Lucchesa

This is one of those pale, creamy, sweetened florals that the Lab does so magnificently. And lilac is one of my favorite florals, so I jumped at the chance to get a partial of this (already had a decant). Wet it's honeyed cream and lilac, with maybe the tiniest bit of cardamom around the edges. It doesn't morph a lot on me, and it lasts for a long time. A springtime, daytime, garden party scent, very feminine, light enough to wear to work or anywhere else for that matter. Just ridiculously lovely.

Imp is really musky on me and not very peachy. Golden musk (which seems halfway to red musk) and patchouli are the main components that I smell on drydown, with just a faint hint of peach, and the amber gets lost somewhere on my skin. It's nice, but for white peach I prefer Belle Vinu and Eisheth Zenunim.

I wanted to love Bewitched because I want all the blackberry. It's sweet berry and green tea on wet, and then the sweet dark musk begins to emerge as it dries. I never get much sage. But my skin eats this one up within an hour (as often happens with tea blends, tragically). It's a gorgeous skin scent for a little while and then, poof, gone.

The raw, untamable power of red musk. Red musk, red musk, and a dribble of red musk. Sigh.

Embalming Fluid really does remind me of formaldehyde. I wonder if I would have thought that if it were called "Lovers Drinking Tea at Sunset" or something like that -- it does have a bit of a Shunga feel -- but the association is there and I can't get it out of my head. Bright-tart lemon tea, astringent aloe, high-pitched white musk. This could be a great summer scent if it didn't make me think of, um, embalming fluid.

Djinn is very acrid and smoky on wet, but it strikes me as a red acrid scent where something like Smokestack is a black acrid scent. I don't care for the wet phase, but dry it is wearable, a sharp gingery incense. I'm going to have to test it one more time to see if the drydown is worth living through the wet phase, but if you like interesting and smoky scents, you should definitely try this.

Blue, Bloody Supermoon is a tough one to describe. I was kindly granted a tester by a generous swap partner because I was intrigued (but also intimidated) by the list of notes. Mugwort and I do not have a good track record, and mugwort dominated the opening on me. Mugwort and sage and maybe a little juniper - strong dry herbals when wet, with the sharpness of tobacco possibly playing a role as well; otherwise I couldn't really pick out the tobacco. There's so much going on it's hard to make out individual notes. As it dried it got muskier and sweeter. On me the plum was more of a grounding sweetness than an identifiable plum, and the subtlety of three different musks was lost on me as well. It's complicated and lovely, and I'm so pleased I got to try it, but it's not the sort of scent I gravitate to.

I was given a tester of this by a very generous swap partner - I had been scared off from the bottle when I learned motia attar was jasmine. And Luna Azul is a jasmine-dominated scent for me. It goes on as jasmine, it mellows into jasmine and fruit and deep dark sweet amber. I never get much frankincense. It is a gorgeous jasmine, it behaves beautifully on my skin, it's soft and sexy and I'm sure it's going to age beautifully, but the jasmine is not a minor player in this scent. If you adore jasmine, find yourself a bottle.

This is a really oddball scent. I couldn't even put Brimstone on my skin -- I learned my lesson with Malediction -- and I expected this to be a vetiver-heavy smoke as well. Instead, as so many reviewers have commented, it's dark fruits and florals with a charred undertone. Maybe the coals are cherry-wood? No throw on me (that's normal) but it lasts well. Nicer than I expected from the notes.

I usually don't do anything remotely aquatic, but this was a recent Lab frimp and I was curious. I'm not getting more than the faintest whiff of sulphur, not enough to make it noxious in any stage. Instead, wet, it's green with a big blast of really lush flowers and a lot of sweetness -- carnivorous plants must use nectar and plenty of it to entrap their prey. In drydown a subdued black musk comes into play, really pretty, and it is smokier on the back of my wrist than on the inside. No soapiness on me at all. I am weirdly fascinated by this scent and so glad I got to try it.

Luperci 2014 is definitely on the more masculine side of unisex, but I like it a lot. Wet it's patchouli in a forest dotted with beehives. But as it dries down, the beautiful balsam becomes the primary note on me. (On me it's quite reminiscent of the balsam in Umlaut.) Earthy, outdoorsy, but with a sweetness as well. No throw (which is normal on me) but good wear length.

Abduction of Proserpine starts out being all about the sandalwood and ends up being all about the fruit. It's the blackcurrant from this year's sufganiyot, yum, and a little bit of pom. I think they smell sort of similar, sweet-tart and blood red, anyway, so it's hard for me to pick them apart. Woody but fruity with just a little tartness keeping it from being overly sweet. It lasts quite a long time but is a skin scent on me (which is normal for my skin).

Writing on the Slate is so beautiful on me! I didn't even order a decant -- I guess the chalk and dust put me off, or I didn't see "candles" in all the other Yule glory. But the fabulous Lorizav sent me a decant in the Imbolc swap, and it's everything I was hoping for. Hanerot Halalu was nice but not transcendent on me; there was an unlisted floral that didn't love my skin. But Writing on the Slate is lovely in all its phases. Wet I didn't find it cloying at all; the chalk dust note tempered the sweetness for me. (Those of us old enough to have used chalkboard erasers will remember how they smell.) Dry, it's definitely in the same family as Lights of Men's Lives (one of my top 2-3 GCs) but less smoky, drier. It's a delicate, nostalgic scent but has some throw for the first hour or two and lasts a long time, fading away to a gentle ghost of beeswax. Love!

