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Showing results for tags 'Yule 2014'.
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The Home of the Giants, the World Beyond the Fence. A vast, anarchic, and mighty wilderness of dark, wild forests and sharp, toothy mountain peaks where winter reigns eternally. This candle is nothing short of stunning. It reminds me of my all-time favorite atmosphere spray Krampusumzuge, with the fir and snow- cool, sparkling, forest. The candle, though, seems to be more airy and clean and crisp and beautiful. It doesn't have the dirt and chains that dirty up that atmo. This is a glittering, gorgeous, enchanted dream forest.
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As sweet as can be: spun sugar strawberries. Nice is not nearly so fruity and juicy as I expected, which I like. It's a similar sugar to spun sugar spectre, but it's more like the soft, sweet note I recognize as the lab's snow note. To me, this smells like what I imagine something named Strawberry Snowballs would smell. Soft, sweet, delicate, pale pink, and utterly gorgeous.
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This is the scent of an awkward encounter with a Yule-evoked doppelgänger mate: spectral cologne, blurry herbs, fireplace ash, and a dusting of crumbs. Dorian Dopplegänger! Dumb Cake smells like Dorian on the other side of the looking glass. The spectral cologne note is pretty great—like a luminous Dorian. The blurry herbs and dusting of crumbs are very faint...there's just an edge of something foody here, like white cake and the barest hint of perhaps rosemary? The ash is also spectral—pure grey-white, rather than gritty, sooty black. It's fantastic, and I will enjoy every drop (and endeavor to get some on my husband, because I think this would be amazing on him).
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They are imps of the kitchen, or drawing-room at most; and, if any spirit answers to their sphere, it must be those of unclaimed and disaffected ghosts, who, having no substance within themselves, out of which to compound a spiritual body, wander about church-yards, or haunt the localities where they enacted old crimes, or lived frivolous and disjointed lives. … It may be that the spirits called the Rappers… belong to this class. They are in, what Dante would call Limbo, driven to and fro, perturbed and lonely. These eagerly question the finer spirits, who pass through their realm on their way to higher spheres, of all the gossip that used to interest them on earth. But, inasmuch as the companionship of these people was in no way desirable while they lived in this world, they become less so when separated from the body. They are the gossips of ghost land, poor, frivolous, flimsy wretches, who receive the shred of thought here, and the shadows only of through in the spirit world, for all thought has a body and a substance as it were to itself, so that we say a thought may be grasped in anticipation of the fact hereafter; hence, thought finding no lodgment in these thin poor spirits, floats right through them. They have a restless desire for tangibility, and are perpetually trying to command material objects in a way to make themselves known. —d’Espérance, 1897 Idle poltergeists and truant phantoms loitering in darkened corners and shadowed hallways: black cedar, patchouli, and tea leaf spiked with a tittering cackle of pink peppercorn, mate, and lime rind. Gossips of Ghost Land is kind of a wild olfactory ride. First applied, it's definitely cedar and patchouli, with something that feels minty but might be the lime? The tea leaf, mate, and pink peppercorn add color and movement so it does smell restless, like different spirits moving around in the dark. Dry, this is primarily patchouli and tea leaf on me, with cedar lingering but not dominant. (I don't amp cedar, though, for the record.) The pink peppercorn and lime smooth into an interesting layer that adds subtle spice and freshness. The sillage smells a bit like chocolate, which is so weird and fun. The overall effect is really unusual and perfectly evocative—there's something a bit disturbing about this one, in the best way. I'm definitely hanging on to my bottle because the progression is so fascinating and the patch/tea leaf drydown is really nice.
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Gingerbread with olibanum, Oman myrrh, Damascus rose resin, and cassia. Gingerbread Cathedral! Just as it says on the tin, my friends. Cathedral is so good (another nostalgic fave from my early BPAL-addiction days), and the gingerbread here drives the churchy incense back to earth in the best way possible. Wet, it smells like a peppery, gingery Cathedral. But dry, this is gingerbready incense, with all the in-the-body notions of satiation and hunger (and maybe even gluttony!) up against the rising-toward-the-Godhead resins I associate with mass. It's perfect for this time of year, as it puts together both the secular and divine. Definitely a keeper, and I suspect this will age very well.
