Lucchesa
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Everything posted by Lucchesa
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White musk and ambergris can be iffy on me, honeysuckle, almond milk and coconut are all wins. So I didn't try Materialisation last year, but it was on my list of scents to watch reviews from, and I recently had the good fortune to receive it in a PIF. It's really lovely. Creamy coconutty almond milk with the sweetness of honeysuckle but more of a foodie than a floral vibe. The musk and ambergris are gentle and don't take this in an aquatic direction on me. Unfortunately, like many scents with ghostly titles or descriptions, it doesn't have a lot of throw or longevity on me, but it's beautiful while it lasts.
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I tried Blood Squib Snake Oil before Blood Squib, which was PIF'd me by a wonderful forumite, and I think the SO version works better on me. Wet, Blood Squib is a blast of maraschino cherry with that familiar cherry-almond smell. It does turn to artificial cherry flavor, though, and on me it faded fairly quickly. I'm glad I got to try it, and cherry lovers should take note to see if it works better on them.
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Goat’s milk and honey are what I get most of in Harlequin Milk, which was PIFed from a supremely generous fortune.. There is some bright red currant peeking through, especially when wet, but not a lot of orange peel on me. The pale musk is more evident an hour or so in. This is lovely and cheery and lasted all day on me.
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I was worried about the brown oudh in Death's Head Moth, since I've been so burned by black oudh. I wasn't worried that the clove husk would commandeer the entire scent experience, but that's pretty close to what happened. The oudh is quiet, not at all indolic; the vetiver and ash are also very subdued. It is a kind of cuddly comfort scent, without much throw (which is normal for me), but I wish the warm, dusty clove husk would let some of the other notes have more play on my skin.
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Wet: Maraschino cherries. I love maraschino cherries, but I'm not sure I wanted that as a single note. It takes a while, but ultimately I get some Snake Oil poking its usually not very shy head out. The later drydown is a delicious mix of cherry and SO, but it wears close to the skin, whereas I'm used to SO having more sillage. If you love cherry and Snake Oil, it's hard to go wrong here.
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Someone upthread describes this as non-foody caramel corn, and that is right on the money for me. Wet, it's all buttered popcorn with a hint of caramel, but once it's dry I can just make out the Snake Oil with its vanilla goodness under the kettle corn. This wears really close to the skin for me. I think I'll keep my decant -- it is definitely a mood-lifting scent -- but I don't need a whole bottle.
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This decant has had 9 months to age and is still oudh oudh oudh on me. Like theseagrows I cannot wear black oudh and was hoping burgundy oudh would be less nasty on me. Beth, please give us crushed velvet musk in something oudhless because it sounds divine. First Morning in Paris I had to scrub off.
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My obviously well-aged imp of Wolfsbane is lovely on me. Dry and woody yet soft and cozy. There's probably cedar and sweet vetiver in here. It wears close to the skin, which is pretty normal for me. Definitely a comfort scent. Too bad it's so rare now.
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I keep trying blackberry scents and they keep going to candy on me. I wouldn't have tried this one, as the other fruit notes would have put me off, but I was given a decant by a magnificent forumite, and so I got to see if blackberry oudh would be an exception to the berry candy rule. And nope. Le Carrousel de Montmartre was all fruit candy on me. Blackberry was strongest, with pineapple and apple along for the ride, and amber was present as well. Like samanare I got hardly any vetiver (and the word "sweet" attached to vetiver is a strong attractant for me), tobacco or cinnamon. Mainly fruit. Fruity candy, that is. Oh, well, I'm delighted I got to try it.
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Dead Leaves, Nutmeg, Sweet Vetiver, and Virginia Cedar
Lucchesa replied to zankoku_zen's topic in Halloweenie
Dead leaves and bright cedar when wet, a striking and lovely combination. As it began to dry down, the vetiver came more into evidence, the same beautiful sweet vetiver as in last year's Two Sheep and Two Goats. Unlike z_z, I got no nutmeg at all. The late drydown -- and this lasted hours -- was all sweet vetiver, subtly dark and smoky. The decant is a keeper, and I'll make sure to test it again before weenies come down to see if the nutmeg ever shows up on my skin. -
Black Moths is nowhere near as fruity as I would have imagined. On me, there is a lot of the charred variety of vetiver and a camphorous patchouli. The rose doesn't show up, which is fine, but I think someone with the correct skin chemistry to wear this well would get more of the dark syrupy opoponax and the dark fruits balancing the harsher vetiver and patchouli. I can imagine how beautiful this would be on someone else, but it's not really working on me.
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Indulgence does smell like beautiful murder, as Joyleaf_ says. Everything in this nearly 4-year-old decant is dark and smooth and polished; there are no rough edges on the patchouli or vetiver, nothing indolic about the oudh. It's a black marble foyer with a spectacular floral arrangement in a neoclassical niche. It is a little more floral than is to my taste, and champaca is rarely a note I can wear, but it's a work of art and I'm delighted I had the chance to try it.
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Pirates! only arrived in today's mail, but I had to try it out. It is very gunpowder-forward on me. Salt, leather, rum and wood all make an appearance, but the spices are quite subdued. I was hoping for more smoky spices and less brimstoney gunpowder, so I'll let this one rest a couple weeks to see if the spices emerge more strongly with a little aging. I would definitely keep the decant and might spring for a bottle if they do.
