Missanneshirleyofgg

This is CLOVE a in ALL CAPS SCREAMING CLOVE. ..and like the above reviewer, I also get something herbal which I mistook for palo santo (which I love). I am guessing my nose is interpreting the woody or ashy note as palo santo, and the clove is so strong I think I imagine anise (again, making me think palo santo). This smokiness isnt BBQ at all for those who dislike that sort of smoke. To me, its more of a dryness, like dry charred cloves. So far its pretty uncomplicated: that note I perceive as palo santo and CLOVE. As of right now I am not discerning any musk or patchouli but I am going to return to my review to update as the scent dries and warms to my skin. 

oh this is so very pretty! It’s green and bright and wonderful. I know Lettuce is not listed as a note in this blend, but, I am reminded of the wild lettuce in The Last Unicorn. I suppose that is the sweetness of the hay and wild grasses. It is a playful perfume on my skin, like I am not picking up on a cunningness, I am smelling something more like a moonbathing in wet summer grasses. As it dries, it is less sweet on my skin and I begin to pick up the datura blossoms, which smell of honeysuckle. I am again thinking of The Last Unicorn… I think the lilac and lettuce notes there are reminding me of the hay and datura here. Lovely perfume. Need to test side by with The Last Unicorn to see if the white chocolate in that blend distinguishes it from Swiftfoot to determine if I need both. They are by no means even cousins, but in situations where I would reach for a summery green and floral blend, I am happy with The Last Unicorn and may not need both.

This is such a fun blend and I am glad a friend gifted me a decant to try.  On my skin, it is a milky type scent. I get some toastedness that is probably the pistachio, milk chocolate, and just the teeniest with of cherry. I agree with the others that it’s pretty spot on.

25 minutes ago, doomsday_disco said:

@Missanneshirleyofgg and I will be hosting an Adult Easter Basket swap (adult just meaning that you can put things like tea, coffee, and mini booze in plastic eggs or Easter-themed treat bags along with things like perfume and other things)! It will go up either later this month or early February.

So excited!!!

23 hours ago, doomsday_disco said:

Is anyone hosting a Valentine's swap?

I think a Valentine card swap would be pretty fun.  

Kiddie valentines!  I used to love collecting my kiddie valentines in a paper bag to open on valentines day. With treats! sticks of gum, tea, stickers?!?!?  OK, maybe i am a weirdo. ha, ha.

A question: How do I submit a swap for moving to Dead Swaps? 

This goes on skin as a super sticky blueberry candy. Smells a little warm and melty. Like a hard candy thats been left in your pocket. The salt is mildly present, but it isnt aquatic in the least on my skin.  The blueberry calms down in the first five minutes, but that impression I had of warmth remains. It could almost be interpreted as candle, but not that this smells like candle… just that it smells like a warm blueberry candy. It definitely is not a realistic blueberry note, nor is it tart as the Blueberry in Blueberry Sufganiyiot was (which made it so foodie). 

I collect blueberry scents, and this is a fun one to try, but, when I pulled out the bottle this morning I wondered why I had been content to only have a low partial and application yielded why. For blueberry candy scents, I prefer Blue Lollipops: a sweeter, sugary, more kiddie simple blueberry candy blend that I find fun. 

Every once in awhile I find one cinnamon scent that truly is candy on my skin. I find the term “red hots” tossed around for a general disdain of cinnamon but I seldom actually sniff that candyish scent in a perfume. BUT WHOA DADDY, I JUST FOUND IT IN HIDOUS HEART. 

Perhaps the cherry accord used here in combination with the cinnamon is what is so cinnamon candy like? As it dries down the cinnamon becomes smoother and the cherry stronger, but the hot cinnamon candy effect remains.

No licorice for me at all. Bummer, as I love licorice! 

Smells like a fall craft store as it continues to dry. Like cinnamon broom. 

At this stage I get the above cough syrup references….

Meh. 

This smells like winter air feels. Like, when you step outside and the cold air instantly chills your face and inhalation stings a bit. Its brisk and invigorating. It reminds me exactly of waking up early on a weekend morning in wintery West Virginia and wanting to get a jump on shoveling snow out of the driveway at my grandparents home. Their driveway is long and its a morning to midday task to clear it. If we didnt get started early, my grandfather would do it himself and this worried my grandmother as she didnt like her 80 plus year old husband getting a chill. It is so cold out and the air is dry and chilly and the stock whiteness of everything makes your eyes sting. But something feels so rewarding about looking back on nice tracks of pavement greeting you where heavy snow had been. My grandmothers home is warm and waiting.

I am getting the sharp mint and a very herbal lavender in equal proportions. The mint is almost menthol to me, definitely sinus clearing! I get just a bit of bergamot, it might be what is making me perceive the lavender as so herbaceous. 