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Gingerbread with amber, sandalwood, black patchouli and cinnamon. Absolutely stunning. I actually tried this on blind - unbelievably, I forgot what I ended up ordering for Yule this year. I retrieved my order from a dark mailbox, grabbed a bottle at random and applied before driving off to the mall. I had NO idea what it could be but it smelled absolutely incredible and so I couldn't wait to get to a lighted parking lot and see that I had applied... Gingerbread Sin. I was stunned because the ginger in this is so cool and refined on me, unlike last year's much warmer Gingerbread Snake. This smells like a sophisticated, classy, expensive perfume (yet it's cuddly at the same time.) I could see this in an elaborate crystal bottle. While I can smell hints of Sin in it, this doesn't come off as a hybrid of Sin and Gingerbread but rather an entirely new scent. Patchouli always makes me nervous but it's barely detectable here. Probably the strongest note on me is the amber, which warms it up a little eventually. Otherwise it stays the same, no morphing. I imagine this is going to be wildly popular and would encourage anyone on the fence to get a bottle. It's probably one of my favorite BPALs of all time.
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Gingerbread with red musk, lemon peel, sugar cane, cassia, white sandalwood, mango, and agarwood. In the bottle: It's lovely, and sort of bready with fruits. I feel like they either blend really well, making it hard to distinguish individual scents; or I am not knowledgable enough on what they should smell like. Wet: Gingerbread comes out. Maybe a bit of the red musk. Mango pops through occasionally. Gingerbread fades quickly, and I amp the musk. Dry: Sandalwood and musk play in the foreground. Gingerbread has mostly faded. Husband describes it as: it's more a perfume smell, less of a foodie smell. It's ever so slightly fruity. Definitely a more modest scent, not a lot of throw.
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Lick It is back, as minty and sweet as ever, and now you can lick it for a good cause: proceeds from every sale of Lick It With Consent will be donated to RAINN. I'll be first. Had my husband try this on this morning. In the bottle: sweet and minty. Wet: Wow, peppermint. He kept going on about how cold his skin felt. Dry: The peppermint isn't as strong, it's pretty much faded. The sweetness is coming out, but it's not a feminine sweetness. Kinda like the sweet mint gum. It seems really unisex. The throw isn't very strong, either. Edit: We tried this again. Nice and minty at the front, but the dry is so much sweeter on my husband. Sweet to the point of smelling feminine on him. I liked it, but he thought it made him smell like a girl. A bottle I'll give up to the swap list.
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Ripe, bursting, blood red holly berries pricked by sharp, waxy holly leaves. This is for the 2014 version... In Decant: Smells so good....a perfect soft blend of holly berries and leaves. On Skin: Smells the same, and get that wax holly leaf scent....kind of "chap stick" like, but that fades right away! Drydown: This is such a wonderful Christmas blend!!! If you are like me and have been wanting to find a nice holly berry type scent, but most seems to turn to cat urine on you (anything pine type does that) then do not worry! To me, this is a softer version of the 2005 one, but maybe that has to do with it being newer. I might have to get a bottle of this stuff!!!!
