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Showing results for tags 'Lupercalia 2017'.
Found 89 results
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[No additional description provided.] In the Bottle: YUMMMMMMM! Rich goat's milk and marshmallow and cocoa butter, oh my! Wet On Skin: More of the same, and I couldn't be happier. Dry Down: The cocoa butter warms up and comes forward a bit more but the goat's milk and marshmallow hold their own. the honey is a whisper and frankly, I'm glad, as honey does sometimes amp on my skin and drowns out other more subtle notes. In All: This is incredible. Like, I-probably-need-a-backup-bottle kind of incredible. This is a foodie's paradise. I am seriously in LOVE.
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Sweet amber and golden honey, cream accord, blue lilac, and a drop of cardamom. In The Bottle: Lilac and cream, oh my oh my! Wet On Skin: The lilac is REALLY heavy! Frankly, at this stage it's verging on overwhelming me. Still, it's a lovely note, and I'm hoping it'll settle down some on the dry down. Dry Down: When I was a kid, there was a giant lilac bush that grew outside the neighbor's house on the corner. I loved waling by it in late spring, when the boughs were heavy with blooming cones of the sweet flower. This lilac is very similar in freshness to what I smelled during that time. As it dries, the honey, a light, sweet yellow honey, not the dark, rich ones in "O", is certainly here as well, with the equally pal amber rounding it out. If there's cream here, it's mostly afterthought, which is a bit of a shame, honestly, because the sweetness of the other notes on my skin could use something to damp them down a little. The cardamom, however, IS there, but can only be detected as I pull my arm away from my face. Tricky! In All: High throw- a little goes a long way! Very, very floral and sweet. I don't know if this is for me, but any floral fan would kill to have this for sure!
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Chrysanthemum incense and red carnation. In The Bottle: Whoa, hello chrysanthemum incense! Carnation, of course, lending its special, sweet spiciness to the mix! Wet On Skin: The incense is definitely front and center. It reminds me quite a bit of the champa incense note, actually, even as it retains a hint of the mum-vibe. (also I accidentally got a little in my mouth when I was sniffing my finger. Don't eat it!!!) Dry Down: A light incense, but still a stronger note just the same. The spice of the carnation is here, but precious little else of the sweet flower remains. I am hoping this will come around with some aging, but regardless, it's a great addition to any incense lover's collection. At worst, I will later with some of the Spanish Carnation SN when I want more of that red beauty in the mix!
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Honey oudh and bourbon vanilla. In The Bottle: Wow. It's the honey we all love from numerous Lab blends, but it's being tempered with something that's surprisingly green and fresh. I guess it's the oudh, but it's not like any oudh I've encountered before. Huh. Wet On Skin: The "green" grows in intensity while the honey recedes. The vanilla is still nowhere to be seen. Dry Down: This green, fresh oudh aspect is the dominant for sure. The honey has morphed into a lighter honey dust upon dry down and alas, the vanilla remains MIA. In All: I'll keep this around for a bit to see how it ages. I'm not certain yet if this is a keeper for me, but I think it's a lovely scent for spring and anyone into leafy, greenie scents should absolutely get some ASAP.
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Sweet red vetiver, 13-year aged patchouli, mahogany oudh, and shadow musk. In The Bottle: Strong, dirty patchouli, sweet and smoky vetiver, rich oudh. Wet On Skin: The smokiness of the vetiver is front and center now, though the richness of the oudh is coming in close behind. The patch seems to have moved waaaay into the background at this stage. Dry Down: The smoky aspect of the vetiver has tones down, though the vetiver is still very present. The shadow musk has come out of hiding to create something that is dark, dense and lush. This reads as extremely powerful to me, something that I'll likely wear when I want others to leave me the hell alone. Yet, the vetiver adds its own sinister sexiness- I could definitely see wearing this out to a club, either alone if I just want to hang with my friends or layered with a clove-rich scent to give a message of "Come closer if you like, but I just might be a black widow in disguise, chump." In All: A strong scent for those that know themselves. <3
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Blackberry pulp, Bordeaux wine, grape leaves, and wild patchouli. In The Bottle: Heavy on the blackberry, as I'd hoped for. The wine is the grape-y variety of note. At this stage, it's much more fruit-heavy as opposed to booze heavy. The blackberry note is the same one from WKAP's Blackberry Jam and Scones. Wet On Skin: Rich purple grape and blackberry in harmony. At this stage, no green leaves or patchouli to be found. Dry Down: A slight boozy quality at last emerges. Still, this is not the rich, heady one from, say, Glüwein or anything. This is more like a fruity purple sangria. While it might've been interesting to have the patch in the mix, I'm just delighted to have another blackberry-heavy scent in the rotation. In All: Medium throw and just full of juicy purple fruitiness!
