Lucchesa

Wet, Venus Libitina was all about the cherry on me, a big round cherry slightly reminiscent of Chokecherry Honey but not as sweet. Within 20 minutes the rosewater took over and it became a creamy rose scent. Rosewater tends to work better on my skin than almost any rose note, and that holds true here. The rose does threaten to go sour, but the lingering cherry and bourbon notes hold it back. Still, it has become a rose blend; I liked the wet phase better. Then, about 90 minutes in, Venus Libitina truly becomes a thing of beauty. The rosewater reins it in and all the notes are present in equilibrium, even the orris, which I worried about, but which is perfect here. Whereas I very rarely get throw from any scent, I get wafts of the almost foody aspect of VL from a few inches away. Creamy sugary rosy deliciousness. Just lovely!

Sweet Alyssum SN was generously frimped to me. I love single notes to educate my nose, but sweet alyssum is one flower I'm very familiar with, as every yard in suburban Sacramento in the 1970s had some in its border, so at a certain time of year there was a cloud of alyssum scent everywhere. It's a really unique fragrance, sweet but a little dusty, hard to describe. And Sweet Alyssum SN does not smell at all like my recollections of the flower when it hits my skin. I can't quite articulate where it goes wrong, and now I need to go to the nursery to refresh my nose, but the SN is a strong perfumy floral on me that just doesn't capture how I remember the flowers smelling. It's much nicer about 90 minutes in (and I am not a lover of pure florals, for whom it would likely be gorgeous all the way through), but it's not what I was hoping for.

I often reach for Belle Epoque when I'm teaching that period; I'm surprised I've never reviewed it. I remembered it being a red sandalwood and vanilla scent, but today it was all about the mandarin, so it may be one of those blends whose presentation varies a lot due to weather, skin chemistry, etc. Bright, sharp mandarin supported by sandalwood and slightly smoky opium; I didn't get much vanilla or lily today, though after a couple of hours a faint soapiness crept in that I think is due to lily of the valley. Belle Epoque is my all purpose circa 1900 scent. I love the earlier reviews suggesting that this is the scent the spirited woman with great shoes of 110 years ago might have worn. I am always happy to wear it and feel like I'm back in the day of Toulouse-Lautrec.

I have a well-aged imp of Vasilissa today that I wore because I wanted a floral and couldn't remember what it smelled like. Freaking gorgeous, is what it smells like. I can't generally do jasmine, but star jasmine seems to be just fine (plus there was a fence covered with star jasmine in my backyard growing up so I have positive scent memories associated with it, despite the wasps). There's sweet, gently musky sandalwood and I would have guessed a drop of vanilla as well. This could be a Luper -- it's one of those beautiful soft creamy florals Beth does so well. And it's GC! It was nearly gone in about four hours, but it's so pretty it's absolutely worth slathering and reapplying. I need to buy a bottle and cellar it for a couple years.

I was frimped a decant of The Air and the Ether, and I am enjoying it a surprising amount. I would never have purchased it because I avoid scents described as ethereal or "almost imperceptible" -- they just don't show up on my skin, and if they do, they last about 12 minutes. I blind tested this, and the only component I could identify was the lavender. I would have guessed there was vanilla in here, or a sugary ingredient of some kind. I guess the sweetness comes from the amber, which was obvious once I knew it was there. The ambergris emerges more on drydown, and the lavender doesn't disappear the way it usually does on me but stays suspended in the mix, a mix which lasts longer than I expected from the description and the ingredients. This is just full of lovely.

Lavender is usually a fugitive note on me, so while Lavender Lace goes on in a blast of lavender, tempered with a grassy green note, it doesn't last very long. The smoke note emerges quickly then twines around a chewy sweet tobacco with a backdrop of bourbon vanilla; the smoke keeps everything from going too sweet. The only lace I've been lucky enough to try was Krampus, so I don't have a good grasp on the "lace" concept. This is lovely but has very little to do with lavender once it hits my skin. And it doesn't seem as though the rest of the notes are going to last very long, either. Stupid middle-aged skin.

Frumious Bandersnatch is subdued plum and subdued musk and subdued spicy carnation. It’s pleasant and these are all notes I enjoy, and it lasts quite a long time, but it is too understated on my skin for me to be interested in chasing down more.

White musk rarely works for me. Red musk rarely works for me. I didn’t have particularly high expectations for this blend. But somehow the red musk cancels out the screechiness of the white, and the white musk prevents the red from taking over, and this is one of the most gorgeous musk experiences I’ve ever had. Strawberry leaf is subtly sweet and berry-like whereas strawberry can be much too sweet on me — I’ll have to look for this note in future. The grapefruit is just a hint of zesty citrus. I am actually a bit shocked by how much I am enjoying Mania.

