Beary Strange

On me this is a clean, sweet amber-esque musk accompanied by a lactonic-edged Oreo-filling. The clean amber smell I'm picking up reminds me of the one in Vintage Ghost Blow Mold, but the overall effect is simpler and the sweetness is calmer in this one. If you loved Traditional Sheet Ghost, I highly recommend this.

There's a definite hit of candy corn when this is freshly applied. While wet and on the drydown, it's more of a general buttery mallowcreme-esque sweetness, and then the amber hits and takes it in a very different direction. This is more of a clean amber to my nose, very different from Vintage Frank's amber. Fully dry, it's more of a sweet, clean scent than anything specifically reminiscent of candy corn, to me at least. Not so clean as to read as laundry though, if my review is causing concern. 
 

edit. With time I detect this as the same or similar amber to Frank, but something in this one is still causing it to read a bit clean to me. The candy corn/mallowcreme scent is also hanging around better with a bit of age on it. 

Fresh on, it's a blast of those individually wrapped chocolate peppermints you find in bowls at receptionist desks. My skin usually just instantly eats mint but it's surprisingly readable here, and the chocolate doesn't go shea butter on me at all, but remains, much to my delight, chocolate the whole time (what is this sorcery?! I love it!). With full dry down and a bit of wear, the mint does fade and the amber comes out and oh what an amber it is, glowing is a very good way to describe it. The end result for me was much as I've seen others describe it: a gorgeous chocolate amber. I highly recommend this one. This has so far been the standout for me. 

This is so pretty, what the heck? It starts off with a blast of hairspray and champaca (what it actually smells like to me is a variety of champa being used to represent hairspray, but who knows, I'm not a perfumer). I think it must be the same champa as Snooty Bat's because they smell so similar to me, but without the heavy leather and patchouli that made that one so cologney, although I'd say this still leans unisex, almost but not quite into cologne territory but a lot of atmospherics do that.

I get the plush velvet note  and wisps and curls of clove smoke next. The clove is very quiet at first, but does become more apparent with wear as it warms up. This is more of a warm, ambient clove than someone blowing clove smoke directly in your face. If you're here for the clove, I'd say probably check out Vampire Milk based on those reviews. But for a nice gothy atmospheric, you can't go wrong. The velvet with the champa is just lovely.

I get a gorgeous oak note accompanied by a lovely, perfumey sandalwood. These are definitely oak floorboards, not fresh oak timber. The sandalwood isn't one I've smelled before as far as I can tell, and it's very interesting. It's not creamy, but it's also not too dry; it's very hard to describe, but it's definitely got a distinct "I am a sandalwood that goes in perfume" smell to it. It's simple and straight forward, and a very nice unisex scent for those who enjoy wood, especially oak. It's not super long lasting yet, but I suspect it will hold on more with some age or a generous application.

Super smoky pumpkin rind with a bit of sweetness behind it. But mostly it's smoke. My hair smells like I spent all night hanging near a bonfire and am now effectively smoked. It's very "heavy" but thankfully does calm down with wear, leaving the heavy smoke to only interrupt my senses in wafts. Definitely not the sweet gourmand I was expecting based on the name and description though.

@MonBon That is a great breakdown, thanks so much!

On 9/1/2023 at 10:51 AM, roseus said:

Milk notes I have found to be mostly differentiated by their richness/butteriness. Cream is richer than milk, etc. I find goat milk to be rather buttery, with a touch of pleasant funk sometimes. I haven't tried anything with an evaporated milk note but I would imagine not too much of a difference from reg milk notes (whereas as condensed milk like you mentioned I assume would be sweetened), though perhaps a touch of that 'cooked'/scorched quality seen in recent scorched milk blends? 

I assume buttermilk would also have a bit of a tanginess to it!