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With a hint of French chalk to ensure your catsuit goes on without a hitch. Woooo this single note is INTERESTING. I put it in my cart immediately, hoping that it would be the warm, yet harsh, chemically, rubbery, almost spicy smell one would encounter in a high-end fetish boutique. In the bottle, Latex is kind of like getting stabbed in the nose with eucalyptus rubber. It's *very* strong, and kind of reminded me of the initial "demonic Windex" of To Kindle A Flame in Our Frozen Veins. On the skin it calmed down juuuust a little, but spent around a half an hour continuing to stab me in the nose. Then I started to get more of the rubber, less of the eucalyptus, and the scent of inexpensive disposable latex gloves dominated. This wasn't quite what I was expecting, and not really what I wanted, so I rubbed my wrists together in the hope that it would chill the heck out. And, success!, the scent changed again into a latex-y, almost musty, "I just pulled off my catsuit" kind of smell. The smell of latex on skin, as it were, not latex alone. I had my partner sniff it wet, and they said that it smells like latex polish. (Which would explain the sharp, almost industrial chemically scent that I wasn't expecting.) With patience, and rubbing, I'd call this a smashing success at capturing latex. I'm definitely going to hang onto it and see how it ages!
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Red musk, orris root, and bergamot with blackcurrant, pink pepper, and red leather accord. Sweet and spicy. Dan Les Coulisses is dominated by red musk (the drier variety from scents like Witch Dance rather than the juicy red musk from Smut), with a prominent spicy note in the background. I'm guessing the spicy note is a combination of the pink pepper and red leather accord. I can rarely pull off leather notes, but this one is behaving. I can't pick out the orris, bergamot, or currant. Medium throw. Fits the image well.
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Cedarwood, orange blossom, Florentine iris, and golden vanilla. Beneath the Kotatsu is absolutely beautiful. The cedar is very subtle, and grounds the scent without playing a prominent role. The vanilla is warm, with no hint of plastic. The orange blossom and iris are sweet and subtle. This began as a subtle floral with medium throw, and settled down to a slightly closer scent dominated by vanilla. Truly a beautiful blend.
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Goats milk, coconut, rice milk, honey carnation, and sugar. I hate to be the first review because I'm terrible at identifying notes but here goes: This scent is much warmer than I was expecting - everything already blended well before it even touched my skin. Having trouble picking out notes. I'm thinking the honey carnation is giving a deeper note....or maybe the sugar is more like a burnt sugar or a brown sugar. I got this one and the Kitten scent together and was worried they'd be too similar but they are nothing alike on my skin. Oddly enough despite having two milk notes this doesn't come off as particularly milky to me. There is a hint of it in the background but I get....even an almost wood note in this? The more it sits the more I think it's the honey carnation. Also no coconut to be found on my which I occasionally amp. So interesting - not sure if it's my skin chemistry or the scent itself so I look forward to reading more reviews.
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Daffodil petals and lavender tulips, blonde woods, freesia, and a touch of pale honey. The honey note here is so light and airy, it's downright ethereal. And the florals? So dewy and bright you can see the condensation gathering on their petals. I love a good spring floral, but this? This blows all of them out of the water. I don't know how Beth is able to continually improve upon a seemingly simple scent family, but man, this is worth hoarding.
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White tea, fig, honey, and sweet olive. All I can say is this: if you like white tea, you need to try this. I don't get much honey, but this is fresh from the mailbox, so I imagine with some time to settle it will shine through. I'm getting a little green fig around the edges, and maybe a smack of osmanthus, but overall this is a clean, super pretty white tea. This is so lovely and fresh, perfect for spring and a must for any white tea lovers out there. TL;DR: white tea white tea white tea
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Scattered leaves, fir needle, and thick honey musk. aw, what a beauty! I almost passed this by, as I have already a good assortment of scents flaunting the lab's fabulous leaf note. some honey notes are wins, others go kinda foul on me. love fir and love the lab's musks. although I can smell the leaves when I first put this on, this isn't a "dead leaves" scent when it dries down. once this hits my skin, the leaves retreat and what shines is a lovely combo of sweet fir jam over an elegant and subdued honey with the barest edge of pale musk. this fir and honey musk combo is DIVINE. very much an in-a-forest-glowing-aura kinda scent. dreamy and magical.
