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Showing results for tags 'Lupercalia 2018'.
Found 97 results
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Himalayan cedarwood, tonka bean, cherry blossom, white tea, and clove husk. This does smell like a breeze! The cedar and white tea play together to create the illusion of a breeze. The clove husk adds a bit of a lemony flair? This is a nice outdoorsy scent.
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The All-Consuming Flames of Passion Red musk, carnation, myrrh, and honey. All the notes play lovely together, for me the myrrh is just a background note that's barely there. It almost reminds me of a less tart, slightly syrupy from the honey, holiday hg. The honey doesn't go funky like it usually does for me. A winner in my book and happy I blind bought a full size.
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White sandalwood, peach, and dried red fruits with benzoin, red ginger, and amber. This is nice! When I first tried it, fresh from the mail, the ginger & sandalwood were prominent with little fruit appearing but it has developed more with a little aging. Now I notice the peach & red fruits, too and with the amber & sandalwood, it has the feel of some oriental perfumes. It reminds me slightly of Portrait of a Young Woman With Unicorn though it doesn't have the vanilla or red musk.
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The Radiant Glory of Love: Devotion, Understanding, and Unity Centifolia rose absolute, tea rose, bourbon vanilla, bittersweet chocolate, champaca resinoid, myrrh, nutmeg, pomegranate, and benzoin. Date: April 2018 In the vial: I'm getting the champaca almost immediately. There's a resin-like scent, the benzoin probably, and a full, not acrid rose under it all, with a touch of myrrh. A very 'skin' scent here. During application: On my hands, I get nothing but a gentle chocolate. As I apply the champaca comes out and gives me that creamy resin scent I always get with it. After applying, I can smell a slight sweetness to the air, maybe from the pomegranate or rose. Dry 30+ mins: I'm walking in a cloud of champaca, I get hints of chocolate and a deep, dark, mature rose (like Black Rose or Peacock Queen dark) Just walking around, this is a skin, softer, gentler La Roue de Malheur. I'm not getting any spice, or vanilla, and I'm not picking up any sweet/fruitiness. Very nice. Worn 3+ hours: It is a champaca incense, with a chocolate heart and deep rose underscore. This is lovely! Still no heavy spice. Very nice. Update: as my decant has aged, the rose and pomegranate has sweetened the blend. It's sweeter than the first application. I will be saving up for a bottle of this one.
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Bamboo reeds and white chypre against a background of potted blossoms. Light floral blossoms, white tea chypre, and fresh bamboo. It's a very clean floral smell, very gender neutral. It actually would make a fantastic scent for any type of bath product. Medium throw and wear length.
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Golden rose, frankincense, and vanilla bean. First sniff in the sample - light, sunny scent, not overly rosy, but hard to define exactly what anything smells like Freshly spritzed: The golden rose is a nice note, it's floral and soft, but kind of sunny and gentle. The frankincense is really coming to the top and taking the lead, though. The vanilla bean, I honestly didn't even notice when I was applying it, mostly frankincense with a little sunny rose backdrop. A few hours later: Not a lot of throw to this one as it calms down. It's very soft, bordering on powdery-soft, but not baby powder. The lingering scent is hard to define, like when it was first in the bottle, I don't really smell "rose" or "frankincense" or "vanilla bean" at this point. It's just a kind of light melange of something soft and slightly "sunny" smelling. I will say, it's only been 2-3 hours, and I don't get much scent off my hair unless I pull it around and huff the ends, this one is a lot quieter than the rest of the rose HG's I've tried so far.
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Kukui nut, dried mango, hay absolute, and brown sandalwood. This is absolutely lovely. Right away, I pick out the dried mango and get hit with a wave of nostalgia for eating dried mango slices when I was younger. I can't really pick out any of the other notes as they all seem to blend and take away the tartness that can sometimes overpower the nose with dried mango. I'm guessing that the hay and sandalwood temper everything with sweetness and the kukui nut grounds it. The scent is light and not remotely overpowering, so it shouldn't compete with any oils one might be wearing. Light throw, lasts a few hours. I'm really glad I got a bottle of this!
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Black rose, dried apricot, and black fig. Because I ran a decant circle, I had the chance to sniff (most) of the perfumes and compare them with (most) of the matching hair glosses. (I don't wear most rose notes or hair gloss myself, so my reviews will be more nose-test and less wear-test.) Huit-the-hair-gloss opens with the black rose in front and a woodsy-green fig note behind. It smells like a rose-toned black Gothic funeral veil. It smells like the shadows in the beautiful but evil queen's formal robe. The secondary notes stay woodsy rather than fruity. Huit-the-perfume needed time to rest after the mailbox, or maybe after the stress of its creation. On first decant it was a black and severe rose with bitter, woodsy-green fig behind and no juice at all. After the dregs sat for a week in the bottle and breathed, the fruit came to the foreground and Huit overall became more rounded, balanced between sweet, but not too sweet, apricot in the front, and black-rose-green-figwood in the back. The rose component stays a flat ROSE throughout - kind of a matte rose scent? - but definitely black and straight rose with no fruit or tea. If you love the notes but the wearing experience isn't what you wanted, you should definitely try layering the two.