Buttery and funk are both descriptors I keep seeing to describe goat's milk. But I also see people referring to the regular milk note as sour a lot,  whereas I really enjoy the cream and milk notes, so I'm hopeful I can hang with the goat's funkiness. I do notice neither you nor elka referred to it as cheesy, which gives me hope. 🤞

23 hours ago, elka_knits said:

I am not one for milky scents but I do recall thinking goats milk smelled gamey.  It might have been my imagination.  I was decanting at the time and didn't keep any for myself.  I have 9 scents with milk in the ingredients list and don't notice a milky scent to them.  Alice being a particular favorite and GC so fairly easy to find an imp of.

 

I did love Virgin's Blood with has fresh cream listed as a note-- I did get a creamy feel to it..... like whipped heavy cream which doesn't have a particular taste/scent but enriches.  I will have to pull out the dregs of my bottle to make sure.

 

I guess I haven't really noticed creams or milks in my scents... they are there and add a richness?  

 

Except for the goats milk scent.  I remember thinking noooo but it might have been the whole scent and not that one note... I haven't run a decant circle for @ 9 yrs so it was quite a while ago but I do know when I see that as a note I recoil.

 

keep in mind I am a big floral wearer or when I do foods I do sugar cookie nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon, sugared stuff more than breads, butters, popcorns etc.  I do like my red musk and incense scents as well but some stuff is just too real for me.

 

grandma owned a goat farm lololol

Oh gosh, gamey. I hope that's not how goat's milk reads to me. 😅

Thank you both for your replies~

So the upcoming Monster Milk collection has a lot of unfamiliar-to-me milks, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one in that boat. So dear, more experienced BPALers: will you tell me/us about your experience with these milks?

Does the Lab's goat's milk smell sweet as Google suggests it might, or does it smell cheesy as I'm remembering.

What about evaporated milk? I've recently realized I had this one mixed up with condensed milk, or rather, I thought they were the same thing. Looking around, it seems that what I had thought was evaporated milk in Fairy Lobster is probably more likely condensed milk. Does the Lab's evaporated milk have any sweetness to it or is it just like plain milk?

Buttermilk I'm just going to go ahead and guess smells buttery. But I would love to be wrong about that.

Strawberry hibiscus bubblegum (smells like actual gum not lotus) with carnation. Up close I can get the slightly dirty smell others mention that I think must be the orange blossom, but for me it’s not strong enough to be bothersome. Its mostly just a really nice fruity candy scent and I do want to get a bottle at some point.

On me this is primarily corn that leans a bit creamed or casserole-y, creamed wheat, and peonies with sugar. I can pick up the mallow close up, but it's those notes that lead the throw. Corn and wheat don't sound like something you'd want to smell like (or at least they didn't to me), but turns out they smell great all sugared up. After a while,  it dries down to sugared cream with peonies and the amber comes a bit more forward, rendering the whole thing more perfumey that it starts out, but I can still pick up the corn in wafts. Love this one. 💕

White chocolate and indeed, fruity puffed cereal. I get something somewhere between Cap'n Crunch Berries and Trix. And oddly, anise--although my skin finds anise in things others generally don't so I wouldn't stress about that, and for my part, I like anise so I'm perfectly happy with that turn of events. I hope this is enough of a hit that we get more cereal scents because this is delicious smelling.

This smells pink. I'm not even a synesthesia person and the best descriptor I can give to accurately describe this scent is PINK. I'm not super familiar with all the flowers listed, although I can definitely pick out daffodil, lily, and pink carnation. The pink sugar and bourbon vanilla are the next most dominant scents, and then there's just a tiny bit of strawberry peeking in and out. So yeah, pink sugar vanilla with sweet florals and a hint of strawberry. This is the most "me" scent I've smelled from the Lab yet, absolutely 10/10--I'm in love.

Delicious watermelon sugar, although towards the later stages of dryness it's more about the sugar and the watermelon retreats to the background. If you know Tree Hut's Watermelon Sugar flavor,  that's what this smells like, sans any sort of soap or chemical smell, and lasts fairly well for several hours. A perfect summery sweet scent.

White chocolate and creamy, buttery sandalwood with just enough lemon to balance things out. This is seriously delicious, and kinda smells like a Butterfinger. I did inadvertently fool my partner into believing I was baking while wearing this, so  you know, wear with caution or you might disappoint people.