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Ghastly misshapen branches casting long, twisted shadows and clutching at you with prickly needle-like fingers: pine pitch, bone-white dried fir, and spruce tar with opoponax and blackened tobacco. First off, take this review with a bit of salt. I just got it in the mail this morning and my bottle was so cold it misted up when I took it out of the box. But I was dying to try it, so here we go. ITB: Pine and something almost lemony sharp. Unsettling for sure. Wet: That lemony thing is totally gone, replaced by a sweet pine. The combination of the balsams and the pine is both sweet and dark and very masculine on me. Evil christmas tree is very much the right frame of mind for this. It's obviously pine and tree resin, but something else lurks in the background that's a little sweet, a little unsettling and very wonderful. Drying: Opoponax tends to be a sweet resin on me, and I can really notice that sweetening here. It's still a very dry scent, but there is something almost fruity about it, the way I had hoped Skadi's berry note would behave. I can barely notice anything I could call tobacco, which is a shame because I love it, but there is something blackened about this for sure. Right now it's prickly to the point of being a bit sneezy when I really huff it, but its not at all cleaner fluid, which I was worried about with all the pine. Dry: Surprisingly sweet. While there is still a bite to this, it settles into something that's a lot more unisex than I expected from the first initial blast of pine and woods. The brightness of the pine takes a back seat and I'm starting to get a wee bit of the tobacco, which I expect will be more pronounced as this ages and develops. My other really woody blend in my collection is Jupeterian Phoenix, which is an amazing and very snuggly wood scent. This, while still being wood dominant, is like JP's evil brooding brother. It's dark, pine rich and really wonderful. I made a good choice for my single bottle Cyber Monday purchase.
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Dr. E. S. Packard, of Corunna, Me., in the Eastern Star, states that Mr. David Prescott, of South Sangerville, over ninety years of age, “wandered away into the woods, and not returning, a crowd of over a hundred men hunted for him nearly two days; the mill pond near his house was drained. Search was made in every direction but to no success. “A gentleman of that place decided to call in the aid of Mrs. Stevens; she told him somebody was lost, and not being able to visit the place she drew a map or chart of the locality, giving directions, by which, on his return he was immediately found alive, but died the next day. The day following I was at South Sangerville, and stopping at this gentleman’s house, examined the map, which was perfect in every respect. The house and shed were correctly drawn, the mill and pond near the house were marked, the field and woods, two fences over which Mr. Prescott must climb, even to the swinging of the road by the house was definitely given. “The spot where she said he was, was shown by a large black mark, and he was found exactly in that place. When we consider that Mrs. Stevens never saw this place in her normal condition, it is to me a wonderful test of spirit power.” Absolute and perfect clarity: rockrose, white amber, Corsican immortelle, Siamese benzoin, white sandalwood, and life everlasting. Sniffed, I get clouds of sweet sandalwood incense and white cotton -- not "clean laundry," but something white and cottony and opaque. I think this particular iteration of white amber is doing the powdery thing. It's not floral-forward, though the flowers advance as the blend wears down. Mostly, it's reading as benzoin/sandalwood dusting powder. There's a non-foody but vanilla-like sweetness (probably the benzoin, which contains vanillin). Also, somehow, the blend smells white. The vanilla-resin-powderyness makes me place it in the XYZ Lace family of Lab blends (e.g. Antique Lace, Black Lace, Red Lace). So this is... Psychic Lace.
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The scent of mad piety, blood and martyrdom, soul-crushing guilt, and frenzied devotion: frankincense and myrrh disoriented by labdanum, unsteady yuzu, shredded ginger, black cypress, and Aleppo Pine wood thickened with dragon's blood resin. Sniffed: wow, that's a brisk snap of the fingers under your nose. Peppery ginger, bright yuzu, and fiery red resins. This smells . . . martial and reverberant. I don't get any soul-crushing guilt, but there is indeed a frenzied energy to the blend. Wet: I. Love. This. It's perfectly seasonal, too - the yuzu and pine with church incense notes make it smell like a room full of evergreen boughs and brightly burning red Christmas candles, turned up to 11. The dragon's blood is fruity and round; it's almost got a bayberry quality. How on earth does something smell like candle flame? I hope this dries down well, because it wasn't even on my list and now it's shot up to purchase status. Worn: it gets drier and woodsier as it ages, fading to the ghost of burned incense. Really, really good incense. I'm not normally into the incense-heavy blends, but this is a winner.
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Birch tar, patchouli, and blackish-red musk. All win notes so I had to have this. I could smell this even before I ripped open the parcel. Its that strong and stays strong. Wet, I got a big whiff of Patch and a musk that smells more black than red. As it dries down the Musk and Patch stay strong but a charred wood note starts to make its way through. Since birch tar is the only other note I'm guessing that what is causing the charred wood scent. It pretty much stays that way after its completely dried. The notes are perfectly balanced, no one of them takes center stage, but they all have attitude. Krampus' Shadow is what I thought it would be: dark, brooding, and gritty. A great blend for Patch and Musk lovers.
