Missanneshirleyofgg

Similar to the book scent from BOOKS in the recent release. My review was that it smelled more like new books than old, and I wondered what it would smell like upon aging. So, this smells like new books and the scent of coffee. Not sweetened. Bitter. Acidic. I walked away from this scent saying it smelled like “Adjunct professor grading final exams”. Surely on its own a scent memory for many people, and something to try. Not for me, but that is because I want my coffee to smell like dessert, and with a side of really really old books... musty in the paperback swap package, with writing underlining the most precious quotes and soft leather holding the tattered pages together. 

So, I got stuck on the fact this didn’t smell like brewed coffee until I reread the scent description and realized it’s *beans*. With this in mind, this is a non brewed coffee (light), with a skin musk type scent. You haven’t grinned the beans yet, it’s not something beckoning you into a coffee shop, it’s just nice pleasant beans. Maybe they are waiting to be rinsed and packaged for harvesting but they are not screaming Teachers Lounge or Hello Grinder. I hoped it would be more resinous but It’s pretty. I would think it’s a good scent for someone wishing to dabble in coffee perfumes but perhaps not wanting to smell like a barista. ONCE I got over reading the label wrong (cough cough) I enjoyed the scent for exactly what it was and felt it was a really nice addition to the yule coffee scents and appreciated the variants of coffee they offered, Very nice, very innocuous, pleasant, socially acceptable even to tea drinkers, coffee.

Closest to strawberry suff that I have tried because it is tangy like the strawberry suff I own. It’s a fun scent and I like the way BPal reinvents it every year. Someone at lunacy wanted me to smell the wand cap and when I leaned in they accidentally dotted my philtrum so my own damn nose smelled freaking fabulous pastry all night. Not plastic, it’s a good fruit vibe and the suff is the stuff you have come to love. ❤️

This was grunge joy. The softest cedar (cedar can be soft???) with this smutty ambergis, skin musk and the coconut husk just bonding everything together to make it cozy. WTF? I need. Some sort of smokey sexy stuff.  There was only one bottle at lunacy and I missed out.  

I applied this at lunacy and scrubbed within three minutes. Pure fecal. However, magic happened after I washed. The fecal washed away and left this gorgeous coffee sweetened with patchouli and vetiver. The coffee was so smooth I would even say “blonde”. It smelled so lovely on my skin that ^starbrow slathered.  I would guess that for those with the patience for aging are going to wind up with the beautiful scent I had when I did a quick wash (I did not use soap, I only water rinsed and towel dried because I was skin testing other blends and wanted to see how those dried down). Really lovely and everyone who smelled my hand flipped about it. However, I have no patience for aging.  

This smelled to me like poor little children wondering into a witches cottage for refuge.  This is a gorgeous herbal cider. The rosemary is prominent, and then I smelled a green (not smoked?) Cardamom and apples. It would be a great scent for someone who was looking for an interpretation of cider and yule beverages brewed by a cottage witch (I think she only consumes non GMO children). Very festive, and super interesting.  

Bottle sniff: lots of sage and cocoa with lavender. Very soft and definitely a good sleep scent. Very cleansing and up

Uplifting fragrance. Something I would want to wear in times of stress and huff because cocoa makes me feel cozy, lavender relaxes me and clary sage brings mental clarity for me but with a tiny bit of Cardamom peeking out to keep the scent from being too woo woo. 😀 What a nice harmony .... symphony.... of notes here. Definitely loses most of the cocoa on skin application, but, I love what’s left all the same. Not sure I need a FS, but would love a decant. 

Quote

 

Bottle sniff: burned breakfast.

skin test wet: 

The prettiest vanilla sitting in the middle of something burned. Not the bacon I usually get from Vetiver, but not far enough off to warrant owning a bottle. The wool is soft.... almost silky smooth and the vanilla really is pretty. But not digging the burnt smell. 

dry:

At dry down it does veer completely away from burnt things to something become a vanilla petrol scent. The petrol scent is interesting and I might seek it out in other blends. Now I am undecided, if light Vetiver always died down to this sort of petrol scent, I might be willing to push through what actually was a relatively short time dealing burnt/bacon smell. But, I don’t think it’s this blend. Glad I got to try it. 

Notes are accurate but for my own reference this comes off as a gritty patchouli, leaning toward headshop on me. I prefer fruity bright patchouli blends. This would appeal to anyone who likes more dark patchouli scents. Definitely a good autumn scent, would be great for clubbing. 

Testing Starbrows collection of scents...

2015 version. This is probably as much of a cologne Dead leaves vibe that I could tolerate. Light perfume, but doesn’t venture into department store territory. After a few moments this begins to wane. The cocoa note is not gourmand, but it adds the lightest touch of sweetness to the leaves. Incense doesn’t seem dry at all: almost fluffy! I wonder if that’s the amber. I really am digging it. Definitely a chill to this scent. Like, the frost but no ozone, mint but not peppermint.... it really is a shivering white musk!  Pretty! 
 

