Lucchesa

Mrs. Grose is cinnamon spice tea on me, with gentle hints of rose, similar to the rose in Hope. Lovely, but as so often happens with tea notes, my skin eats it up much too quickly. 3 hours after application, it is detectable only as the faintest wisp of spice. If it had better staying power with my skin chemistry, I would be on the lookout for a bottle.

I'm so excited I got to try this, thanks to a generous swapper who sent me a tester. Wet, it's very buttery. Butterscotch, maybe buttercream, but the butter is the primary note on my skin at first. Then the almond note emerges and it's butter, sugar and almonds, caramelizing in a pan. Which is pretty heavenly. And very sweet. Finally it mellows into honey cake -- and I often have a problem with the cake note going weird on my skin, a la Eat Me, but this is beautiful -- with buttery almondy frosting. It has just a bit of throw and better than usual staying power (my skin eats lots of blends, but usually honey ones will last). Delectable!

Simplicity and innocence, gleefully despoiled! Sugared rose. I received a tester of this from a very generous swap partner, and in the imp it's exactly the smell of my grandmother's pink-and-burgundy-tiled bathroom, circa 1978. Grandma grew roses, but she also used rose cold cream or rosewater bath products or something just like this. Roses are hit and miss on me, but the dusting of sugar on this one prevents it from going sour. It's delicate and achingly beautiful, with surprisingly good throw. Absolutely lovely.

Nutmeg? Not on me. (And blackened nutmeg sounds so divine; sigh.) Everything else is lovely, though. It's more masculine when wet, drying down into a perfectly unisex, perfectly sexy smoky sweet amber-tobacco-vanilla. Unfortunately, my skin is eating it up rather quickly. I would think Mars the Avenger would be a little stronger than this. It's beautiful if now faint, and I'm delighted I got to try it.

Wet, this is all opoponax and black musk on me. Deep and dark, mysterious and a little musty. As it dries down, the other notes come into play, though I never do get any cedar, so don't be worried if that's the note that scares you off. There's the smoky sweetness of opium and patchouli and bourbon vanilla, a slightly herbal touch of geranium, and maybe just a bit of a crystalline quality from the white musk? I don't usually get along with white musk, but this blend is sensational. As LizziesLuck mentions, it is a darker blend that is nevertheless appropriate for daytime wear, when we want to channel our inner gothic heroines or demon bitch goddesses at work. I'm so delighted I got to try this decant!

Frimp fresh from the Lab, and it goes on in that blast of marzipanny goodness I love in almond scents, which nearly never lasts. The almond fades and the bay rum comes into play, then the rum fades and the clove takes over. I'm not sure I ever make out any of the rootbeery scent of sassafras; it's subsumed by the clove. This is a lovely festive holiday scent to brighten the Thanksgiving-to-New-Year's corridor.

Soft, well-worn black leather, hemp, and rosin. Frimp fresh from the Lab. Rogue is much nicer than I expected. I can't wear Fighter - it has that raw uncured leather smell that resembles red musk and takes over on my skin. This is a lovely soft leather backed up by rosin and hemp. The leather dominates on the inside of my wrist, the hemp and rosin are more apparent on the outside of my wrist, for what that's worth. I'm sure this would smell great on a guy if you had one who would consent to wear scent, but I think it smells pretty great on me. Average wear length and not much throw.

Vanilla silk, patchouli leaf, sweet benzoin, and smoked honey. Smoked honey? Sign me up! Impressions of the Floating World does not disappoint. I was afraid the silk note would be like the linen note, which veers into dryer sheet territory on my skin, but there's nothing aggressively clean about this scent. The smoke isn't prominent but it and the patch lend an earthy quality to the honey and vanilla and keep them from being overly sweet. The word that comes up for me is "husky." If Impressions of the Floating World could talk, it would sound like Kathleen Turner. ETA retested a different decant a few months later and it had terrific throw and wear length on me.

Sensual red musk stomping all over saffron and Levant spices.

