Tamarinda

This is all powder to me. In the bottle, wet, dry, on a test strip. It's powderpowderpowder and I kinda hate it. Which is nuts cuz I can tell that under the powdery smell is a similar amber to the one in Grey Columns, which I absolutely love. Go figure!

In the Bottle: Purple candy?

Wet: Sweet purpleyness and other unidentifiable things that are nonetheless pleasant.

Dry: It's more candied plums than purple candy. There's also the miasma of something resinous, but it's not quite identifiable as a Snake Oil variant on my skin. I'm happy to have blind bottled this because whatever it is I'm smelling, I love it very much.

In the Decant: Fighting Irish Spring.

Wet: WHY DID I PUT THIS ON???

I did not give this a chance to dry. This is the smell of a thousand bars of Irish Spring soap going to war with a thousand axe deodorant sticks. Thanks, I'll pass.

In the Decant: Minty!

Wet: Sweet and minty!

Dry: Marshmallows? Really. All traces of mint are gone in about 30 minutes and I'm left with a sweet, skin-close marshmallow smell that I am not averse to, but mildly confused by.

2022 Version

In the Bottle: WHAM! Aggressive, boozy musk.

Wet: A blooming cloud of muskiness.

Dry: Sweet, powerful musk. No real booziness but it could be the element that anchors all the musk together, because I cannot isolate any of them.

I really, really love Smut. What makes me extra happy about blind-bottling this is that it reminds me of the way Snake Smut smelled on me before my skin chemistry changed. It's a bouncy kind of sexy, cute and coy. I'm tempted to get a backup so that I can go crazy smuttifying all the things.

In the Decant: Fresh roses.

Wet: Soapy fresh roses.

Dry Stage 1: Very loud, slightly sweet, soapy fresh roses.

Dry Stage 2: This took about two hours for the honey to finally come out. Whereas in the wet stage and first dry stage, the throw was moderate, now this has become a skin-close scent. I've got to jam my nose into my arm to smell it, but what is there is nice. It reminds me of the rose note in Budding Realization. The honey smells a bit musty, but I'm guessing that's the amber oudh blending into it.

I wish the first dry stage didn't happen and that the second dry stage had more oomph. I might set this decant aside for another month and check again.

In the Decant: A loaf of rye bread.

Wet: Still that rye bread smell but also the crusty bread smell of a skinny French baguette. And then the cream note hits you in the face, all artificial popcorn butter smelling.

Dry Stage 1: Lots of cloying cream over bread. We're in headache territory but I'm curious what will happen next so I don't scrub it off.

Dry Stage 2: After the first hour, this improves a lot. I get a nice bakery smell under a creamy sweetness. It has a moderate amount of throw and high sillage. I wore this while gardening yesterday and could smell the scent path I left as I went back and forth from the yard to the house. Impressive!

This fades after about six hours to a vague, sweet, skin-close scent. Every time I test it, it's a little different, so I'm thinking this either needs quite a bit of time to become stable, or it's very responsive to hormone cycles. I am confused by this perfume, but also interested. I kinda want a bottle just because it's such a strange experience.

In the Decant: Realistic cucumbers!

Wet: Fresh cucumber on a green, slightly sweet perfumey foundation.

Dry: The freshness of the cucumber fades into the background and out comes the lettuce. This smells like cucumbers on a salad without smelling literally like a salad. I don't get any obvious onion smells, nor do I smell any of the other spices. There's a sweetness to it that is probably the melon. I'm wondering if time will bring out the sesame without compromising the cucumber.

This is a very beautiful, salad-like perfume and as a rabbit-style vegetarian, I approve. I've never smelled anything like it. The freshness fades to a greenish musky perfume that feels very upscale. This perfume doesn't last very long on my skin, maybe about four hours. But it s so nice while it lasts that I'm planning on upgrading this to a bottle.

UPDATE: I was right to think that a little age would give this more staying power. Nine hours later and I can still smell it. Lovely!

In the Bottle: Fresh, crisp apples?

Wet: Fresh apples macerating in booze and tobacco!

Dry: The apple part has, not faded away, but melded into the euphony of notes that make up this perfume. This is a seriously impressive olfactory interpretation of lace. It is gauzy and autumnal. The throw is moderate, but the scent lasts a good eight hours at least.

I'm so happy I bought this. I was worried about the patchouli, since I tend to amp it to 1990s Hot Topic proportions. Thankfully that's not happening here. This is a stunning perfume and interestingly enough, more "wearable" on me than Sugared Lace. And by "wearable," I mean, "will not knock a passerby unconscious." Sugared Lace is the best thing I've ever smelled but I amp it to bajeezuz.