This is a winner for me, I wouldn’t mind finding this in a swap, and want to try out other years to compare.

Testing 2007 (friends bottle) and 2011 which I recently acquired from the Lab on ebay. 
 

2007 is a fruity blend. Smells light on tobacco. Strong fruity black currant and tobacco blend. Not sexy, but pretty. More bright than dark. 
 

2011 is a sexy rich tobacco heavy blend, I pick up the coconut here, and it’s a thick caramel laden coconut with tarry tobacco. Not sure if I pick up spice, but something smells rich and heavy in the background. 
 

Not sure if this is batch differences in the years, or aging, but I prefer 2011 and it smells more like the decant of Red Lantern Atmo that I have and adore. 

I really enjoy this scent but As someone who absolutely hoards gourmands and foodie scents I do not find this to be a cake scent. This is on my skin a lightly perfumed black tea scent with a sweet fruity/dry incense vibe. Perhaps there is a light vanilla here that’s contributing to cake vibes, but, it’s not a doughy gluten, flour cake. It would only be the vanilla component in a predominantly pretty black tea scent. A nice wearable scent that would be pleasing in any situation to wear, innocuous and inoffensive, yet unique. But not a dark gourmand on me which is what I was hoping for. 

Skin testing this right now..... The loveliest vanilla butter cream with a teeny bit of coconut. Smells slightly of cream cheese frosting, but not in a strong dairy way. I detect cocoa, but not the cake (gluten) in red velvet cupcakes. I would say this is an excellent buttercream scent and gourmand lovers will appreciate (more creamy and richer than the frosting note from the recent birth cake prototype), but not necessarily a dominant  player (for reference I get more Blackberry buttercream than red velvet in Monsterbait Closet as well).

Just sniffing this from a decant a friend shared with me. This smells like red wine, incense and Dorian In the bottle. On skin, The Dorian comes off as the lightest tea blend and I definitely even get the idea of cake that Doomsday disco, which must be the Snake Oil.  It’s a creamy red wine blend, which I think is unique to the red wine blends I have tested thus far as they have all seemed more fruity and robust. I am liking this, and am glad I got to try, but just gifted to my friend Starbrow whose testing scents with me right now as dark fruity blends are her jam.  

Poof of brimstone in the bottle smells Like light incense to my nose. I didn’t buy this one because I was worried it would not have any gourmand leanings with the red musk since Kai Kai went straight up stomping red musk on me. However, with She sauntered the red musk is very well balanced with the gourmand notes. I can smell the cotton candy and pink pepper so clearly and the red musk just acts as a nice blender here, tying together the pepper and cotton candy and then a pleasant little poof of something smokey.

New recs for this?

Tested this one at Lunacy. Dark and resinous. I personally sometimes perceive mossy scents as earth and I did here. However, I really loved this scent And didn’t find the mossy/earthy note to be dirt or cold. I do not have any hair glosses like this one in my collection and wound up testing on my hair twice because I hadn’t known I needed one until now. I usually am not a fan of the dead leaves scents because I often find them to have a cologne type backdrop but I didn’t notice this with Dead Leaves, Black Amber, and Woodmoss. I think this is a perfect scent for when you need people to know You Can Not Be Trifled With. It has enough evil in it to scare all the Karen’s and Manager Haircut people away. I would not recommend this for job interviews for professions like psychologist or pre school teacher.  

Boozy tobacco and zero patchouli. I collect BPal tobacco scents and if you do not have any this would be a fun one to start with because it’s nearly single note. However, if you collect Tobacco scents it is not as lovely or as smooth as the tobacco in St Clare, Year of the Ox, or Dolly Rei perfumes or as rich as Bulgarian Tobacco or as pretty as French tobacco single notes. It is a fun scent but if you missed out on it before it sold out, there are other readily available tobaccos you would enjoy from BPal. 

I was worried this would be very tea and lavender forward but I get equal parts marshmallow and the tangy goats milk which compliments the herbal notes well. The marshmallow and milk keep this scent from being bedtime, it would be a lovely daytime scent and I agree non offensive in social settings: neither too heady herbs or too sweet and gourmand. That said, while I detect the marshmallow clearly, it’s the sweetness of marshmallow grounding out the scent, not the powdery fluff from Stekk. Like, just the scorched sugar. Which is perfect to me. However, the white tea note is tickling my nose. I do not think it’s an allergen, I think the note is unfamiliar to me. It is unique and I am glad to have a half bottle, but, I hope the tickle stops! 
 

*edit. This is the type of scent I wish my coworkers wore. The kind that as they pass by you smell just the faintest trace of something beautiful and look up to see who passed by. But I think I prefer to smell like dank smokey cookie. 

