starbrow

At a week old, my bottle is still a baby and smells exceptionally green and sharp and new. For the first two hours, this flame is all fresh-crushed bayberry and fir: a spicy, peppery, waxy kind of pine blend that is so vivid, I could swear I was outside on a cold winter's night, crumbling cold bayberries in my hand and smelling fir needles crunching underfoot. Bayberry candles are a North American tradition for Yule, and so this ends up having a very Christmasy kind of smell, atmospheric, but without any kind of burning or smoke smell, as if you're still gathering all the ingredients to make your candles and there are still many hours of work ahead before you'll have a finished candle to actually light. It's several hours later, and the brightness of the pepper and evergreen has finally waned, leaving the most gorgeous quiet incense. This must be the myrrh grounding it, though there's no tell-tale signs of myrrh either wet or dry. I might have even guessed sandalwood incense, it's that pretty. This is a wild and wonderful morpher, with both fresh and hours-dry a transcendent experience, in totally different ways. One is fierce, green, the bear pawing at bayberry; the other is tucked away in a wintry cabin, contemplative and grounded, close to the skin and cozy. If this is how a newborn bottle behaves, I can't wait to smell this next year!

I have several wintry incense blends, so I thought I knew what Mountain Temple would smell like. Au contraire. I was not prepared for how snowy this blend would be - a bright, slushy snow with some kind of winter flower that I can't name. Narcissus? Snow magnolia? It is akin to a sugared mint or a yuzu, a sweet and cheerful kind of fragrance in spite of the cold. If I figure out the flower, I will report back with an update. Meanwhile, the incense is but a curl through the snow-blanketed forest on this mountain, something that is certainly not pine - it's softer, more rounded - but a wood that is evergreen and vivid. I was surprised at how forest-y the blend was, since I expected a paler, wafty sandalwood incense with a sprinkling of cool snow; I was caught off-guard by a snowy green wood that is still very much alive, with little drops of snow-flowers bursting through like harbingers of spring. Far from pale! Mountain Temple is beautiful and vibrant, it is just a different picture than the one I imagined, and I'm totally okay with that. A medium throw and long (and pretty) wear when fresh like this promises great things with aging. Can't wait to smell this next Yule and see how it's come along.

One of my hugest Yule wishes this year was chestnuts roasting on an open fire. The Lab totally read my mind. I got my wish! I think I have a nose for chestnut, because I can pick it up in almost any blend without seeing the notes. And I am a huge fan, so I was just hoping this blend would have a "kind" smoke note. (2018's smoke note was overwhelming to me, alas.) Chestnuts and Hearth Smoke, happily, is everything my heart can desire. I am picking up huge chestnut energy. Wet on the skin, it is just short of funky nut, how chestnut meat can be a little sweaty and gnarly. (Not indolic, though, just funk.) Then as it dries, the warm roastiness starts to kick in and it smooths out into the kind of chestnut that I adore, deep and suave. It lingers for hours, potent and developing more and more richness with each hour. Mmmm. The smoke note is exceedingly kind, and quite soft to my nose. I get a little bit of fire, a splinter of wood, a smidge of ash. No BBQ whatsoever, yay! It is exactly what it says on the tin: The Christmas Song in a bottle. (As a reference for my smoke impressions, Hearth 2017 was kind too, while Hearthflame and Incense 2018 gave me the worst headache imaginable.) Interestingly, several people so far have reported picking up no chestnut and tons of smoke. I get the exact opposite, and I am usually very sensitive to harsh smoke notes. I couldn't be happier with the balance in this blend, which is wholly unique in my collection, and I am looking forward to wearing it for many Yules to come. (Incidentally, I keep thinking this would smell fantastic on a man's skin, like this is what I want a man at Christmas to smell like. But I love wearing it too, as a fairly femme woman. Incredibly adaptable! Also, I *need* this as an atmo.)

