ShadowEtienne

A storm is blowing in over the ocean, carried on salt sea air. There's a distant ozonic note that heralds the storm. Standing amidst cedar and cypress grown on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Their scent is partially whipped away by the breeze, but it remains a soft backdrop. Snowdrops, soft and floral and fresh, bloom along the trail and the cliff face, their scent softening the edge of the oncoming storm. I get very little in the way of berries or aloe from this. Perhaps the aloe is adding to the aquatic element of the scent, but the berries just aren't showing up. Overall, I love this! It's very evocative of being near the ocean and a type of weather I love, and snowdrops are an excellent note for me.

Soft lotus blooms in a breeze at twilight. The wisteria and cassia blossoms are blooming further off and wafting on the breeze. Cymbidium and bamboo grow along the shore of the lotus pond adding floral and sweet green freshness to keep the lotus from getting too sweet. This is beautiful and evokes a cool and breezy evening. Definitely glad I was able to get a hold of it through Etsy!

Since I'm not personally familiar with CK1, I went and looked at reviews to get an idea of the notes and see if it seemed to align with any GC scents that might be interesting to someone. The impression that I've gotten is CK1 is citrus + floral + green notes with some warmer/woody/resin scents underneath. Going through GC scents that seem to have similar vibe (I'll note personal recommendations): - Muse (Ars Amatoria): A light, invigorating floral and citrus blend. Tuberose, lotus and jasmine with a hint of lime. - Embalming Fluid (Ars Moriendi): A light, pure scent: white musk, green tea, aloe and lemon. - Fae (Bewitching Brews): A brilliant, ethereal scent: white musk, bergamot, heliotrope, peach and oakmoss. - Zephyr (Bewitching Brews): A gentle white scent, breezes laced with the scent of springtime blooms and citrus. Lemon, lemon verbena, neroli, white musk, white florals, white sandalwood, China musk, bergamot and a drop of vanilla. - Baobhan Sith (Diabolus): Grapefruit, white tea, apple blossom and ginger. [I personally find this one lovely and light, and definitely would recommend it!] - Aizen-Myoo (Excolo): Yuzu, kaki, and mikan with cherry blossom and black tea. [This one is a personal favorite and has some lovely citrus-floral going on, but low on greener notes.] - Croquet (Mad Tea Party): Pink lime, pink grapefruit, white nectarine, wild rose, sage, woody patchouli, bergamot, and ornery hedgehog musk. - Tweedledee (Mad Tea Party): Ridiculous! Kumquat, white pepper, white tea and orange blossom. [I love this one, but it smells wildly different on different people.] - Night Gaunt (Picnic In Arkham): Their scent of their slick, rubbery hides is bittersweet, ticklish, and skin-creeping: something akin to yuzu, white grapefruit, and kumquat mixed with the snow-dusted flowers of Mount Ngranek. [This is a personal favorite and is pleasantly sharp and airy, with a lovely kick of citrus and white florals. Don't let the Picnic in Arkham style descriptions through you off.] - Shanghai (Wanderlust): The crisp, clean scent of green tea touched with lemon verbena and honeysuckle. [This is another one that I like a lot! It's beautiful and airy and fresh.] - Whitechapel (Wanderlust): A gentlemen’s blend, possessed of dignity, charm and refinement, but in truth masking a corrupted, hideous, soulless core. White musk, lime, lilac and citron. Since these are all GC, they can be gotten as imps, and if the person really likes them, they'd be replaceable. Didn't through the long term collections or the LE scents. Hopefully this is a useful starting place to dig through reviews from!

Lily of the valley, peach petals, and creamy ambergris take the forefront on my skin. It's soft and airy and feels sort of like a walled garden near the sea, I can't smell something specifically oceanic, but the smell of this has that quality of air that you find in sheltered places near the ocean. The resinous elements of the amber are still airy, and while present are quiet, just bringing some warmth to the scent. The rose sandalwood is a very quiet herbal-floral-woody note that adds to the feel of this being a garden. I adore this, and it really favored my favorite notes in it on my skin.

A stone bluff in the pine forest surrounded by fresh mountain air. There is a bright crispness to this scent that I don't often associate with forest/woody smells. It definitely reminds me of hiking at altitude among pine trees, but specifically being above the main part of the forest. The breeze here is calm but moving, the stone is a bit sun warmed but not too hot. There are definitely some mineral notes in there from the stone, perhaps a mountain stream not too far away, but nothing notably aquatic, just that water has touched some of this stone, but the air is fairly dry, so not like it was rained on recently. It's a very evocative scent, really bringing to mind a place, and that's something that I definitely appreciate!

Muguet and Ylang Ylang battle to be on top of this scent for me. The muguet is winning very narrowly, much to my delight as it is a favorite scent, but there is quite a bit of Ylang Ylang. Together, they are a pleasantly sharp, white floral mix that is rather energizing. There is a soft waft of roses underneath that reigns in the sharpness of the scent just a little, but the roses are definitely an afterthought on my skin. I'm definitely going to be playing with layering this one (one of the things that I like about three notes and duets).