Sniffed this at Lunacy not for myself, but for a friend. Said “Eh, herbal. Lavender. Butter. Utterly Weird”. And walked away. 
 

Returned twenty minutes later and skin tested it. Went around asking people what they smelled on my arm because What I was smelling was caramelized lavender. Such an odd combination and wanted to know what others perceived. On my skin, everyone decided it was oddly gourmand. Utterly perplexing. I usually amp lavender. I usually amp buttery popcorn scents. Both were behaving. Utterly singular. 
 

Left lunacy. 
 

Sat in my car on the phone for five minutes and told my friend I was going to go back inside and buy a FS of Utter Sophistication.

Utterly interesting, Utterly unusual, Utterly wearable. Utterly delightful. 
 

I still mainly get caramelized lavender and I find it comforting. 

On my skin, BPal’s mahogany has consistently been a warmer sweeter wood note. I found this to be no exception here. 
 

bottle sniff: rich and dark syrup. Hmmmm...

skin test: on skin this was very similar to bottle sniff, except the wood smoke rounded out the syrupy quality I smelled on bottle sniff to become a dark, cozy, warm blend. It may be The Empty House, but, it felt like The Welcoming House, A home that’s been waiting to be housed by a family, with a cozy and inviting fireplace roaring and gleaming polished woods beckoning you to stay. I suppose that in itself can be creepy, as the house appears to upon its own have life. 
 

I also didn’t detect spice in this blend (nor was it indolic), although dry down did draw out a lighter spice. No cinnamon amping here. The blackened pumpkin smelled more like the fruity variety of patchouli that I like, and the pine pitch is subtle and warm, like pine logs on a fire, not like Christmas tree. For me though the Star is the mahogany which is a note I love and look for in Bpal blends, I agree it has that warm woody quality of The Magicians Wand, however, it isn’t chewy like that blend. 

Bottle sniff was leathery and wax and I thought this would wind up being very leather dominant, but on skin it blooms. I felt like it had the Golden quality of El Dorado, but with the warmth of leather added in. I almost bought a bottle of this at lunacy after skin testing, because it was so very very pretty on my skin and I love scents that have that glowing quality, but, it disappeared completely and I couldn’t detect anything on my wrist forty five minutes later. Not sure if this is me, or, if it’s one that needs to age, but I have no patience to age scents so I passed. 

First, I think actual puppies have every stinky breath. I love dogs and I love puppies, but I was a bit suspicious of puppy breath.

But, this was on my list of oils to test at lunacy, because I wondered about the earth and snuggly musk. 
 

in bottle: lots of earth

wet:

I do not interpret the milk here as literally dairy. On my skin, the milky breath presents as a glass of cold milk, but more just the impression of cold. With the dirt note and the snuggly musk, it smells like a camping outside. Like, the way morning smells when you go camping. Crisp cool air and all the scents of the cold earth the wafting up from the ground to be warmed by the sun. That’s very snuggly to me because I love mornings, early mornings, in the fall and out of doors the best. If there is puppy here, it’s the puppy bringing his gnarled old bone to you, to be thrown again and retrieve. More atmospheric. 
 

dry down:

all the remains of the upturned earth is a hint of sweetness. The musk main player now, and the musk is light and gentle. Skin hugging. The ice cold milk impression I had originally remains, but just now as a cool musk. 
 

I left with a full size. I think it’s a lovely sleep scent.

This is really bright and pretty. It smells like rich jewel toned fruits with bright sunny late summer flowers. The ginger adds the nicest kick, like a lovely autumn brunch cocktail. It’s a warm ginger, not candied. I could not smell the yam, but lots of orange, apricot and what I guess is chrysanthemum.  The patchouli was not dark, more fruity. I would have liked to slather it to see if the ginger was more dominant on the skin, but all I did was a dot at lunacy. Interested to see what those who slather find. 

If you are a person who doesn’t amp spice on the skin, this is amazing. On bottle sniff, I gasped audibly. It was without a doubt the best sniff at lunacy tonight. In bottle and fresh applied I smelled all the wonderful Irish coffee and library scents of Miskatonic U, but with a gorgeous pumpkin... it smelled like sitting in an old university library with a cup of PSL. Such a brilliant idea to use them together. I was so happy, it was the best fall scent I have ever found ....But, ten minutes later the Irish cream that I adore in Miskatonic U and the autumn book notes began to recede behind what smelled like cinnamon. Two hours later the cinnamon has went into remission and I am left with gorgeous autumn Miskatonic U again.... however, I am impatient and not sure I want to wrestle with spice for two hours. 
 

really though, if not for the spice amping, this would be my favorite fall fragrance ever. I am actually looking actively for a decant to just see if perhaps layered over a lotion I could keep the spices in check, because it really was just other worldly yummy.