You know it's all about that card, bout that card, no coffee....okay, it's not THAT far! But certainly this is the most fragrant cardamom with just a little accessorizing from the coffee and vanilla. This one blooms and blooms on my skin, shifting from sweet cardamom coffee (in the bottle/wet) to a very "French lady's fancy perfume" cardamom that's uber smooth, posh, and only slightly sweet and with a perfumed version of coffee as well, rather than an actual cup beside you. I find myself craving more whiffs of vanilla, and I'm going to try layering this with other scents and with vanilla-y hair glosses to get some more of that note complementing the rest. It's really interesting, because I associate cardamom with being an earthy spice that's a little gritty and green. But it's exactly the opposite here, it smells very expensive, elevated, enhanced with some perfumery base note but I have no idea what. Is that the vanilla pod? Some other, unlisted note? Probably! It's quite strong on me and I feel like I definitely will have to be in a certain mood to wear this one, because of how long the cardamom lingers around (like, hours and hours), but I'm looking forward to some layering experiments with my bottle of this!

Okay, have you ever made gingerbread and it turns out really....hearty? Like dense, chewy, and cake-like? That is this blend. I didn't know what steaming gingerbread would smell like, but I get it now. This is the gingerbread version of that chewy tobacco everybody knows. It swallows up the egg nog and leaves small peeks of pumpkin spice to peer through hopefully, but truly this is an extra-cakey, not too sweet gingerbread. It stays close to the skin but lingers for quite a while, finally letting a bit more nog emerge once the heartiest hits of gingerbread fade. I think I would like more egg nog in this from the start, but this would make a very fun complement to Pumpkin Cheesecake HG or Cinnamon Sugar Cookie and Egg Nog HG!

Cranberry JAM tucked into gooey fried dough, it is so Christmasy jelly donut to me! I too couldn't isolate fig amidst the fruit reduction, but the cranberries are both bright and sweet, and more fragrant than usual - is that the fig? There is a drop of lime that begins to emerge after some wear, which combines with cranberry to make this an ever-so-slightly more tart suf than some. Make no mistake though, it is PLENTY sweet, and plenty indulgent with all the pastry notes crowding around the fruit. Partner's blind impression of this on me? Strawberry laffy taffy. That candied fruit note really does come through. Of all the fruit flavors, cranberry probably is my favorite of them so far, but I am rather hoping the fig peeks its head out more as this ages, because I adore fig and it would make such a beautiful (and ultimate Christmasy) sufganiyot.

Unf. This is kind of what I want A-Wassailing to smell like. Coffee is but one of many notes in here, mulled into a single warm, bracing mug, spiced perfectly and thawing out the winter's chill from the inside out. Without knowing the notes, I wouldn't necessarily have assumed that coffee was even in here. It's definitely a muted backdrop for the other superstar notes to play off of. What made me hold off on blind-bottling Cola was actually the aguardiente. I've tasted it before and wasn't a fan of the black licorice flavor it gave off. Happily, I discovered that this traditional South American liquor plays very nicely in the blend, without any licorice overtones. What it DOES remind me of is baking with anise and citrus! So picture a lemon poppyseed muffin with anise and clove, spicy and sweet and wheaty. That's what I get from a good slather of Cola de Mono, a drink that makes me think MMMM orange anise-seed muffin! It must be the milk/sugar/vanilla bean (traditional muffin ingredients) combined with the spices (is my nose just inserting orange in there like a spiced orange?) and the anise of the aguardiente (which also might have fruit in it). All that to say, it's delicious, it's the good kind of baking-anise, and a really unusual hot drink to indulge in, if you are already inundated in hot cocoa, coffee, cider, and tea. (For reference, since I'm over at my Colombian in-laws' house, right this moment I'm having some long-opened aguardiente which they all agree has lost a lot of its flavor...but it still is quite licorice-y! So if you've ever tried it and thought that too, you still may enjoy Cola de Mono )