This is not a sleep scent for me, it is more a refreshing zingy scent to wear while hanging winter holiday decorations outside, since Georgia will not get the snow I miss from West Virginia. I do not need a bottle but will keep this decant for just such a purpose! 

Was gifted a decant of this by a friend! 

The white musk really is milky here, although I would not say that its dairy milk, more that it goes on creamy and smooth. I get alot of mugwort and its so comforting: fresh. The lavender is well blended with the mugwort and white musk and I feel that the combined total presents as a delightful dreamy blend that would be perfect to wear anytime ones thoughts feel disheveled, or in circumstances where you feel you need to be more grounded. I keep leaning in to huff my wrist, and the overall scent presentation is one of ambivalence to change, a gentle contemplation of what is to be.  

I do not smell any clove or dragons blood resin, Thats OK as I have blends I enjoy for those notes and can not imagine it would add to my pleasure in this blend to have them be prominent. 

Adding this to my wishlist.

Let this rest a couple days before testing. Right now this is an odd one on me. Not sure what I’m smelling or what I’m thinking about what I’m smelling. Sometimes I get a little bit of green cucumber from paper/book accords. Those are the ones I dislike the most. Right now what I’m getting from this perfume is a light cucumber and cinnamon with the velvet note. I like the velvet note. And the cucumber style paper note is not bad. What’s confusing me is the cinnamon. Or maybe it’s the paper and cinnamon. Without a vanilla or or perhaps a creamy blended resin to ground everything. I am not able to smell the rosewater, or the lilac. I think those two notes would’ve been a welcome addition to this as well. Like I said … confused. Like blindfolded and swinging at a pinata I can not see and am not even sure is there.
 

 I may revisit this and I may let this review stand as it is a metaphor For when I cannot interpret a scent and have no clue what actually I smell.

Is there a winter solstice type card swap? 

I received a decant of this as a gift from a forumite.

In vial big burst of menthol and same on application. Then, Even while the wrist is still damp from perfume application, a sweet vanilla emeges. The vanilla is a foodie one to my nose and as the scent begins to dry down, becomes vanilla and pine! 

This is a favorite stage , but heads up to all wondering: the menthol is not a top note for me and does remain present through dry down. It just isnt a major player past application. It smells like the chill of winter air and pines. So, somehow to this add some super sugary and sweet vanilla.  It might not work for you if you wished for a basic snow scent. But if your a foodie and just dappling in atmospherics, this would be lovely to try.

I would wear this while decorating my christmas tree. Theres a candy cane in vanilla cocoa and I am wearing my most cozy flannels and watching It’s A Wonderful Life. The ornaments are crocheted white snowflakes, heavily starched, being pulled from an old cardboard box from layers of time worn tissue paper. 

❤️

This is FANCY.  Was gifted a decant of this to try and wowzers.

I am getting a vanilla fougere and then the toasted almond: which, I perceived as nutmeg until I read notes!  I suppose the toasting is what gave it this nutty spice smell. Super yum.  

Jasmine surfaces as it begins to dry on skin. At this stage, I no longer imagine that I am smelling nutmeg. It s so lovely. Fancy. That must be what I thought was fancy! It isnt indolic in the least. So pretty. This isnt. delicate pretty scent though, Its bold on my skin. I want more of this Jasmine accord. All the things. This jasmine hugs the wrists like a cuff. The vanilla fougere is the scent those three feet away would love. Only those leaning in to whisper in your ear will smell the lovely jasmine. 

It hovers in the masculine to cologne once or twice, but manages to stay on the feminine side more the masculine or even gender neutral. 
 

I would wear this to dine out in. I would want to wear something sexy, This is a body hugging dress with a drapey shawl covering the shoulders. So happy I got to try and wouldnt turn down a larger decant but Since I never get to go out to dine (sad cries) I only need decants.  

I have submitted the Yule Swap for approval @Em-

I want to hostess an easy fun yule themed swap and wondered about Jólakötturinn? The yule cat who eats you if you do not receive an item of new clothing at Christmas… 😂

So in this swap everyone would receive one clothing item for cold weather. Fuzzy socks, scarf, gloves, use imagination and then something yule cat themed (made or bought, really any wintery  cat https://www.etsy.com/market/jólakötturinn ), and then two items of your choice for the partner you spared from being an oversized kittys snack. 

Thoughts? 

I tested this before reading notes and just want to say, I wouldnt have known it was Apricot beforehand.  I thought I was smelling red raspberry! @doomsday_disco sent me some to try. 

This is a good late summer scent to my nose, and now that I know I am sniffing apricot, it was the tang of the apricot that I was mistaking for red raspberry (specifically red, not black. We grew both growing up and they are quite distinct from one another in scent and flavor). I am not getting the kernel from the apricot at all, just ripe, tart luscious fruit. Yum! 