I think I have the 2016 version. It's one of those perfumes I would usually avoid on the grounds of "too much going on." But since just about all those notes are favorites and I got a super bargain on FB, I decided to give this a go, and I love it! Frankincense and myrrh, check. Almond and carnation, check. Patchouli, check. I do not get the obnoxious lemon pledge smell that others have complained of, which I do sometimes get from verbena, but keep in mind this has had a year to age. Instead I get a glorious mix of notes that is different from anything else I own but isn't muddled or jangly. I love gloame's comparison to a souk. Warm, spicy, resiny, unisex, and appropriate to any season. It wears pretty close to my skin, but that's usual for me.

Finally I get to try Boomslang! The oil in the imp is very dark brown; only if I look closely do I see that it's not uniform. I roll it carefully and apply. Yep, that's Snake Oil and dark chocolate all righty! Yummmm. In a moment I can smell the teak; I'm not sure I ever make out the rice milk in this one. But I completely understand why this is so beloved. Then, within 45 minutes, my skin just eats up the cocoa note, and all I have left is Snake Oil. Which I expect will last until tomorrow, but I wanted chocolate snake oil. I'm thinking that with my skin chemistry I might do better to layer Snake Oil with something like Gelt-Smeared Dreidel to get a similar effect. Oh, well, I'm delighted to have tried it.

2018 version: My husband chose this for me, based on the poem, and I have to agree with northatlantic that it smells a bit like sweet tarts in the bottle. If I tried not to think about sweet tarts, I could definitely smell the ambergris and coconut. I applied to inside and outside of wrist and hoped for the best. Wet, green sugar cane and coconut and a sort of fruity floral, which I think the ambrette seed is contributing to because I can't quite make it out; the ambergris is there but quiet. My husband thinks it smells like vanilla, and it does, in a way. I amp champaca in a weird way, so I wait for the champaca to emerge and stomp all over everything. And there it is! And it's all champaca, overblown sickly sweet floral, with terrific throw. Heart sinks. Only -- this stage doesn't last long at all. Maybe five minutes, and something reins it back in. I'm going to credit the ambrette seed, because I like ambrette seed. Whatever it is, the champaca goes back to blending beautifully with the other notes, coconut and sugarcane and musky ambergris. It's daytime sexy in a walking on the beach barefoot with no makeup way. The throw is still better than average for me, and this becomes a scent I cannot wait to wear this summer.

Oh good lord. We can't regulate assault rifles, but we can make the skies safe from perfume.

Cat Chasing Butterflies was my husband's choice for me, though it did make my long list. I don't remember ever trying peach blossom but plum and cherry blossom are hit and miss on me. Still, I expected this to smell somewhat like peach, which can be overly sweet on me, and I got very little peach or sweetness at first. And I love almond and was disappointed at not getting any in the opening. Usually when almond scents are wet, I'll get a blast of almond that fades fairly quickly. So, wet, a creamy ambery pale floral, nice but not exceptional. And since Shungas tend to disappear fast on my skin, I thought I would put it away for a month or two and try again. To my great surprise, the scent kept growing and developing. The sweet musk started to bloom once the oil was dry, and it works really well on me. And in the middle of yoga class, about 2 hours in, I started to smell a distinct and very beautiful almond. This had exceptional wear for a Shunga on my sponge-like skin; I can still smell it faintly roughly five hours after application -- and after a shower! I think I'm going to be turning to this beauty again and again all spring long.

I do not have an imp of Black Hellebore, but I swapped for dementia_divine's Black Hellebore Honey. I quite like the apiary scents -- they don't all work for me, but they have good wear length and are excellent daytime scents that could easily be worn to work. Black Hellebore Honey to me is a straw-colored honey and a dark, herbal floral. I'm not getting the mint that many reviewers have mentioned, which would probably not work well on my skin. Although it's rather nice, this isn't my favorite apiary scent -- Oleander Honey is the best on me so far, though I haven't tried them all. And I recently received a bottle of Against Idleness and Mischief, my favorite GC springtime honey scent, so I will probably pass this imp on.

On me, this does not smell like beer, which is fortunate. Maybe a little yeasty, like bread dough rising and baking. It does give me the feeling of a wise woman's kitchen. I'm not familiar with how any of the listed notes smell; I get green and herbal but not marshy (doesn't go soapy on me like most aquatics) or terribly foodie. It's quite pleasant but not a soul scent for me.

And I think I ended up with Coldfire’s Changeling, but this quicksilver scent is terrific on me. It has the fresh pumpkin and something of the golden vibe of Bunraku Theater. Not much booze on me, just a hint of sweetness from the bourbon vanilla. Clean pale woods. A great daytime scent for a sunny autumn afternoon.