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A scent that glitters with the coldest white musk; hollow, sharp, and brittle. A challenge! I rise to the occasion to try to figure out this white musk scent! Wet, piney, slushy, Beth's snow note (Cloister Graveyard, etc). On, definitely a strong burst of juniper, which rapidly steps a bit aside as not to be overpowering, and then maybe a hint of ozone, and then, magic, it's a less intense Nuclear Winter, it's the snowdrift of Talvikuu without reading first-forward as a pine scent, it's the snow cresting the slopes of Snow Bunny, it's Skadi's breath of cold ice without the berries... Close to Ice Queen, in terms of how it glistens. On drydown, it adopts a very tiny smidge of that beautiful Dorian white musk sweetness, but by no means is this sugary-sweet. The wintertime needles and plant notes behave masterfully in this and unlike things like Winter-Time (too spearminty on me) this stays smooth, close to the skin but remarkably wearable, so very pretty. This is so much more than just a white musk single note (but it is also NOT a single note white musk), and it is perfect. DEAD. ON. Winter.
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Snowballs of blue lilac, lotus root, Roman chamomile, sandalwood, and cade. Wet this smells a lot like the top note of Blue Moons (like, the 2007 version in particular, not the classic one), then it veers right into wet but pretty lilac territory. After the very fresh, true to life lilac scent fades a touch, you can really smell the herbal push for the chamomile. I'm not getting frank cade from this (thank god!) but it may be adding a little bit more depth and sharpness to an otherwise initially floral blend. I then get both lotus root and petal, although that may be the lilac still playing tricks on me. While wet, it is very complicated, still very much lilac, without it being a very masculine scent. I would say this is a traditional strong floral. On drydown it melds together and stays pretty true to form as a blustery, springtime lilac bush, hazy in the heat from the bees, with the fragrance dripping off the petals so strong you swear you can see the air around the bush dance and you temporarily lose your place as you get taken by the sheer presence of flowers. ... Uh... well now. So if you like lilacs you must try Glaucous Snow!
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Perfect red roses, warm amber sunlight, and the sweet honeyed carnation of friendship. Wow! I totally ordered this thinking it was a perfume, but it is totally not. However, still awesome. This is a very beautiful, intensely sweet and quite amber-y mid-range rose floral. Spicy carnation, kind of like a richer Maiden. This does veer towards stronger territory and is a touch powdery, but bizarrely when I spray it, I get LUSH Alkmaar as my recurrent 'I know this scent!' deja vu. On a piece of fabric, I can detect a rich, deep lush rose, balanced very well by a sunny amber. I don't get much orange or citrus so the 'sunlight' is maybe still just the amber, and in terms of sweetness it's likely that a well-blended honey note is what is sending this into sugary-sweet territory. The carnation is detectable on drydown as an exquisite spicy sweetness and depth, which tingles at the last whiffs of the spray. The pretty 'Spanish Red Carnation' vibe is present, in that the carnations I smell are the rich, very spicy type (not the slightly sharper 'pink carnation' that I recall from other carnationy things). It's very nice. Very sweet, floral, spicy tea rose without being "tea rose" SN, similar to Maiden, but with hints of things like Lugubre Gondola for the rich amber. Definitely something I would see myself using more in the summer or fall.
