Lucchesa

Snow notes and I don't always get along, but almond blossom is a favorite floral (because almond), so I wanted to give this a whirl. Wet it's that comforting blast of almond extract which quickly dissipates, leaving a gentle almondy floral in its wake. There's something sharp as it's drying down, maybe a whiff of ozone, but then it all folds into a gentle snow note with a hint of almond blossom. I am not getting the minty note some reviewers have mentioned, which is fine with me. It has lasted an hour and a half but based on current strength I don't think it is going to be particularly long-wearing on me.

Marche Funebre is odd on me. Not bad at all, but not what I expected from the notes. I get predominantly leather mixed with what seems to be the dust note from Writing on the Slate or Adam. I'm not sure how my skin reconfigured juniper, honey and amber to get dust, but that's what it does, and it doesn't morph on me at all. Soft, dusty black leather, unisex, and it's not at all strong on me. I may pass this decant on to someone who can appreciate more of the notes.

Wow, this is beautiful. Wet it's all vetiver and pepper, as if they were a single thing, a peppery smoke. But there's some sweetness to it as well, and then as it dries down it combines with the tobacco, but on my skin this does not translate into cigarette smoke. That would be gross. Instead it's vetiver and tobacco in a kind of two-part harmony, with the vanilla singing backup. I adore cardamom but I can't really make it out here. I'm sure it's contributing some spicy complexity, though. This is dark and warm, what I consider a winter blend. But lovers of vetiver and tobacco should find lots to sigh over here. Unisex, no throw on me (that's normal), good wear length.

Nasty Woman surprised me. I was expecting it to be a deep, dark hippie patchouli, playing hackysack in your personal space. Instead, it's the most sophisticated patchouli I've had the privilege of trying. Patchouli in a silk pantsuit. I'm getting a little bit of rose, so I'd agree with those who think there's rosewater in the Turkish delight. But while rose can be problematic on me, this is restrained, adding to the overall elegance of the scent. I'm able to make out vanilla and the warmth of amber and the earthiness of fig but absolutely no oud. It's beautiful and so much better behaved than I expected. I get a little throw especially at first when wet, which is when the patch is most dominant. Then it wears fairly close to the skin on me, but it lasts quite a while. I applied it at about 8:15 this morning, and it's still hanging on five hours later. This is a scent that doesn't feel at all seasonal to me: I think it would be just as appropriate in the dead of winter as it is now at midsummer. I am so glad to have this!

I was generously frimped a tester of Hesiod's Phoenix, and it's perfectly lovely. There's nothing scary about the oudh here; it's not at all indolic like, on me, the oudh in Nevertheless She Persisted or Gaspar of India. Warm amber, warm vanilla, no throw but pretty good wear length. Sweet snuggly amber goodness.

A super generous forumite frimped me a tester of Eve 2014, and I get the hype now. It is essentially a rose blend on me, but rose with incredibly richness and complexity from all the other notes, which are hard for me to pull apart -- heady incense, spices on a warm desert wind. Morocco doesn't work on me, but this is stunning. It has average wear length on me and low throw, but that's characteristic of my skin. I have very few rose blends that I wear with any frequency, but if I had a bottle of Eve, I would wear it and love it.

I swapped away Zombi some time ago, so this isn't a review with the scent right on my wrist, but it made a strong impression on me. Years ago I gave an after-dinner talk on Goya, and the hostess decorated the dinner table abundantly with dead red roses. Zombi reminded me of those dead roses, and of all the beauty and terror of Goya's etchings. I found it inexpressibly beautiful and inexpressibly melancholy, and I couldn't imagine wearing it anywhere but to a funeral. Die-hard goths who love dwelling on the morbid and enjoy roses and earth scents should adore this one.