Someone early in the reviews mention Chinese dried salty plum candies, and that's definitely resonating for me! Even more so though, this scent reminds me of the aroma of making salty plum candies and pickled plums with my foster family. Really the only thing that it's missing is star anise to fully evoke that memory (I may try layering it with an anise forward scent at some point to evoke that part even more strongly). It's tart plums, warmed with brown sugar and clove. Sassafras lends some of the herbal, earthy notes of the other herbs and spices that would go in to the cooking down of the plums for candies and pickled plums. This is a delight, and while it is sweet, it's not too sweet.

Salty sea spray and slightly medicinal (but in a way I like) herbs from the bay rum. There's a salty dry wood note that is definitely present, and I'm not getting much of the leather note, which I certainly don't mind. I'm glad that I've picked up a bottle, especially as this is a beard oil that I can get more of, and it will be nice for when I don't want a fruity beard oil (my main non-BPAL beard oil smells of marionberries) or to smell like 10,000 trees (the only readily available to me in retail beard oil I'm not allergic to, I'm glad to be finding alternatives). I suspect that I will lean towards pairing this with my go to aquatics (such as Cthulhu and Sea of Glass) over some of my softer florals and fruit scents that it might overwhelm. It might do pretty well with some of my more resin based scents (I have a fair bit of stuff with Dragon's Blood, or maybe something like Dulle Grite). Jolly Roger isn't really a scent that I would immediately reach for as a perfume, but as a beard oil, it's doing a good job! It definitely has imparted luster to my beard, and I didn't need as much of it to get through my entire beard as I do a lot of beard oils (but having a dropper means that it was easy for me to get the amount that I needed, it's a much better beard oil set up than the type of lid that you have to shake drops out from). It absorbs well, not leaving my beard feeling greasy either. These are very good things with a beard that falls to mid-chest and is fairly dense. Formulation wise, this is one of the best beard oils I've gotten my hands on. I'm definitely planning on seeking out a wider variety of the BPAL beard oils that sound appealing to me, and hope to see more made at some point!

This reminds me of walking through an evergreen forest in the warmth of the afternoon after a morning's rain. There is fresh bright cypress and juniper, and in the understory there's some wild ginger (that's got to be the galangal), the eucalyptus is bringing that fresh steam in the forest note I suspect, but it doesn't smell like eucalyptus specifically. It's fresh and forest on my skin, and I very much enjoy it!

Saffron in this is definitely the spicy floral note that reminds me of the whole saffron crocus. Its sweetened and made more floral by the honey, but it's a light, not cloying honey that is almost nectary. The ti leaf adds a vibrant growing greenness to the scent that really works (a lot of green leaf type scents just overwhelm anything else on my skin, but this melds well with the rest and is in balance). On my skin, the sandalwood is nowhere to be found and I don't mind at all. This is bright and cheerful and soothing, and I'm very very pleased with it.

A thin, sinuous, creeping chill, the scent of glee-filled undeath: white iris, osmanthus, Calla lily, tomb-crawling ivy and a coffin spray of gladiolus, lisianthus and delphinium. This smells like a flower garden in bloom on an early morning in the fog. The cala lily and gladiolus are the most distinct floral notes for me, which is delightful because I love both. I can definitely get the iris and delphinium floating just beneath them. It's a light and airy and quietly peaceful sort of smell, and very much in my wheelhouse. I got this imp from a friend, and it's definitely something I would consider a full bottle of.

Woody, spicy, resinous incense in an open window near the sea as a storm blows in. It's not raining yet but you can smell the storm in the air. The resinous incense softens the sharpness of that storm tang of ozone, blending into something airy like the stillness before the storm. It definitely feels like night is falling, things are quiet, but there is anticipation in it. I was uncertain how I'd feel about this one from reviews, but I've been having pretty good luck in the Picnic in Arkham scents, and this one sounded like a maybe. Overall, I quite like it. It's very evocative, and I am very fond of that watching a storm blow in mood.

This is a sweetly blooming meadow of wildflowers in a deciduous forest for me. There might be one pine tree in the distance somewhere, but the tree notes are mostly maple and birch on my skin and too my nose. The trees are in the background though, and the wildflowers take center stage. They're dewy and freshly bloomed in the morning, and it's hard to pick out any single wildflower, they're just growing together in a cacophony of florals. This is nice, but I think I'm going to need to try layering it with something, possibly an aquatic to make it feel a little more right to me. Not my favorite Picnic in Arkham scent, but I'm glad I've gotten to try it.

I was too curious not to pick this up when I got the chance, and honestly, slightly to my surprise, I adore this! Resinous ginger is what the entire scent is based around on my skin, reminding me of the ginger chewy candies, the ones that aren't really that sweet but instead are delightfully punchy ginger. They've been covered in tart spicy peppers and my beloved anise, and it's like nothing I've ever actually smelled before while also somehow smelling exactly like the the spices in a Chinese grocery. I love this, I'm glad I took the risk on my curiosity.

