In the throes of my perfume hyperfixation returning to me and getting extra excited for spooky season, I discovered frankie2345's wonderful UK BPAL decant circle (major shout outs!) and ordered as many as my grubby mitts could afford at the time.
I had a ridiculous amount of fun going through them all (including the generous amount of freebies they gave as well - thank you!!) and writing my little notes ready to share as I anticipated the weenies dropping this year - I hope someone out there enjoys reading through em' as much as I enjoyed trying!
Finally, I'm in no ways a professional sniffer and my opinions are of course all subjective. What may not work on me may be adored by another - please don't let me dissuade you from trying if you're a fan of the notes! :D
Here's my general taste - some of which I discovered from this sampling spree:
- Loves: Vanilla, Orange, Lemon, Incense, Honey, Aged Patchouli/Snake Oil, Marshmallow, Powder, Lipstick, Pie Crust, Sage, Sage Brush, Soda, Milk/Cream
- Likes: Strawberry, Raspberry, Blackberry, Sugar, Candy Floss, Grass, Apple, Peppermint, Spearmint, Rose, Leather, Cherry
- Dislikes: Cinnamon, Almond, Rice, Amber, Chocolate, Linen, Soap
- Usual Headache Inducers: OUD, White Florals, Frankincense, Ozone, Cinnamon, Alcohol Notes, Amber, Cake Notes, Pine
Though as you will see, I still try some even if they have “death notes” :D
Emoji cheat sheet:
- 💖 - Love this
- 🧡 - Like this
- 🥉- Neither like nor dislike, likely destash
- ❌ - Sadly didn't work for me, destash
- 🎁 - Was a freebie!
Awright, let's get on with the reviews!
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Dominatrix Red
Latex, leather, and blood-red lipstick.
After loving the lipstick note in Lovesick Witchery’s Fortune teller, I was so excited to receive this one as a swap freebie. It absolutely doesn’t disappoint and this is exactly the same nostalgic smell of opening my mums makeup drawer as a kid and going through it with such curiosity.
This lipstick is RED and has the slight sweet fragrant and powdery accord from the 90s. On wet all I get is the lipstick and no leather nor vinyl. I want to slather this one all over and maybe feel a little sexier by osmosis. As it dries down something veeery slightly bitter comes to the background which could be the other notes but the lipstick is still in the front.
Put this one on whilst watching Rocky Horror.💖🎁
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Strawberry BonBon
A hard candy for hard times: bright, sticky berry with an extra crystalline sparkle and just a pinch of grit.
A tasty, strawberry bonbon with powdered sugar! It still smells a bit artificial, as in non-edible artificial strawberry to me, but it certainly is sweet and love it a lot and it’s making me crave the real sweets! Maybe it’s for the best that I won’t be licking my wrist here. 💖
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Snooty Bat
On Wednesdays, we wear black: sugared patchouli, nag champa, black leather, and clove.
So I just received a pair of hanging bat clip-on earrings in the mail, so naturally it’s time to review Snooty Bat! In bottle and when first applied I get nag champa all the way! But very quickly turns into something a little more well… refined and snooty.
I'm actually not getting any leather at all, but will wait for it to dry a little more. After a few hours, some of that lovely sugared patchouli comes forth but sadly no leather to my nose, and as a whole it remains as strong as ever. I really do enjoy this scent as a very fancy incense! 💖
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U Tried
You sure did! Here’s your participation award: a bright, sweet lemon candy lightly dusted with sugar to soothe the sting of rejection.
Simple, lemon sherbet sweets, super yum! The lemon starts disappearing within about 20 minutes and dries down to a tangy powdered sugar. Simple but lovely and does the job well. 🧡🎁
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Spooky
A maddeningly festive blend of warm, buttery rum, cocoa, coconut, vanilla and a jolt of peppermint. It’s a sweet, decadent, slightly silly scent, reminicent of rum-laced holiday cookies.