This is chocolate chocolate chocolately. 💜 I death matched it with Bliss, and while they start out very similar, the end result is so different. Whereas Bliss turns into shea butter on me, this ends up at chocolate-flavored gourmand sugar, so it wins. My only gripe with this, and why I almost didn't upgrade, is that I have to really slather to get a nice chocolate haze going. But my partner loves it on me, he says it smells like I bathed in Yoohoo so...that's a bottle.
 

Chocolate peppermint and an exceptionally cologney oakmoss. I can pick out the cedar if I try, and it really is a green cedar, freshly cut and seems to have attached itself to the oakmoss. I never get any pistachio. Unfortunately, while it's extremely cool to me that I can smell the chocolate peppermint (my skin likes to eat mints), this is too discordant and cologney for me. Glad I got to try it though.

This starts off with a blast of strong, super sweet fake cherry. This isn't my favorite cherry admittedly, but the marshmallow note more than makes up for it and it becomes the star real fast as the cherry just sort of fades into the background within minutes of application. This is a decadent lightly cherried sugary marshmallow scent made with condensed milk, simple but very pleasant. It definitely smells milky, so just know that and be prepared. But if you can hang with milk and like marshmallow, try it-it's worth it for that condensed milk marshmallow alone imo. Definitely a bottle upgrade.

Definitely smells like a certain candy that asks you to taste the rainbow at first, but also like Tom and Galen said, the generic store brand equivalent even though that isn't a thing. Like the gummies, very low weed smell; it's there, it's just not the star the way it is in the chocolate cannabis scents. I wouldn't feel weird about wearing this in public the way I do, say, Chocolate Doobsickle (which will make you smell like you bathed in a weed-infused cooking oil). It's also got kind of a candy powder smell to it at this stage, the way candies like SweetTarts have that powdery coating.

Only problem is the candy doesn't last very long at all, not even a full hour right now on my skin, and fades away into an almost plasticky smell, but not full-blown 'plastic skin chemistry fail', it's more 'pleasant plastic toy' smell. I'm thinking this could be the doll's head scent I see mentioned sometimes, but I've never smelled it before now, so I can't say for sure if this is the same scent ya'll doll's head peeps crave. It certainly smells like what I would describe as 'doll's head', for whatever that's worth. As for this scent as a whole, I do like it and I'd highly recommend at least trying it because definitely-not-Skittles perfume is super cool, or to see if it gives 'doll's head' for fans of that. I will be sticking with just my decant though, unless some age helps the candy scent last longer.

Edit: Re: the doll's head, to back up my point about this, when I asked my partner to smell it, he said it smelled like those Strawberry Shortcake scented dolls from when we were kids. Now for my part, I don't get strawberry specifically and I wouldn't go as far as to say  the dry scent smells like those Strawberry Shortcake scented dolls, which I remember smelling very distinctly like plasticky baked goods and their various fruits, but it's definitely in that neighborhood.

When this first arrived, it straight up smelled like a really dirty fishtank mixed with a boardwalk and I was horrified. Now that it's had some time to settle a bit? Sweet and salty aquatic goodness that I can't get enough of.

Fresh on, it's all salty seabreezes and something that smells vaguely cucumbery, warring with a super sweet, unmistakable taffy smell that I was missing when this first arrived. I can't pin down a flavor for the taffy at this stage, it's more like, all the taffy; like opening a clear variety pack of saltwater taffy and sticking your nose in the bag to huff them all.

It quickly becomes all about that super sweet taffy and the salt goes a bit subtle for a while. I feel like I can almost catch hints of different flavors of taffy at this point: cherry, vanilla, and maybe a smidge of banana flavoring, adding just a tiny bit of tart and bright fruitiness for a little while. At this stage, this is potentially the sweetest smelling scent I've tried. I can hang happily, but if too sweet scents aren't your thing, heads up because this is like living inside a house made entirely of tooth-achingly sweet taffy. The imagery of a king sat atop a mountain of taffies is very apt.