The pomegranate in this is the seeds freed from the rind. Its sweet and fresh but not yet dripping its juice. There's a subtleness to the scent of just the seeds, still whole. There's also an almost floral element to this pomegranate that I'm enjoying. The juniper takes back seat to the pomegranate on my skin, but it's fresh and crisp, with just a hint of sap that one might get if a twig had been freshly snapped from the tree. Overall, this is a bright and fresh blend, and I really like the way the notes work together.

On me this is pretty well balanced between the mango and the green tea. It's a very ripe, sweet, floral mango. The sweetness is tempered and made not sticky by the airy floral green tea. This is simple, but a lovely blend, and I could see it layering really well.

On my skin, coconut is the base that everything else builds off. There's just this lovely underlying wash of coconut, very fresh and creamy but not sweet. Jasmine and plum blossom waft over it, floral and freshly blooming and airy, but very present. They meld beautifully with the creaminess of the coconut. The ginger and pink pepper are almost floral, but also a gentle spice added to the floral creamy mix. Orris root, oakmoss, and benzoin never show up to the party, though they may be what is holding back any sweetness from coming into this scent. I'm honestly not missing them at all here though. This is a beautiful fresh scent!

I was recently at the Portland Chinese Garden while the lotus were blooming so the scent is pretty fresh in my mind. That fresh lotus bloom scent is definitely present here, and is to me the predominant note. There's a host of other flowers, definitely some lilies to my nose, possibly some star jasmine. It very much smells like a Chinese garden but standing near the blooming lotus. The resins are a soft background note, grounding the rest of the scent. I only get the barest hint of citrus, to the point that I can't identify a specific citrus, just a vague hint of tartness. Overall, this is lovely, and I'm excited to have it!

My favorite GC with cinnamon is Wrath (Sin and Salvation/Seven Deadly Sins) - dragon’s blood spiked with black pepper, clove, and cinnamon. I like BPAL's dragon's blood note a lot, and I like spices but not at all foody as a scent type.

Cedar and pine are there in the background on me, but upon hitting my skin, a sweet soft floral note that reminds me of Prague and Cloth of Gold and I'm pretty sure is crocus rushes to the front, dragging a soft slushy ice of a melting river with it. This scent is the end of winter in the woods to me. Flowers are just starting to bloom, the sap is moving more vigorously in the trees again, and the river is melting and cracking and there is slush all along its banks where the flowers are bursting from the melting snow. There's a bare hint of mint in there, just adding to the coolness of the scent. This is delightful and I love it, but it isn't what I was expecting. I'm glad I grabbed a bottle!

On my skin, this is predominantly an airy waft of fresh lilies. It's a soft lily scent, but definitely maps over the other notes on my skin. There's a creaminess to it that I tend to attribute to BPAL's ambergris note, and the barest hint of a light slightly spicy wood that brings out the slight spicy lily note that I attribute to sandalwood here. It's interesting to see how much of a difference skin chemistry makes because unlike the reviewer above me, everything else is in support of the lily on my skin.

This is far and away predominately green tea on my skin. There are hints of lemon verbena (lemony and a touch mint adjacent) and just bloomed honeysuckle from outside the window, but the cup of freshly brewed green tea is right under my nose. This is exactly what I'm looking for when I need something that smells like home to my brain, it's simple and elegant and just so much delicious green tea (it specifically smells like a pan fried Chinese green tea such as Long Jing Cha / Dragonwell).

The sunken city of the Great God Cthulhu. A hellishly dark aquatic scent, evocative of fathomless oceanic deeps, the mysteries of madness buried under crushing black waters, and the brooding eternal evil that lies beneath the waves.  This is fascinating! I've liked all the aquatics I've tried from A Picnic in Arkham so far: Cthulhu, Yha'nthlei, and now R'lyeh. This one is more different from the other two than they are from each other. This invokes dark still water of the ocean close to shore, perhaps even lapping it's way into a cave. I get wafts of salt, kelp, and something deep and resinous and smoky that I think might be opium smoke as a note because it reminds me of A Forest Reverie. There's a bare hint of something fruity that adds sweetness and reminds me of dried, candied pomelo or maybe grapefruit, but a particularly sour one. There's also a floral touch that reminds me of wilting lilies (a good smell, but one that also is somehow appropriately ominous). This is fascinating! I think that Cthulhu is my favorite of the Picnic in Arkham aquatics that I've tried, but R'Lyeh is interesting in how it is different!

Aquatics in general do pretty well on me, as do citrus and eucalyptus, so I was excited to smell this when my sister got a frimp to the point that I ordered an imp to have around and do a proper wear test of it. Yha'nthlei and Cthulhu are definitely cousins of scents. The smell of Yha'nthlei reminds me of being on the water, bot to far from the coasts where you can still smell land but the scent of the saltwater is deep and fresh. The ambergris gives this a smoother feeling than Cthulhu, but it still has the aquatic sharpness that I'm fond of, that the eucalyptus meshes really well with. This is definitely entering my ongoing rotation of aquatic scents with Cthulhu and Lightning (and probably more to come).

I never got the chance to smell Blood Countess, but it sounds fascinating! Depending on what you like about it, and how things play on your skin, I wonder if The Forest Reverie (GC - Bewitching Brews) might give some of the same vibes.