I love Golden Priapus, so Pickled Imp sounded like GP + cinnamon and clove -- delicious! The pine is less prominent in Pickled Imp, just adding a resiny hint of evergreen to the vanilla and spices. Just fantastic, especially on a cold winter day like today. And it lasts a really long time. (Needless to say, this is a pretty well-aged imp, purchased here on the forums.) Is there any chance it might come back in the CD redux? I'd love that!

Great -- I'm in love with misfortune. I do seem to be all over the clove scents lately. But it's snowing outside, and clove is such a gorgeous deep rich warming winter note. Here it's in perfect balance with a deep rich warming vetiver and an earthy patchouli, either of which note can be too much for me on occasion, but they are in such perfect accord and alignment, which complements Beth's scent description exactly: to honor the balance of forces in the universe. I may need to honor them (and propitiate the gods of misfortune) by buying a whole bottle.

Oh, this is a beauty and I'm so glad I was frimped a tester! On me it is predominantly a clove scent, backed up by vanilla and oak. I get the hint of cognac -- same note as in A Spirit, Katie, right? -- adding warmth and depth. Not getting any perceptible frank at all, just a little myrrh, but it's all very beautiful. It has faded rather quickly, but my skin seems to be eating things up this morning -- I think it's just me.

Jingu is a lovely springtime scent, as gentle and pretty as a cascade of cherry blossoms in a light breeze. I don't get much mandarin from it, just blossoms and quiet sandalwood. Like many Shungas on me, it's a skin scent that fades relatively quickly (although a faint scent is there for quite a long time).

Languor is not my usual kind of thing -- tuberose is generally a hard pass for me. But it was offered to me, and I thought I would try it, and I'm so glad I did. First of all, it's a white floral, baby! As Casablanca writes, a "white floral cloud" surrounds me on application, and stays around for ages, and I almost never get throw so that is a treat. I was giving a lecture not long after applying today, and for 75 minutes I kept getting marvelous wafts of BPAL when I waved my arms at all. This is a big, big, heady floral, and then the opium starts to emerge in the background with its narcotic haze and mmm... So, this is not me, and yet I've had a lot of fun wearing it today. I can definitely imagine pulling it out for certain talks when I want to channel a particular kind of person or mood. When I want to be not me, in other words. I don't think I need a whole bottle, but I am not relinquishing this imp!

Intrigue is totally in my wheelhouse (or one of them, anyway), but somehow I wasn't even aware of it until it was given to me quite recently. I'm not familiar with the black palm note, but on me it reads as quite similar to the coconut husk of Brown Jenkin. So I get earthy cocoa and fig and dry coconut and woods, and it's very much in the same family as Velvet or Gelt-Smeared Dreidel or some of the 13s -- major comfort scents in my book. It dries down fairly true until a warm, comforting, earthy blur. The throw is low to nonexistent, and it's unisex, so this can be worn by anyone, anywhere. I can see it becoming a real workhorse in my fall/winter scent collection. It's going on my list of GC scents to add to LE orders in the near future.

Patchouli. Sweet dirty patchouli on top of everything. A year ago I would never have imagined ordering a scent with patchouli as the first ingredient, and Crystal Phoenix is about as patchouli-forward a scent as I now wear. The patch subsumes the cedar on me. It's sweetened by the bourbon vanilla, and I get hints of leather and tobacco. Just a little throw, and average wear length, and definitely a fall-winter scent that could be worn by anyone of driving age on up. I like it, but I suspect that in another year, as my tastes evolve and mature and it ages spectacularly, I will adore it.

Testing Seated Couple and Lovers in the Tea House at the same time because of comparisons in the above reviews. Also, they seem to be the only Shungas with the sake note, which is a shame! It's a great note. Skin musk and ambrette seed almost always work well on me, and Seated Couple is no exception. It's less bright and citrusy than Lovers, a note or two lower pitched (although both are on the light and bright as opposed to dark and deep end of things). Seated Couple is a daytime scent that manages to be both fresh and sexy. No throw, so you can wear it anywhere. Longer wear length than Lovers in the Tea House, but still something I need to reapply. I like!