Swoon swoon swoon. A foodie's dream. Browning butter in a pan, low and slow, gives off a sweet caramelized aroma without it being literal caramel. From the first whiff, I was enveloped in that fragrant, nutty browned butter, which only got better once it was on the skin. It's a powerful foodie with an exquisite balance of sweetness, spices, richness (SO rich), and the smell of baking cookies in the air. There is a hint, no more than a hint, of the bourbon used for cooking, with most of the alcohol burned off and the honeyed flavor left behind, so it's not a very boozy blend. I don't get a huge hit of butterscotch either - for that, you should turn to Butterscotch Latte! - but with the milk solids reduced down in the browned butter, there IS a nice saltiness, like salted caramel but better. I keep huffing my wrist, trying to tell what spices are in here, but it's a mystery. Nutmeg? A little cinnamon? Something like allspice too. Distinctly different than a pumpkin spice blend, very appropriate for Yuletide. Sometimes foodies can all smell really similar - sweet, baked goods, chocolate or vanilla or rum-based - but Brown Butter Bourbon Cookie stands out in all the right ways. I love that it's strong too, so even if I don't slather all over, I'm lingering in a cloud of deliciousness for hours. Highly recommended for the gourmand-lovers!

I was really hoping this would have the same note as Cozy Pumpkin Sweater, and I was not disappointed. It is that gorgeous vanilla wool that is lamb-soft vetiver-adjacent without any of the bite of vetiver. Could it be a white pepper? It is kind of hypnotic. Without the pumpkin and clove of Cozy, the wool note really shines and that is a very, very good thing. Surprisingly quiet is the cafe au lait, with the lightest whiff of coffee if you know to look for it, a light vanilla hazelnut with warmed milk and plenty of sugar. Softly curling from an endtable beside you, it's there for a sip or two. What you really came here for, though, is your favorite fuzzy throw. Wool, sherpa, fleece, whatever it's made out of, the Wool Blanket part of the scent envelopes me in downy softness, the ultimate cozy snuggle into a favorite armchair. Cleanly washed and softened with vanilla, it's also been lived in for a while so it has a skin-musk warmth that's hard to pin down. Hygge believers should stock up on this Cafe because it brings everything but the book; that, you'll have to bring yourself. The more I've come to smell book blends, the more I realize I like all the things that are book-adjacent - warm drinks, cozy blankets, crackling hearth, leather covers, and beeswax candles - without perhaps needing to cover myself in the exact scent of the book itself. Even if you usually aren't into coffee blends, this could be one for you if you enjoy vanilla/wool/milky notes. One of my favorite Yules this year, and it came home with me immediately!

I want to eat this. Pure edible goodness, foodie galore, thick and creamy and eggy with the same heady eggnog note you may have smelled in Egg Nog Cocoa Atmo from 2018, plus a dash of spice and some excellent crumbly crust on the cheeseake. Surprisingly from the first two notes listed, I wouldn't consider this a boozy scent. It's only in the way that when you bake with alcohol, you can get some of the rich flavor and complexity to counter the sweetness of the dessert; that's exactly how the brandy and rum behave here, lending nice spice and depth to this concoction. I was enchanted from first sniff at Lunacy, and immediately slathered. It's just so yummy. On the skin, it doesn't disappoint. Up close, this is a strong and sweet gourmand beauty, true to its inspiration. The only Yule wish I could have (uh, besides hairgloss of this? but there is PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE which is the same amazing cheesecake note!), is for the duration of its potent phase to be longer. It hangs out for an hour and then dies down to something soft and beautiful, close to the skin. But so worth reapplying! A bottle came home with me. If you've enjoyed any of the lab's Eggnog notes in the past (and so far I've tried Eggnog Latte, Egg Nog Cocoa Atmo, and There Arose Such a Clatter), or gourmand blends that are not pure unadulterated sweetness but have tons of richness and waftiness, this is a great one.

