Lucchesa

This starts out strong with lavender and motor oil.  Lavender never lasts on me, and sure enough it's mostly gone within half an hour or so, while the black leather takes its place.  There also seems to be a green note here, but it's mainly motor oil and leather with a little woods, very unisex.  It wears close to the skin but for a long time. 

Cool snow and smoky incense.  I'm not getting any frankincense specifically.  Ice, stone, smoke.  It's really evocative and perfect for the painting, but for me would be better as an atmo than a perfume.  

A Chocolate Cat is very sweet on me, with honeyed cacao as its most prominent component.  It sits at the cusp between gourmand and dark resins, or as if traditional perfume notes have been gourmandized -- toasted amber, carmelized musk.  This is a territory I quite like, and the honey gives this great staying power on me.  The one disappointment here is the vetiver, which is too well-behaved for my liking.  I think this may age into a 2S&2G type drydown where the sweet vetiver dominates, but for now it's overpowered by the honey. 

8/13 update: My first slonk of A Chocolate Cat flew out of my hands and I couldn't figure out where it had gone until I found it resting upside down in the folds of my scarf.  My scarf still smells amazing.  Fortunately, @Teamama gifted me another one, which is not nearly so sweet - the vetiver is indeed coming into its own, the honey is more flavoring than sweetness.  This is aging beautifully. 

I'm not sure I've ever tried Vial of Holy Water before -- I just filed it with my RPG scents.  It's surprisingly nice on me, just flirting with dryer sheet territory.  It reminds me of the water dispensers in fancy places with cucumber slices and citrus slices floating among the ice cubes.  Soft, white and cool and lasting surprisingly well.  

OK, I just need to stop buying anything with the word "cream" in the descriptor.  It's going to go sour milk on my skin, and all the beauties of bourbon vanilla and red patchouli, which this scent starts out with, can't save it. 

Pontifex Pontificum is mostly verbena and neroli on me.  I'm not getting the rose, which I wasn't hoping for anyway, and just a bit of frankincense anchoring it.  But mainly lemony verbena and orange blossom.  Bright and summery and upbeat. 

I can't wear nag champa.  It almost turns my stomach.  Champaca can be just as bad, though not always.  So I would never have tried this had it not been generously gifted to me in a swap this autumn with a bunch of other wonderful DL blends.  Funny thing, though -- I can't smell any nag champa in the decant.  Is golden champa a whole different thing?  I get the dead leaves and a bright tartness that's not specifically blackcurrant.  I tested this a couple hours before bedtime and need to try it again for wear length and drydown but my initial impression is very positive.  

OK, this is bizarre.  PSL hits me as a blast of red musk.  Are my decants mislabeled?  No, my Pumpkinville is definitely not a snake.  In no other snake oil blend I have tried has red musk come out swinging like this.  I get a little coffee, a hint of spice, and RED MUSK.  After about an hour I can start to suss out the general contours of snake oil though with hardly any vanilla or sweetness.  Weird.  I wonder if this is the Crowley experience @theredkilt is describing.  

I was hoping for a kissing cousin to DL & Scotch from a couple years back.  No such luck.  Here the DL are much less prominent, so that Dead Leaves, Roasted Almonds and Bourbon Cream is foodier than the DL & Molasses Pumpkin Cookie on my other wrist, surprisingly. Kind of a bourbon and almond flavored dessert vibe.  Unless the leaves kick it up a notch, this one won't be a keeper for me.  

In the slonk, i mostly smell the dead leaves portion of Dead Leaves and Molasses Pumpkin Cookies, but once I apply it the two substances battle it out so that I get one and then the other sequentially.  The cookies seem to have lemon peel -- they're brighter than I expected and less obviously pumpkiny.  This ends up a lovely balance of the autumn leaves and the molasses cookie.  Really nice.  

I keep wearing Woman at the Edge of the Woods and forgetting to review it.  It is definitely brambles.  Patchouli, woods, thorns, ivy, witchy herbs, maybe a touch of soil still attached to those mandrake roots.  (I have no clue what mandrake smells like.)  I adored this the first couple times I wore it, and I still love when it's wet -- I'm a sucker for patchouli, forest scents, sage.  I put it on my bottle list.  But the last time I wore it, the rose thorns took over and a rose note dominated, which some people might appreciate, but not me.  I will keep trying as I decide whether or not I need a bottle. 

Pyramid of Skulls might have some grey sandalwood -- I tested it alongside Innocent Souls Turned Carrion Birds, and there are definitely similarities in the two scents, which are both beautiful and restrained.  The tobacco is quite light on me.  But neither seems to have the staying power I was hoping for.   I'll keep the decant around to see if it gets any stronger with some aging. 

H&E 2021.  This was given to me and was never likely to work.  I love mallow flower and often gardenia, but I avoid violet whenever possible.  And this is pretty much all rose and violet on me.  Any frankincense is very subtle.  The gardenia and mallow are overpowered by the rose and violet.  If floofy old fashioned florals are your thing, you should love this.  ETA that it's pretty darned strong on me. 

