Lilyan Tashman in the Perfume Bottle Costume Designed by Erté for the lost Silent Film “Bright Lights” MGM (1925)
Jorum Studio’s Gorseland is a convergence of many paths of light blazing through the borderlands between cultivated and wild, where neon-bright blooms stun with their electric intensity. While I spend my days mostly indoors, I’ve traveled countless wild paths through spellbinding nature writer Robert MacFarlane’s writing, where his luminous prose captures the poetry of wild places, showing how ancient ways and old growth persist alongside us, part of our daily world rather than separate from it. This scent unfolds like one of these vicarious journeys: sharp-edged and biting in the high places, then deepening to a piercing sourness in the shadows of valley-bottom herbs. The shock of fluorescent petals never quite settles as you climb higher, maintaining their strange luminosity even as shoots twist upward with their raw, cutting brightness. Eventually, softer notes emerge – the apple-sweet fluff of chamomile and grassy vanilla whispers of woodruff – like finding an unexpected meadow after a steep climb. In this scent, the air crackles with the voltage of growing things, refusing our attempts at categorization – too bright, too fierce, too alive to be contained.
Kintsugi Luna. Picture this: the devil girl from Mars levels her cotton candy raygun, and the blast floats eternally in zero gravity. Each crystalline sugar cloud drifts through stratospheric winds, spun and respun by ionized air. The atmosphere crackles plasma-charged, with impossible gamma rays that smell like electricity and stardust. This is pure space candy – confectionery untethered in the cosmic expanse, sugar crystals forming in streams of light. Sweet particles scatter like nebulae, catching starlight and spreading ever outward, a candyfloss cosmos; glittering, gossamer, and galactic.
Alchemy + Hyde no. 4 is a scent that somehow captures the essence of inherited wisdom – like old folk songs passed down through generations, carrying both the comfort of familiar melodies and the half-forgotten warnings woven between their verses. It opens with wintergreen’s silvery, shivery edge, sharp as a grandmother’s songs about doors best not opened, twice sung for blessing, sung thrice for a curse. The sweetness comes later, like memories traded at crossroads: green-bright cardamom and tonka bean’s honeyed hay bartered for safe passage, amber collecting in pools like sun-caught resin where old gods left their footprints in the mud. Oud’s leathered darkness and milky sandalwood whisper in voices from before the moon devoured the sun, when even memory’s perfume knew older tales. It settles finally into something almost familiar, the way scattered pages from a book of old folk songs might rearrange themselves into a lullaby, humming softly against your skin.
Heal the Way is a collaboration between Snif and Alex Elle, and I’ve been wracking my brains trying to come up with something creative or interesting to say about this scent. Usually, I love diving deep into a fragrance, weaving dreams and memories into the description, finding those strange and perfect metaphors that capture not just how something smells but how it makes you feel. Different aspects of this scent seem to appear to and appeal to different people – some are catching the nuttiness, others are picking up on the palo santo, while to me it smells exactly like a can of vanilla frosting. Yet we’re all arriving at the same emotional destination: comfort. After two weeks of being ripped from my introverted little sanctuary to spend every waking moment with Yvan’s family for the holidays, I have been crabby and frazzled, and I’ve found myself instinctively reaching for this one. It’s fluffy, cozy, creamy comfort that somehow manages to stay light and airy rather than cloying, and despite being fundamentally a vanilla scent, it never tips over into grossly tooth-aching sweetness. The longer it wears, though, I’m catching more nuances – that lush, pillowy marshmallow frosting eases into warm, ambery-woody musk the longer it wears. Is it groundbreaking? No? Have I reinvented the wheel with this review? Sadly, also no. But maybe there’s value in collective experience – in many voices confirming that yes, sometimes what you need isn’t a complex artistic statement, but just this simple comfort, this quiet permission to rest.
Sweet Ash, another one from Snif, is the sweatpants of fragrances—the kind you reach for on those days when comfort is key. Like shedding the day’s roughness and sinking into something worn soft. As if fleecy, elastic-waisted comfort could hold memories of secluded landscapes and long, winding paths. A bit of wilderness, a chip of bark, a prickle of pine needles, a frill of moss, pressed and preserved, wrapped in a vanilla-scented hankie, tucked deep in a pocket where it’s been gathering warmth and memory. It’s the fragrance for a morning spent entirely indoors, sunlight filtering through half-closed curtains, creating a soft haze…with that scrap of woodland folded and kept close. This is what you spray on when you’re curled up on the sofa, feet tucked underneath you, a favorite mug of coffee steaming nearby, a collected volume of windswept travelers’ borderland wanderings balanced on your knee—a quiet companion to those moments of absolute stillness, of being completely at ease, while only the characters in books are adventuring.
Immortal Perfume Queen of Night Though Queen of the Night draws inspiration from the Countess de Castiglione, in my imagination, it constructs a dream world where the gilded beauty of 18th-century rooms coexists with decay and dereliction – Marie Antoinette’s ashtray as Turbeville might have found it, forgotten in some dust-shrouded chamber of Versailles, where moth-eaten velvet curtains hang heavy with decades of tobacco smoke. Here, sugared almonds and crumbling macarons lie crushed into tobacco ash, and leather gloves rest carelessly beside crystal ashtrays clouded with time. The florals drift through like pressed flowers discovered between the pages of centuries-old letters, and abandoned crystal coupes veil their honey-sweetened whiskey stains beneath sheets of dust. The sweetness and smoke weave together in a sense of isolation and romanticism frozen in time, rustling and sighing with the ghosts of lost revelries through those long-waiting twilight rooms where memory crumbles into ruin and withered autumn leaves.
Lvnea Ronds de Sorcièreis an impossible rose: not blooming, not remembered, not real. Soil dreaming itself into petal-shape, a spectral geometry of what cannot be. No rose exists here—and yet. The scent traces the negative space of a flower, its phantom outline pressed between layers of mud and membrane and memory. Things in the dirt whisper beneath—shadows of dark roots and old bones, beetle carapaces, the soft click of mandibles against stone. Churning earth under an impossible weight. Petrichor trembles at the edges, a breath caught between forgetting and never having arrived at the start. The illusory rose dies. Mushrooms rise from its void, soft-fisted and eyeless, shouldering aside the last whispers of petal and memory. Here, in the dark breathing of soil, fungal threads weave their own cartography. No mourning: just the unrepentant pulse of growth, of things that emerge from darkness with the quiet violence of becoming.
This Strawberry Shortcake X Scentbird collaboration is probably not something that would ever have been on my radar, let alone something I would have purchased for myself. But as “olfactory revenge” because I bought myself something for Christmas that my Best Friend had intended to get me–they sent me this instead. Here are some thoughts…
The costume I imagined was undoubtedly scratchy, sticky polyester performance—a bright explosion of red and pink, with a vinyl jumpsuit that caught light like a light-up toy’s colorful, pixelated glow. A blow mold mask perched atop, its plastic curves capturing some uncanny cartoon essence, and a bonnet that framed everything in soft ruffles. The fabric catching dust motes in an afternoon sunbeam with that particular vintage fabric smell that hints at something slightly worn and not necessarily anytime recently. A child transformed into a living cartoon, all synthetic shine and determined imagination where reality fell short. If that visual—this moment that never actually existed—were a Polaroid half-developed, a scratch-and-sniff sticker, it would be pure wish-fulfillment: not the vivid cartoon, not the plastic toy’s sharp edges, but tender, wistful third thing. Soft candied undertones swirled into the frothy berry cereal milk pooling at the bottom of your favorite bowl, the one that fits perfectly in your little hands. Soft pastry cream pooling beneath pale pink strawberry syrup, faded, translucent, and condensed milk warming against skin. And at the very center, a tiny ache—for the costume I never wore, the moment that was only ever a desperately dear, whole-hearted wish. I was expecting something tooth-achingly sweet, and this is only just shy of that. What I didn’t expect was how relentlessly charming it would be.
Stora Skuggan’s Pine is definitely pine: bark-rough, evergreen-needled, mineral-edged, and windswept. But beneath its damp-sapped woodland weight is …a weird, savory surprise? Picture it: a late afternoon light filters through pine branches, thick and amber-green. The forest closes in—not a real forest, but a micro-memory invented just for this moment. My chihuahua, also a figment of my imagination, darts between tree trunks, a teacup blur of muscle and movement. The air is pure, bracing conifer at first. Sharp. Resinous. Each breath knifes my lungs, cold and green. The trees rustle, and a weird, whistling wind carries an unexpected scent. Corn chips, the warm, salty smell of a dog’s toe beans. My little pupper bursts from a thicket, tail wild, dirt-smeared, slightly feral. In his mouth: a raven’s skeleton. Bleached bone, delicate as paper. The forest seems to pause. I grab him to me and hold his small, trembling body close. He drops the fragile corpse at my feet. The dark branches fold behind us, dense and silent.
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2024 was quite a year for fragrance exploration – I wrote reviews for over 200 different perfumes, and well… some of those samples were just too beautiful to resist. When I finally sat down to tally up how many full bottles made their way into my collection, it was (gulp) over 25! Here’s an updated peek at my perfume cabinet, including all of last year’s additions to my collection.
