Lucchesa

I still haven't reviewed this? Of all the new TALs from the pandemic era, this is the one that felt like it was made for me. I love anything with anise in it, and I am all about new beginnings, every single day. This has been a mainstay for more than a year now. It has a wonderfully uplifting rootbeer smell that brings whiffs of happy childhood memories (I would have guessed there was sassafras or sarsaparilla in this), with some depth from the frankincense and other herbs. The bottle is sitting by my computer so I tend to use it a lot while working, mainly just because I enjoy the scent. I would happily wear this as perfume (and have) but it does also have a quality of lightening my load. Sometimes I just take the cap off and inhale deeply.

I got a testable empty of this one from my decanter, and it was surprisingly harsh on me when it hit my skin. ih8perfume is right: this is no tame supermarket honey but something much wilder and more bee-adjacent. And I don't get sweet orange either but something more like a bitter Seville orange, and almost no orange blossom (a note i usually avoid). So this actually ended up working much better on me than I would have guessed either by the notes or the opening. Dark primal honey with a hint of bitter orange. Like many honey scents, Honey, Sweet Orange and Orange Blossom has good staying power on me.

Hmm. A smoky aquatic. This is interesting, and something I wouldn't have chosen for myself (I got decants of the whole series). It does have a fair amount of oakmoss, and it does not turn into cleaning products, probably because of the anchoring smoke. This has excellent staying power on me. I'm not sure when I would choose to wear it, but I'm glad I got to try it.

There are a bunch in the GC that have just this vibe. Villain. Wilde. Whitechapel. Highwayman. Vicomte de Valmont. John Watson. Dorian if you can handle the sweetness. If you like leather, the White, Black and Red Riders (the last doesn't work on me, but I love the other two.) Bow and Crown of Conquest -- leather and carnation. Oh, and Crowley!! Lordy which benefits the ACLU but which some people thinks smells like cucumber. I haven't tried Boney Was a Warrior because jasmine, but it might scratch that itch, too: A fresh, light Napoleonic-era cologne with hints of rosemary, almond, oakmoss, and jasmine. And Kit from OLLA is very dapper in an old fashioned way: Mysore sandalwood, a tattered and patched 16th century waistcoat, inkstained, still scented with the marjoram and benzoin dry perfumes of his youth.

Cinnamon and Leather is lots of leather on me, not much cinnamon. A really, really nice soft brown leather, very cozy, totally unisex, and it lasts a long time. I really like this one.

Captain Cully is squarely in my wheelhouse and does not disappoint. The primary note on me is the soft, worn brown leather I love. It’s warmed by the tonka and made even more outdoorsy by the woods. I’m not sure I’m really picking up the porter — must test again with the notes in mind — but it’s probably contributing a bit of sweetness and warmth and extra coziness. Unisex leaning masculine, and really really nice.

Blossoms are hit or miss on me, but I received The Stream and the Waterfall in a blind bottle swap, and it's lovely. Wet I get a hint of peach or nectarine with gentle pale spring blossoms -- I'm not actually making out the neroli, just the peach and cherry blossoms. But there's a cedar mulch under those blossoming fruit trees. The cedar and dry woody frankincense don't take over; they become the base notes with the blossoms floating over them. The combination of a strong wood note in the cedar with the delicate blossoms doesn't sound like it would work, but it does. I need woods or resins to anchor my florals, and this fits the bill nicely. Not tremendous wear length on me; I had to reapply in about 3 hours.

I am coming to terms with the fact that I like the idea of the tomato leaf note better than I like it on my skin. I want it to be that weird wonderful green tomato leaf note that calls to mind tomato worms, looking for ripe red fruit in a tangle of vines, childhood in California. Like zanzoku_zen, while I can smell tantalizing hints of that, it goes soapy on my skin. I rarely smell the pepper note, so I was expecting hay and tomato leaf, but I'm getting hay and tomato leaf high-end spa soap. Sigh.

Nimue the Blood Queen is a femme fatale. In the imp it's very fruity, but on my skin Nimue is elegant and velvety. Smoky incense and dark fruits, mainly plum, not too sweet. There must be some opium among the poisons, and starbrow's description of a siren in an opium den is dead on. I had no problems with the oudh; it's just a deepening note here. It doesn't last as long as I would like on my middle-aged skin, but it's worth reapplying.

The green lotus is a really interesting note, not as bubblegummy as regular lotus but still sweet and tropical. I'm getting more orris and less Egyptian musk than I was hoping for. A nice summery scent and a hard one to pin down -- not your usual floriental. Wear length is only so-so on me.

Honey Marzipan is exactly as advertised. Lots of honey, and in the opening lots of marzipan too. My skin tends to eat up almond notes while honey lasts and lasts on me, so I expected this to quickly devolve into just honey, but the marzipan sticks around although as a secondary note. Great wear length, and it makes me smile all day long.

I am a sucker for the beeswax scents, and I love evergreens too (though not usually juniper), so Discarded Sandal was a no-brainer. At first I got juniper and pine -- and maybe hinoki, is it a little astringent? -- overlaying the beeswax. But it didn't take long for the beeswax to warm up and take over this scent. I never made out the lily of the valley, which is fine, just the beeswax and the woods, like a meditation space beautifully cared for with beeswax-polished floors in a forest. And it lasted forever -- I can still smell the beeswax on my wrist 24 hours later.