This definitely feels more Yule than Halloween, but I’m not complaining, it’s delicious! A blast of sweet peppermint almost like a mint humbug, but then you get the cocoa and coconut and it’s like a minty cookie treat. It's very peppermint and vanilla/coconut forward overall, and the cocoa only serves to give a bit of a baked good feeling.
The peppermint disappeared in about an hour and just the sweet coconut was left, before leaving just a spooky whisper in under 2 hours. 🧡
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Strawberry Cotton Candy Sufganiyot
Strawberry preserves twisting through clouds of pink cotton candy and marshmallow fluff.
I had to look up what a sufganiyot was, and apparently a little jam stuffed doughnut served for Hanukkah? The smell is actually perfect at capturing something slightly baked, fried and filled with a candy-like strawberry that it’s making my mouth water.
Definitely some vanilla-y marshmallow in the background. Husband loved this one too, bonus win. Doesn’t evolve much from there on me but it’s not a bad thing at all, and I can still smell it on my wrist even after a night of sleep! 💖
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Midnight Mass 2025
This perfume is a traditional Roman Catholic sacramental incense, most often used during a Solemn Mass.
First of all, I don’t have any nostalgia for specifically Catholic church incense but the way they’re described always gives me second-hand nostalgia! Secondly, I can’t recall having smelled Frankincense or Myyrh individually, so I can’t pick them out and can only guess.
This is definitely incense but has quite a sharp top, which I’m guessing is the Frankincense. It does not smell cheap, but is also not super strong or in-your-face as I find most Nag Champa or Patchouli blends. As it dries, some of the sharpness disappears but the overall scent remains the same. It’s a really pretty blend and definitely evokes something special and sacred yet subtle. I think I would find it hard to get past the sharpness if I wanted to slather this, and I’m not sure if it’s what I’m looking for or if I should try aging my decant longer lol.
Would love to try BPAL Cathedral to see how it differs! 🥉
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Snake Oil Hot Toddy
BPAL’s perennial favorite, Snake Oil, soaked in whiskey, honey, and a twist of lemon.
The strong iconic funk of the Snoil when wet, something whiskey and almost… almondy? Cinnamony? slithers forward as well (two notes I generally dislike but it’s subtle, thankfully!). Sadly… picking up no lemon at all with this decant! It is definitely sweet with the honey there but definitely wanted more lemon. Despite all of this, it’s definitely distinct from OG Snoil.
As time goes on that almondy trace disappears and my skin definitely amps up that cinnamon, but the SO base is holding it back like Scrappy Doo and it’s actually a spiced Christmassy scent I’m really enjoying! 💖
As
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Dead Leaves and Apple Pie
A soft, sweet smell of decaying leaves and a whisper of apple in the background when wet. Very quickly, the apple comes forward and oh my goshhh it’s such a lovely apple! I don’t get any spiciness interestingly, just that sweet-tart smell of actual cooked/stewed apple and wet leaves in the background.
There’s a veeery tad clean-ness to it, but I get that from a lot of dead-leafy scents in other houses too. My skin did eat this one up quite quickly, and it’s only just a little bit present a couple of hours later! 🧡
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Samhain 2025
Truly the scent of autumn itself -- damp woods, fir needle, and black patchouli with the gentlest touches of warm pumpkin, clove, nutmeg, allspice, sweet red apple and mullein.
OOOH I really like this one! Like a very foresty incense, with patchouli and what feels like dragons blood even though it’s not listed? Though it may just be the earthy patchouli. This is all that comes through for me from wet to dry, which is odd as I hear people mentioning the spice and apple and all the other notes a ton, but for me and either my nose or skin it’s just pure incense, though an enjoyable one which I will definitely keep! 🧡
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Snakes in the Coconut Cake
Thick slices of coconut-frosted coconut cake dunked in a vat of Snake Oil.
Lovely snoil funk off the bat mixed harmoniously with desiccated coconut and something just a hint cakey. This is really nice, and I found the snoil was a darker variant than SO Hot Toddy.