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Pale, elegant lily blossoms gilded with snow and lightly brushed with sugarcane. Because I'm weird. I ordered this because I love lily, but only the stargazer type. Not knowing which type was a risk, I suppose. Smelling from the spray top (see above), I definitely get Beth's frosty, slushy snow note (a la Cloister Graveyard in the Snow, Dust of Snow, etc). I spritzed a bit of this into my palm and spread it to smell it. Initially it's a very sappy, petally, clear, very white lily petal, and I'm definitely getting more of a Stargazer / oriental lily vibe versus muguet/of the valley. The sharpness almost has a boughy, evergreen like quality to it but that may be the snow note playing tricks on me. As it has a bit of time to calm down on my skin, which is in moments (like 3-5 minutes) the sharpness is gone and it rises to the surface as an ethereal, ripply fabric-like cold lily, and most definitely the cold, slushy snow note I love in many blends. There's almost a trickle of water in this. It reminds me partially of Sea of Glass without being as frankly rose-y. Which, OMG. Why did I make that comparison, now I need it forever. On distant drydown there's a little sugar, but it's by no means caramelized like Sugar Skull (that type of sugar goes really wrong on me long term). So, scent wise, this is a beautiful, not overtly floral but still extremely charming winter lily, which could be worn in winter for sure but may also make for a ravishing summer, iced flower scent.
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If then, man, in every act, leaves the impression, or daguerreotype of his mental being upon the scenes of his life and the subjects of his action, we are by this law furnished with a new clue to the history of our race; and I think it highly probable, that, by the application of this principle, the chasms of history may be supplied, and a glimpse may be obtained of unrecorded ages and nations, whose early history is lost in darkness. The ancient manuscripts, paintings, and other works of art, which still exist – the crucifixes, garments, armor, and other ancient relics, still preserved – are doubtless still instinct with the spirit that produced them, and capable of revealing to psychometric exploration, the living realities with which they were once connected. At present, these relics are barren of significance. Their hidden meaning lies waiting the future explorer, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt awaited the arrival of Champillion to interpret their significance. And why should not the world be filled with the monuments and unwritten records of its past history? It would seem, to the superficial thinker, that man was entirely limited to tradition and written records for his knowledge of the past; but physical science proves, that the world possesses, embodied in enduring monuments, the story of its progressive existence. The geologist finds, in the different strata of the earth, in its curiously mingled and irregular structure, and in the fossil remains which it conceals in its bosom, the history of its various changes of surface, and of the antediluvian races of animals which have long been extinct. The huge Saurian monsters, which he portrays from their fossil relics, rise before the eye as incredible chimeras. And over this fertile region, now occupied by prosperous States, he revives, by the magic power of science, the antediluvian seas and their strange inhabitants, unknown to man. The Past is entombed in the Present! The world is its own enduring monument; and that which is true of its physical, is likewise true of its mental career. The discoveries of Psychometry will enable us to explore the history of man, as those of geology enable us to explore the history of the earth. There are mental fossils for psychologists as well as mineral fossils for the geologists; and I believe that hereafter the psychologist and the geologist will go hand in hand — the one portraying the earth, its animals and its vegetation, while the other portrays the human beings who have roamed over its surface in the shadows, and the darkness of primeval barbarism! Aye, the mental telescope is now discovered which may pierce the depths of the past and bring us in full view of the grand and tragic passages of ancient history! I know that, to many of my readers, unaccustomed to these investigations, and unacquainted with the first experimental facts of this great science, these anticipations must seem a visionary hope – too grand, too romantic, too transcendently beautiful to be true. But observe, that all is based upon familiar experiments, and these results are but legitimate deductions from familiar facts. As surely as the expansive power of steam gives premonition of the ocean steamship, does the power of Psychometry give promise of all the glorious performance to which I have alluded. —Buchanan, 1842 A tactile scent, groaning under the weight of aeons: wild fig, cedarwood, venerable ti leaf, and white sage. In vitro: Woody figgy. I love wood and I love figs. Let's do this. Wet on skin: The cedar and sage predominate, with the fig adding juicy sweetness. The sage contributes a very clean feeling that could strike people as smelling like really nice shampoo (Tabella did the same), but I am cool with that (I have three bottles of Tabella). Delicious, multi-dimensional cedar. Dry: Sillage is very close to the skin. This actually reminds me quite a bit of a more chilled-out Tabella, less bright and sharp, just fig and cedar and sage hanging out together. There's nothing flashy about this, in fact, but it's still compelling and substantial. It's a classy, calm, and wise scent, like meditating in a forest. Definitely unisex; I wouldn't call it masculine, but nevertheless this would probably be lovely on a guy. The sage gets stronger on drydown and reminds me of one of my favourite places in the world, the Mojave desert in southwestern Utah. Love it.
