (Also, there's a cat on the label.)

Hi, everyone!!! Thanks, @Amazonia, for calling me back to the fold! I have been doing at least 20 minutes of something most days, though obviously I haven't remembered to check in. Or more honestly, I think to check in at night, but it's too late and I need to go to bed. A few days ago I hurt my shoulder in a yoga class -- doing what I'm still not sure, it just kind of pinged in the middle of nothing special, but it was weird and wrong for a couple of days. Then I had a really stressful weekend with three new or partially new lectures in three days, Saturday-Monday. Sunday I had to actually go to the venue and record live, to an audience of one (and an auditorium full of paper cutouts, which were surprisingly effective in fooling me into thinking I had listeners), and when I finally got home (it's a ferry ride away) it was just getting dark but I had so much nervous energy I went for a walk/jog. I don't jog anymore because it hurts my knee. But I did three 3-minute intervals of jogging, and on the third one, as I rounded a corner in my neighborhood, I tripped and went sprawling on the sidewalk. I nursed my hurt for a moment then picked myself up, did the rest of the interval and walked home, but my right palm is all torn up. And sure enough, within an hour my knee was hurting badly. I'm such an idiot. I had used Earth bath oil as after shower moisturizer that morning but forgot to get any perfume on (it was going to be #Occupy). Today it's supposed to rain all day, decreasing to showers in the evening, so I might go for a walk tonight. But I'll have to do yoga or something before that. I'm testing A Dead Death and Bakeneko, and I'm actually surprised at how well the latter is working on me.

I admit I misread the description, because I was hoping for the scent of clay. Mitti and tulsi are new notes to me, and I was curious to try them, but they are not reacting well to my skin. At first they are astringent, then merely sharp, and they overpower the sandalwood. I think this would be a lovely atmo, but it's not working on me as a perfume.

Delicious! Sweet tobacco, chewy butterscotch, not too foodie. A wonderful addition to scents like Pumpkin Tobacco and Gingerbread Tobacco.

Civil Twilight is a lovely spring/summer blend. It's mainly sweet peach on me with amber and honeysuckle. The lemon blossom isn't appreciable when it's wet but comes out in drydown, a kind of creamy lemon-adjacent note. Soft, feminine, very pretty.

My grandmother had this rose dusting powder in her bathroom, in a pink box with a ribbon. This smells uncannily like it.

Ugh, Vampire Lace wet is all stinky fecal oudh on me. And it stays that way for a good half hour. An hour after application it's beginning to be bearable, with red musk and tobacco and vanilla lilies appreciable under the animalic agarwood. And at this point I really don't care what kind of beauty this turns into. I will not go through that opening again.

@biggest_ghost Oh, yes. You want Dee. Here's the full scent description: John Dee: master of science, alchemy and magic, Hermetic philosopher in the schools of Rosicrucian Christian Mysticism and Platonic-Pythagorean doctrine, and Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer, advisor, cryptologist and spy. With Edward Kelly, he created a field of study and work in Angelic Evocation, and isolated the Angelic language: Enochian. His scent is soft English leather, rosewood and tonka with a hint of incense, parchment and soft woods. Or if you want to smell like an alchemist, there's Brimstone. Or Incantation is kind of dark wizardy. The Black Tower definitely has some of that "summoning the spirits of the dead" vibe, and Scholar's Tower for more theoretical wizardry. And if you want to smell like a wizard who's been consorting with broomstick-riding witches in forest orgies, Diese Dumpfen Pfaffenchristen or any of the Walpurgisnacht scents might be an excellent choice. That's all I can think of right now but I'm sure there are more. Don't despair!

This is a delight! Lovely warm sugary pumpkin melded with fruity red musk. I'm not getting brimstone, and I was hoping for that note to balance the fruitiness somewhat, and maybe it will develop with some aging, but I don't really care because the red musk isn't walking off with this one. I get killer throw, which although unusual for my skin chemistry can happen with red musk, but it's usually all red musk and instead I get the musk and the warm pumpkin and sugar notes too, and it's really an upbeat scent. And a safe-for-work red musk. I applied around 6 last night and can still smell it this morning.