A quick update about my perfume reviews: While I’m no longer posting on TikTok, which was previously where I’d first share my thoughts on new perfumes, you can still find my work in several places, including the monthly roundups on this blog. But for immediate access to new reviews as they’re published, consider joining my Midnight Stinks Patreon – the first paid tier (just a few dollars monthly) gives you access to all new reviews plus three years’ worth of fragrance writing archives.
What I forgot to mention in this video were my favorites! Four immediately spring to mind…
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In this year’s Yule collection, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab celebrates a decade of spectral encounters and spiritual comfort. Here we find grandmothers’ crystal candy dishes alongside parlor séances, Christmas candles burning beside ghostly doubles, and even a mouse stealing bites of lavender-dusted popcorn. From bayberry memories to midnight confections, these scents flicker between darkness and light, between what was and what lingers. Sometimes they’re jaunty and bright, other times they’re weighted with musty glamour and golden memories – but always, they offer solace in winter’s darkness, whether through sweetness, strangeness, or sacred remembrance.
Here are my thoughts on some of these haunting, comforting fragrances.
The Season of Ghosts(bergamot, frankincense, rose geranium, ginger, lemongrass, and blood orange) Opens with the candies that lived in grandmother’s crystal dishes – the confectionary citrus sweetness of pillowy circus peanuts and tangy jellied oranges glowing like stained glass. But it’s the turn it takes, the transformation that haunts: a slow bloom of golden musty glamour that hints at powder puffs and hat veils, of the musky, mossy, bronze grandeur of those perfumes that filled rooms with their presence and lingered for days in fur coats. It’s finding faded sepia-tinted photos in an ornate old candy tin of your grandmother from that unmistakable era, each image radiating the warmth of a moment when time moved slower, and youth seems older than our own age now, more weighted with substance and shadow.
Midnight Marzipan (a ground almond snowpack glistening under a chilly scattering of sugar-bright stars, standing out against a night sky of the darkest cacao) I braced myself for the marzipan in this one; I didn’t even realize I did it, but when I finally smelled what was actually happening in the scent, I realized I had been holding my breath. Though I love marzipan –adore it!– both in scent and taste, it can overwhelm with the high-pitched peal of sugary sweetness. What I got instead was the deep, full, resonant, sonorous richness of barely sweet, dark, dark chocolate. The marzipan was a soft, trilling frill, fluttering at the edges. A duet between Darth Vader and Megan Mullally, where the Dark Side of the Force becomes velvet cocoa-dusted truffles and somehow makes Karen Walker’s signature giggle feel like sugared almond stardust on snow.
Faunalia (a thick, starlit, unspoiled forest, with a burst of wild musk, opobalsamum, black bryony, mandragora, and hemlock) Like opening a forgotten storybook, where the forest’s scent rises between pages tinged with the echo of vanilla – not the sharp bite of pine or wet earth, but something once growing but softly bespelled, slumbering and subdued. The musks feel antique rather than wild, a soft sepia tone rather than vivid green. It’s what you might smell if you pressed your nose to an illustration of dark woods in a Victorian fairy tale, where the ink itself carries old magic and time-worn pages hold the memory of primordial forest and ancient greenwoods.
Poor Monkey (pink lotus root and fig milk with ylang ylang, bourbon vanilla, soft myrrh, fir, khus, and sandalwood incense) Like preserves made from petals gathered too early for dew – a tender, translucent jelly that holds summer’s sweetness suspended in light, the way an altar holds its morning offerings. Fresh figs split open like pale stars, lotus petals floating in milk-white bowls, and unburnt sticks of sandalwood waiting patiently – sweetness as a promise, like tomorrow’s devotions already taking shape in the quiet hours before sunrise.
Pomegranate MilkThe red sun races through winter-stained snow like Dracula’s eyes in that final chase – all grenadine turned lurid and glowing with the day’s dying light. Why does this perfume also remind me of Japanese candy discovered in the back of an import shop, that distinctive musty-sweet chalkiness? Perhaps it’s the way time and context reshape sweetness into something stranger – in sunset’s crimson hour or years on a forgotten shelf, what was once simple pleasure takes on an elegant decay.
Porcelain Krampus (brown leather and a bundle of switches encased in pale white orris root and rice powder, translucent white musk, Himalayan ambrette seed, and milky vanilla.) She sits pristine in tissue paper, this porcelain child with cool milky skin and frost-pale curls, radiating a sweetness both powder-pure and glazed smooth – like marshmallows dissolving in winter air, like sugared pears turned to frost on the windowsill. Though she glows with innocence, you know better. That’s why her tiny severed hand lives in your pocket, wrapped in a handkerchief, small and impossibly perfect, still trailing that haunting whisper of confectioner’s sugar and cold cream. You tell yourself it’s for safe-keeping, and perhaps that’s true in a sense, but really, you’re keeping yourself safe –from her gaze in the dark each night, as she watches you from high on her shelf, with a smile that’s patient and sweet, and ever-so-slightly wrong.
Hard Cider Cake (a thick, spongy white cake spiked with hard apple cider and frosted with whiskey-laden buttercream) A possum-riding gnome rolls up in a car made of twigs and acorns. “Get in, loser,” they grin, “we’re having cider with the Green Man.” What they pour is fresh-pressed and unsweetened, with something unexpectedly verdant lurking in its depths – like drinking autumn sunshine filtered through new spring leaves. The old magics are simple ones: apples and leaves, earth and air, each sip tasting of secrets whispered between the roots of ancient trees
A Cup of Tea in the Verandah (black tea and bergamot shimmer in the glow of sunlit amber as cypress boughs cast lingering shadows, the heart blooms softly with jasmine sambac and tender orris) A single bloom emerges from craggy castle walls like a long-lost, long-gone friend impossibly appearing in morning light – its petals glowing rosy with the same translucent warmth as sunbeams through stained glass. The stone beneath holds secrets in its tea-stained shadows, cool and tannic as bitter centuries of words unsaid, feelings unreturned. Memory blooms here, unbearably delicate yet persistent and softly strangling as ivy, reaching through time toward a cup that was never filled.
Phantom Team of Horses(a spectral cacophony of shimmering, translucent dun sandalwood, grey amber, and wraith-chilled chestnut galloping through the mist-cloaked shadows of time, a clattering of clove and black pepper, and a crack of phantom leather) Through mist and gloaming, phantom hooves prowl and roam – a nutty-woody-resinous haunting that refuses to settle into silence. The wood whispers like morning fog, barely there; a subtle saltiness clings to the chestnut’s echo, while grey amber broods beneath it all, murky as twilight in forgotten hollows. Like those ghostly horses that never quite reach their destination, these scents circle and hover, their spectral stampede more whisper than thunder, more shadow than storm.
The Phenomena of Witchcraft (green balsam, bay leaf, fossilized amber, blackened vetiver, and clove bud cloaked in oud) The morning after a midnight revel, musty clove smoke and primordial resins mingling in the morning’s murk and morass. When witches trade their broomsticks for bar stools – all that wild green magic gone deliciously seedy, forest herbs trampled underfoot in an alley behind a dive bar, sacred incense mingling with spilled spirits. Like knocking thrice on heaven’s door and getting an answer from somewhere decidedly south.
Frau Holle (snow-covered pines, witches’ herbs, bestial musk, flax, and ethereal flowers that represent both birth and death) Sometimes, we run across a perfume that bears little resemblance to our expectations when it comes to its blueprint of notes. Such is the case with this atmosphere of bracing winter mint and bitter forest berries, scattered across the rapidly dissipating warmth of a recently vacated featherbed. The fog from the hearth is dusky and strange, like herb-steeped milk in an abandoned bowl.
Lavender Kitchen Mouse (lavender cotton candy fur and vanilla popcorn balls, sent skittering out of the kitchen with a good-natured wave of our polished wood rolling pin) For a popcorn devotee – nay, a popcorn zealot who would happily survive on nothing but perfectly popped kernels for the rest of time, dental floss bills be damned – there is nothing quite like that first hit of toasty corn. Whether it’s movie theater butter pooling in the ridges, nutritional yeast giving it that umami funk, or simply sea salt bringing out corn’s inherent sweetness (and let’s be clear: adding caramel, or indeed any form of sweetness to popcorn, is an unforgivable crime against both nature and the pure pleasure of popped corn). But here’s something entirely unexpected: that perfect salty-corny base sprinkled with lavender’s crisp, herbaceous brightness. Like finding fresh sprigs tucked between kernels, adding an aromatic sharpness that cuts through the savory warmth. It’s a weird combination and probably shouldn’t work – much like how finding a beady-eyed little mouse nibbling in your popcorn bowl as you reach for another handful would be pretty jarring – but somehow, this odd little creature has charmed its way into my heart.
Ube Sufganiyot A soft swirl of fried dough, a scant sifting of powdered sugar, and a filling that melts all its elements – white chocolate, pistachio, and coconut – into one creamy, nutty reverie. Pair this with Lavender Kitchen Mouse above for the perfect snack box curation at an all-night Wes Anderson movie marathon, where every treat is just slightly offbeat and endearingly peculiar.
