Lucchesa

Snakes in the Lemon Tree went on as a bright, realistic lemon, something I love but which has been elusive for me in BPAL And still is, because that fresh lemon smell did not last long. First the Snake Oil came out and then the vetiver, and the lemon receded to the background. So full drydown on me was a really beautiful vetiver over a slightly lemony Snake Oil. Even more lemon would be amazing, but this is pretty great as it is.

Cedary amaretto soda sounded excellent to me, so I got a partial of A Boar and a Goat. The label is charming, by the way. Wet, this is all almond, not bitter but sweet, with that cola-like labdanum underneath it and a sting of cedar. After a few minutes the frankincense comes into play, and after half an hour the initial blast of almond has receded greatly, allowing the fig and mandarin to be appreciated, so it's as if Carnal has come to the party. And it is a festive sort of scent. It doesn't last super long on me, but I'm happy to reapply.

I haven't actually tried any of those, but the description of Waiting made me think of Phoenix in Summer (which I had at one point and passed along): Nepalese amber, galangal, red musk, saffron, ozone, and the scent of hot rain striking pavement. I don't wear aquatics at all either, but totally adore a lunacy one I got frimped a tester of: Aegir. Languid lavender pacifying a tumultuous wave of salt water, guiac wood, and cedar. It's amazing.

"Zonked in Paris" is not really what I want to tell people I'm wearing as perfume. Nevertheless, I suspect I will have to because I expect to get compliments on this at some point. It's really good. Rich sweet dark coffee is almost all I smell in the imp, and the creamy vanilla emerges on my skin. Jiaolong did not work for me -- I got musky root beer instead of coffee -- but Zonked reminds me of the Guatemalan Coffee Bean SN and stays a much truer coffee note on my skin. I get a little throw and good wear length, though the balance tilts towards the vanilla the longer it's on. Delicious!

A Young Boy and His Brother Seated on a Goat is lovely dark woods on me. The teak does go a little sweet (I suspect it may be what is giving VetchVesper berries -- teak can turn almost cloying on my skin at times), but it's not unpleasant. The patch is warm and earthy but not at all of the stinky hippie variety. There's something very elegant and restrained about this scent, like a very exclusive wooden furniture shop. Totally gender neutral. No throw (which is normal for me) and average wear length.

lavenderfrost, I have a few more ideas. Part of my limitation is that two of the classes of scents you prefer, floral and aquatics, I wear rarely and almost never, which means i'm less help there than I might be. But there are certainly aquatics that are less feminine. Y'Ha-Nthlei is the deepest marine notes with bergamot, eucalyptus and foamy ambergris. Lightning and Sea of Glass might be good options too. The piratey scents often combine aquatic notes with spices, and are unisex, like Jolly Roger, Mary Read and Calico Jack; Plunder skips the aquatics and goes straight to the spices (so I can wear it). Chimera is a lovely, unisex spice blend too, though some people get skin sensitivity with it. In theme Chimera might embody some of your own shape-shifting, from work to caregiver to myth/history lover. The Raven is a floral that might be considered unisex. If you don't hate vetiver, Highwayman might jive with your love of the historical novel. You might look at the RPG blends, too: I love Elf and Bard best, but read through the descriptions and see if there are any that resonate with you. They are all gender neutral IMO. I also would love for you to look at the Conjure Bag, given what you've listed in the dark side of your personality. I find any BPAL that I click with to be mood-boosting and confidence-bolstering, but there are specific blends there aimed at combating some of the things that ail you. Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo (juicyfruit sweet). Has No Hanna & High John the Conqueror (both too floral for me, but you might like that). Van Van (one I like a lot). Water of Notre Dame (I got lilies but that's one of the florals I wear). Wolf's Heart (dragon's blood). You might find something there that helps your soul as well as making you smell fabulous. Good luck! Janis, for you and your love of clarity, I would suggest trying some very simple blends. Some of my favorite GCs have only two ingredients. Haunted (Soft golden amber darkened with a touch of murky black musk). Sloth (vetiver over black myrrh). Penitence (Frankincense & Myrrh). I think of these all as dark and cool in tone as well, as you describe your wardrobe and demeanor, but a warmer version might be The Lion (A golden, spiced amber, proud, regal and ferocious) for the "glint of gold" you wear. Your rational thought processes also suggest that you might enjoy Sherlock Holmes (A fastidiously clean scent, with a dash of pipe and cigarette tobacco. Faintly beneath, you catch the fragrance of a smear of greasepaint, a stray horsehair, and a whisper of Moroccan leather and rosin.) And Wensleydale is An immaculately clean scent: well-scrubbed soapy skin and fresh cotton (unimpable GC, Good Omens). Finally, Veritas seems to fit your personality well: The essence of honesty, integrity, and veracity: frankincense, white carnation, angelica, chamomile, and heliotrope. There are a lot of wonderful outdoor scents to evoke forests, mountain paths -- see this year's Shunga crop in Lupercalia for the Japanese gardens. Elf, Druid and Ranger in the RPG blends. Thanatopsis, Black Forest, Jersey Devil, Robin Goodfellow, Theoi Nomioi (unimpable, in the activism section). This Is Your Wilderness from Only Lovers Left Alive. Golden Priapus and Antikythera Mechanism might be too sweet for you, but they're certainly unisex scents that don't lack sweetness/softness. I hope some of these suggestions feel reasonable to you.

