Lucchesa

You're not on my list, @neptuneanblues, but if @twilighteyes sends me your address, I'll send you a card!

I love patchouli but don't get a lot of it in Brood X.  It's more about the earth and roots.  Despite the sugarcane and hazelnut, this is not at all foodie on me -- it's the wild notes before they've been domesticated into comestibles.  The dark soil and woods notes are balanced by the warm amber and hay, and the whole is lovely, a green witch kind of scent. 

These are not my notes, but Yeats.  This is obviously a well-aged decant.  I don't get any autumn leaves at all, just soft green aquatic notes, powdery orris and a hint of lily of the valley.  After three or four hours it's barely perceptible but very beautiful.  Glad I got to experience it. 

Cocoa at first, but that gradually softens into a sweeter chocolate against all the honey and sugar.  I think one of the honeys must be an orange blossom one because I get a fairly strong chocolate orange vibe from this 13.  The vanilla isn't strong, mainly chocolate and honey, with the delicate floral notes different honeys can carry, and the orange.  Lovely!

And these from @winterblizzard, @bookworm, @twilighteyes and @skyelyric awaited me on my return home!

So fantastic!!! I’m especially impressed that some of you made cards — they’re amazing! Thank you for all the birthday greetings!!! This swap is so fun!

Toe is improving! It did not need surgery, so I was able to hang out on my uncle’s sailboat and do nothing for three days. 
 

These cards from @Thuy and @lorizav arrived before I left for my vacation. 
Thank you!!! I love them!!!

I got two gorgeous birthday cards yesterday! From @mymymai and @Psuke! This has not been one of my better weeks — I broke my big toe Monday night, still had intense work stuff that needed completing, and couldn’t get an orthopedic appointment until Monday to find out if they want to pin it or not, so I’m in demoralized limbo until then. The cards really made my day!!!!!  Thank you!!!!

I love the title of this scent, and I nearly love it, but the silvered musk makes it a near miss for me. It goes on as a marvelous spicy evergreen and sage, lots of lovely clove with peppercorn even I can perceive, but then the musk wraps all around it, and it's a close relative of white musk, which tends to be high-pitched on me, and it's not that it's bad, but it's no longer the kind of scent I love to wear. 

On 5/3/2023 at 4:19 AM, Thuy said:

This month is a lull... Anyone just want to get something fun in the mail?

Of course!

I love this and my usually indifferent spouse likes it too. Spicy and deep with some sweetness from the resin. Rich and dark and I’m going to echo elissamay on this one, sexy. Good wear length on me, too. 

Stupid skin chemistry.  Wet, Einzelne Hauser is frankly unpleasant, medicinal, like liniment.  Red musk very occasionally presents this way on me, and I think it's also interacting badly with the charred sandalwood.  After about 40 minutes it's bearable, and eventually it becomes a pleasant dry blend of smoky sandalwood, red musk and pitch, but it's not worth the time to get there when I have so many other scents that work beautifully from the get-go.  I WISH I could "find myself radiating a cloud of smooth, sweet, musky, woodsy, pitchy wonderfulness" like MamaMoth and elissamay!

I was lucky enough to receive a decant of Mr. Jacquel in a recent circular swap and I love it!  It smells very classic BPAL to me, which means it's heavy on the amber with other stuff I can't quite recognize.  The patchouli and hyssop are quite understated on me; it's really about the amber and whatever the embalming spices might be. 

Lilac is one of the only florals I enjoy, and testing blind I got lots and lots of lilac.  No leather or frankincense; instead, this becomes something more like a creamy poofy pink lilac, with lace-like vanilla; this part lasted for ages, even overnight.  Lovely!

Schrodinger's Checkmark is that gorgeous black patch the lab is so good at sweetened by floofy vanilla marshmallow.  I'm not able to individuate the benzoin.  The throw is low on me, but the wear length is good, going on seven hours at the moment.  This is the sweeter, foodier cousin of You May House Their Bodies -- I think it's the same patchouli.  And I love them both dearly. 