Paysage (the pale moon pouring magic: Tunisian opium and mugwort with blackened bourbon vanilla, tuberose, glittering white musk, datura accord, wild plum, and tobacco absolute.) In the bottle, I know exactly what this is: my mother-in-law’s Jólakaka, all rum-soaked candied lemon peel and winter warmth. But on skin, it transforms into something far more mysterious – like a lemon icicle in one of those classic locked room mysteries where the detective finds nothing but an inexplicable puddle of water beside the body. Sharp and crystalline yet impossible to grasp, bright citrus frozen into a vanishing elegance, leaving you to question whether you really understood what you experienced at all.
Eighteenth Lash (vanillekipferl plunked in a pile of pine needles) Buttery, crumbly, melty cookies with a base of bitter, oily walnuts and a rich, caramelized shortbread bottom…baked in the steam and sap of an enchanted pine’s resinous heart, they’ve taken on the deep forest’s secrets – as if being born in the heart of an ancient conifer has imbued them with its balsamic soul. Wear this scent and imagine this treat while Chelsea Wolfe’s haunting voice carries you far over misty mountains cold, where dark things sleep in hollow halls beneath the fells.
The Human Double(a shadow-blackened fougere steeped in an uncanny, discomfiting lavender tar) Imagine if lavender went sepulchral, if coumarin turned to ash, if oakmoss grew on graves – this is the shadow-self of a classic fougère. Though we don’t know this one’s building blocks, we know its intentions: the familiar herbal notes have been submerged in something black and viscous, like catching your reflection in a darkened window at midnight and watching it linger after you’ve walked away. Doppelgangers embody pure existential horror – they violate our most fundamental sense of uniqueness through their unheimlich theft of selfhood. This is what happens when your double claims your signature scent as its own, and worse, wears it with more authority than you ever did.
Gently, Gently, They Are Timid (candied orange and pink peppercorn, sugared freesia petals, vanilla bean, and white honey) “The weird the Spirit brings,” as mentioned in the lyrics of this perfume’s inspiration is jaunty and bright, and indeed spirited. This could be the signature scent of the most gleeful parlor ghost, whose enthusiasm for the spectral life is utterly contagious. The first manifestation brings bursts of rosy spice and diaphanous flower petals before settling into its true form: a tatted lace doily holding the memory of creamed toffees and sugared meringues, all grounded in something as smooth and refined as the cream in a proper lady’s tea. The spirits probably attend her séances just to watch her elaborate table-floating mechanisms with fond amusement – they’re happy to play along with a hostess who goes to such lengths to entertain them.
Lavender Avocado Toast(a toasted slice from the middle of a springy, oaty loaf blessed with a rich green schmear and sprinkled with lemon juice and lavender sea salt) This is not the avocado toast I was expecting – but rather a delicate, floral violet-tinged lavender jam mingling with thick, cultured salted butter of such distinct creamy richness, all melting into warm, crusty golden toast that’s been dusted with what might be flower-infused sugar, might be fairy dust. This is what happens when your trendy café is secretly run by flower fairies who’ve decided to put their own enchanting spin on the brunch menu.
The Flame of the Bear (fir resin, bayberry, myrrh, mistletoe, and oak bark) When I smell The Flame of the Bear, memory catches in my throat like pine smoke: the same grandmother who brought out those crystal dishes of candy I mentioned in The Season of Ghosts had a bayberry candle whose scent is everything that Christmas is to me today, as an adult: a soft sweetness twined with delicate spice, the very essence of evergreen twilights and December promises. She would unwrap it from tissue paper with such care, as if it held more than just wax and scent – and of course it did. Some scents are time machines, and this one carries me back through winters past, when love could be captured in something as simple as candlelight and its reflection in her eyes. I can’t smell this without seeing her light it, then reaching for my hand (so I wouldn’t touch it!)
Krampus Kreme Latte(hazelnuts, almonds, and coffee beans sweetened with heavy cream froth and honey and spiced with ginger, black pepper, black cardamom, and cacao.) When I smelled this extremely robust coffee scent, I thought, “woweee, this smells like spicy Krampus coffeeshop romantasy #booktok drama!”
KRAMPUS’S FORBIDDEN GRIND
#1 in Demon Romance
(CW: coffee addiction, consensual soul bargaining)
When artisanal coffee roaster Peppers McGee* accidentally summons Krampus with her darkest, most potent brew yet, she doesn’t expect him to become her most demanding regular. The way he salaciously savors her honey-kissed foam and black pepper sprinkle makes her wonder if he’s hunting for more than just the perfect cup. Between the scorching intensity of fresh-ground beans and the sweet heat of their growing attraction, Luna must decide: keep playing it safe with her usual roasts, or risk it all on a blend that could consume her completely.
“The coffee shop demon romance I never knew I needed” – BookTok
“Finally, a Krampus who knows his way around an espresso machine” – Literal Demons Book Club
*Peppers McGee shows up in a lot of my perfume stories! See also Blue Oud by Cognoscenti and Eldritch by Pineward
Need more Yule scents? Have a peep at my Yule reviews from 2023, 2022 and 2021 and a single review for 2019 though I could swear I have several years’ worth of BPAL Yule reviews floating around that out there. And I know this because…
…PSSSST! Did you know I have collected all of my BPAL reviews into one spot? I’m about a year behind with adding new stuff to the document, but as it stands, there are over 60 PAGES of my thoughts and rambles on various limited-edition scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab over the years: BPAL REVIEWS BY S. ELIZABETH (PDF download)
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
BPAL Antique Lace Through the tiny gabled window of a dollhouse attic, a secret scene unfolds: a miniature lace shawl lies draped across a trunk, its delicate stitches dusted with what could be petit four crumbs, could be breakfast cereal marshmallows – fairy-sized sweets scattered by some forgotten child’s hand. Beside it, pearly mothballs like strange sugar drops rest among cobwebby linens that exhale their milky-musky-powderiness. From a diminutive crystal perfume bottle in the corner, phantom florals and delicate vanilla mingle with dust motes in the afternoon sunlight, the whole tiny world held in perfect, timeless suspension. (This is a scent I have had for a long time but have never reviewed until now. I am sad to say that I think it is long discontinued)
In Arquiste Venice Rococco, I am reminded of that iconic scene in The Company of Wolves, and my imagination does the rest: the wedding party dissolves into wolves, but their powdered costumes and countenances still hang in the air – rice-white, chalk-soft, cloud-thick, falling like snow in a fairy tale gone corrupt and perverse. Powder piles in drifts against the walls, powder floats in sheets through candlelight, powder settles like ash on abandoned masks, powder dusts every surface until the mirrors suffocate in white. The scent floats between reality and nightmare, each breath drawing in more sweet, choking powder. Underneath all those layers of white lies something wild – teeth behind the powder puff, claws stirring up fresh clouds with every step. This is what’s left at the banquet table after the cursed aristocrats’ lycanthropic transformations, their abandoned feast drowning in drifts of violet-white dust, confections, and silverware scattered like bones beneath a blanket of perfumed snow.
I am still in the midst of sampling them, but here are thoughts on a few so far:
– Monsoon Madness: Sitting by an open window on a rainy morning, curtains fluttering in the damp breeze, a single rose in a vase before you. Its crimson blooms, a vivid velvet contrast to the early glooms, offer their dawn song to the ghostly morning light. Beneath it, a misty musk mingles with barely-there spices, like steam rising from wet earth. The fragrance undulates like those curtains – whispering past, then drawn back, never still, never quite solid.
– Mantra: Where pools of clearest water catch the light, seek the violet that blooms beneath no soil. Bright as amethyst, suspended in golden amber, yet flowing like honey through crystal streams. Each ripple reveals its secret – a flower preserved in liquid that cannot wet, a sweetness that flows yet never moves. Beneath it all, warm amber holds these fragments, a fleeting eternity captured in impossible depths.
– Tiger Bright: In halls of cedar and cypress, vetiver traces a map in sharp strokes. In the shadows, leather guards ancient secrets, pepper sparks like flint on stone. Then – at the perfect moment, revelation: when sun meets crystal – hold aloft the light of spice through smoked glass. Turmeric and coriander illuminate what was always there and mark an X in gold. The fragrance hovers like illuminated dust – austere yet radiant, earthbound yet strangely weightless.
Eauso Vert Fruto Oscuro: In the basement of an ancient Spanish mission, there’s a forgotten wine cellar where the air is thick with centuries of fermentation. The massive barrels have burrowed into the cellar floor, their wooden staves blackened with time. Here, the California Raisins – those claymation creatures of 80s fame – have found their true calling as bacchanalian priests of a midnight sabbath.
They dance in the dark, their wrinkled bodies glistening with communion wine that’s gone deliciously corrupt. The sacrament itself has evolved, developed consciousness, learned to crawl out of its casks at night. It carries the memory of fruit that ripened past the point of virtue, fruit that chose to embrace decay as a form of transcendence.