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Hinoki wood, grave moss, vetiver, and cypress. lately I'm drawn to scents that evoke forests and wilderness, and this starts out like a fairy tale woods at dusk, with inky, goth, velvety moss-and-cypress branches casting spiky black lace shadows. there's a trace of grit from the vetiver. this wet phase is stunning, gorgeous. dry, this morphs into something soft and gentle, like pale worn suede. throw is gentle and my skin noms this within two hours. eta: it's been over a week and this beauty has upped significantly in throw and wear-length. it's also morphing and shifting in the most welcomed and delicious ways. currently: dark, gritty woodsy open, leaning more unisex aka cologne-like in the dry-down.
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Nectarine and pearl peach, white frankincense, and gardenia. In the bottle: juicy ripe fleshy fruit Wet on the skin: juicy, ripe, realistic nectarines and soft peaches. There's a little frankincense, but it's light, and the gardenia seems present, but maybe a little distant. Dry down: I was worried the nectarine and peach would dry down too soft, but they stay lovely and fruity, if not so juicy, and the gardenia steps up without being over powering. This is a gorgeous blend! Going to be one of my favorites. I'd put it in a similar family to another favorite: Josie (but sans honey, and maybe lighter/fresher fruit, and gardenia is slightly less heady than magnolia).
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Tuberose incense, blue wisteria, and oakmoss. Holy moly, this one starts off with a knock-you-over-backwards heady floral punch. I smell a lot of wisteria, I don't know what tuberose smells like, I read it's heady, so maybe it's in here too, along with a boat-load of wisteria. Like, wisteria for days. It's a good thing I love wisteria. This is intense, and the throw is intense, for the first 20 or 30 minutes or so after applying... then, suddenly, it calms down noticeably. The Storm of Wisteria begins to pass, and I start to smell incense, a lovely, soft, high-quality incense breaking through as the wisteria clouds thin. The wisteria continues to wear away gradually and gracefully over a few hours, and the incense stays pretty steady throughout; I can still smell a lovely, soft, vaguely-floral incense faintly on my wrist even around 8 or 9 hours later. I don't seem to get moss... the only scent I have that I get a lot of moss from is Fae. If there is moss here, it's probably not that moss. (And that's probably not helpful, sorry!) (Edit: Oh yeah... also, and when I smell this, I think of an etherial light dusty blue, or a pale blue with a slight slivery/grey tint... but I'm not sure I smell colors the same way other people do, maybe my nose marches to its own drummer or my scent-palate isn't sophisticated enough. /disclaimer)
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Leather and a splash of gin, whiskey swirled tobacco, rose petals, and bourbon vanilla. Oh, gosh, am I the first? Here we go... In the bottle, it's sweet and boozy. It's a little bit overwhelming, a little nail polish remover-like, but have no fear! It's quite the morpher on the skin. Wet on the skin, the gin is initially the strongest note. Leather comes out a little bit to play. After a while, this settles into a BEAUTIFUL chewy tobacco, with a little sweetness from the vanilla. I want to point out how well-blended the rose petals are - they really are just a "swirl", adding a nice subtle floral top note. The leather really grounds everything and really feels like more of the "black jacket" variety. Overall: awesome, awesome, awesome. If you like your leather and tobacco scents on the boozy side, get this. My immediate scent associations: Tavern of Hell; Perversion; L'Heure Verte
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Saffron oudh and red sandalwood. If you're like me and you can't wait to smell your BPAL as soon as you get it into your hands, don't worry about Mors Syphilitica. Yesterday she was still upset from what must have been a rough journey, but she had a good night's sleep and now she's sweet and well behaved. I know there's no orange blossom listed in this, but somehow that's what I get at first. That must be the saffron. Just one dab on one wrist wafted through the air beautifully, all sweet and feminine, but not exactly girly. By the time I got to work the woods emerged. Now it's closer to the woody skin scent that I was expecting, so I added a dab to my throat to see how it might smell on a different part of the body. The sweet, orangey overtone is still there, but it's much softer now. I suspect that it's going to morph into the woody undertone over the course of the day. Even though there's something familiar about Mors Syphilitica, it isn't like anything else I wear even though I have fragrances with all of these notes. Red sandalwood comes out in Mors Syphilitica the way it does in Wanton, but I can't wear Wanton because it's too heady. Saffron is also in Scherezade, but takes a back seat to the screaming red musk--Mors Syphilitica is closer to what I wanted Scherezade to be, I think. Most of my favourite fragrances have only a small number of notes, and this turns out to be true again. Mors Syphilitica is a red sandalwood scent that doesn't shout. It's sophisticated and wearable even for someone like me, who can't take a strong perfume.