In the Decant:  Soap?

Wet: A little soapy, a little floral, a little charred.

Dry: This is a skin scent for me. It's a clean scent with just a streak of cinders. Very nice! Not really a bottle upgrade, but I will enjoy my decant.

In the Decant: Agree with everyone that said it smells like ginger ale. Exciting!

Wet: Sparkly ginger ale and... something incredibly unsettling.

Dry: This continues to smell like ginger ale but then a hospital smell crops up. WTF? Oh. It's blood. Like, actual, literal, fresh human blood. The faint scent of iron, something a bit sweet, like skin. And ginger ale.

The smell of this is incredibly unsettling. But it's pretty impressive from a perfume standpoint.

In the Decant: Woah, lemon!

Wet: Bright, happy lemon and a bit of amber.

Dry: It's a lemony amber for about 15 minutes and then it fades to absolutely nothing.

In the Decant: I'm getting something acrid. Like you're in a factory that makes plastic.

Wet: Still that acrid, liquid plastic smell that I don't know how to place. There's a teensey bit of vanilla hiding underneath.

Dry: Welp. This smells godawful on me. I smell something jasmine-ish, which is always awful on my skin even though I love the smell of the flowers. I can't really tell what I'm smelling other than vaguely floral, vanilla-scented industrial liquids. Alas.

My first lace! How do I coherently describe this?? This perfume takes you on an entire journey. It has many stages, all amazing. It is simply... perfect.

This is a perfect blend of notes led by the vanilla and sugar. On the one hand, this reminds me of lace cookies, but without being foody. On the other, it reminds me of events back in my youth, in art galleries or music halls, and the wisps of scented air that are the result of a large room moderately populated with expensively perfumed women.

"In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo."

It smells like that. Ok, now that the hyperbole is outta my system...

In the Bottle: A lightly boozy tobacco with hints of sweet vanilla.

Wet: An melange of scents dominated by tobacco.

Semi-Wet: The sweetness of the sugar begins to rise along with a light booziness. There is a hiss of something else that I cannot identify, so I'm going to guess that its the champaca. The more this dries, the more the tobacco settles. It doesn't overtake anything, but becomes the couch upon which everything else will lounge.

Dry, Stage 1: Hello vanilla! This is what every vanilla lotion from the 1990s wanted to be. Very rich, very present. It's intermingled with the sugar. The cognac is no longer boozy but it contributes an interesting dryness that feels warm. Maybe the warmth comes from the coconut husk? I don't smell any actual coconut husk at this or any other point. Wondering if that will come out with age.

Dry, Stage 2, a few hours later: Instead of fading with time, this just grows more powerful. It is a heady, lightly sweet vanilla on a silver platter of rich bitch perfume. I. Love. This. lovelovelovelvoelvoelevoelvelvoeve.

Dry, Stage 3, ten hours later: After many hours of kicking ass and taking names, Sugared Lace is now a hum of sweet vanilla & tobacco. She is calm, not subdued. She's faded from my arms, but continues to waft steadily from my sternum.

This is pretty much the best thing I've ever smelled and what a bummer! It's sold out = (

This smells like the candy Sweet Tarts on me. In the bottle, wet, and dry, it's Sweet Tarts. Nothing terribly spectacular, but also not offensive. It fades away after three or four hours. I'm hoping time will do something interesting to this.

UPDATE: The blueberry candy smell did come out more after a few months, but it's a fader.

My skin chemistry is changing and Snake Smut is one of the casualties. This was so beautiful on me hardly a month ago. I loved it. It was musky and had that Snake Oil edge, along with a faint cherry scent to it. A cap dot on each arm lasted all day with a medium throw and was absolutely sexy and delicious. It's only been a week or two since my skin chemistry got weird but SO variants are trending baby wipes so far. Crimes. :'-(

I used to love my 2010 Womb Furie until the past few weeks when my skin chemistry turned a corner. Before, it was a lovely, sweet powdery scent reminiscent of other Snake Oil variants I have. It wasn't too aggressive but had good lasting power. Now? Baby wipes. Chemically baby wipes. I was belligerent the last time I tested it and didn't wash it off. I just sat with the dreadful smell until it faded away in a few hours. Maybe four? Kinda glad I just grabbed a decant of the 2022 version. We'll see how that one goes.

In the bottle: Nothing

Wet: More nothing.

Dry: Ghost perfume. A beautiful ghost. I can jam my nose next to my skin and smell nothing, but if I pass a mirror, I get the faintest whiff of something absolutely lovely and compelling. I slathered this one day, determined to smell it. I still couldn't, except when the wind was blowing north north east or something. BUT. This was definitely smellable to other people. I shouldn't like this because it is so ephemeral, but I do. I like it rather a lot, actually. Go figure!