Black cherries prowl, lush, wayward creatures of the night, leaving trails of wax and ink in their wake, while patches of moss grow in impossible shades of purple. Somewhere in the darkness, a quince tree has taken root in the stone, its fruits fermenting on the branch, dripping jam that tastes like the midnight confession of wicked ghosts.
This is fruit that has rejected the sun, each drop a tiny black mass, an unholy celebration of fruit that’s gone ravenously feral in the dark.
TLDR; fruit as creature of the night; goth California Raisins; a black mass of unholy cherries
Born to Stand Out Be My Cookie What begins with the promise of toasted grains and caramelized sugar spreading across a baking sheet in a pre-heated 350 degree oven. soon collapses into an unpleasant fruity morass of rehydrating dried fruits – raisins, cranberries, apricots, dates – forgotten in weak rum and lemon juice until they’re all swollen and sodden and gross. (I was trying to come up with a really disgusting Lovecraftian adjective to describe the distended, grotesque nature of the scent at this point, but I gave up. These pulpy masses dissolve murkily when stirred reluctantly into lumpy, sticky porridge whose very revolting nature renders it immediately abandoned. Time passes, and what remains is merely a cloying potpourri, less a deliberate composition than a reminder of culinary aspirations left to wither on a countertop. Alternately, a fruit cake that mysteriously drowned in a lake in 1984 but somehow appears on your holiday table every year like clockwork, bloated and putrid, its origins forever unknown and unspoken.
A Lab On Fire What We Do In Paris is Secret is a perfume I reviewed several years ago, but after recently catching a whiff of it, I concluded that I wasn’t mean enough the first time. In this perfume, I catch whiffs of three fragrances I absolutely loathe – the worst of the worst: KvD Saint, Thierry Mugler’s Angel, and V+R’s Flowerbomb, each contributing its own special brand of cloying falseness, lurking in here like problematic d-list influencers. The combination of bright, honied heliotrope, candied litchee, and powdery vanilla marzipan creates something so aggressively artificial it’s like that specific brand of try-hard glamour that screams, “I learned about luxury from watching unboxing videos.” It’s not badly made; it’s just so deliberately vapid and performatively trendy that it makes you wonder if it’s trolling you. The kind of perfume that would absolutely post a Mukbang video of itself eating other, better fragrances and then crying for the camera in a halo of ring lights.
DSH Perfumes Manhattan is firelight through a vintage lens – all warmth and no flame, the way old films captured hearths in silver-screen shadows. The glow feels richer than memory, grounded in something earthy and lush, a cherry left at the bottom of a glass, soaked in honeyed spirits, plummy with promise. A bitter note cuts through the sweetness, a tiny nibble under the gazes of those who love you, a warmth so enveloping and tender it breaks your heart just a little and brings tears to your eyes. You recognize it instantly: that feeling of safety and love that you can only experience now through the lens of nostalgia because you’ll never be that young or small or loved that way again.
The scent wraps around you like a childhood memory that softens into sadness when held too long. It’s the kind of velvet golden haze that catches in your throat now, because you know such perfect shelter can’t exist outside of memory, outside these few precious frames of black and white film where the firelight always burns just right, and everyone you’ve ever loved is still young and beautiful and waiting in the next room. This is a softly devastating scent, and one that requires emotional steadiness to wear – it has a way of dissolving the present and opening rooms in the memory where beloved ghosts forever wait patiently for you with open arms, where the little heart you long outgrew is forever full.
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Nicolas Bonnart – The Perfumers Costume (colour engraving)
Heretic Nosferatu As I have been wearing this fragrance, I am struck by how nothing seems quite linear about it, how delicately “outside of time” it feels. I realized it reminded me of the feeling I have after waking up and trying to recall the dream I was just having. I am half-here, half-there, both places and neither at once. Nosferatu is like that–fragments from last night’s dreams, scrawled in the grey dawn before they fade: the moon’s reflection in cooling bathwater. Soft fog, carved from shadow, packed with frost. A brittle wisp of dried lilac, phantasmal at twilight, fragile rustles of the restless dead. Storm-struck stone, its hollow sparking echo dimly illuminating a subterranean cavern, ghost light lingering between vespers, dawn, and never. The creeping moss of midnight rains veining the marble tears of weeping saints.
Pineward Borealis paints a stark landscape of frost-encrusted pines and barren rock, a scent so austere it verges on ascetic. It’s relentless in its portrayal of a world where survival, not beauty, is paramount. The fragrance opens with a glacial gust that scours the senses, carrying with it the sharp, mentholated breath of winter winds. This initial surge slowly gives way to the scent of ancient conifers, their woody essence concentrated by the cold into something almost medicinal in its intensity. As Borealis evolves, there are hints of bitter herbs and roots, their astringency amplified by the unforgiving chill, like sparse vegetation clinging to life in frozen soil. A fleeting, ghostly floral note emerges briefly, a spectral echo of summer long past before it’s subsumed again by the pervading bitterness and cold. Underneath it all runs a current of salinity and ozone, evoking vast, turbulent seas and the isolating expanse of arctic tundra. Unyielding and austere, its bitter intensity never softens, but persists with the tenacity of the raw, indifferent environment it evokes.
Zoologist Macaque (Yuzu Edition) I’ve spent countless YouTube hours watching travelers wind their way through Japan’s remote mountains in search of hidden onsen. Macaque conjures what I imagine in those moments before slipping into these natural hot springs: that sharp intake of breath as mountain air fills the lungs, a bracing brightness that stings like citrus without any trace of sweetness. Then comes the dry herbal/woody medicinal presence of cypress wood warming in the sun, and finally, the contemplative drift of incense carried on thermal currents. Its smoke is different here – softened and diffused by rising steam until it becomes almost tactile, like silk suspended in air. There’s something sacred in this solitude of smoke and steam, something that recalls the aftermath of a hot shower but earthier, more ancient – less about soap than the quiet ritual of purification, with just a whisper of mineral-rich air. The lasting impression is of warmth remembered rather than felt, like late afternoon sun lingering after the day has begun to cool.
Francesca Bianchi Voluptuous Oud First impressions of Voluptuous Oud are like opening the door to a grand parlour – a brief, sharp intake of leather and wood that quickly softens into something far more gracious. The oud here isn’t the fierce creature of perfume lore, but something more measured, like old leather chairs that have absorbed decades of warmth and welcome. Each breath reveals new facets of comfort – buttery undertones, traces of wood worn smooth by time, the particular richness that comes from allowing things their full measure of ripeness. This is a scent that understands the difference between abundance and excess. It settles into its own nature with quiet assurance, offering the kind of comfort found in well-loved spaces where every element has found its proper place through long association. Everything arranges itself just so, creating a world of perfect comfort and refinement – until you notice that somewhere, somehow, the shadows have begun to lengthen in impossible directions, vetiver’s bitter fingers grasping at the edges of what might be more than shadows. Yet what lingers longest is that buttery sweetness, rich and golden as an afternoon dream of darker honey, its lushness tempered by threads of burnished, brooding vanilla and sandalwood that render it less confectionery and more contemplative. This is precisely the sort of artful, beguiling fragrance one reaches for when they wish to romanticize their life, those days when a simple afternoon begs to be transformed into something more mysterious and meaningful. It reminds me irresistibly of Saki’s short story “The Open Window,” where a young girl transforms an unremarkable afternoon into something extraordinary through sheer force of imagination. Like the best storytellers, it creates its own reality – perfectly composed, utterly convincing, and just possibly not quite what it seems.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Nevertheless, She Persisted is all warmth and edge, a richness cut with a chipped blade, a silver that’s earned its patina, illuminated by a cresting shard of dawn. The scent blooms like resin warmed by just enough light to see by, bittersweet, gentle as prayer, steady as stone. It moves like metallic honey, like quicksilver caught in amber – inexorable and incandescent, a sliver of sunshine given weight and anointed with purpose. Beneath its surface lies something unflinching and resolute, like steel threaded through silk, like granite veined with gold, like a sword of thunder wrapped in a ballgown.
4160 Tuesdays Shazam! Not all observatories are built of steel and glass. Some are carved from ancient wood and wisdom, where mechanical planets trace their paths through the perpetual twilight of desert mysteries. Here in the thin mountain air, elevation sharpens the senses: first the bright bite of altitude, then the way spices catch in the throat like distant light. Time dissolves in the dark. What begins as calculation—the precise geometry of pepper’s gentle ignition and austere cedarwood gears—softens into something warmer, more profound. Each celestial model points inward, finding its own true north in bitter cocoa and burnished amber. Brass orbits wheel overhead at the angle of eternity while censers trace their own paths below, drawing cosmic dust and incense into the undertow of old magics. In the smoke and spice of these shadowed alignments, the machinery of night turns ever inward.
Miskeo Parfum Épices immediately called to mind Audition’s Asami, that icon of patient malice and elegant vengeance, trading her torture kit for a spice collection. She conjures a pristine hostess in her leather apron, each pocket meticulously lined with strategically curated powders and preparations: cardamom’s strange cooling caress, coriander’s numbing bite. Her cedarwood spoon dissects the mixture with surgical precision, stirring sweet-sharp resins and honeyed smoke into something exquisitely lethal. When the spices settle, they leave behind a slow dreamy surrender of soft musk and patchouli’s eerie earthiness – even the deadliest hostess exacting her long game of vengeance knows the art of perfect measure.
