LavenderCoffee

Hellooo cinnamon bark! I tested this from a decant closer to when it was released, but today was the first application from the bottle I ordered. I did not hold back applying it to my underarms and ohmigosh it's a bit spicy under there now! Anywho now that my case of spicy pits is subsiding (sorry/yw), this gooped girl is all deliciously spiced cedar and carnation with a cuddly ambery black musk backdrop. There was more black musk when I first tested it, but not enough to prevent me taking the plunge on the bottle. This is a rare win for me in the black musk column and I will just need to remember to cool my jets on applying it to sensitive skin areas 😅

This is unlike other BPAL roses and other Snake Oil blends in my collection. This is a bold rose, but I'm also enjoying the brazen amber, rising to the occasion: must be some generous flecks! I'm not really picking up on a blackened vibe from the rose, except that it feels very goth femme and I am wayyy into it, even if it isn't especially snakey yet.

Non Vider goes on with an enthusiastic punch of cologne-like blackcurrant. The wet scent skews to the higher register, and you could easily imagine this with a citrus fruit instead of the currant. As it dries, the purple-y garnet facet of the berry really pops out. I wish I could detect more frankincense and beeswax, but as it stands it remains quite sharp. These longing eyes are red from crying and in need of some sweet solace.

This is so fun, it's a fuzzy chocolate moss. Certifiably chocolatey but also decidedly non-foodie and somehow refined. A gentleperson's chocolate scent, not for the children. It benefitted from a couple days rest and is now tremendously wearable, with average staying power and low throw.

Y'all. How is this blend so freakin subtle? I spot tested it for two days after receipt, and still could not believe my nose, so today it is SOTD. Try to hide your tricks now, you sneaky sneef! This is unbelievable to me for two reasons: the leather/oakmoss combo, and of course, the black oud. The Empress and The Chariot from Liliths '21 has a kickin' leather/oak bark combo that has settled since release but is still revvingly noisy. Non Vider from this year's main batch of Lupers (review forthcoming) might still need some settling, but she has got some things to say! aaaand I guess black oud just has a bad rap. I love to smell all the wild weird ouds, but this is not one of them. Last year's Cacao/Black Leather/Incense was a no-go for me, and I almost skipped testing this one. But! I'm so glad I didn't, and here we are. Slinky sexy and subtle. The dark, cacao-dusted leather jacket scent of my dreams. Unisex, and doesn't even really skew masc to my nose, but everyone will have their own opinion on that. I want to smell like this, and I want other people to smell like this, and we will all be the sexiest chocolates in the box, ok? Ok.

I admit that I saw cotton candy peonies and mashed the add to cart button, but now that I've tested this a few times, I'm asking myself how I missed rose cream! Thankfully it's a note I enjoy. It has a nice amount of throw, it's not as heady as it was paired with jasmine cream in Poinsettia Gown, plus there is definitely a sweet candy aspect to the peony that balances things quite nicely. So no, not a cotton candy scent, but appropriately playful/dramatic/silly like a massive silk peony blossom. I'm not picking up on any booze from the cognac but it has a nice smooth drydown.

Abalone and Peach Blossoms does start out quite salty on my skin, but it shifts fairly quickly as it dries. It it somehow warm and sweet but also cool and aquatic at the same time, depending on which notes you catch in a given moment (an impressive interpretation of the label art). Sea salt, crushed abalone and grapefruit create a decidedly pink sea air vibe, and then peach blossoms and plum with just a breath of water lily bring some blushing sweet warmth into the picture. Once it's dry, it smells the way the inside of a seashell looks. I'm not usually into aquatics but I am really enjoying this one. It will be in the rotation for sundress season for sure.

When this first arrived I was only getting coffee bean from it - for a brief moment on initial application I got that hit of dark chocolate and coffee together that really floats my boat, but then the dark chocolate made a hasty exit stage left. There was a cloud of boozy rum that also quickly dissipated, and all I was left with was dupe of the Guatemalan Volcanic Coffee Bean SN. Time, it needs time! I said. So today I revisit: the initial progression is almost the same, but now the rum transitions from outright boozy into what I think of as a warm and fuzzy rum scent, like in Zipline II (or at least in the same way that one reads on my skin) and the big hit of chocolate becomes a silky ribbon of chocolate in the background. So it's ultimately very coffee bean forward, and quite nice as a trio, but it turns out I prefer cacao with coffee, bean on bean, instead of chocolate with coffee bean. TMYK 🌈✨

Unmistakably a Snake Oil blend to my nose, but also unmistakably bubblegummy, and with some serious throw right out of the gate! Comparing this to Abduction of Proserpine on the same arm, the lavender is really popping out, but it really comes in third to the SO and the candy. This is absolutely the scent I would expect to smell sitting between a certain mother and child back in 2016.

I’ve recently learned pom is a tricky note for me, and I’ve been on tricky terms with white sandalwood for a minute, but black currant is brokering some kind of unlikely peace here and this blend is really nice on me somehow? A deep, rich fruit note befitting of Proserpine.

When this first touched my skin there was like a second and half where my brain went "uhhh" as though there was something overly animalic and icky happening, but then it went directly to "Oh. Oh my! Nsfw!" As others have mentioned, I'm definitely getting an impression of leather, but it's a worn-in leather. imo this is less sweet and more smutty than Smut. The more it dries, and please forgive me here, the more the impression changes to armpit, but in a post-coital way, like the description says. Sometimes in that moment, that person's armpit is the best thing you've ever smelled. Other times, that same armpit is like, whew you need a rinse and some fresh BPAL, lol. 😅 I don't really get any booze from this at any point. Seems like a scent one would need to be in a certain mood to wear.

This is not a scent I would have picked up for myself, so I'm pleasantly surprised at how nice it is. Fresh, sweet melon, with mandarin peeking out just after application. Drying down it is absolutely giving platonic ideal of melon hi-chew, as mentioned at the top of the thread, but somehow soft and luminous is also spot on (thank you white musk). I'm not picking up on any nutmeg, or anything cologne-y or even really floral? It's just the best melon candy you ever had, levitating in a halo of light with a choral sound effect.

I was lucky enough to snag a bottle of this off of Etsy last month, and I'm quite glad I did. I find it tremendously comforting, and it smells exactly like these scent notes from the text, right down to the charcoal: "dried cinnamon leaves and dried laurel leaves beneath the charcoal ...cinnamon and sandalwood smoke" The sandalwood smoke is most prominent, accented with dry laurel (not a swaggering full strength bay) and dry cinnamon (not red hots, nor skin irritant), traces of ash and charcoal (like the end of an incense burn). A gorgeous dry incense blend.

Sooo yeah this is great. It's like if there was a patchouli version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. No milk, obviously, but all the comfort and ease of Saturday morning breakfast cereal.

This is a soft, sweetly unsweet blend that my skin seems to gobble up. Teak tends to be slightly sharp on me but I only get that briefly here in the wet phase. I'm not sure how you get leather to be sweet, but it is exactly that, and well-worn. Coffee and cacao combinations are my jam, and I like those notes to be front and center, but here they are background players. It's not unlike sitting in your grandfather's chair, where untold cups of coffee and crossword puzzles have been finished.