I tested ISTCB blind and thought, I'm not sure what's in here, but definitely labdanum, that lovely cola labdanum.  It may be my first experience of both grey musk and grey sandalwood.  It's a lovely scent, kind of pearly, but it didn't last long on me. I'm going to keep the decant to see if it develops more longevity with age, but I fear this one may be too ethereal for me.  

Pumpkinville!  Probably the closest I will ever get to the storied rare.  This is very nice, a warm pumpkin-y red musk, which has surprisingly little throw on me. It lasts all day as a skin scent. The spices are subdued; this isn't foodie after the first few minutes.  Reading the other reviews, I acknowledge that there may be some well-behaved creamy jasmine in there.  Hmm.  

I was generously frimped this, and while I don't usually favor the chilly scents, I like it much better than expected.  Lavender is always fugitive on me, so I get it only at first, with lots of tart juicy lemon.  This does not go Lemon Pledge on me.  In fact, it's closer to lemon sticky bat, and it had pretty good lasting power on me for a citrus-forward blend.  I think this would be a great sundress scent.  

This bottle of Black Silk is well aged and very smooth, as the name implies -- it feels like cognac, though that's not one of the components.  I get the tobacco, patchouli, and benzoin, but it's all hard to parse out, it has really melded together.  It's elegant and not as dark as the name or ingredient list might suggest.  It's not quite as strong or long-lasting on me as I would hope, either. 

Dark Lace is really complex and beautiful, with lots of lovely musky tobacco at first.  I get some rich cognac as well, some sweetnes that is not identifiable to me as vanilla cotton candy, and some of the darker earthy notes creeping in.  I have no experience with Black Lace to compare with. But it is not at all long lasting on me, and all that persists is the incense.  I feel like I should probably let this go to someone whose skin chemistry lets it shine better and longer. 

Also Sam from American Gods is patchouli, nag champa, and freshly soaped skin.  

I can't wear nag champa so I haven't actually tried it, but the notes you want are there.  But a lot of the reviews say it's more soap than the other notes.  

There was this Dead Leaves from 2016: Dead Leaves, Honeyed Patchouli, and Champaca Blossom 

And from last year's Lupers, To My Dear and Loving Husband, bourbon vanilla, 17-year aged patchouli, champaca blossom, copal, black tea, frankincense, and agarwood.  But Urd is probably the easiest of the lot to get ahold of.  

Hazelnut is one of my very favorite notes, and I love this so much.  Lots of toasty hazelnut, a little gritty cacao (this is not Nutella on me), some warm tonka.  The pine isn't obvious at first but keeps it from being totally foodie.  So it's kind of an outdoorsy warm roasted hazelnut with an edge of very dark chocolate.  It's a huge comfort scent for me and lasts all day, though any throw is confined to the first hour or two.  Love!

A kind forum friend gave me an Emathides partial, not something I would necessarily have chosen as some of the floral notes can be problematic.  This bottle is now about 15 years old, and any rough edges, any screeching voices or horny beaks, have long been mellowed away.  It's hard to identify specific notes here.  Some amber, yes, and some dark fruit, and something darkly floral, though no specific floral notes are recognizable to me, not even the rose.  It's not about the parts anymore.  It's about a deep, purply, velvety, femme fatale whole that seems very classic BPAL to me.  

I received this from a very generous forumite in a blind bottle swap.  It is all my beloveds — and tuberose. Tuberose and I do not get along. I knew there was a reason I hadn’t sought out a decant. But I couldn’t and still can’t find the tuberose in Night. Nor do I specifically find the cacao.  It’s all inky vetiver and tobacco and dark velvet resins, with the florals kind of non-specifically floating around. It does have great throw, which may be the fault of the tuberose — notes I’m uncomfortable with often have huge throw on me. But it smells terrific. 

I let my decant rest at least 18 hours before putting Sugar Cookie Snake Oil on today.  Applied about 9 am, it's hard to make out at 6 pm, but I've not found any of the snake variants to have the staying power of the GC.  It's a nice foodie snake, sugar and baked goods and musky snake oil.  I'm not getting the spiciness other reviewers have commented on.  This isn't a snickerdoodle snake oil (please, next year?).  I enjoyed wearing this on a long car ride with my daughter to an anxiety-provoking medical appointment for her.  But I don't wear enough gourmands to need a full bottle.  

Auriga opens as lemon amber on me.  It's an appealing combination.  The oakmoss is the next element I can pick out, and with the amber it gives me something earthy as the lemon fades away.  The patchouli and vetiver stay well in the background, though, and this is never as dark as I would like.  It's quite soft on me, with low throw and medium wear length.  A nice earthy oakmoss blend and good for folks who dislike any sweetness in their scents.  

In the bottle, The Avenue smells quite a bit like Dia de los Reyes, one of my favorite chocolate scents.  On my skin, though, the cocoa moves to the background, the clove bud takes center stage, and the whole is wonderfully spicy, warm, and delightful.  There's a little smoke, a little amber, a lovely vanilla, a peppery quality (I am often anosmic to the Lab's pepper note), and a lot of clove. It's cozy and sexy and uplifting, perfect for this dreary rainy day.