On a test strip: Ok, I smell it now. A gentle, sweet amber. I don't get much smoke, just a teeeeensy bit. The way Grey Columns smells on the strip is more or less what I vaguely smell on my skin.

UPDATE 8/1/2022: Another perfume lost to the Great Skin Chemistry Change of 2022. This was so lovely in the spring. But when I wore it this weekend after not having done so in a few weeks, it was... not pleasant. I think my new skin chem is rejecting anything that is amber forward since my aged bottle of Gelt smells weird on me now too. Less at powder, more at dust. Bah!

I don't get any coconut from this. Like Jakkie, this is purely a musky floral. I don't hate florals though. I do get something a bit smoky which might be coconut or hazelnut. I like it though. It dries down into a floral lotion smell on my skin. Jergins maybe? I haven't used commercial skin products in ages so my nose may be misremembering. But that's how it lands on my skin: musky, slightly smokey floral lotion.

In the decant: Smells like artificial raspberries, a sweet creamy note? And something dusty.

Wet: Please scream inside your clowns, aka a fried doughnut smell with a dash of cinnamon and some raspberry flavoring.

Dry: Oh, hello apricot. The apricot has come forward after having been absent in previous tests. It just goes to show that even a few days of settling will change a perfume. I'm glad that the apricot has come out to give a bit of realism to the artificial raspberry product smell that it was previously giving. 

This is a lovely jam doughnut smell and I'll have to snag a bottle of this. Prior tests had this fading after a few hours and I'm guessing that time will improve its longevity.

In the bottle: Spices plus something sharp and smokey.

Wet: SPICES

On the test strip: Sweetly smokey spices.

Dry: This is a very dry, spicy scent on me. I think this is one that needs some time to settle. I get a bit of pencil shavings and just a hint of something sweet. I feel like this will settle into something very attractive even though as of now, it's rather aggressive. On my left arm, its a sinister spicy smokey smell. On the right arm, I'm getting smoked ham. I don't know if I get the tea note, having never smelled black tea in a perfume before. It's hard to judge since tea that you drink is a gentle smell and these gingerbread spices go for the jugular. This might make a great deodorant oil in about a month.

I love this. It's nearly all pumpkin on me. Fresh cut pie pumpkin so it's a bit sweet. It takes a while for the cinnamon note to peek out and I don't mind it. Overall, it's a cheerful scent that will be fun to layer with.

In the Decant: A smokey sweetness plus licorice.

Wet: Licorice

Dry: SMOKEY LICORICE.

Alas! This is where I learned that I amp licorice root because that is ALL I smell once this hits my skin. There is no evidence of any other note than the mystery smoke quality plus LICORICE. At no point did any other note show up and I gave it an hour before showering it off.

This smells very sweet in the imp, but it goes on rather bitter on the skin. It's a green bitterness with a molasses type sweetness to it that I think is the Bourbon vanilla or the mallow, or some combination of both. I can't be sure, I use Tahitian vanilla beans, not Bourbon so its hard to know. It's just not a distinctly vanilla smell, or not a "real" vanilla smell, but like the lotion you could get from B&BW in the 1990s. That, the "movie theatre butter" cream note that Tori mentioned, and the note that goes bitter celery on my skin makes this a very awkward scent. I do not get any patchouli.

This is another confusing Vanitas perfume. I really don't know how to feel about it. But I'm stubborn so I will continue to test this decant. It might do better during a different time of my hormone cycle.

UPDATE: 11/11/2022 Ok, so I picked up a half bottle of this ages ago. I continue to be confused by it and apparently, being confused is something that I enjoy?

Anywho. The bitter celery smell is now gone. I still don't get any obvious patchouli. Maybe my skin eats it? Not sure. But I do get a lot of the not-standard vanilla scent mentioned in my original review. I also get a vague milky smell with the vanilla. It's no longer "movie theatre butter," but it isn't distinctly anything else. It's just dairy-ish and vanilla-ish. Chibi Skull has excellent throw and lasts for well over eight hours. It makes no sense for me to like this as its so vague, but I kinda love it.

I almost like this. It's very interesting and compelling, and I'd probably wear it if I wanted to smell mysterious, but I don't know if it really smells good to me or on me. I take it what I'm smelling is the opoponax. Its a woody smell. I get a little vetiver during the wet stage, but dry it just smells like trimming hedges and a bit of sweetness. I'm admittedly very confused by this perfume. I'll have to try this again in a week.