The clove smells warm, and for me makes the apricot smell like something heated and cooked on the stove. My mother does, in fact, serve apricots cooked for late Sunday breakfasts. If you have not tried them as a breakfast delicacy, they are quite complimentary to the hardier, salty carb laden brunch foods. Anyhow, thats how I perceive the clove in this blend. Something cooked and satisfying with the tart apricots. 

This is a simple blend according to the notes, but on my skin smells so much more complex. Its actually broadened my horizons here as Apricot was a note I previously skipped feeling that like peach, would be a note I enjoyed but wouldnt reach for. I can see myself reaching for this and find it innocuous for a fruit heavy blend, and something I could wear in all atmospheres. 

The scent cools on skin as it cools down and at this stage It smells less like brunch and more like a delicate garden party, or tea time, treat. 

Three  hours later: The clove seems to continue to recede and the apricot becomes less warm and more fresh and fuzzy. 

Lovely! Not sure I need to track down. bottle, but will e joy this decant immensely and will revisit when I empty it.  

Welp. I just applied this and got cinnamon bread and then incense. I guess the incense was the spelt? A perfume can never be too sweet for me, so a little sad that this was more dry and spicy. Super interesting to try tho! 

This late summer lunacy appeals to me as a gorgeous autumnal Cherry. Everything about it screams fall to me. Dark musks, tobacco. dried currants, smoked amber.

On application this has a huge blast of almond. Stinging when sniffing skin close, its that strong. Like most almond blends on my skin, it is a fleeting top note. I happened to be skin testing Cherry Red and Moon at the same time today, and in doing so was able to see that Moon When the Cherries Turn Black is not as much cherry as I originally thought! Side by side testing with a double cherry blend,  I could isolate the tobacco and the black currants better. Its a rich and fruity perfume, but again reminding me of early autumn as everything seems over ripe and as if its been allowed to stay on the tree/shrub until the branch itself is beginning to to droop with the heavy full fruits. Thats my wrist, y’all… laden with bursting fruits, whiffs of sweet tobacco and dark resins. 

As someone who is always looking for a perfume for October and November that isn’t cinnamon, this is a perfect find. ❤️

I am having the same experience as @doomsday_disco with the red musk, on application I get little and maybe even none (I am wondering if the softness in the background is the musk). I am super excited because I had hoped a scent with multiple cherries would over power the red musk (It seldom works on my skin and tends to dominate other notes in blends for me). If there is red musk on my skin then, it presents itself as a background softness only.

So having declared this scent would appear to be safe for some red musk haters, lets talk cherries.

In bottle this is indeed Luden cough drop like. And I anticipated would go on skin heavy almond since Maraschino cherries have almond extract in the syrup, and it does go on the skin as almond, but not as much almond as Moon When The Cherries Turn Black which was heavy almond on application for me. In the first five to ten minutes the almondish top note disappears on my skin and then I am left with the Bing Cherries and Sugar dominating the fragrance. This phase puts me in mind of F#@k!  And its my favorite phase as F#@k is a cherry winner for me. 

The almond free Bing Cherry and Sugar phase that reminds me of F#@k stays linear through first hour of wear. I am going to come back to this review at the three to four hour mark and report what the last stages of dry down present.

This is a keeper on me, and I am so glad I splurged. I have been “cherry shy” and avoided cherry scents after a sad almond blasting run of  “I do not smell cherries only almonds” in 2017 that left me believing all cherry accords would fail on my skin. Super fun to have Beth prove me wrong! 

TL;DR: Brief disappearing almond, do not fear the red musk, sugary cherry reminds me of F#@k. 

Was super excited to try this scent from the Purge.

In bottle, smells like a white floral with a little green edge.

On skin it begins much the same way, pretty white floral with a slightly green edge, but as it dries Its becomes a tuberose dominant scent on my skin, powdery and mildly indolic and less green. I wish I was picking up on the dark berries because I feel its exactly what the blend needed and was a perfect compliment for the tuberose, too. It smells *fancy*. Its very pretty. Am I selfish because I wanted more of the amber and berries? 100% YES. If I reach and think about it too hard, I can imagine this as a body wash in a ritzy spa. I like those body washes and buy them. Then I never use them. They sit beside my tub and I stare at them and daydream about going back on a future vacation and getting a good massage and buying more of the spa bodywash. And still I do not use, cause if I use what will remind me that I want to go back? 

I feel like i am going to sit and stare at this perfume and imagine how lovely it would have been if I picked up the berries and consider it very fancy but not wear it. 

Brief note: I am thinking this might have been an older shelved project because the black honey is not the honey I have experienced in recent lab fresh releases. Its a tiny bit of  sweetness in the background, but not a thick layer of sticky syrup. 