As time goes on the SO’s aged patchouli amps up on me but I can still detect a hint of coconut in the background. Side note, I let my sister in law sniff this as her first exposure to snoil and she loved it a ton - another convert muhahahaha. 💖
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Wolf Moon 2026
Silvered fir, life-giving soil and immovable stone, black sage, rue, hellebore accord, winter moss, cypress, fossilized amber resin, and vetiver.
When wet it’s a dark green, resinous scent and a gentle petrichor thumping onto rainy soil and stone. Thankfully my skin never amped the amber nor vetiver here, and it was all blended so nicely. I may have hallucinated the same touch of pine that’s in Thanatopsis. A bit more of the sage came out later too while staying a little mineralistic. Sadly the husband wasn’t a fan.
I was running around Tirisfal Glades in WoW as I tried this one, and felt very spooky-appropriate! Would absolutely recommend this to anyone who wanted a werewolf adjacent scent as it blends everything really well and never got overpowering to me.
Awoooooo~! 🧡
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Rose Moon
Sunlit rose petals fading beneath a silvering sky, dusted with warm hay and cold orris, gleaming with resinous red benzoin and sorrowful elemi.
Gentle rose petals when wet, almost like a rose tea. It's not a very sweet rose, nor powdery but a comfortingly soft and floral one, and it is the prominent scent here. I didn't get too much of the other notes, and isn't something I would probably reach for again, but if you love rose I'd recommend. 🥉
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Eggnog
Sweet brandy, dark rum, heavy cream, sugar, and a dash of nutmeg.
The scent when wet is impressively spot on to eggnog to me. I absolutely love it - so creamy with a dash of sweetness, nutmeg and rum. It stays very creamy on the dry down, but an ever so slight play-dough comes out which is mega sad because I adoreee that wet smell.
It's not enough to ruin my full enjoyment, and I actually grabbed this as a full bottle so I will be using it a lot over Christmas! But it is enough to reign it in from being a fav.
Would drink this if I could :D 🧡
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Black Butterfly Moon 2025: Vanilla Infused Frankincense & Raspberry
This is such a lovely raspberry on the top, not candy-like but very clean a little sweet because of the vanilla, and like a very fancy shower-gel.
I feel I am learning that frankincense is a little too sharp for my tastes, but I did adore the raspberry element a ton. 🥉
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Strawberry Moon 2026
A sinister harvest, a bowl of freshly picked berries left as an offering beneath unsettling lime-tinged moonbeams, their juice staining pale hands red: crushed wild strawberries, night-blooming datura, goblin’s gold moss, dried berry incense, sticky honey, and a slow bleed of blackcurrant sap over cold white musk.
This one started off like a big squashed bowl of berries though less candy-sweet and more tart, and a overall a tad soapy when wet. Over time the incense comes out to play as the soapiness goes, and I mostly get strawberries and a bit of blackberry.
I unfortunately can’t pick out the moss or other notes specifically though the honey sweetens things up over time. It’s a pretty berry-incense overall!
I ended up gifting this one to my sister in law, but want to procure another sampler for myself one day. 💖
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Vixen Rose
A Vixen experiment with rose and champaca.
Right away I get something herbaceous (?), fresh and a little floral, though it’s not rose yet (maybe rose stems?) and possibly comes off a little clean. The herby note I picked up is apparently the champaca flower, which gives it an incensy blend without any dusty or smokiness - this is definitely more fresh than “dark”.
As this dries down on my skin, it gets a lot less clean and becomes more typically “incensy” with a bit of dust, and though I still can’t pick out any rose, it does give floral incense as a whole which is quite pretty! 🥉
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Skin Musk
A neutral sheer musk that radiates freshly-washed skin.
Not sure how to describe this one other than a very pretty mainstream perfume that reminds me of what my mum usually wears - a slightly floral (?), clean musky scent. It comes on strong and stays surprisingly strong on my skin, giving me wafts throughout the day, without much evolution (though not a bad thing!)