A Measurement of the Soul is really beautiful. It smells clean and righteous. I know that's a weird thing to say about a perfume, but that's where my brain goes with this one -- strong and upright. I feel like environmentalists of any gender could wear this while proudly battling the oil companies over land rights. It's mostly sage and cedar on me, grounded by the earthy fig - the wild variety must be less sweet than the cultivated, because this is only faintly sweet. If ti leaf is a tea note, it's swallowed by my skin like all its cousins. But I love this. It's quiet, but knowing it was there would give me a little extra backbone.

A Thought from Propertius is bizarre on me. I don't know what it smells like, but it's not honey and apricot with a dash of cayenne. Oh, I'm getting the cayenne, a kind of kick to the back of my sinuses more than a smell. But the honey-apricot combo goes weird on my skin. I have had honey do this in the past, I just can't remember which blend, though usually BPAL honey is really good on me. I had to pull out my bottle of L'Agonie to remind myself how much I can enjoy an apricot-honey blend. After a couple of hours it gets less cloying, but this one clearly is not going to work on my skin chemistry. Pass.

Chintamani-Dhupa (2013) is very pleasant sweet, fruity sandalwood incense on me. I'm not really getting any pine notes. It has no throw and only lasts about three hours on my middle-aged skin. I'm tempted to keep the imp because it truly is lovely, though I'm not sure how much I will wear it. It might be a good blend for wearing to yoga.

Chuparosa is an absolutely gorgeous pink color in the imp. Wet on my skin, it smelled like dragon's blood and rosewater to me, maybe honeysuckle and guava, lovely. Then a few minutes later I decided I hadn't put enough on because I could barely smell it anymore. I reapplied, but again my skin just drank this one up. Super sad face, but it's going to swaps.

And again, I am the beneficiary of Aveya's swapbox! 2018 version. I agree that there is a real fruitiness to this scent, like a rum-infused fruit cocktail, or like some kind of fruity Bacardi cooler for people who don't actually like the taste of rum. The fruity rum is the main player on my skin, with leather backing it up and just a faint grounding of patchouli, nothing to scare off patchouliphobes, barely there on me at all. It's kind of simple on my skin, as I'm guessing Ian is a fairly simple character (I know, I know, I'll netflix it one of these days). I'm going to hang on to the decant for a few months to see if Ian develops any more depth, but for now it's in like but not love territory. ETA OK, I reviewed this too soon. Three hours in, the patch has taken over as the dominant note. There are still slightly fruity rum and leather notes present, faintly, but the patch presides. I can't wait to see how this one ages.

Almost every note in Hal is pretty surefire on me, the huge exception being the last one: jasmine. And when I opened the imp, jasmine was all I could smell. Someone once described Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings as one long, loud blast of sex; Hal was one long, loud blast of jasmine. I gritted my teeth and applied it to my wrist. And, sure enough, jasmine. But - wait - this is the good jasmine. The well-behaved, non-indolic jasmine. The jasmine that shows up maybe 8 percent of the time and that I can actually wear, though I rarely choose to do so. Still, the "good" jasmine was stomping all over all the other lovely notes. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Okay, I could smell the honey, though not that it was particularly blackened. After about 45 minutes, as the long loud blast began to wane, I could begin to make out the bourbon vanilla. Maybe a hint of hinoki wood and hay, though I can't make out the ambrette and strangely the cedar seems to be absent on me. I'm sure the subtleties will continue to emerge with time, and perhaps with aging, but the heavy jasmine of the opening is probably too much for me.

I got frimped a tester of this a while ago, and yesterday evening decided it was what I wanted to wear to visit my mother-in-law in the hospital (where, as it turned out, there were signs asking people not to wear any fragrance, but it was a little too late to comply). So I blew through my tester, and oh my, that stuff is fabulous! And I could still smell it distinctly in the crook of my elbows this morning. I've never tried Snow White because the scent description does not sound promising at all, but based on my experiences with Cotton Phoenix and Frostbitten Dorian, Sin and now SO, it's gorgeous on me. Soft and marshmallowy, just delicious! And in combination with Snake Oil -- well, let's just say a fairy godmother waves her wand over Snow White and her smutty friend, and all of a sudden Snow and Snake are dressed up in, respectively, very flattering white and black fur-trimmed snowsuits (Snow White's has fake fur, of course), flinging snowballs with abandon at some cute guys in a snow fort. Very feminine, playfully sexy but not worship-me-on-your-knees sexy. Love!