I have been chasing down root beer and sarsaparilla scents lately so feel absolutely *seen* when the lab frottled this bottle to me with my Lilith 2022 order.

I am not picking up clove as an individual note, except as an aspect of the root beer which normally has elements of clove to it. At first on skin there is a blast of something vaguely chemical in nature (the “sour” observed in prior reviews?), but this receded on my skin in under one minute~ if that is the result of aging, then bless the lab aging! Then the scent becomes a very good root beer or sasaparilla (Sarsaparilla is made from the Sarsaparilla vine, while Root Beer,  from the roots of the sassafras tree). I am leaning toward root beer here because I do think there is an element of clove without the sarsaparilla mintiness. 

I went ahead and death matched this while skin testing to a favorite root beer scent in my collection, Outlaw. Perhaps receiving it as a Lilith frottle made me think of older Liliths I love. But in spite of the leather note in Outlaw, Outlaw is decidedly sweeter (thank you vanilla cream). Pexo is drier on skin, but I would say it still strikes me as sweet, just not *creamy* ..

which is why Outlaw is one of my favorites, the creamy vanilla and root beer are Chefs Kiss. 

Pexo is a keeper because I find it to be a semi sweet rootbeer without much complexity, and thats something I was searching for. 

And because some reviews above veered to finding this was a tea scent, I grabbed Tag Upon Avon  because my memory was that it had clove and good weak black tea… and well… I can see these comparisons, but mainly because I found of the clove presence similar. (PS, Tag Upon Avon is a perfect black tea for me. Its missing or light on bergamot, which is often present in stronger concentrations in tea blends and then dominates all other notes on my skin).  But when you test these side by side, PEXO, on my skin, is distinctly Rootbeer. Tag dries down to anise, clove, and cakes. Again, anise (licorice?) was mentioned above , so if that interests you, look up Tag Upon Avon.

Alot of rambling here while I sip a blueberry coffee and reflect upon the labs kindness in these sometimes frottles which I never expect, and am always happy when I receive. 

TL;DR : Rootbeer. 

I find the leather in this so unbelievably snugly and warm that I use this as a sleep scent. FYI: Leather hater/distruster here!  The leather note feels worn and soft, and as if the inside liner of a well loved jacket has the remnants of a cologne clinging to the fabric. We all know that scent, right? That scent you find in the cuff of your jacket and suddenly bury your nose into the fabric and try to remember what perfume you had worn the last time you had this jacket on because it smells like the prettiest fragrance in your collection in this moment. Well, *that scent* is whats clinging to the  lining this leather jacket. I am not getting a strong impression of clove, its there, but more subdued and if I did not specifically read scent notes, would just have lumped it into that category of “jumble of supporting pretty notes” that I am finding so pleasing in the liner of this jacket.   It is the jumble of scent accords clinging to the lining of this jacket that make this blend feel sentimental and elevate a leather blend to something other worldly and away from the initial masculine impressions leather imparts. . 

Also, I am pairing it with Deserted Theater Atmo for a beautiful atmospheric ambiance that reminds me of reading a spooky book in a debilitated library. Perfect! 

This really does smell like fizzy powder candy. It is also tickling my nose! Ha! Its super fun and very unique in my collection, but letting go of my decant because it is sadly making me sneeze. Glad I was able to test this one as I was super curious. 

This was in a recent etsy drop and I snagged one of a very small hand full of bottles.  I am always interested in gourmands that are not traditional. Cookies or cakes with roses or lavender,  chocolate with dirt, you get the idea. A gourmand sounding perfume with Smoked Chili Peppers was a *need*. 

This is, at just this moment, one of the yummiest BPal Giurmands I have had the pleasure of trying! I agree with @doomsday_disco, I can not keep my nose out of the crook of my elbow. Its decadent and rich but manages to evade the syrupy buttery scent of Western Bonneted Bat. I mean, it doesnt say caramel or butterscotch in the notes, but this is so sweet and the closest I could come to a description is the sweetness is brown sugar coated chili peppers. Not a fruity sugar, but a warm sugar, like something fresh made in the kitchen for an autumn evening after supper desert,  I am not able to isolate the clove and saffron, but I am sure that clove is keeping the chili note forward as it doesnt dissipate on skin the way the pepper note did in Caramel, Smoked Chilis & Black Vanilla, and the saffron contributing to the overall sweetness that I think is so perfect.

This is an amazing blend for autumn and I am so excited that the Lab is releasing scents on etsy with their relocation to Philly and giving us an opportunity to get to try older blendswe missed out on, 

I received a decant of this in the mail and I now know i like the labs white tea. This is a very happy scent, a pleasing honey sweetened cuppa tea with some gentle soft spring flowers in the background. Like sitting beside an open window in early April. It is somehow cozy and uplifting at the same time. Would be a perfect scent to wear to your cottagecore picnic, ❤️