My Al-Shairan is a well-aged imp with amber-colored oil. At first it's all sweetness and spice; I can't make out the fruit. As it dries down, the almost overbearing sweetness recedes, replaced by peach and orange peel; it smells kind of like one of those pomander balls at this point. An hour or so in it's a spicy incense blend. I've been on a clove kick lately, but this is primarily cinnamon. It does not, however, seem to irritate my skin. A nice holiday scent, but I don't need more than the imp.

Disastrous Twilight is really beautiful all the way through. It's a mysterious floral at first, the ylang ylang the most prominent note when wet but seamlessly blending with all the other notes. And I'm not experienced enough to know what makes it blue amber or Somalian myrrh or gurjum balsam but it is hugely evocative and pretty. The scent is light on me and has no throw; five hours later it is just a soft myrrh. I wore this to see The Shape of Water and it fit the mood of the film really well. This didn't appeal to me when the eclipses were live, but I like it a lot.

Hmm, weird. I'm not getting any ginger at all. My skin must just obliterate it. (Wouldn't be the first time.) Wet, it's all patch - and this is a darker oil so be careful of potential staining. On drydown, it's Hunger grounded with some nice woody but not gnarly patchouli. I love Hunger, and Vixen, like Hunger, lasts a long time on me. Yay! If you like Hunger and are on friendly terms with patchouli, this ought to be a slam dunk.

White sandalwood may be the primary listed note, but it is utterly defeated by the florals. Lavender and gardenia are strongest on me wet, then the lilac and violet come out to play, reminding me that violet rarely works with my chemistry. After 30 minutes it starts to calm down, but these are some pretty potent white and purple flowers. Lovely if that's your thing. Not for the florally faint of heart.

I thought for sure that if this wasn't going to work on me, it was going to be because of the red musk, but despite being the first listed ingredient, nothing like blood red musk shows up on my skin. I get a lot of mandarin and tangerine and a lot of what I'm guessing is Chinese geranium, and the latter is going soapy on me, so what I end up with is a high-end citrus soap. It would be a fantastic soap for waking up in the morning, but it's not working so well as a perfume.

A pure floral is something I rarely find myself reaching for, but I like gardenia so I thought I'd give it a whirl. The gardenia is lovely here -- really, the whole thing is lovely, an old-fashioned floral our great-grandmothers might have worn to church. If white florals are your jam, you can hardly go wrong here.

This is mostly a spice scent on me. Wet, it's sweet coffee and spices and a little rum, but it is never over-the-top boozy; instead as it dries the rum becomes a grounding note and even the coffee takes a backseat to the spice blend. I get a lot of cardamom, which I love. My skin did not react to this at all. This is a very enjoyable spicy warm scent for the colder months, but I love it less than Irish Coffee Buttercream, which I'm running low on, so while I'm glad I got to try this, I will be buying more ICB.

This perfume embodies her gentler, benign aspect as the capricious Goddess of Dance: muguet and Hawaiian white ginger enveloped by warm, damp tropical blooms. Is Hawaiian white ginger a flower? Because all I get here are florals. Lovely, carefree, tropical flowers, nothing that resembles ginger root to my nose. And just as I never lie on a beach with a tropical drink in one hand and the latest James Patterson novel in the other, I will never wear this scent. I appreciate its beauty, but it is so not me.

I didn't review Eostre of the Dawn before swapping away my decant recently, but I did retest it and update my notes. Eostre is pretty -- really, really pretty -- and when I first received my decant from a circle late last summer, I toyed with the idea of buying a bottle. I get creamy sweet skin musk and pale florals, and while honeysuckle is almost always good on me, jasmine is the three faces of Eve. Here she's a kind and compliant Eve, and this scent is a radiant springtime day. If jasmine is iffy on you but the rest of the notes sound like heaven, it really is worthwhile taking a chance on this blend. On me, the jasmine linked arms with the honeysuckle and did not misbehave at all. As beautiful as Eostre is, I don't really wear these lovely spring florals. Maybe because I live in Seattle, and our seasons were described in yesterday's newspaper as "Summer, Autumn, Winter and Disappointment." But if you're dreaming of spring, Eostre will transport you right there.

I just acquired a bottle of Longing from a lovely forumite. I hadn't read the reviews; the notes just sounded so lovely. Bear in mind that this is now a decade-old bottle, and my nose is not at 100% due to a cold, but I'm getting very little cinnamon in the bottle and none on my skin. Also no skin sensitivity, which I have gotten from bay rum (that would be you, Baron Samedi) in the past. Wet, the primary note is bay rum, making this a more masculine blend than I had expected. Rose geranium can be screechy on me, but the rum and the golden musk are keeping everything in a lower register, a kind of warm baritone. If I try, I can pick out the frankincense and rosewood, but everything is beautifully melded and mellowed into a warmth and depth and comfort. On the unisex continuum, it is definitely veering toward the masculine, but still something a confident woman can pull off with aplomb. I'm delighted to have it.

Yellow cat pee honey.

The Bride is absolutely stunning, and I'm so fortunate to have been frimped this by an incredibly generous seller. These sugary pale florals (I have Reflected Vulva on the other wrist) aren't really "me," but they're so gorgeous. And how Beth makes them both ethereal and lasting is beyond me. Honey musk is a glorious thing, as is vanilla chiffon, and they back up the magnolia so lushly. Off to just smell my wrists and swoon.