The real magic happens once this is actually dry though, when the seabreeze salt note comes back to the front and the taffy has gone back to being more vanilla/caramel taffy centered and less fruity. The seabreeze and taffy meld at this point, creating that perfect, sweet and salty aquatic goodness. Huffable, delicious, summery. I love it.

As a side note, I've been very not into salt notes for a while now, it tends to be heavy and kind of off-putting on me; but this seabreeze-y salt, with it's vaguely kelpy vibe,  is so good and I very much hope we get it in some more blends.

This starts with a strong whiff of sugared cream, followed by a nice creamy pink lotus 💓 and vanilla. As it dries, the dragon's blood resin starts creeping up and tinges the rest of the blend a bit dark and resinous, altering it just slightly but not taking over. How it ends and stays for me is pretty much that: a gorgeous pink lotus vanilla cream, touched by dragon's blood. It captures the imagery very well, all cute and cuddly, with a strange creeping darkness.

This was a risk for me, because while I like dragon's blood in incense, in perfume it's often 'too much' for me. But this very light bit mixed with creamy notes is great. If the dragon's blood was a concern, imo, I wouldn't worry, it's very light here. And if like me, you've been wanting a pink lotus forward scent, I'd strongly recommend this --it's so pretty here. 😍

Sweet sticky patchouli and marshmallow that would lovely, but they're being shouted over by a strong benzoin. There's something about benzoin that I just don't like, it smells off to me, and here it's so dominant on me even after months of rest that I'm afraid this is a miss for me sadly.

Freshly applied, I get a poof of banana goodness, swiftly followed by a 50/50 banana/wool situation that is just divine. The wool does take over and pretty quickly, reminding me of the wool from A Sheepfold, Moonlight, but a bit fuzzier and without the hay note. Once dry, I'm left with a lightly banana'd wool. I've noticed with a lot of these bananas, at least for me, the banana never dies completely, it just becomes very quiet, but seems to hang on longer with age. And that's what I'm getting here after a bit of rest. Rather than single note wool and a disappeared banana, it's more like  bananaWOOL; quiet banana, big wool. As a banana fiend, I do wish it were the other way around, but that's just how the banana note do, and the end result is still very pleasant. I definitely recommend this to lovers of both these notes.

When this initially hits, I get more of a sundae vibe: juicy maraschino cherries and chocolate over a rich creamy scent, all covered in roasted nuts that at this stage don't smell specifically of pistachio to me. It quickly morphs into a less gourmand, more perfume version of itself on drydown, and that's when the pistachio really hits as a distinct note for me. Fully dry it's a lovely dessert inspired perfume, very cherry and pistachio forward, with the chocolate providing a subtle backdrop, and the salty, roasted nuts wafting in and out occasionally to remind you that you are in fact wearing a gelato/ice cream scent even if this doesn't read as overtly foodie.

Honestly, this really reminds me of Valentine's Day, which I inexplicably love, and I'm so glad I grabbed a bottle. It's got fairly good throw and insane wear time-I put it on the yesterday afternoon and woke up to it still very noticeable. And then of course applied some more to refresh it because I just can't get enough.😅

I actually quite like this one, but then I am a bit of a fabric note addict. On me this is strongest on the green velvet, dusty tomes/old book smell, cashmere, leather which reminds me of the white leather in First Class Upgrade, and frankincense. The cinnamon bark is very subtle for a cinnamon and seems to be tying everything together in a really lovely way. The lilac cologne does read as such to me, and is quieter on me than lilac flower tends to be. When first applied, I do get a bit of a cucumbery vibe and I pick up the galangal root more, but both fade fast for me. And then there's the fig, which is more adding a light sweetness rather than being  figgy fruit. There's a lot going on here and it's a bit unusual, but I think it comes together well, and will be upgrading to a bottle. It's like a very wealthy necromancer's chambers, all rich velvet curtains, expensive upholsteries, resins and spices wafting about, and of course musty old books. If you're a  fan of unusual fabric notes, white leather, and cinnamon this is worth a try. And I hope we get more velvet fabric notes in the future, I'm definitely a fan.