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[No additional description provided.] Another sweet win! In the bottle, it is a lovely white choco and pear! On skin - it stays the same... it is a sweet choco/pear. Not overly sweet, but sweet enough for foody lovers! Drydown - the pear comes out a little more in front, but the choco is there. Very light.... fades quick, but it is very nice. *Edited to give better review..... did a proper test!
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[No additional description provided.] This one is SOOOO GOOD!! The oil is very dark in color! Sniffing in the bottle, this is so rich and chocolatey..... any choco lover, please get this now. Sniffing this, I get all the notes... all prominent. I am always leary of any booze notes, but this one is very well blended. On my skin, I smell the most amazing candy! If this was available as a valentine candy, I would be eating this hand over fist. Drydown is amazing! It stays true all the way through! Very decadant and I love it... the caramel... the whiskey..... the cardamom!! I am in love!
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Green tea and honey with a touch of wasabi. In the bottle it smells like a pine sort of potpourri. On skin, a very high pitched green tea. It takes a moment for the astringent potpourri like scent to separate into individual notes. I can smell the honey only when I waft my wrist up to my nose. The wasabi is interesting, and definitely does to your nose the fire dance that wasabi usually does. It's delectable- it's a cup of green tea on a tray with wasabi, possibly waiting for sushi. The only problem I have is that every now and then it becomes a blended potpourri. It is a fresh scent, and the honey grows a little stronger as the wear goes on...and it dries into a very dry green tea sweetened by honey. I think it's growing on me.
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Sweet cream vanilla, white sugar, jasmine blossom, and a drop of star anise. Wow. Opens up with a beautifully strong jasmine note, but the jasmine is tempered by vanilla and cream. An almost bubblegum like sweetness. It's really airy. The anise is creeping up from the bottom. It's sugary as well! Every note is displayed evenly here. For jasmine despisers, it is strong with this blend, but it's as if the petals are dipped in a sugary vanilla cream. This is Monsterbait: BiggerCritters without the grapefruit and with the lightest touch of sugary star anise instead. It's pretty and heady.
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Black amber, leather, and myrrh. In the bottle this smells like LEATHER. Black, shiny, intense leather. I was a little scared to dab it on, I like leather but this was overwhelming. It absolutely blooms on the skin and the black amber marries perfectly with a much toned down leather and it shines. I don't know if I really smell myrrh.
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Sugar dusted strawberries and mallow blossoms. My first two thoughts upon putting this on were, "This smells like the milk left over after eating a bowl of cereal. Or maybe strawberry milk!" It settles into something less childish fairly quickly. I have a few strawberry scents that like from bpal, but none that I love yet. I love this one. It's gentle strawberry and sweet milky marshmallow with just a touch of something perfumey. It's strawberry Stekkjarstaur.
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Beeswax, tobacco leaf, a whiff of smoke, and purple rose petals. Ok I so I told myself I wasn't going to come on here and write some ramble-y, amateurish review but never mind that... I this scent and I want to share my love. It is mainly beeswax to me/on me, with a creamy antique rose melded to it, a very very faint whisper of smoke (that seems to come and go) and what seems to be a background of tobacco. Well, honestly, I'm not really even sure I can quite distinguish the tobacco from the beeswax, I usually amp honey and beeswax, and tobacco tends to do some sort of comforting golden grounding thing on me so I think they are mingling into one sofly-gilded-beeswax thing in my nose. I'm reminded a bit of The Lights of Men's Lives, and a bit more of the the beeswax I smell The Gambols of Ghosts, which seems a thicker and more opaque wax to me. Flickering Lantern is a fairly sweet scent on me, but softly so, and the rose is doing some kind of creamy almost-edible thing that I find most delightful! It's romantic, sort of maternal, maybe, and just lovely. To me this scent is a creamy, softly-glowing, peachy-mauve. I'm not getting purple, my experience of this is romantic evening mauve.