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"The case I allude to is that of an invalid woman who belongs to the humblest class of society. She is nearly thirty years old and very ignorant; her look is neither fascinating nor endowed with the power which modern criminologists call irresistible; but when she wishes, be it by day or by night, she can divert a curious group for an hour or so with the most surprising phenomena. Either bound to a seat or firmly held by the hands of the curious, she attracts to her the articles of furniture which surround her, lifts them up, holds them suspended in the air like Mahomet’s coffin, and makes them come down again with undulatory movements, as if they were obeying her will. She increases their weight or lessens it according to her pleasure. She raps or taps upon the walls, the ceiling, the floor, with fine rhythm and cadence. In response to the requests of the spectators, something like flashes of electricity shoot forth from her body, and envelop her or enwrap the spectators of these marvellous scenes. She draws upon cards that you hold out, everything that you want – figures, signatures, numbers, sentences – by just stretching out her hand toward the indicated place. “If you place in the corner of the room a vessel containing a layer of soft clay, you find after some moments the imprint in it of a small or a large hand, the image of a face (front view or profile) from which a plaster cast can be taken. In this way portraits of a face taken at different angles have been preserved, and those who desire so to do can thus make serious and important studies. “This woman rises in the air, no matter what bands tie her down. She seems to lie upon the empty air, as on a couch, contrary to all the laws of gravity; she plays on musical instruments – organs, bells, tambourines – as if they had been touched by her hands or moved by the breath of invisible gnomes… This woman at times can increase her stature by more than four inches. —Chiaia, in a letter to Lombroso Pale lilacs, white tea, and candle wax. The Lab's candlewax always starts out with a burst of citrus (to my nose, at least), in this case a light clementine-juice scent that obscures the lilac completely while wet. 10 min: Spicy? Tingly-spicy? I'm not sure where that's coming from, but the white tea comes out too, with the lilacs. 20 min: Lilac gets a bad rap around here sometimes, and I was really rooting for it, but the beeswax is making the floral part smell a bit sour and sweaty. It's a very light and inoffensive scent, but when I get in close to the wrist to go "where my lilacs at" it smells like someone holding a lilac bloom crushed in a sweaty fist. 25 min: Sweaty part over. Soft, light, citrussy floral. Flowery but not distinctively lilac. Verdict: Not for me. [EDIT: I don't know when I'm going to learn that it really does make a difference to let scents settle after coming here in the post, but this one was pretty different on second test. Way more wax, no weird citrus, a warm and sweet beeswax scent with a distinct high-toned floral. Though it still doesn't really smell like lilacs to me? I have no idea.]
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Wine spilled across freshly pressed table linens, a wilted holiday bouquet, and a furtive hint of whiskey and baked bread. I was so intrigued by this, and I'm not even sure why! I do love dinner parties and the smell of ironed linen. Wine usually gets too noisy on me and I don't like gourmand stuff...but I bought a bottle untested? Okay. In the bottle, the cakey/bakey/bread note was quite strong, Eat Me-like with the berryish wine note. I wasn't going to give it the honour of First Tested, but I spilled a couple of drops so I decided to make this Deipnophobia night. On my skin, the baked goods calm right down and I get barely a whiff of wine--that's really good, since the Lab's wine note often gets cloying on me. The linen dominates, with wisps of subtle whiskey, wine and bread. It's more of a perfumey "linen" note than a photorealistic slightly-scorched smell of ironed linen, but I'm really loving this. Are there florals? I can't pick them out, me. The bread reminds me of the yeasty sufganiyot note in Chanukkiyah (which I also got another bottle of in this order). Nom.