I forgot about the honey, so I was surprised when Etienne de Boray had a foodie element to it. Manuka must be a honey that works particularly well on me, one of the warm golden ones. This is a radiant scent. I get just a whisper of lavender at the beginning, and no one note is prominent here, it all blends together to create the impression of sitting under a tree in the sunlight, bark, soil, leaves, moss, dust motes bright in the air. I can't make out pine needles so don't avoid this if you dislike evergreen notes because they're very faint here. I wore this for a hard workout and it did go through a wonky stage, exactly what feyofthefellwood describes as the honey getting funky between wet and dry -- I'll have to try it again without sweat to see if it still happens on me. Nevertheless, just lovely.

Visions II is definitely dominated by the rose geranium. The balsam is apparent in the decant but largely absent on my skin; I get less leather, patch and opoponax than I wanted and far more violet leaf, violet being a nemesis of mine. I do like geranium but I was hoping for more of the supporting players.

This goes on exactly as the name and inspiration suggest, in an aggressive strike of pine pitch and metal. Teak can smell like caramel on my skin, but I'm not getting that at all. I wore this for a hard workout and it held up beautifully to sweat and movement. Afterwards -- about 90 minutes after application -- it has softened considerably. Now it's lovely soft pine, a bit of sweet tobacco, and a hint of metal. I've been buying a lot of evergreen scents lately, but I may need more of this.

Yesterday WOSOTD: Hope and Fear Set Free. Wore it for the 45-minute online yoga. Which was OK, not great. Today it's raining again. We should get a break this evening. So I googled best fun workout videos and came up with Kukuwa Fitness. Did a very sweaty 45 minute dance and sculpt video in my bedroom. The sound quality wasn't great in parts but the energy was amazing. Testing Etienne de Boray and Thunk. The latter held up better to the workout than the former. I want to thank you guys for the inspiration to do this! Before @VetchVesper's challenge, I had worked out with an online instructor maybe once the whole pandemic. Now that it's the rainy season, I need to shift gear from the walking, and you all are fantastic spirit guides!

Seconding No. 93 Engine, thirding V'al Ha Nissim, and adding The Writing on the Slate from 2017 Yules: beeswax candles, chalk, and dust. And I can't wait to try Endless Corridors! I'm assuming you've tried The Lights of Men's Lives and it reads as honey? If not, it's one of my very favorite GCs and certainly worth adding an imp to your next lab order to see if it works on you: The wax and smoke of millions upon millions of candles illuminating the walls of Death’s shadowy cave: some tall, straight, and strong, blazing with the fire of life, others dim and guttering.

I amp grape and wine notes, so sadly on me Harvest Moon 2020 smells like mulled Manischewitz and fruitcake, with some buttery pumpkin also apparent. No dead leaves, no evergreens, herbs or woodsmoke. I'm sure this decant will find a better home.

Hugs right back at you! And you, @Amazonia. I wish I had thought of doing a ritual or anything like that. Instead, just dealing with my own anxiety. I'm sorry I've been MIA these past few days, but I have been in action. We had three stunning days of perfect fall weather, brilliant sunshine, vivid colors, so I got out each day. Saturday I wore Samhain and walked to the rose garden to meet three friends -- it's our coronavirus hangout instead of happy hour. A little over 5 miles round trip. Sunday I wore Dia de los Muertos and took Abby on a morning walk in gorgeous Carkeek Park, 2.5 miles, then in the afternoon I played ping pong at the outdoor tables in Greenwood Park. This was suggested by my neurologist as good for warding off dementia, and my very overweight friend Judy said that she used to be a ping pong champion and would love to play with me. I was skeptical, but damn if she isn't a better player than I am despite her two knee replacements. Monday Dia de los Muertos again -- it's too floral to be a usual scent for me, but I enjoy it and always wear it Nov 1-2. Abby and I met a friend and walked in Ravenna Park. So my step count was great for a few days. Yesterday it was pouring rain -- the spectacular weather has come to an end. I just wore a comfort scent, Pumpkin Tobacco. But I'll be trucking out all my hope scents in the days to come. I did a 60-minute live power yoga class on Insight Timer. I didn't love the instructor -- he kept making rhymes, which is irritating -- but it was hard and I'm sore this morning. In the late afternoon we caught a brief rainless window and my son and I walked Abby to Green Lake to drop off his ballot, his first vote. And now we wait. There's a 45-minute self care yoga on Insight Timer at 9, so I'll probably do that. Courage!!!