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Red rose, Siamese benzoin, and blood orange. I wore this to work today and got compliments from two people. It's pretty and smells mostly as expected for the listed notes. The Siamese benzoin surprised me a bit -- before I looked back at the notes, I thought I was smelling some sort of resinous-leaning sandalwood. But maybe it's a sandalwood-leaning resin? The benzoin (or something else in this that's not listed) actually has a sandalwood-like texture to me. It grounds the scent, while being a touch exotic, and I quite like it.
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Honeyed amber, teakwood, almond, and coconut. Sweet coconut-speckled amaretto! Lab almonds tend to turn to amaretto on me: not boozy, but the almond syrup sense of an amaretto. This becomes a buttery amaretto swirled with freshly shredded coconut. The honeyed amber is also a player, adding a lot of smooth, almost creamy warmth. Even in the top phase I get a hint -- a grounding influence -- of the teak I love. This is a tropical beach vacation scent: a novel almondy drink served in a coconut shell under a frond-thatched, teakwood bar.
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Red roses, agarwood, red patchouli, benzoin, and black currant. First sniff in the sample: a little sharp, very rosy, and sooo much patchouli. Freshly spritzed: SO MUCH PATCHOULI. Wow.. rose? currant? anyone? bueller? NOPE JUST PATCHOULI! Several hours later: it calms down, and a bit of rose and a hint of sharp fruit on the edges, but mostly this is for patchouli lovers (and I am not one).
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Tea roses, pink sandalwood, hay absolute, and vanilla orchid. Holy top notes batman! This goes on all sharp rose and orchid flower. If this rose were on my skin, it would probably go sour (as roses sometimes do on me). I know there's something under that, like a dry sandalwood/hay note, but it's hidden under the top notes. It's too much orchid for my taste. Everything is reading as a sickly sweetness because of it. If you actually like orchid, you'll enjoy Douze a lot more. Fairly good throw.
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The Depths of Despair White chypre, French lavender, rose geranium, opopponax, Peru balsam, bois de rose, lime, and vanilla absolute. This smells like a masculine cologne with an extra dash of lavender. I keep thinking I am smelling oakmoss, which may well be a component of the chypre. There is a splash of lime which adds some sharpness. I do get a suggestion of rose geranium now and again, but it is barely a tease. Quite long lasting. I am enjoying huffing my braid immensely, but also going a bit mad trying to place where I smelled this before. It could very well be from a perfume counter, as this does smell like a traditional male aftershave to me. Mmmmm!
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You did not need to creep into my heart The way you did. You could have smiled And knowing what you did, you have kept apart From all my inner soul. But you beguiled Deliberately. - Alice Dunbar-Nelson Honeyed tea rose, lavender water, red benzoin, bois de rose, and rose amber. A very straight-forward scent, exactly as described. Wet, there's a sugary powdery burn off period. Raises up around me in a powdery pink cloud and dissipates after 30 min. Smells like super fine dusting powder. Drydown is even-keeled, sweet, and glowing roses. I'm loving this! Roses and lavender water with plenty of warmth from the benzoin and amber. Victorian-ish, but way sexier. Yesssss.
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Soft auburn musk, clove bud, honeyed patchouli, oakmoss absolute, cashmere labdanum, cedar, and mimosa blossom. In the Bottle: Musk, cedar and honey. Smells sweet and rich On the Skin: Not as sweet on the skin. The musk is warm and I get the auburn aspect as it's not dark and not white. The honey and patchouli simmer along but gain some strength On the Drydown: Gorgeous, light honey, musk and the characteristic patchouli scent. The clove makes its presence known but doesn't take over, just adding a smoky spiciness. The mimosa isn't evident. Nice but fleeting on my skin
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Results not guaranteed. Ginseng root, crushed ginger, damiana essence, cubeb berries, and horny goat weed accord. in the bottle: tart WTF is THAT green cut root. On application: Ginger? Ginseng root? Definitely a woody, freshly-cut root scent, sharp and somewhat unpleasant. The finish is much better, as something more citrussy, like ginger root — and it's clearly the fresh root, not powdered and not the spice. I feel like I'm slicing up ginger in my kitchen for a recipe. This dries as practically a ginger root single note. Beth is just amazing. Her skill repeatedly astonishes me. She does such an incredible job of creating these scents!