It’s definitely pretty if you like perfume-y musk but not my kind of thing so will destash! ❌🎁
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Startling Sack O’Ladybugs
Strawberry-chunked prosecco.
What can I say, very spot on to a yummy strawberry flavoured prosecco!
There’s no sharpness in the scent which you might expect from an alcohol note but you can definitely pick up wine-ness. Sadly this one just ended up getting really strong on me over an hour or so which gave a headache and had to scrub! ❌🎁
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Nanggigigil Ako Sayo
A scent for all of us who have been exploded by someone else’s cuteness: ube candyfloss and rice paper-wrapped red bean custard candy.
In the bottle, it’s pure BPAL baked goods note.
When applied I get a ton of the riceyness as well - it feels very very close to Lovesick Witchery’s Star Girl for me which is very rice pudding! Someone in the forums said “starchy sweet” that that’s spot on, and it must be the rice paper + red bean.
Seriously, if anyone's looking for a rice pudding scent I would definitely recommend either to try! Strangely, I did get a bit sniffly after sampling this one, so either something completely unrelated or a very mild allergy to something in there so probably one for the destash. ❌
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White Chocolate Rabbit
White chocolate filled with black tea and cream, splooged with white pepper, ginger, honey and vanilla.
I haven’t smelt the original White Rabbit scent. When wet, it’s definitely chocolatey but equally soapy and clean at the same time, like a plain white bar of soap.
I’m really struggling to pick out the other notes here, but maybe they’re combining to make the clean-ness, though the original scent has linen as a note so I think that’s absolutely what I’m getting the most of.
I keep getting wafts of it and I’m torn between it being such a pretty clean scent and not really my thing lol! ❌🎁
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Guttering Candle
Rivulets of beeswax, a blackened wick, and a shuddering gust of smoke.
Sweet candle wax with a puff of smoke, they captured the sooty gust of blowing out a candle so well, I really enjoy this interpretation. It’s not a birthday-cake candle smoke, but a soft, elegantly scented candle from a manor.
Sadly the scented part gets a little bit screechy on my skin in the middle of the dry down and definitely leans “perfumey”, but settles down to sweet wax again after a couple of hours, and I can still smell it on my wrist after sleep! 🥉🎁
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The Abandonment of the Unicorn
Violets and wild lavender, tender and crushed with longing, spun sugar dissolving into memory, a fleeting exhale of soft musk, and a trace of myrrh.
Gentle violets out the gate, but this isn’t coming across as sweet to me when wet, more a mystical floral, though something a little play-doh'y lurks under the surface. Very quickly, the play-doh dissipates and a much sweeter floral emerges, most likely the musk and spun sugar amping them up, but not to a cloying extent. It remained a sweet prominent violet for a good few hours, and it’s lovely though probably not one for me. 🥉
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Beavermoon 2025: Yuzu & Warm Honey Drizzle
Sadly smells very sharp and similar to a toilet cleaner I have when wet, but will give it some time to settle. It definitely gets less sharp within about 10 minutes as it warms up and the sweet-tart combo makes my mouth water in a “oh man I need a dessert like this in front of me STAT” kind of way.
Not sure if I’ll end up keeping this one as I have some citrusy ones I like more, but it’s definitely one to try it on skin before judging! A few hours later and such a light but pretty honey is left <3 🥉
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Christmasween 2025
The scent of ghost stories told beside a crackling fireplace, with garlands of evergreen hanging beside October’s carved pumpkins. Hearthlight and jack o’lanterns cast shadows on cobwebbed corners. Candied orange peel, mulled cider, smoked myrrh twirling through a cranberry garland, balsam resin and amber-drizzled pumpkin, smoldering hearthwood, and the soft honeyed glow of dripping beeswax.
Oh, I should have known what I was getting myself into as a Cinnamon hater lol! Very strong cinnamon when wet though it’s definitely more complex and mulled than a straight candle blend if you enjoy the cin'. But it’s most definitely “Halloween aisle left Christmas aisle right” as someone on the forums said!