Finally trying a few from Filippo Sorcinelli, here are my thoughts…
Notre-Dame 15.4.2019 is what happens when the witchly spirit of venomous anisette, honeyed plums, and midnight-plucked flowers from Christian Dior’s Poison decides to possess a gingerbread man, wrapping itself in a crust of dark spices and unholy sugar.
Basilica of Assisi If Heinrich Lossow’s painting “The Sin” got a modern perfume brief, but plot twist – the nun is doing laundry, and instead of a garden variety horny priest, she’s being visited by a biblically accurate angel, all burning eyes and razor wings and divine perversity. It’s giving Clovis Trouille’s ecstatic scandalous nuns but make it fresh linens and benediction. A slutty nun chypre laundry musk that somehow makes perfect sense. Sacred and profane, bleached and debauched.
BPAL x Haute Macabre The Veil Falls Like Leaves I wore The Veil Falls Like Leaves earlier in the week, and at first, it was very much that seasonal dead leaves/softly decomposing autumn harvest element that BPAL does so well. But by the end of the day, I was like, “What am I wearing that makes me smell like a posh art gallery weirdo?” So I built a little review around that, hehehehe.
The Veil Falls Like Leaves (leaves, vanilla, and leather) Found your local bog witch at the gallery fundraiser, trailing damp, earthy autumn leaves in her wake, each step releasing whispers of sweet autumnal decay and sour, earthy fungi. The wild things clean up nice but never quite lose their feral heart – you smell it in the manky, softly rotting vegetation that lingers beneath her gallery-appropriate veneer. This is autumn’s sophisticated glow-up, where decaying harvest and sweet-tempered spice mingle in the air. As the night deepens, something softer emerges: traces of expensive, elegant leather and fancy high-end shampoo that smells of earthy, loamy vanillagf, like a well-worn jacket catching the scent of damp, moss-tendriled hair, adding an unexpected intimacy to all that earthen wisdom.
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I love perfume. I love talking about perfume. I love how it’s simultaneously the most invisible and most evocative art form we have – how a single molecule can transport you through time, space, and memory. The fragrance community has given me some of my most treasured conversations about art, emotion, and the weird, beautiful space where they intersect. But like any passionate community, it’s got its share of nonsense.
Let’s start with the one I find most aggravating…
tap tap tap Here’s another pristine manicure hovering over another luxury bottle, another perfectly filtered face telling us something is “literally fire.” These aren’t fragrance reviews – they’re beauty influencer content that happens to use perfume bottles as props. The fragrance itself is barely a supporting character in its own review.
In each of these videos, the person reviewing the perfume looks like a social media beauty influencer, and I know that you know exactly what I mean. Not just “pretty,” but beautiful in that instantly recognizable, algorithmic way – the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic, the glazed donut skin, the lip combos, the siren eyes, the perfectly sculpted ‘that girl’ routine. These people and their unattainable levels of curated beauty have somehow become the faces of fragrance discourse, and I find that absolutely insufferable.
Why? Because perfume is supposed to be the great equalizer, the one form of beauty that has absolutely nothing to do with appearance. Fragrance is where those of us with crooked smiles and frizzy hair and uneven eyeliner get to be goddamn ethereal. When I smell beautiful, I don’t care about my sun spots or broken capillaries or the way everything jiggles when I move.
A perfect scent lets you slip through the world in a veil of impeccable elegance or a melancholy cloud of romantic longing. It moves you to beauty in places that powder and glosses can never hope to reach. While influencers are tapping their manicured nails on bottles and getting millions of views for calling everything “iconic” or “no thoughts just vibes,” some of us are achieving a beauty far beyond what you can capture in a well-lit studio with all the filters in the world.
The comments section erupts: “omg queen your reviews are so detailed and helpful! 😍” Meanwhile, people who actually describe the development of the fragrance, its artistic merit, its place in perfume history, or god forbid, its actual smell, get “too wordy, just tell me if it’s good.” The rise of micro-content has somehow convinced people that complex olfactory experiences can be reduced to three-second clips and vague superlatives. I get it – long-form content takes more time and effort to consume. But perfume isn’t a TikTok transition trend. Some things deserve more than a bottle tap and a catchphrase – especially something that makes you feel beautiful in ways that have nothing to do with how you look.
And of course, it’s not enough to make perfume just about looks – we’ve also got people turning it into a competitive sport.
“But what’s the sillage like? How’s the projection? Is it BEAST MODE?” My brother in Christ, not everything needs to announce your presence from three zip codes away. The obsession with performance metrics has created this bizarre arms race of nuclear-strength fragrances that sacrifice all artistry for pure brute force.
The whole “beast mode” culture has led to these bombastic, synthetic power-fragrances that smell like they were designed by people who think typing in all caps makes their argument stronger. Judging a perfume solely by its longevity is like judging a meal by how long it takes to eat, or a movie by its runtime. Those gorgeous citrus top notes? They’re fleeting by nature. That’s literally physics.
Sometimes beauty is ephemeral. Sometimes reapplication is part of the experience. Sometimes screaming doesn’t make you a better singer. And sometimes your nose has just gone temporarily blind to your fragrance because you’ve been marinating in it all day (Google “olfactory fatigue” before you leave that one-star review).
Speaking of missing the point entirely…
“Which fragrance gets the most compliments?” This is not a dating strategy. The constant pursuit of compliment-getting fragrances has turned parts of the community into a weird sort of olfactory pickup artist scene.
And while we’re here – it’s 2024, and you’re still asking me if a scent leans more feminine or masculine? Gendering scent molecules is like gendering clouds or colors or the concept of Thursday. Is your bergamot licensed to practice law? Does your vetiver have student loan debt? When was the last time your oakmoss filed its tax return? Do these sound like silly questions to ask? They are equally as silly as fretting about your perfume’s gender identity. Just be a human, wearing a note you love because you love it.
And while we’re on the subject of arbitrary rules we’ve made up…
“What’s your signature scent?” My what? “Nobody needs more than 10 bottles!” Says who? The weird moralization of both collection sizes and scent monogamy in the fragrance community is exhausting.
Some days I want to smell like a marble bust vined with ivy, others like I just rolled in a constellation of stars. Sometimes I want to be a cozy sweater, and sometimes I want to be an entire gothic cathedral. Why limit yourself to one song when you could have a whole playlist?
And let’s talk about the designer fragrance snobbery. Not everyone needs to be wearing small-batch artisanal perfumes that cost half a month’s rent. That “basic” designer scent you’re sneering at? It probably brings its wearer joy, and isn’t that the whole point?
And once you’ve finished judging how many bottles someone owns, you can start judging how much they paid for them…
“$300 for scented water? What a rip-off!” Ah yes, because art should be cheap. Those years of training, rare materials, creative development, and artistic vision? Should probably cost the same as a bottle of designer body spray, right?
The dupe-hunting mentality is particularly exhausting. “Does anyone know a dupe for BR540 that costs $30 and performs better?” No. No, I don’t. If there was a $30 perfume that smelled exactly like a $300 perfume AND performed better, why would anyone buy the expensive one?
And don’t get me started on “clean” perfume marketing – it’s greenwashing with a side of classism, wrapped in a recycled bow. Not everything natural is good (poison ivy, anyone?), and not everything synthetic is bad. This marketing approach doesn’t just mislead – it creates artificial moral hierarchies around something as personal as scent preferences.
After all this talk about what perfume shouldn’t be – too expensive, too synthetic, too gendered, too whatever – let me tell you what it is: it’s poetry for the nose
Yes, I know my reviews are flowery. Yes, I describe perfumes in terms of memories, emotions, and elaborate scenarios. No, I will not simply list notes like I’m reading the back of a box. If you want a clinical breakdown of molecules, go read the IFRA documentation.
When I say a fragrance smells like “the last warm day of autumn, when the golden light hits fallen leaves and you’re sipping a hot chai and nibbling an apple cider donut when you get the call that your dad died,” I’m conveying an experience, not just a list of notes. Scent is intimately tied to memory and emotion – describing it purely in technical terms misses the entire point.
And finally, because I desperately need to say this…
Here’s the thing about perfume recommendations: unless you’re asking me how to smell like Brigitte Lahaie in Jean Rollin’s Fascination, or the trippy pastel poster art of Belladonna of Sadness, or lying on your bedroom floor in 1994 feeling weird and hazy and scared of the future while listening to Mazzy Star, or Scully slapping on the latex in that one funny episode of the X-Files, or that dream you had after finishing Jeff VanderMeer’s Area X trilogy – I probably shouldn’t be your guide.
“Looking for something unique but crowd-pleasing, sexy but office-appropriate, under $50 but niche quality, smells like summer nights but works year-round…” Does this exist? Possibly. I got bored and fell asleep before you finished your request, though. Without a genuine connection to your desired vibe, anything I suggest would just be me half-heartedly people-pleasing. My recommendations would be exercises in mediocrity, expensive arrows shot in the dark.