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White rose, gilded carnation, brown oakmoss, and velvet oudh. This is gender neutral and divided into three equal parts woods, oakmoss, and rose, with carnation enhancing both the heaviness of the rose and the spiciness of the oudh, but never playing a major part. This doesn't read as specifically "masculine" to my nose, but it has a definite Renaissance gentleman's vibe; it's a rose scent that reminds you why men wore rosewater as cologne for much of history. It smells smooth and brown; I don't know that I would specifically pick "rose" out of the notes after a few minutes of wear, but my skin test was iffy so I have to go with sniffing. Looking forward to seeing some actual wear test reviews! (I didn't decant this perfume, so I can't compare the formulations.)
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Honeysuckle, white tuberose, gardenia petals, and wet green leaves. Wet, this is both tuberose and honeysuckle swirling together in a higher pitched sworl, with a hint of wet greenery. On, whoa, whoa, HONEYSUCKLE'D. And a bit of leafy greens. And then it gets a little waxiness from the tuberose. In a way, it's like the high, clarion honeysuckle dips into the thrummy medium tones of tuberose. And then... back towards elevation with waxy gardenia. It's vacillating between a very interesting Southern floral with a hint of exotic Asiatic florals. As I keep smelling it, the floral trills between gold-yellow and wax-white. This is exquisitely tropical as it calms down, and on me at least it heads towards tuberose... but however still with glittering honeysuckle plorps on occasion. It calms into a slightly citric-high tropical floral that's like a fusion tuberose-honeysuckle. Not much residual grassiness or leafiness.
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White rose, orris root, and ambergris accord. There are very few roses that dont go sour rose potpourri on my skin, but it doesnt stop me from trying, because for whatever reason a good rose scent just smells S-E-X to me. And being that I am a passionate fan of the labs ambergris note (yes I went through an entire bottle of the SN in six weeks) this one seemed worth the risk. Yes indeed this is teh bomb. Giant damp rose petals sweetened with Orris and dirtied with ambergris. Very similar rose to Roses Pearls Diamonds, but with the salty naughty ambergris instead of coconut. Did. It.
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A citrus chypre with French lavender, yellow bergamot, and clove bud. My bottle has only settled from shipping overnight, but I was impatient. I'm a poet and I've wanted a poetry-inspired BPAL scent for a while now, so I've been hoping that Scraps of Poetry would be something I could love. When I opened the bottle yesterday, all I could smell was a zingy citrus chypre and yellow bergamot. In the 22 or so hours since then, it's softened up but those are still the two notes that dominate in the bottle and on my wrists. There's the tiniest hint of lavender. I'm not sure how clove bud differs from the usual clove note, but I don't get anything that I recognize as clove. Citrus and bergamot seem to dominate every time I wear them so your mileage may vary. For me, this is more Elizabeth Barrett Browning than any other poet that comes to mind. It's a soft, golden-pink, almost powdery type of floral that would be nice for wearing at a wedding. Many of the sharper, heady florals are a problem for me, but none of those notes are in this one and it isn't setting off any headache alarm bells. It doesn't have a ton of throw, so it's the kind of floral that shouldn't bother the people around you as long as you don't slather. I'm sure it's going to change somewhat, but Scraps of Poetry doesn't strike me as the kind of fragrance that's going to age into something dramatically different. I don't think this is very "me," but I'll keep it and see how it changes once it settles.
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The Cacophony of Madness Pink pepper, black pepper, clove, myrrh, dark chocolate, labdanum, and Daemonorops draco. Spicy chocolate with myrrh, like a sophisticated Mexican hot chocolate. It's dry and incensey and rich, with a sandalwood kind of smoothness to it. I really like this one, and my only complaint is it isn't especially strong. Hoping that improves with age!
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Blue lilac, pink pepper, birch tar, juniper berry, and lemon peel. I couldn't resist another lilac blend after Cave of Treasures last year In the bottle: A similar vibe to Cave of Treasures with that round lilac note. A touch of juniper in the back On the Skin: Lilac and juniper making an unusual but nice combo, lush but almost candyish. On the Drydown: The lemon peel peeks out to add slight bitterness to tame the sweetness of the lilac. The birch tar is not forefront but adds a smokiness and the juniper adds a freshness and slight fruitiness. This is actually quite the morpher within a narrow scent band. A tiny bit of spicy kick from the pink pepper. I think, like Cave of Treasures, this will come into it's own after a brief period of aging.