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Snowballs of poppy-red musk, tangerine, blood orange, and mimosa blossom. In The Bottle: Wow! I get the strong-but-distinct citrus notes of both tangerine AND blood orange, plus the red musk (which, at this stage, is NOT like the red musk of Smut). There's also something unnameable in the background. It's floral, but...in passing. Like, when I'm sniffing it's not present- until I start to take the bottle away from under my nose. I assume it's the mimosa, being the only note left, but it's most unusual. Wet On Skin: The mimosa is WAY stronger at this point. In fact, it's all mimosa and poppy musk, no citrus at this stage. Dry Down: The mimosa has calmed down some and now the musk is on a more level playing field, so they're pretty neck-and-neck. In All: Medium throw and the combination has a powder-floral thing going on, with something sugary bringing up the rear. It reminds me a bit of the cherry blossom note in Hanami. I honestly don't know what I think of this. I am a huge fan of the Lab's citrus notes and I'm disappointed that my skin seems to have eaten them up in one fell swoop, as I feel they'd lend a roundness to this scent. Without it, it just seems to be all powdery on me I will let it settle and retest in a few days. I might even add a drop or two of King Mandarin SN to my arm next time to see what that does. But if it stays as is, then off to the swaps it goes!
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Apples and ale stewed with orange and lemon rind, cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice berries, maple syrup, and dark rum. I am a long-time fan of BPTP's candles. Back when I was a retailer, I fawned over the display of said candles in my shop all the time- I wanted them all for meeeeeeee! But, because they were so adored by our customers, I selflessly gave them pick of the litter. So, interestingly, this here Mulled Cider is my very first Trading Post candle that I get to have all to myself. Yay! And boy, am I NOT disappointed! As hoped, this candle brings the holiday season right down into a tangible container full of yumminess. Take the best orange pomander you made as a kid, mix with the best spiked hot cider you've had as an adult, et voila! You have seasonal perfection! Sara does a simply incredible job with these candles, which burn cleanly and are super long-lasting. I purchased this one for the specific purpose of having it to scent my home on the Solstice, which is when I'm having my birthday / holiday party this year, but in the interim, I'll leave it out in my living room because it's fragrant enough that it'll impart a mild scent to the air just with it's mere presence. If I get birthday money this year, I know what I'm spending it on- more candles from the Trading Post!
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Sugared patchouli, snowy vanilla, and snowflakes. So I would name original Silkybat as not just my favorite HG, but quite possibly my favorite scent of all the BPAL/BPTP I have tried. So when I saw this, I knew I was grabbing a bottle. In the bottle, it smells like Silkybat and something lemony, to my nose. I'm not familiar with the lab's snow scent, but that may be it. Once applied, it's mostly what I believe is a snow scent. Silkybat is there, but it is definitively under a pile of snow. It's less sugared than Silkybat, to my nose. So I find this more reminiscent of snow and patchouli than anything else. I can tell it's related to Silkybat, but they are definitely more cousins than siblings to my nose. It's the snow smell that lingers in your nose when I take a whiff. It's definitely pretty, but I don't know if I would reach for it when I have the original around. I would say it was probably my Silkybat expectations that are keeping me from full-on loving this. If you live for the Lab's snow note or haven't tried Silkybat, I can't imagine someone not liking this.
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Terebinth pine, fir balsam, frozen sap, blackcurrant, and vetiver. This was exactly what I was hoping it would be! A dark, woodsy forest scent brightened up by juicy sweet blackcurrant! Everything works so well here. It reminds me of the most inviting woods you can imagine, like when you hug a tree, it hugs you back. Actually that might actually be a terrifying thing to happen so never mind. I was debating between this and Blue-Spruce and Snow-Capped Pine for the pine scent I knew for sure I was getting this Yule Season, and I couldn't imagine being happier with my choice. EDIT: Oh snap I'm the first one! Take that, middle school gym class.
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Peppermint candies dropped into a flute of champagne. Another winner! It's a winter party in a little spray bottle. Buttermint candies melting in Champagne, not foody at all, but a little sweet, and above all, it's very pepperminty and very bubbly. Definitely a palate cleanser for after all the smells of Christmas and perfect for that time heading into New Year's Eve.