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Testing blind, I was mystified and enchanted by Songs of Autumn VII. It was green, outdoorsy, with a dry sweetness, but I couldn't come up with the notes. It's not a sweet, ripe fig note. It's not a woodchippy cedar or a drippy golden honey or the fizzy labdanum so prominent in last year's Weenies. It is brilliant sunlight on a crisp autumn day, the chill in the air, those poor figs that never ripened still hanging on their branches. Once I read the note list, I could find the tobacco, the pale dry honey, and the other notes, but they blend together seamlessly. I'm going to try this again in about a month to see how it is settling and if I need a bottle.
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Testing blind, I got red maple leaves and redcurrant from Songs of Autumn V. What I did not get was patchouli. So whereas VetchVesper's experience was drier and woodier than expected, mine was fruitier and juicier. I suspect we would both want to swap for the other's skin chemistry in this particular case. Fruity is rarely my jam, and the bourbon melded with the currant for macerated fruit. I wanted drier leaves and perceivable patch. OK, late in drydown I could make out the patchouli, but too little too late for me. If you appreciate fruity scents, this is a beauty.
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Currant cake. What was I thinking? It's the currant cakes in Eat Me that go so tragically wrong on my skin. Wet, Dusk in Autumn is all currant cake going tragically wrong on my skin. Sadly, I can't wear this. Once it dries down (I didn't scrub it off), it's significantly nicer, sweet, smoky: dusky and autumnal, in fact. The currant cake sh*tshow has calmed down significantly. But the wet phase makes this decant not a keeper for me.
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This one might well be called Are You Snuggling on My Grave? or Are You Digging in the Blankets at the Foot of the Bed? It is super snuggly. The milky note, the most prominent one on my skin, reminded me of some of the Lab's non-dairy milk notes -- oat or rice milk or the like -- and they always work better on me than the dairy notes. It's kind of reminiscent of the goat's milk note without the goatiness, if that makes any sense. Some brown musk, some brown dirt freshly dug through the grass, some warm wiggly puppy energy and the sweet milk note. Lovely!
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This sounds really nice but it doesn’t sound like this particular 13?
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Dead Leaves and Chai is all dead leaves at first and then the chai spices gradually emerge to warm them up. I don't really get tea, but that's not surprising as my skin tends to devour the tea note. This is a lovely blend of comfort notes: autumn leaves, cardamom, gentle cinnamon, clove, maybe a kick of black pepper (another note my skin eats up). Longevity isn't great on me, so I'll be happy with my decant, but aging may help with that too.
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I love the dead leaves note, and Dead Leaves, Cacao and Sandalwood is no exception. The cacao note is dry like unsweetened cocoa powder, not sweet like chocolate, and it is a little darker than the sandalwood and leaves. On my skin I have a hard time smelling them all at once. It's as if they layer but don't meld, so on some sniffs I get mostly cacao, on others the leaves or the sandalwood, which is an intriguing effect. The cacao is the first note to fade on me, and I wish it lasted a little longer on my skin, but aging may help with that. Another win for the dead leaves series.
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I wanted to love this so much, as this Gemini loves power tools -- and Schwarzer Mond. But lavender never lasts on my skin, and the whole thing faded faster than I would have liked. It's lovely while it lasts, lavender and darker resins, quite unisex and appealing.
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Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary features a pretty gnarly patchouli sweetened by lush cherry. I am a fan of both these notes -- cherry is one of the few fruit notes I gravitate to, and it needs to have something non-sweet grounding it for me to appreciate it. So this is kind of like cherry Depraved, which is a win in my book. The patch lasts longer than the cherry on me, and it's definitely a cherry-tinged patch, not a patchouli-tinged cherry. About average wear length, not much throw but that's normal for me. I like.
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I was hoping Basket of Abalone would be a lovely bright invigorating citrus scent. And indeed it started out that way on me, but unfortunately it turned into a really clean aquatic. The tartness of grapefruit and yuzu couldn't hold their own against my skin chemistry's tendency to transform seafoam into laundry detergent. I actually use a laundry soap that smells a lot like this does after about 45 minutes on my skin. But I'm thrilled to have gotten to try it as one of the bounteous goodies in my 13 Nights of Halloween box.
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Boots starts out surprisingly sharp on me. Sharp wood chips, sharp new leather, bright green grass and bright herbal lavender. Bracing and almost aggressively outdoorsy, like it's begging you to go on a hike. Also kind of unusual -- I don't have anything else quite like this, and the grass never went soapy as it sometimes does on me. Ultimately the conifer chips softened and sweetened and the leather became the dominant note. Leather and wood chips, like z_z says, like the woodsman in a fairy tale. I'm very fond of leather blends and this one is terrific on me.
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Wet I got lots of the lovely gentle goat's milk note with citrusy white tea and lavender. Typically, the lavender didn't last long on me, but I got some throw, more than I usually do, with the goat's milk-tea combination, which pretty soon was edged with pillowy, sweet, musky marshmallow. The late drydown is mostly marshmallow musk with white tea, but it lasts a long time. This is a really comforting blend; I can see it being used for sleep, but it's also a real pleasure to wear.