If I were a little more financially secure right now, Eternal Virgin would have been a no-brainer blind bottle - a variation on my first love Alice with the addition of a favorite spice. Tragically, my skin was having none of it. I can smell in the decant how lovely this must be on others, but it just isn't right on me. Maybe white carnation hits my skin less favorably than red or pink. Maybe the milk note goes a bit off, which has happened with some cream notes. Either way, this was a near-miss on my skin. Sigh.

The Small Brown Cat is predominantly a cedar scent on me, a lovely, soft, sweet, vanilla-cardamom tinged cedar. Cedar domesticated, fuzzy around the edges. It curls up with you and purrs. No throw but decent wear length on me. Love!

The blend Lady Death: Savage reminded me of, which hasn't been mentioned here, is Harper, and when I looked up the notes, there are some in common: the bergamot, vanilla and labdanum. I like both of these blends a lot. I was worried about the bois de jasmine, as jasmine is usually just bad on me, but the note behaved more like wood than jasmine. Wet the citrus dominates on me, then the amber and what seems more like vanilla musk than problematic white musk begin to shine. I'm frankly not sure what some of these notes smell like, but the whole is a lovely thing in that vanilla-pale musk-floral vein the Lab does so beautifully. Unfortunately my skin devours it after a couple of hours, but it is very nice while it lasts.

Paduan Killer Swarm is orgasm-inducing when wet. So, so good. I couldn't remember most of the notes when I put it on; I definitely got the coconut and licorice, which is subtle but definitely there. It's also golden, like honey and amber and tonka. I was surprised by how many spices are listed in the components because I couldn't pick them out at all. This is just a cloud of sweet gorgeousness. No more reviewing -- I just need to lie back and smell my wrist. I only have a tiny amount of this, which breaks my heart.

So, I didn't pay close enough attention to The Moon Goddess's notes when I purchased decants. Wet, she's all vetiver, pine and lemon on me, with a little hay, sharp in a nice outdoorsy kind of way, plus I know those are all notes that are going to soften on me in drydown. Then I went about my business and forgot I was testing a new scent, and a couple hours later I was very puzzled to find that it had transformed into what smelled an awful lot like oud. I was pretty sure there was no oud in the ingredients listed. But it was hiding under one of its aliases: agarwood. I will definitely test this at least once more and pay more attention to the in-between stages, and I may well age the decant for a while to see if the oud settles down and if the leather ever emerges on my skin, but I was disappointed that that agarwood crowded out all those beautiful notes.

I am a little shocked by how much I enjoyed wearing Tricksy yesterday. It went on in a big blast of almost camphorous patchouli, if that's a thing. I'm not reading anything in there as oudh or as honey either, at least at first. I was a little taken by the wet stage but decided I was going to ride with it, with that big bad patchouli vibe, and in about an hour or so, the honey came out and sweetened it up but just slightly, and that is the phase I dig most. It's a dry, woody patch, a dry honey, and I don't honestly know what role the oudh is playing here. I got this hoping it would quench my #occupywallstreet jonesing, but this is a very different animal, not rich and chewy like #ows. But I think I really like it!

Monna Vanna is absolutely lovely. I don't generally wear straight florals; the ambergris, fruit and bourbon vanilla keep it interesting for me, though it is predominantly a rose blend. The violet and lily creep in and make it powdery around the edges after a couple of hours. This is the kind of scent that made me fall in love with BPAL, but my tastes have changed somewhat, towards darker more unisex blends mostly, though I also find myself loving those sugary creamy florals; this is somewhere in the middle. It definitely reads feminine on my Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Monna Vanna, 1866, Tate Gallery

My imp of Satan Summoning His Legions smells like soft leather with cinnamon and cardamom. Yum! But my skin disagrees with this one. Sometimes leather and white musk are fantastic (see: Jareth), but here the white musk turns intermittently soapy on my skin. So it was lovely at first, exactly the kind of fiery soft leather scent I love, and then it went soapy. And then the lovely was back again, but then again the soapy. I think this would be a beautiful gender neutral scent for anyone whose skin doesn't convert white musk into soap.