One of my favorite BPAL categories is anything with candles in the description. And while the word isn't there, smoke and beeswax = candles, so this was a must-try. And it's ravishing. This is definitely lavender smoke, not the unadulterated herb; it's not hitting me over the head then disappearing like lavender usually does on me, but I keep getting wafts of incensey lavender over the next couple of hours. Lovely! (I typically don't get a lot of throw from most scents.) The beeswax is the base note here which the smoky lavender floats above; it's not nearly as sweet as in blends like Lights of Men's Lives. I'm not sure I really smell stone, but it might contribute to the generally cool, airy tone. It is sort of reverent. This is a wonderful, original addition to this category of scents.

Snake's Tongue reminds me of Snake Oil and Antikythera Mechanism. It's fairly quiet on me, lacking the va-va-voom of GC Snake Oil and many of its variants. SO, oak, bourbon vanilla and sweet tobacco are the main notes I can make out, and while it's perfectly nice and would be a great work-appropriate form of SO if that's something you're looking for, it's not particularly remarkable with my skin chemistry.

Foiled again by black oudh! I don't have trouble with some oudhs, but the black variety seems to be my nemesis, and Snake's Shadow when wet is all black oudh. To quote SophieCedar: "I'm one of the unlucky few for which oudh smells like a freshly popped septic tank, when wet." It took 20-30 minutes for the poopy oudh to settle, and then it transformed into something really deep and lovely and complex -- some SO, some sweet syrupy labdanum, a little vetiver. I never did get much patch. I suspect it will get much better with age, but that first 20 minutes was a hard slog.

I would add that Whitechapel is a refreshing lime scent that leans to the masculine side of unisex. John Watson, too. And you might try Molly the Reaper from Pretty Deadly.

lavenderfrost, the first thing that popped into my head from your description was Belle Vinu. The dutiful daughter, always putting others first. Red sandalwood, vanilla, rosewood, osmanthus, and white peach. Floral but not too floral. I haven't worn this much but remember liking it a lot (I'm also a gemini, which for me takes the form of wanting to try everything but rarely settling in to wear what I have) Along the same emotional lines, but in a Shakespearean vein, you might think of Cordelia. The essence of faith, love and devotion: lilac, lemon, green tea, wisteria, osmanthus, white cedar, and Chinese musk. I haven't tried it in a while but I don't remember the cedar being strong. Still in your beloved Shakespeare, some of the more unisex males might suit you: Othello sounds up your alley, rose, musk and spices, and Lysander is very nice, Lilac musk, tonka, wood violet, and urbane lime rind, with a Venus-kissed tangle of myrtle, blackberry leaf, and benzoin. (Whitechapel is in a similar vein on me, if you like lime.) White Rider I think of as cool and pale (white leather and sandalwood), and Black Rider might match your black wardrobe (Black leather, oppoponax, tobacco, and black amber). Both are gender neutral. I'm jet lagged -- just got home from a week out of town. I'll think about this more and check in again soon. Do you like Shungas?

I tried Gordian Hairmop because it's totally my kind of scent and because I have a Gordian hairmop of my own. It is pretty close to what I expected, which is sweet, dark and lovely. I get coffee first, and tobacco second, and then the teakwood, which goes kind of caramel on my skin. I'm not sure I can identify styrax, and the oakmoss was kind of underneath holding it all together. Gradually, the vetiver became more and more prominent, and in late drydown, after four or five hours, it was sweet dark vetiver, like the vetiver in Two Sheep and Two Goats, with whispers of coffee, woods and bourbon. I enjoy unisex scents and didn't find this overly masculine at all. It's beautiful.

So, I didn't look at the notes before trying this. I got plum. Lots and lots of lovely dark plum. Gradually I got more and more of what I thought was white musk, which must be how I read the plum musk plus icy air, and a sweeter fruit note, which was obviously blackberry. I didn't make out any pine or amber. I think donkehpoo's description is spot-on for my experience: very musky blackberry-plum candy. Blackberry nearly always goes to berry candy on my skin, but this is pretty nice. Good wear length, a must for fans of plum and berry!