Mine will be late — I didn’t mail until Saturday. I’m sorry! I’m not rocking this swap. 

I tested this blind. Berry candy. Sweet tarts. Bright red fruit. Not my kind of scent at all — I couldn’t imagine why I’d ordered the decant. Later I checked the notes. Oh. Some of my favorites. Tobacco, carnation, labdanum. And it was the raspberry oud that had me intrigued. But on my skin? Raspberry single note. Sigh. 

I love White Rider and was realty looking forward to the leather and sandalwood cutting the sweetness of Snow White. But at first, I got about 95% Snow White. My disappointment did not last long though. Over the wear length, which was about four hours on me, which is not bad for my skin, the balance gradually shifted towards the more masculine elements of White Rider. There is a perfect yin yang moment somewhere in the middle where the sweet vanilla snow and the leather and sandalwood are utterly in balance, but there are a lot of wonderful points before and after that as well. Late dry down is a faintly vanilla frosted White Rider. I love this one!

I should have ordered more of this. I don’t think I need a whole bottle, but more than a decant would be nice. My father was a middle school woodshop teacher, so these kinds of scents are very nostalgic for me. It starts off newly planed bird’s eye maple and machine oil — this is Robotic Scarab’s wooden cousin. The rust and smoke notes are very gentle on me. It dries down into mainly wood and sap. I love this!

Carved Wooden Cultist Lair turns into single note incense on my skin. I wish I got starbrow’s beeswax. Or z_z’s woodsy dark musk.  It’s the exact same incense as in certain other BPALs my brain is refusing to name. It’s nice, especially about an hour in, but my skin has obliterated its complexities. 

Spumoni is my 2022 foodie. I ate lots of spumoni as a child. Chocolate, cherry, pistachio. In a perfume.  Perfect. 

When Burn Pile first hit my skin, it was so blackly smoky that I thought I would reserve it for ritual use. It would have been perfect for the shredded text messages my best friend and I sent up in flames after the guy I who’d been leading her on for weeks showed his true colors. But an hour or so after application, it has dried down into something quite lovely, with the across edges smoothed away. Dark smoky resin, very atmospheric. Would pair well with smudged black eyeliner. 

The cranberry note here surprised me. I was expecting Ocean Spray juice or Craisins— in other words, highly sweetened, almost candied cranberry. Which is why I only ordered one cranberry bog decant. Like actual cranberries, however, CHS&PR is not at all sweet. The cranberry is earthy and tart and dominates the opening. After a while I get the sandalwood too, also not appreciably sweetened by the honey. Like a sprinkling of honey dust. Very little patch on me at this point, but I’ll keep this decant because the cranberry-sandalwood combination is like nothing else I own and is really appealing. 

I wore This Is the Day on my way to meet an old friend this morning.  It is absolutely lovely.  Without looking at the notes, I thought there must be labdanum in here, as there's something of its slightly spicy sweetness, but that's probably the actual (but not overwhelming) spices from the figgy pudding.  Lots of fig and vanilla, non-gnarly patchouli, and no appreciable smoke or vetiver on me.  I only got about four hours wear length from it, but it's worth reapplying. 

I was lucky enough to receive a decant of this in a circular swap, and I believe it may be a very well-aged decant.  On me, it's mostly frankincense, with myrrh and labdanum playing backup resins.  This is a treat for frankincense lovers.  I don't get any leather and only a faint trace of wood.  Perhaps the leather is more apparent when it's fresh.  I'm delighted to have tried it, but I think my decant will suffice. 

Have I never reviewed Goblin?  It's the closest the GC comes to a single-note patchouli.  Gnarly?  Maybe.  Rich and beautiful, yes, and sweetened and softened slightly by the benzoin and the black coconut, which reads more like coconut husk on me.  A joy for patch lovers.