I nearly blind-bottled this on Etsy but went for a decant instead. I wouldn't have been unhappy if I had bought a bottle. It's a lovely, creamy fig foody. In fact, it would make a fantastic winter dessert; I should play with a recipe in a few months. I adore cardamom, and the whisky holds it all together in a fairly unobtrusive way. If the throw and wear length were a little better on me, I might already have ordered that bottle. As it is, I'm going to wait to compare with Eternal Virgin and see which works better on me.

This is clean but not soapy, with the dry frank cutting the sweetness of the vanilla, and I can see where it would be lovely for layering, but I hardly ever layer. I feel like I am still learning the various permutations of all the notes and getting a sense of the blends the way the Lab created them, and layering would just muddy the waters for me. This is a skin scent on me, and I might wear this, like Neutral, in a situation where it was not completely appropriate to be wearing perfume but where I might want subliminally to project an aura of clean-cut, bright, efficient confidence.

Spoilered for a sad and probably heretical admission: I only bought a decant of Adam. This was a mistake. Adam is eau d'intellectuel chaud. Gentle, inviting, drop-dead sexy, but in a cerebral way, not a primal way, if that makes any sense. Soft leather you want to bury your face into. A hint of cologne applied hours earlier. That wonderful rosin note that has me thinking I need at least a decant of The Mountebank. Sandalwood, ambergris, dusty wool, they all float around the edges of this scent. I'm not getting any obviously plastic notes, which I'm grateful for. Perfectly unisex, perfectly beautiful. Brilliant.

Round Dance is lovely, sunshiny, candy-sweet, and awfully innocent for a Luper. I get recognizable lavender only when it's wet, and the carnation is subtle, not the big spicy carnation of, say, Alice or Maiden, but I'm not a big floral fan (though I love spicy carnation) so that's just fine by me. The amber is warm and creamy; the strawberry is more candy than a realistic berry note. The only reason I'm not currently searching the sales page for a bottle of this is that the cream note, as occasionally happens, goes just slightly off on my skin. Not enough to ruin the scent, but enough to bar it from perfection. This scent conjures up young women in calico sundresses frolicking at the county fair of 1920 or earlier. No tilt-a-whirl, just wildflowers and sunshine, jams and pies and prize heifers.

Wet, Black Lotus is all that bubblegummy sweetness of lotus on my skin. It takes about 30 minutes for the lotus to settle the hell down enough for the other notes, all favorites of mine, to start peering in around the edges. The late drydown is lovely, that teenybopper sweetness floating over velvety myrrh and fragrant amber and sandalwood, but there is no reason for me to suffer through the opening again when I can just wear Bastet, which I adore, in which the myrrh and amber are prominent and the lotus is the very last ingredient and knows its place.

I don't do violet. Or orris or mint, generally, for that matter. But I love opoponax. And Brusque Violet has been described as violet for people who don't do violet, and it's Mad Tea Party, and I was curious. What can I say? It's violet. Dusty maiden-aunt violet, with a bit of mint in the background. I'm not really sure what role the opoponax is playing here; I can't ferret it out. This may be for some people who can't do violet, but it's not for all people who can't do violet.

The Lab's wine note often becomes straight-up grape juice on my skin, which is the case with Nosferatu. In fact, in this case it turns so sweet on my skin that I am reminded of apple -- it's like the sparkling apple-grape juice the kids drink at a seder. Eventually the sweet fruitiness calms down enough for me to appreciate the lovely dirt and some darker herbal notes, but I can't get past the initial blast of fruit.

Sugared carnation is one of those notes that make me want to dance around all day humming happy little tunes, and Pink Moon does not disappoint. Sure, there must be some phlox in here, but the smell goes straight to the sugared carnation pleasure center in my brain and lights up all the pretty lights. Sunshine! Flowers! Swirly skirts! Bluebirds! Cotton candy! If you like spicy, sugary carnation, it's hard to see where this could go wrong.

Tomoe Gozen is mainly a honey and amber skin scent on me, with a little red currant appearing as it dries down. I never smell pink pepper, so I wasn't expecting to here, but I was hoping for some blackberry. So, a lovely slightly fruity honeyed amber, but nothing out of the ordinary on my skin.

White musk is almost never good with my skin chemistry. Kuang Shi is mandarin-scented soap on me. There's a Seventh Generation or Method laundry detergent that smells exactly like this does on my skin. Oh well, at least I didn't fall in love with a hard to find DC!