I was interested in Famous Kabuki Actors because of the mix of the goat's milk and honey notes with the masculine woods, tobacco and vetiver. My skin didn't really allow me that experience. It started out all the former, in the vein of Harlequin Milk or Jupiter Nourished, and it stayed foodie for a long time. The darker notes didn't appear until late drydown, by which time the goat's milk was gone, so they just shared the honey. It's nice but more gourmand and less masculine than expected.

I don’t know what milk bread is, but there’s a NYTimes recipe with almost 1500 five star ratings, so I’m going to have to try it. But I enjoyed the Lilith Bread, and this is very much in that vein on me. It is more savory than sweet — neither the star anise nor the amaretto lasted long on me. But I got a lovely buttery yeast bread with a hint of almond and cardamom that lasted for hours. I think if I wore it in a public setting I would make people hungry.

I agree that this is an odd duck. I’m getting that tinge of cucumber that the other reviewers described, which makes this more of a green scent than the shadowy bookish blend the notes led me to suspect. The vetiver is the grassy kind, not the charcoal kind, paired with a gentle frankincense. I’m not making out any oud or patchouli, and I tend to be anosmic to the pepper note. Shadow Pictures faded fairly quickly on me. It’s quite nice but not quite what I was hoping for.

Second review in a row where I find myself in lockstep with @starbrow. This is a stunner from the get-go. Rich dark red musk. Rich dark red fruits. A backdrop of my favorite resins, patch and tobacco. I generally avoid rose but this blackened version is stunning. Terrific throw — I could smell it while masked. Pouting lips painted darkest red, a big velvety red wine, gorgeous in its complexity. Just yes.

Skin chemistry fail. Levitating Phallic God was one of the lupers I was looking forward to most. I am friends with all but the harshest vetiver, and licorice and I are BFFs. This hit my skin like a plastic bag hitting a hot stove. Not just smoky but chemical. Very dry, no licorice, tea or lemon. I didn’t scrub it off as I was headed out. Over the next hour or so it faded significantly into quite a pleasant skin scent. Soft vetiver, with a hint of sweetness that is still not recognizably licorice on me. This I would wear, though it’s faint. But the opening ruins this for me.

I got a testable empty of this from my fab decanter who must have known I would enjoy it. I usually avoid olive blossom as it goes straight to soap on me, but this is lovely. It’s one of those scents that are like how skin would smell in paradise. Lightly honeyed, sheer, effortlessly sexy. Staying power is only average — Judgmental Longhorn on the other wrist far outlasted it. But the low throw and sunny vibe would make it a perfect work scent. No one else needs to know you’re channeling your inner Eve.

CItrus! So much citrus! Blood orange and sweeter tangerine dominate the opening. I never got clove from this one. Or myrrh, that I could tell, which is a shame because I wanted to know what red myrrh smells like. Just lots of citrus on a backdrop of snowy evergreens, with amber coming out in the later drydown. This didn't last particularly long on me. It's very pleasant while it lasts, though.

A Moonlit Winter Landscape is very much a soil scent on me. Gritty and earthy at first, almost a Graveyard Dirt feel on me. Then the florals came through, especially the iris, and it was an evocative musky graveyard with scattered flowers, lovely and haunting. No amber or benzoin until very late drydown. If you like the GC blends VetchVesper mentions, or Graveyard Dirt, this is a must.

Wet, I'm getting a lot of cypress, definitely cool and outdoorsy. I am ever in search of a blackberry scent that doesn't go straight to berry candy on me, and while the descriptor "candied blackberry" worried me, the opening hour or so was very promising, with just a hint of sweet, dark fruit against the musky greenery. Eventually the blackberry does take over, with a candied sweetness that the musk and green notes can't quite hold back. I couldn't smell any tobacco until a couple of hours in, and I think it blends beautifully with these notes. Much more successful than most blackberry scents on me!

Beeswax, Amber, and Star Jasmine is super lovely if jasmine is your thing. I avoid scrupulously avoid jasmine, but star jasmine is usually rather nice on me, and I love beeswax and amber, so this seemed worth a shot. It is all about the jasmine, though. It's not indolic on me, but it is heady, and while there might be a faint sweetening from the beeswax, the amber is drowned out entirely. It has great throw, as jasmine tends to do on me. If you adore jasmine, don't miss this.

I was worried about this one going aquatic — I mean, icebergs — but I do not get soap or dryer sheets. What I get is peach with a bit of apricot. It dries down into an ambered, musky peach, quite reminiscent of the dry down of Fae on me. I was hoping for more of the evergreen notes, but they never really developed, nor did the rose. But if you love peach, this is a must. Good wear length, too.

Wheatstacks on me is peach, hay and rooibos, with some cool white musk balancing out the bright hay. I’m not getting any carnation, sadly, and the wear length on me is not impressive — The Icebergs outlasted it handily. Nice but not a standout on me.

I put on Bensiabel yesterday because of the lilac. I had forgotten how much I enjoy it! It's not really a lilac blend on me; the lilac is there at the beginning but doesn't really stick around. Instead it's soft leather and plum and maybe some hyssop. Plum and leather are a surprisinly good combination. It's never overly sweet but has a kind of rugged comfort vibe to it, totally unisex. A purple witchy leather blend. I've put myself on the waiting list hoping for it to come back into stock.