Just last night, someone messaged me asking how to smell like Gerard Way at a 2002 New Jersey basement show. No shade to the asker – that’s actually a fantastic request! The specificity is chef’s kiss. But I had to admit I literally didn’t know who Gerard Way was until that very moment. And you know what? That’s perfectly okay. We had a fun chat about it anyway, made a new connection, and they’ll hopefully find someone who can actually nail that early-aughts emo basement vibe for them.
The fragrance community (and everybody, really) seems oddly hesitant to say, “I don’t know,” or “That’s not my area.” But it’s actually freeing – better an honest “not my wheelhouse” than pretending expertise you don’t have. Perfume is deeply personal, and unless you’re tapping into something that genuinely excites me, something specific and evocative and meaningful (to me), I’m not the right person to guide your scent journey.
Every community has its eye-rolling moments and misplaced priorities, and perfume people are no exception. They obsess over synthetic metrics instead of genuine experiences, make up arbitrary rules that serve no one, and sometimes get so caught up in chasing trends and validation that they completely miss the point of what makes this art form special. But there’s something beautiful about watching someone describe a scent that moved them to tears, or sharing a sample that changes how they see the world, or finally finding that perfect bottle after a hundred near-misses. Even when they’re driving me crazy… they’re still speaking my language.
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
Stora Skuggan Fantôme de Maules Ghost roads converging on a cemetery, whispers of a green-cloaked figure vanishing into mist. Fantôme de Maules unfurls like a secret, a sylvan, spectral musk, dark green twilight gleaming through branches, hovering just above the skin. The green here isn’t lush or vibrant, but austere – the color of twilight filtering through pine needles. There’s a whisper of lavender, more herbal than floral, and a hint of dry, shadowy spice – prickly subterranean murmurs from some hidden place. I catch wisps of mossy flowers through the mist, their fragrance elusive and fleeting, obscured by that omnipresent veil of cool, verdant fog. It’s beautiful, in a melancholy way, like stumbling upon abandoned ruins in a forgotten glade. The scent carries a weight of isolation, of time stretching endlessly through silent forests, the grass and loam of secret paths trodden by solitary feet. The bittersweet ache of chosen seclusion, of a world deliberately left behind. The gossamer soapy-powdery aspect feels like a fading remnant of civilization, washed away by years of woodland solitude. It’s a fragrance whose presence is defined by absence, a mystery I’m not sure I want to unravel – what’s missing, or why it matters.
Clue Warm Bulb opens with a subtle but singular blend of fuzzed salinity combined with the scent of a heating element, evoking the imagined aroma of a Himalayan salt lamp covered in a fine patina of dust. I have several of these lamps, and mine don’t smell like much of anything in particular, but this opening is always how I thought they would smell. It’s the essence of warm, mineralized air, like you could smell the soft, pinky-orange glow emanating from rough-hewn salt crystals beneath a thin veil of settled particles. The fragrance makes me think of the lamp’s alleged ability to ionize the air, creating an olfactory impression of a purified, slightly electric atmosphere tinged with a hint of neglect. As it develops, the scent undergoes an unexpected transition, as if a forgotten offering has been left near the lamp’s warm glow: a small dried bouquet and a marshmallow, both altered by proximity to the salt lamp’s warmth and accumulated residue. Imagine pressed flowers; their colors faded but still discernible, mingled with the powdery sweetness of a marshmallow slowly desiccating in the lamp’s ambient heat, all covered by a ghostly layer of time’s passage. Though not a scent that wildly excited me, Warm Bulb’s quiet journey from dusty, electrified minerals to withered floral sweetness proved to be an interesting olfactory experience, even just to think about and write about, if not to wear.
Crushed Fruits from Regime des Fleurs shimmers and unfurls like an overripe reverie, fruit flesh and flowers awakening from brandy-soaked slumber; an ultraviolet tumble of plums, an infrared rush of raspberries, a kaleidoscopic cascade woven through the fold of a forgotten black velvet painting, glossy and dripping and beckoning with the urgency of a thousand hummingbird hearts. That 1970s canvas time-shifts into a 1990s dress, empire-waisted, bell-sleeved, phantom filigree choker at the throat, echoes of stompy boots, an ambery oxblood slash of Spice or Black Honey staining ghost-lips. A current of boozy bitterness and dusky incense, a smoky scent of hazy late neon nights bleeding into dawn, of kisses that taste like vintage lipstick from a dream you haven’t had yet but always remember the moment before waking.
Arcana Wildcraft Daydreams of Trees is an olfactory landscape that defies botanical reality. Though violets are conspicuously absent from the listed notes, they emerge as unmistakable titans, ascending to arboreal majesty in a fantastical forest. In this otherworldly realm, violet blooms tower like gentle giants, their presence both awe-inspiring and benevolent. Colossal purple petals the size of skyscrapers, soft, velvety, and gossamer-thin despite their impossible scale, filter the sunlight, casting an ethereal glow that’s mirrored in the scent’s interplay of light and shadow. Beneath them, a tapestry of green unfurls – crisp, resinous, alive with the whispers of coniferous giants paying homage to their violet overlords. A cool breeze carries hints of herbal sweetness, mingling with the earthy richness of the forest floor below. These floral kaiju drift through the fragrance like benign Mothras, their movements sending waves of sweet, powdery aroma cascading through the air. The very essence of the forest seems to pulse throughout – a complex amalgam of woody warmth and floral opulence as if the boundary between tree and flower has dissolved completely. Daydreams of Trees is a perfumed dreamscape of quiet grandeur, a world where towering floral sentinels stand watch over a woodland transformed by their vast, violet shadow.
Carnival Wax Deathtrap is a smoky vanilla-incense-sandalwood-resin scent full of vaguely oracular pronouncements; it smells profound in some indefinable way. It wraps me in a nebulous aura of mystery and hazy hidden knowledge – though no one knows who hid this knowledge, why they bothered, or if anyone’s actually looking for it. I go about my daily routine feeling like a walking enigma, a bearer of arcane secrets, while everyone else is probably just wondering why I smell like a dusty old pile of books or some such. Deathtrap transforms me into the keeper of a cosmic puzzle that nobody asked for; it has cast a spell on me, convincing me of its intense profundity while simultaneously robbing me of the ability to articulate why. Trying to explain its essence is like grasping at the fading wisps of a vivid dream. The words hover just out of reach, shimmering with meaning, only to dissipate the moment I open my mouth. I’m left with nothing but a lingering sense of having touched something mystically significant, even if I can’t quite remember what or how.
Cocoa Pink Paper Butterfly is a lilting confectionary cradlesong of lightness, sweetness, and softness – frosted tea cakes, sugary breakfast cereal milk, delicate pearls of vanilla musk, and wisps of phantom florals. But like all lullabies, it carries an undercurrent of melancholy beneath its gentle exterior. Why are the songs we sing to innocent babes so often tinged with sadness? And so, somehow, this sweetness and light immediately draws forth a wistfulness from deep within. It’s a perfume that deserves its own entry in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows –
Paperiperhonen /pa.pe.ri.per.ho.nen/ n.
-A state of being in which one finds comfort in gentle sorrow, like being wrapped in a lace shawl knitted from memories and dreams, a cocoon of bittersweet reverie.
-The paradoxical sensation of feeling most alive when embracing one’s melancholy, finding unexpected depth and richness in the quieter, darker emotional landscapes.
-A moment of bittersweet clarity in which the veil between joy and sorrow dissolves, revealing that our deepest mirth and most wrenching tears spring from the same well of human experience
This fragrance doesn’t smell of sadness, but it smells like sadness feels – soft, sweet, and strangely comforting. And now, as I finally explore this sample from earlier in the summer, I’m struck by a new wave of melancholy: it was a limited edition, no longer available. This realization adds another layer to an already complex emotional experience, embodying the very fleeting beauty it captures.
Mihan Aromatics Mikado Bark is a cozy, comforting scent without any of the typical hallmarks perfumes of coziness and comfort rely on. It’s not rich or foody, and I would not say it’s overly nostalgic in any particular way. It’s a fragrance whose spicy, woody notes are all not exactly ghosts of themselves, but they’ve all been shushed and hushed, and all together, their muted echoes harmonize with exquisite subtlety. It’s a perfume that hovers like a hazy veil, both grounding and uplifting in its gentle presence. It carries the softness of lamplight pooling in shadows at dusk, yet also evokes the fleeting warmth of sunlight piercing gloomy afternoon clouds. The scent invites introspection, smoothing sharp edges and muting bold tones into a delicate accord. It’s as if familiar aromatic notes have been reimagined – their essence captured, then softened and warmed. The fragrance conjures the image of a lone verdant remnant amid a sea of faded crimson and rust as October yields to November’s chill. Lingering in the air, it embodies the autumnal, contemplative spirit of hobbits, reimagined as a gremlincore playlist steeped in hauntological reverb.
Two fragrances from Solstice Scents immediately conjured some very specific imagery for me…!