The Tastes of the Duke Were Peculiar. And somewhat effeminate. Honestly, I had a hard time picking out any of the notes here except for the mandarin. This goes on as a bright, citrusy blend, with a lot going on in the background. I don't get any leather or anise, which were notes I was particularly interested in. The absinthe and laudanum notes are not minty here, as they usually are on me (not minty is a plus in my book) and the opium reads as a floaty floral. It would be interesting to age this one and see how it develops, but it belongs in the general category of "too much going on" which is only occasionally a win for me.

I know, I was going to stop trying blackberry blends. I lied. And good for me because Echo Azure is just beautiful. I love lilacs, they're one of the florals that really work on my skin, and the blackberry here is not the lush, ripe blackberry that inevitably goes to candy on my skin but more like blackberry brambles with the odd cluster of berries, maybe dried ones left on the vine from the previous year's crop and still there when the lilacs are blooming. This is mostly lilac on me, and it's a beautiful springtime scent. Wear length is about average, with low throw, but that's normal for my chemistry.

I love the Lab dandelion note, but it always goes soapy on me in the end. Not here! Roadhouse is dandelion forward on me, with a little sweetness from the booze. I'm not getting a lot of tobacco or hemp -- really just a whiff as the description says -- but I think they are keeping the dandelion from turning into soap. This is not a bad boy, sleazy, swaggering, roadhouse kind of scent on me; it's springtime and green grass and yellow dandelions. And it's discontinued.

Roses, Pearls and Diamonds is primarily a rose scent on me. Rose can go wrong on my skin, but this one is lovely. Early on, I can smell the coconut, but it doesn't last more than an hour on me. The orris is contributing a gentle dryness that I think is helping keep the rose from going sour on me, and the musk is really subtle. It ends up as a long-lasting, realistic rose. I wish the coconut lasted longer on me, but this is quite lovely if you like roses.

Morana smells a lot like I remember Snow Glass Apples smelling on me (I frimped my tester to doomsday_disco, not long after she wrote the above review). It is mostly snow and apples, with a little pine; I'm not really getting a lot of lemon peel or rosewood. Snow and apples are kind of iffy notes on me, and I probably wouldn't have tried it if I hadn't won it in torischroeder9's awesome Rodeo PIF. And it's better on me than I expected. It lasts a long time, and frankly there are occasional days when I want to channel an ice maiden vibe, and this would be a lovely choice for that. So glad I got to try it!

Thrice Toss These Oaken Ashes was a big morpher on me. It didn't help that I didn't look at the notes until late, late drydown so I wasn't always sure what I was smelling. It started out brighter than I expected, green and woody; I was thinking acorn might be a note. About an hour in, woods and ashes were the most prominent -- not strong smoke like Rumpelstilzchen or Smokestack, something mellower, maybe with a little dirt note as well. Then to my surprise (not having read the notes) it turned fruity on me. Out came the apple, and this phase lasted quite a long time. Late drydown, after 8 hours or so, was faint ashy apple. Super interesting!

I didn't check the notes before trying Venus Pandemos this morning, and the words that floated to my brain when I tried it on were "rose otto," despite the fact I kind of have no idea what rose otto is. This is really a rose-forward scent on me with some gentle carnation and warm hay and maybe a tiny bit of smoke if any. Lovely, but it only lasts an hour or so on my skin.

Awesome article -- thanks, VV!

Alternative Facts is a sweet, happy scent with a creepy edge. On me it is mostly a sugared vanilla cherry with some gently tart lemon. But I also get morphy wafts of something chilling, so cherry vanilla meets a vaporous darker note that comes and goes. I like cherry, and this is a very fitting scent experience.

I was hoping that the red and black musks in Pandemonium would hold each other in balance, as they sometimes do, but red musk walks away with this one. A really dark, pissed-off red musk. It's a dark-brown oil. Wet, I can smell the dry herbs and woods, tending much more to bitter than to sweet, but they become the background noise to the musks. After about an hour the red musk backs off a bit, and the whole is really quite distinctive, unisex/masculine with almost no sweetness, a paean to dark power, and a perfect illustration of the source artwork.

Two out of the three notes here are unfamiliar to me. Kinoko in the imp struck me as a familiar smell -- a cosmetic product I've used, something like that, but I couldn't nail it down. On my skin, it is perfumey, as the earth note tends to be, a little airier than straight soil, with lots of oakmoss and a warm reddish note that must be the rooibos. A pretty, possibly more feminine variation on the dirt note, though I think this could be worn by anyone on the gender spectrum.

I thought Perchta would probably be too floral. Violet almost never works on me. It is much better on my skin than I expected. Cool florals, without any old lady from the violet; it's more of an ice queen vibe, and might be good to wear in that work situation where you need to put someone in place with the heel of your ice-encrusted thigh-high boots. There's some evergreen and a hint of minty snow at first, though these are subsumed in the florals after an hour or so. This has pretty killer throw on me, which is unusual for my skin chemistry. I don't need a whole bottle of something this far out of my wheelhouse, but I'm definitely keeping the decant!