100% honest impressions from wet 2019 Black Ice: "I could totally picture pulling off caps in the men's deodorant aisle and smelling a smell like this." Like it just has that blast of "gleaming wet MANNNN" that deodorant scent profiles love to rely on. But it's a deodorant you'd WANT your man to wear. Then as it dries down, it turns to a really lovely resin that's vetiver-dominant. I really love the drydown, but the wet stage is a little too aggressive on me.

A buttery Love's Philosophy, without the saffron, of course. This is not a shy butter! It's been left out on the counter for the week and is quite soft and squishy and a little oily. The honey is a little sharp to my nose, but others will probably disagree, honey is such a personal experience of a note. Creamy and sweet-but-not-TOO-sweet, this Hymn is one to try if the Luper is your jam and you want a very cozy, VERY butter-forward Yule version of it. I kind of wonder what saffron would smell like with this!

This is a beautiful frosty yellow floral, very atmospheric and cold but vividly glowing too! I would not have guessed there was mugwort lurking around this lake, but I totally picture the crystalline ice, the slight bitterness of the lemon peel that always helps tone down the bright citrus, the piercing quality of the white musk and moonflower like little icicles of scent surrounding your lakeside vigil. One of the more picturesque of the Yules this year. If the scent description appeals to you, this blend is very very apt.

That verbena is a very bright, cheerful top note. Yellow is the scent-color to pay note to! If you're looking for a buoyant snow, hinting hopefully at spring, I could see this being a contender. Not my cup of tea at all but I didn't expect it to be

A Shunga pine? Perhaps! This is simple and elegant, with a sophisticated bright pine that indeed smells like the needles themselves rather than resiny or pine forest, and a lotus that was giving off some good root notes to me, like freshly peeled ginger (without the gingery pep, you know?). The combination was a little fizzy, a scent-color like lime green. While this wasn't a blend that necessarily rang my bell, I could see it being an excellent, office-appropriate Yule scent for the right wearer.

Wow, this was much smoother than I was expecting! The bergamot really keeps a calm lid on whatever's been brewing in that stovetop pan, and the cranberries have boiled down to a delicious sweet richness, with just a hint of spice from the pepper. Everything in the description really did sound a bit scary, but there's no need to be scared of this beauty. I almost sprang for a bottle, but I think I'll dig up a decant and live with it for a while first.

A sweet, foodie twist on this combo of notes, with a noticeable presence of sugared gingerbread and a faint waft of tonka. The tobacco is rich but also on the sweeter side, making this far more gourmand than last year's Gingerbread Tobacco, which has aged to almost entirely a heavy tobacco, like a pipe tobacco flavored with the tiniest drop of gingerbread. If you want to smell all of the notes, this year's Gingerbread Tobacco and Tonka is a winner.

The "powdery" baking-spices kind of gingerbread with the sweet peppermint crunch is perhaps what's giving it Candy Canes et al Hair Gloss vibes, as Missanne points out! In the Cotillion of perfume oils, this is an instant classic. Gingerbread house vibes for sure. You can't go wrong with it if you like these two notes.

This is cute, even though I'm not a lemon fan, and still I got a bit of "building gingerbread house" from this combo. I did want the lemon to be more sugary, whereas in this blend, the emphasis seems to skew heavily citrus and not much of that tooth-rotting sweetness from sugar crystals that would make this a super fun Yule. The gingerbread is not super bready or cookie-ish, it's more spicy and gingery. An interesting idea that was not perhaps fully fleshed out but worth a shot.

Adorable! My exact words upon sniffing: "This is really cute." Light, sweet, and nicely gingerbread cookie-ish with a very happy dusting of vanilla and soft honey. I always have to sniff a honey note to know if it is a "kind" one to my nose, since sometimes it can shoot up like a spike right to my sinuses and other times it's lovely. This one is lovely. If I didn't have plenty of gingerbread already, this might be a contender. It's so nicely rounded, with no one note dominating. There is definitely cinnamon in here, but it's in harmony with everything else. I think for me, I like the more unusual gingerbread blends, but I can thoroughly recommend this one to a more traditional sweets lover.