Devil’s Tongue: Beelzebub thunders into Bike Week, his presence a tempest of lime and leather. Ancient wings, creased like a well-worn jacket, flex as he grips chrome handlebars slick with condensation from his frosty margarita. The air crackles with a zesty electricity, mixing citrus sting with infernal heat in a heady cocktail. Beneath his wheels, the earth exhales a deep, earthy groan – a mix of smoke and unholy soil that speaks of vast, wicked subterranean realms. At the edge of town, he pulls into a ubiquitous coffee franchise, the aroma of seasonal vanilla latte cutting through the infernal haze. The barista, unfazed by the sulfurous fumes, squints at the order screen and asks with practiced cheer, “Is that for Beelz, or is it Bub?” The Lord of Flies accepts his steaming cup, his “thanks, babe” shrieking out in a voice that’s part anglerfish daydreams, part chiropteran echolocation. With a final rev that sounds like the gates of hell grinding open, Beelzebub toodles off into the sunset, leaving behind a trail of vanilla-tinged brimstone and the faintest whiff of lime-kissed leather.
Thornwood Thicket: In the depths of the thicket, juicy purple orbs split open, birthing a swarm of cooing, jellied creatures that multiply with alarming speed. Sticky berry nectar drips from gnarled branches, transforming these chirping morsels into mischievous imps that skitter through the underbrush, their numbers doubling with each twig they snap. Ancient trees groan under the weight of the burgeoning horde, their woody sighs mingling with the fruity frenzy. The forest floor pulses, a living carpet of vegetation that shivers and expands, sprouting more berry-scented fiends with each quiver. Every breath draws in air thick with frenetic, fragrant energy as these jammy juggernauts overrun the woodland, their sweet symphony rising to a fever pitch. The once-serene grove twists into an ever-expanding maze of berry-fueled bedlam, leaving visitors dizzy in a haze of multiplying aromas and rambunctious, fruit-filled pandemonium.
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
I was planning on posting this up as the culmination of 31 Days of Horror as I did last year, but…
1. I finished these reviews last night, and I am impatient. If something is done, the temptation to share it is too great not to do it immediately! ‘
And 2. holding off until Halloween isn’t helpful for those who are looking to place orders before Halloween and may need a bit of help in the way of a review that tells them something, while… if not useful or helpful (I don’t kid myself about the kind of “reviews” that I write) at least…illuminating? Insightful?
Moroccan Pumpkin (pumpkin spices wind through a blend of warm musk, carnation, red sandalwood and cassia) Immensely slatherable, an oozing study in autumnal comfort, heavy and sweet on the skin. The pumpkin note is rich and velvety, with a buttery smoothness that goes beyond coating the back of a spoon…I think the spoon would stand straight up in this if it were an actual edible thing! Spices add depth and complexity – warm cinnamon and golden, resinous amber – their heat tempered by the syrupy sweetness of brown sugar crystals seemingly dissolving into the blend. There’s a thickness to this scent, almost tactile in its presence, like the last spoonful of preserves clinging to the jar. It’s a scent that embodies the season’s most indulgent desserts – think slices of custardy pumpkin pie topped with dollops of whipped cream, warm cinnamon rolls dripping with gooey icing, and sticky toffee pudding saturated with a rich maple butterscotch sauce.
Darling, Darling (sugared pear and wild violets with orris butter, coconut milk, white musk, and vanilla silk) opens with a creamy, candied tartness that swoons into a misty moody, melancholic violet – a fevered vision nestled in the heart of a midnight reverie. This is a sugar-frosted bloom with a nocturnal appetite – powdery yet sharp, a strange, romantic sweetness on which one feeds exclusively and voraciously. A velvety richness mingles with a subtle lactonic note, providing a silky backdrop that amplifies the scent’s confectionery nature. A diaphanous veil of clean musk intertwines with gossamer-light vanilla, forming an ethereal shroud of tender menace clinging to trembling skin. TLDR; this smells like the tender caresses of a succubus who is feeding you a handful of Smarties.
Dead Leaves, Incense Smoke & Oud Imagine you are Mazzy Star circa 1993, but you are also slowly being consumed by the trees. Damp, earthy autumn leaves whisper songs of decay, a slow plume of incense smoke hangs low on the breeze, and the sun drops below the bloody, burning horizon. Rich woody darkness, a tree’s shadowy heart, and you, a pile of dust, an endlessly fading chord.
Dead Leaves, Black Tea & Bergamot The earthy, euphoric scent of autumn rises from a carpet of fallen leaves, their colors a blanket of umber and gold spread beneath rusted wrought-iron gates. Wisps of aromatic steam curl from an abandoned mug on a weathered stone bench, mingling with the garden’s fading sighs. At twilight, a crisp breeze rattles the trees, carrying a jolly, vegetal brightness that disperses the melancholy haze like a peal of laughter at an unexpectedly inappropriate joke! A moment, a reflective pause between seasons, rich with the comforting warmth of autumn and the lingering mischief of the departing summer, the last chirp of a cricket giving way to the first croak of an autumn toad.
The Bell Witch(rusted iron, mandrake root, burnt vetiver, and patchouli leaves) What is it about the human heart that loves a place forsaken? This is a quote from a book I read recently, so I can’t take credit for it, but it is super appropriate for this perfume. In a forgotten corner of an abandoned homestead, weathered tools rest against crumbling walls, once-gleaming surfaces now a canvas of rust and patina, shadows pool in the pitted surface of an old axe head. From between warped floorboards, gnarled tendrils reach upward, twisted and pale, insistently seeking. A tenebrous botanical scent rises with them, vegetal and searching. It mingles with the musty air, a complex perfume of damp wood, old leather, and the faint memory of smoke. Dust hangs suspended in slanted beams of light; each mote a silent witness to creeping decay and desolation.
Single Note: Black Lipstick (waxy drugstore lipstick and clove cig residue) Velvety pigments and wine-darkened lips, inky midnight fruits, rich, jammy, plummy, plush malaise-as-a-lifestyle-choice kisses.
Pumpkin Spice Halo-Halo(ube halaya and ube ice cream chonked with mango jelly, flan, boiled taro, evaporated milk, sweetened kidney beans, dried coconut, kaong, gulaman, tapioca pearls, and a copious shake of pumpkin spice) This is a very creamy blend, but also very …earthy? Velvety ribbons of milky jam weave through wobbling mounds of coconut custard. Lumpy dollops of an almost figgy milk jelly jostle jiggingly aside pillowy palm sugar flan. But there is also the starchy nectar of sweet rice, beans boiled in fruit syrup, and the subterranean, geosmic sweetness of mashed tubers. This fragrance has all of those things…plus a tiny spoonful of salty, nutty, browned butter.
Pumpkin Musk & Black Oud Pureed gourd flesh and nutty, toasted grains steep in dusky, caramelized sweetness. A slice of pumpkin bread devoured at a forsaken crossroads, where a witching-hour deal is yet to be struck.
The Fading Crimson of the Sky (bergamot shuddering through lime leaves, ruby-tinged amber sunlight, violet leaf, oak bark, and sandalwood smoke) An unsettling missive scrawled in smoke; the honeyed light and amber glow of a strangely flickering twilight; a slice of citrus wrapped in lace, pale jade juice seeping into the threads. The pearlescent moon rises, and violet-tinged shadows writhe over a hushed glade.
Dry Ice Cocktail(a sparkling absinthe martini swirled with a glow stick and overflowing with cascades of dry ice fog) A spectral chill in frosted glass; anise and verbena spark with eerie luminescence. Icy tendrils spill over the rim, a fog that bites at curious fingers. The elixir shimmers with cold vapor suspended between tipple and mist – green herbal shivers and sharp, aromatic secrets swirling in misty limbo.
The Autumn People (hay-dusted oak, honey mead, pumpkin rind, vetiver root, corn husk, and maple leaves) An unexpected autumnal breeze; crisp leaves carry secrets of golden fields. Honey-tinged sunlight clings to weathered bark, earthy roots anchor fleeting warmth. Tattered pumpkin rind scrapings compost with the sweet decay of fallen foliage. Deceptively fresh, almost cheerful, yet a ghostly chorus lingers in wind-stirred branches – a chill, whistling echo of summer’s fading warmth.
The Ruins of Karnstein (the rich, earthy depth of oud, vetiver, and moss, grounded in the untamed wilds of the forest, echoing the ancient stones that remain) Monstrous vegetation breathes a verdant miasma, its exhalations heavy with the weight of countless eons. In the same space, the same breath, the other eye observes a study in boreal archaeology: a drift of dead branches, ancient pine cones, desiccated moss. Tendrils of primordial green intertwine with crumbling stone, suspended in time. Undergrowth, thicket, and canopy exude a vast murky viridescence, revealing a mirror world where forest and ruin reflect endlessly, an unsettling symmetry of growth and decay.
Traditional Sheet Ghost A farmers market fruit basket tumbles into the washing machine, emerges an olfactory apparition. High-thread-count luxury cotton sheets, spin cycle séance, rustling with tales of anemic fruits transfused with linen-fresh detergent. Bedclothes drift through air heavy with warm humidity and the powdery tang of fabric softener, an olfactory bedtime story of fruits gently haunting your freshly laundered linens.