Yep, that's pumpkin spice snake oil all right. And if you like both those things, how could you go wrong? My imp has had a few months to age now, and it's already great. At first, it's predominantly the foodie pumpkin pie spice on me, but as it dries, the Snake Oil emerges, heavy on the vanilla, and it's just delicious, with excellent throw on me. Sweet, cozy, autumnal (I know, it's June, but it was cold and pouring down rain here today!). The Snake Oil eventually subsumes the baking spices, and 12 hours later I'm left with just the ghost of vanilla, so it doesn't have the crazy 24 hour wear Snake Oil does on me, but this is amazing and probably going to get even better.

I'm so delighted I was able to swap for a partial of Three Gorgons. I love Klimt, I got to see the Beethoven frieze in person last fall, and Beth nailed it for me. Amber always strikes me as old-fashioned, in the best possible way, and I feel like this is something one of Klimt's elegant patrons (or lovers) might have worn. I get soft mandarin, sweet amber, warm tobacco and rich spice -- I would have guessed there was saffron in this, and I would not have guessed there was vetiver. This is the mildest-mannered vetiver I have encountered, so don't be afraid to try this if vetiver is your bugbear. I love amber blends, and this is a beauty. And although I don't get much throw, it does last well on my skin. Gustav Klimt, Beethoven Frieze, detail, 1902. Secession Building, Vienna ETA image since link in first post isn't working for me

I'm not sure what went wrong here, but Partridge in a Pear Tree didn't work for me at all. I am a fan of plum, black musk and sugared citrus, but something in the mix went soapy on me, and after the first hour there was no plum, no black musk and no sugary lemon, just soap. Major skin chemistry fail.

Mouse Circus is adorable! I can see this being gateway BPAL for a preteen. It's pink and fuzzy and sugary and salty -- all kinds of junk food for your nose. I don't get much wood at all, just cotton candy and popcorn -- it really does smell like the midway where they're spinning cotton candy and popping corn and frying up elephants' ears. And even for an adult, it's quite pleasant, though not my everyday kind of scent. It brings a smile to my face and lasts quite well.

I generally don't do aquatics, but Sea of Glass is surprisingly lovely on me. I definitely get citrus -- I sussed that out all on my own -- but taking advantage of the superior discrimination of you all, I can also perceive lily of the valley, which is usually a good note on me. A pretty, summery scent, but not a profound spiritual experience for me.

Weird: I get no patch at all and none of the bitterness I tend to associate with neroli. The amber resin is VERY sweet, as if the crushed herbs were trapped in corn syrup. It's pleasant but not wowing me, and as achildoftime says, I too am relieved not to have fallen in love with another HTF discontinued blend.

Wet, Hemlock is aggressively evergreen on me, with a menthol-eucalyptus-type edge. Really strong, really not my cup of tea. Two hours later I wouldn't have recognized it. Hemlock has softened into an absolutely gorgeous forest skin scent. This stage I could huff all day. I'm just not sure I'm willing to go through the wet phase again to get here, as there are other evergreen scents I adore all the way through.

You had me at chestnut milk.

Quintessence of Dust is primarily beeswax and dust on my skin, with soft leather in the background. The leather and dust notes and the sheer complication of the scent remind me of Adam. I have tried a number of BPAL "library" scents, and they tend to be very faint on me, but while Quintessence is a skin scent on me, I can make out a lot of the notes behind the beeswax. Parchment, a little smoke, a coppery tang that might be bloody tears or metal. This is gorgeous and evocative - definitely not a night on the town scent, much more introspective.

Cafe Mille et Une Nuits is Arabic coffee on me, the kind that's brewed with cardamom. Strong coffee and cardamom (yay!) at first, with the tobacco in the background. The coffee fades after an hour or so and the spices linger, but this is not a long-wearing scent on me. It's a brand new decant, so I'm going to see how that goes with aging. It is beautiful, though!