This is Winter Solstice, bottled. I can't think of anything I'd rather wear on the longest night of the year than this quiet, wondrous beauty. In the bottle and newly applied, the honey cakes are primarily what comes through. I am well acquainted with these softly yummy treats from their appearance in this year's Pumpkin Mead and Honey Cakes, where they threw homey baked goods into a dark, cozy autumn night. Here, they lead off as if that is all we can expect from this offering: delicious but rather simple honey cakes. And if you only gave the bottle a quick sniff and moved on, that's all you might think was in there. But you'd be missing the best part. When the last crumbs of honey cake have been nibbled up and darkness has descended, the glow of amber incense begins to flicker like candles lit one by one, until their warmth and light cradles you gently and lovingly. Candlelight always has that gentler throw, and so it is here; but the aura of the amber, though subtle, is wide. Most scents I can't smell on myself unless I put my nose right up against my skin. This softly gilded resin wafts and wafts for hours. The night may be dark and cold and long, but inside, all is calm, all is bright. This is what I want to wear while sitting in front of the fire in the bleak midwinter. When Yule is over, and the bitterest part of January has set in, I'll be making my Solstice offering many nights, warmed from within.

2019: Whoa, SPRITE, where'd you come from? I'd welcome an errant visit from an Ariel or a Puck in an ambrosial blend...but that's not the kind of Sprite I'm talking about. Yes, good old fashioned soft drink kind, bubbly and effervescent, almost a twist of lime in it. It's an odd thing to find amongst the fainter notes of fir, the almost non-existent woods. Everything is draped in a heavy blanket of fizzy soda snow, and I'm not sure I'm here for it!

2019: Instead of wine - which I associate with the sour grape kind that shows up in a lot of BPAL wine blends - Gluhwein reads like THE best cider. Deep, rich, mulled, and spiced, with lots of fruits and not just apples. At first when I sniffed it, I thought I didn't need it because I had so many apple cider scents (Autumn Cider, Spiced Autumn Cider, Punkie Night, Fearful Pleasure, Lamb's Wool). It was only later, when I smelled each of those again, that I realized Gluhwein kiiiind of puts all of them to shame. The closest comparison is actually the 2019 Harvest Moon with its gloriously mulled wine. Gluhwein is the Yule version of that, with some more of those traditional winter blends of spices and orange and cardamom and vanilla. Delicious, and yet atmospheric rather than pure foodie. Might just have to acquire some of this, I confess.

2019: cake, where are you?? Seriously, this is a very accurate listing of ingredients from most abundant to least. Lots of fuzzy cologne - the exact opposite of the sharp "dead leaves" style cologne, this one is mild-mannered and ghostly, a little dapper, a spectre trying to slap on his favorite scent from when he went a-courting. Next, the "blurry herbs" - nettle? Nettle. Probably something else too, but that distinct cold piercing grassiness of nettles is cutting through the blur. A vague smudge of ash, no more than a smudge. And the cake crumbs? 😪 No cake here. The ghosts took it all. None for us mortals, I'm afraid. I did have this same problem with Dusk in Autumn, but I like to chalk it up to the ghosts this time.

Somehow, with all those notes going on, this manages to be holy and contemplative, complex and yet no single note competing for attention. Truly well-blended in the sense that it's hard to isolate any one note. I was afraid the almond would ruin it, being my one all-time no. Amazingly, it doesn't, and while I am vaguely aware that something nutty like almond is there, it is very calm and collected, like this entire blend. Even lemon verbena plays nice! Go figure! There is something bright at the top, slightly herby and citrusy, but it's so well-grounded, I don't get taken to lemon pledge land. (You know the one.) I think carnation is the one player that tries to sneak to the top with its florals, but even it can't quite win out. Everything is too balanced. Sorry, carnation. Take a seat! This strikes me as a good New Year's eve scent. Looking back on all (allllll) that has happened in the past year, and looking forward to the experiences that the new one will bring.