Datura Blossom This impression of chlorinated florals, aquatic honey, and a slight mineral effervescence is not at all what I expected… although I think this is going to be a summertime favorite! . This is a midsummer fever dream, foamed with flowers, pearled with light. Narcotic petals lounging poolside: honey-sweet poisonous blooms take a dip in cerulean waters at high noon in mid-July, and they’re floating on neon pool noodles and drinking slightly flat but icy-cold Topo Chico. For those who appreciate such things, this one reminds me a bit of the long-discontinued Danube.
Hollow Hallow (a suffocating pumpkin kyphi soaked in dark red wine and darkened by vetiver, opoponax, and black oud) The pores of the earth yawn open, exuding an inky miasma perfumed with earthy autumnal spices and sweet brown sugar musk. This glazed, glistening cascade of aromatic sap gleams under a harvest moon, a glossy pool of honeyed incense golden and thick, an aromatic oil slick of resinous depth and syrupy darkness. From the viscous depths, a pumpkin-headed silhouette emerges, its hollow eyes glowing with ancient malice—an old god awakening to reclaim its hallowed home.
The Great and Titled Dead (the haunted stillness of a long-decayed cemetery plot choked by ivy and wild blackberry thorns) Did I hear a blackberry giggle? And why did it sound so chilling, soulless, and evil? A chorus of tiny, wicked voices rises from the brambles, their sweet menace carried on a gentle breeze. The scent drifts lightly, deceptively airy, its delicate touch belying the weight of ancient malice it carries.
Tropical Print Sheet Ghost (cascades of banana Leaf, bamboo fiber, mango, papaya, and hibiscus, streaked with ectoplasm and sticky tears of strelitzia sap) I always list the notes with these reviews because sometimes I forget myself and get lost in impressions or dreams or memories or go off on labyrinthine tangents that stray very far from perfumereviewlandia. In this case, it is helpful to share the perfumer’s notes because I am going to list a very different set of smeller’s notes: honeydew, rhubarb, & honeysuckle preserves, a translucent shiver of ginger leaf, a rosebud preening, its reflection glassy and cool in a pool of clear rainwater. Fresh, clear nectar, lush and swirling in a prismatic jelly jar, balancing on a small tray carved of young, green wood.
Pumpkin Latte (espresso, pumpkin syrup, smoky vanilla bean, milk, raw sugar, and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg) I don’t know how I’ve been reviewing these Halloween scents for so long, and yet I have never talked about this one. Perhaps it’s because it’s been lurking in the shadows, biding its time, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal its true nature. And that nature? It’s not what you’d expect. The coffee is strong and smoky, a dark roast rebellion against the expected sweetness. This is not the sticky-sweet pumpkin syrup bomb of your coffee-chain drive-thru order with your name spelled ridiculously wrong (ugh, poor “Keighleigh”). Instead, imagine a barista witch concocting a potion of bitter mysteries and autumnal secrets in a cauldron of burnished copper. Vanilla bean smoke curls around the edges, more felt than tasted, while cinnamon and nutmeg whisper spicy nothings from the shadows. A ribbon of milk weaves through it all, not to soften but to complicate – binding the realms of wake and sleep, summer’s fading warmth, and winter’s approaching chill. Raw sugar lingers as an afterthought, crunching softly like leaves underfoot or the last grains of sand in October’s hourglass. This is a PSL for those who find comfort in decay and seek beauty in the turn of seasons – a not-too-sweet (ultimate compliment) toast to endings that taste like new beginnings, the best, most perfect, most WEENDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.
Need more ‘Weenies? Have a peep at my ‘Weenie reviews from the autumns of yesteryear 2023 // 2022 // 2021 // 2020 // 2019 // 2018 // 2017 // 2016
And PSSSST! Did you know I have collected all of my BPAL reviews into one spot? Here you will find 88 pages of my thoughts and rambles on various limited-edition scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab over the years: BPAL REVIEWS BY S. ELIZABETH (PDF download)
Are you new to one of our very favorite indie perfumers, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab? See my three-part primer here, here, and here.
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
This was the copy I had for years before the tattered cover fell off. It has since been rebound.
I recently had the pleasure of appearing on the Paperback Perfumes podcast, where I was given an intriguing challenge: to pair a book with a perfume. My choice? Daphne du Maurier’s timeless classic, Rebecca. In the promotional materials, Claire used an older portrait of me, several hair colors ago. In it, my head thrown back, I am cackling into the void. That photo is so ridiculous, and I love it so much.
Anyway. Rebecca. As I revisited this beloved novel for what must be the dozenth time, I approached it with a new perspective – one focused entirely on the sensory experience, particularly scent. What struck me most was the sheer abundance of olfactory references throughout the book. Du Maurier’s prose is rich with descriptions of smells, from the natural world of Manderley to the more subtle, character-driven scents that permeate the story.
Curious about my chosen fragrance pairing? You’ll have to listen to the Paperback Perfumes podcast to find out! But in the meantime, I’ve compiled a comprehensive list of every scent reference I could find in the story. It’s a fascinating journey through the novel’s sensory landscape, one that adds depth to an already multilayered narrative.
Rebecca rebound by McCall Co. Bindery & Book Arts (photo: Nate McCall)
Below, you’ll find my catalog of scents from “Rebecca,” organized by category. As you read through, consider: what fragrance would you pair with this gothic masterpiece?
Nature and growth:
“Nature had come into her own again”
“Monster shrubs and plants”
“This jungle growth”
“Choked wilderness”
“Unnatural growth of a vast shrub”
“Garden had obeyed the jungle law”
Earth and moss:
“The smell of wet earth”
“Sour tang of moorland peat”
“Feel of soggy moss”
“Dank rich moss beneath our feet”
Water and sea:
“Rain and the lapping of water”
“Mists of autumn and the smell of the flood tide”
“Murmur of the sea below me, low and sullen”
“Smell of damp salt and seaweed”
Flowers and plants:
“Daffodils… stirring in the evening breeze”
“Crocuses… golden, pink, and mauve”
“Primrose… vulgar, a homely pleasant creature”
“Bluebells… smoky, rather bitter smell, as though a wild sap ran in their stalks, pungent and juicy”
“Great branches of lilac… filled the house with a wistful, poignant smell”
“Azaleas and rhododendrons… The air was full of their scent, sweet and heady”
“Magnolia scent… faint, soft”
“Sweet lilac in the vase… mauve warm scent filling the room”
“Hydrangeas… somber… funereal”
Food and drink:
“Dripping crumpets… Tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, floury scones”
“Sandwiches of unknown nature, mysteriously flavored”
“Angel cake, that melted in the mouth”
“Marmalade, and coffee, and that tangerine”
Indoor spaces:
“Old quiet smell about the room”
“Ancient mossy smell, the smell of a silent church”
“Queer musty smell”
“Wardrobe smelt stuffy, queer”
Seasonal changes:
“Smell in the air of mist and damp, the smell that comes with the first fall of the leaf”
“Rain smelt of moss and earth and of the black bark of trees”
Specific Rebecca-related notes:
“Vanished scent upon the handkerchief… same as the crushed white petals of the azaleas”
“Azalea scent… turned stale inside the wardrobe, tarnishing the silver dresses”
Miscellaneous sensory descriptions:
“Manderley stood out like an enchanted house, every window aflame”
“I knew the scent she wore, I could guess her laughter”
“Smell of mud and rust, and that dark weed that grows deep beneath the sea”
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
Be Very Afraidassaults your senses with an acrid, bitter burst that leaves the impression of scorching the back of your throat – not the actual sensation, but what that might smell like if it were a scent. It’s reminiscent of a blast of canned air and clingy plastic on cold metal, with an undercurrent of something inexplicably familiar yet eerily alien. Scorched rubber morphs into singed leather as ozone crackles on deranged wavelengths and electricity arcs through your fingertips. It evokes a storm cloud wearing a leather mask, or a tuft of cotton candy spun from TV static – a harbinger of the chimeric evolution to come.
Within seconds, it shifts and softens, mutating radically. The initial character lingers, but it’s altered into a much gentler thing. That leather storm deconstructs into a whisper of quantum foam infused with dermal matrix nanofibers; bioengineered herbs emerge with a faint electric hum, while tendrils of ionized spectral vapors delicately intertwine with a moss-derived floral musk pulsing softly in a miniature supercollider of scent. On the skin, it continues to evolve, the original identity fragmenting and recombining as that once confrontational and unsettling opening transforms into something unnervingly inviting, now floating just at the edge of awareness.
The scent’s newly fleshed final form is a metamorphosis complete – subtly strange and softly electric, yet no longer unsettling. The dry-down reveals a sophisticated, green, barely-there tingle in a woody-mossy framework that feels both molecularly aseptic and ingeniously verdant. This enigmatic synthesis evokes an angel gently resequenced in a lab, emerging from a whisper-quiet decontamination chamber – a seamless fusion of the otherworldly and the synthetic. What began as something exceptionally weird has settled into an infinitely wearable fragrance that still carries ethereal echoes of its uncanny origins.
31 Days of Horror Day Four in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