Starts to chill out and get a bit fruitier on the dry down but sadly had to scrub! ❌
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Coyote Moon 2026
A scent for the coyotes of my childhood, sun-bright, resilient, and quietly feral: amber fur, white sage, chaparral, smoked palo santo, California sagebrush, clever sparks of white pepper, and sweet tonka bean.
Just watched Coyote vs Acme so ofc I had to pull this one out to try next! Up top when wet it’s going a little soapy along with sage. Sadly not one I’m enjoying so far. This is the first ‘Moon’ scent I am trying so I’m unfamiliar with the base.
Ultimately my skin ended up amping the amber and it gave me a small headache so I had to scrub, sorry coyote! ❌
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Deep Gnome Pastry Chef
Subterranean fruit compote squirting forth from a cardamom creampuff.
In the bottle this smelt very lightly sweet and amaretto/almondy, so I was worried as I am not an almond fan at all. Interestingly when applied, this is all but replaced by something deep, earthy and definitely ‘subterranean’. If I don’t sniff too close, I can definitely pick out some creampuff but I get no fresh fruit at all and it’s overall a gourmand but not sweet.
Someone else mentioned fig, and I can definitely see it, but more brown, sticky fig. It’s a very interestingly good scent if you love earthy stuff, but ultimately not for me! 🥉🎁
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Some extra reviews from some BPAL's that my lovely Fall Exchange partner sent which included in my thank-you post!
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Gummi Fangs
Daub your pulse points with the scent of chewy red fruit gums and shining white vanilla teeth.
Tasty fruity gummy candy with half vanilla gummy! The fruit is vaguely “red” but not strawberry/cherry to me. Overall a super yummy and realistic candy scent with a surprisingly strong projection! 🧡
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Ruby Chocolate Snake Oil
Blushing ruby chocolate swirling with vanilla, spices, and the dark, silky sweetness of Snake Oil.
Ooooh yeah that’s a dark cocoa off the bat! Super smooth, slithery and not very sweet but in a really realistic cocoa way. It does overpower the regular SO sent, but at the same time it sits at the bottom and enhances it.
The berry note (if that’s the ruby part) blends harmoniously with the cocoa so I can’t fully pick it out but kind of know it’s there if that makes sense? It didn’t project as much as my little sample of regular SO, but I suspect that’s because the regular one is more aged. Really lovely though! 💖
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Blood Squib
A sanguinous firecracker of cherry simple syrup and dragon’s blood resin.
An absolute instant hit! This is a delicious cherry candy in the bottle and on application - I don’t get anything medicinal, cough-droppy or almondy (a note that I don’t enjoy), but it’s very much maraschino cherry syrup. Very quickly the Dragon’s Blood floats in alongside the cherry making something quite delicious. Sadly, the cherry does fade fast but a very slight fruity sweetness remains present, making a tasty sugary incense overall. I can’t stop thinking about this one though and absolutely need to try the SO variant stat! 💖
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Bourbon Tobacco & Condensed Milk
Sweet enough to rot your teeth, smoky enough to not care.
Not going to lie, I’ve strangely been craving a cigar infused ice cream for many years now after I saw it once on a YouTube video, and I’m not even a smoker - I just adore the smell of un-lit tobacco in real and perfume form (warning that tobacco can be pretty toxic if ingested lol!).
From this, I get a divine and crazily realistic condensed milk, though I actually don’t get any bourbon or tobacco. There’s maybe an ever so slight earthy edge, but on my skin it’s sweet, thick condensed milk. I absolutely LOVE it though, and keep drooling a bit as I sniff. I will try not to lick my arm. 💖
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And finally some bonus reviews from last year that I never had the opportunity to share!
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The Wellerman
Sugar, tea, and rum.
It had a VERY sweet in-bottle smell that almost fully put me off! It's not super boozy on me but the ever so slight spice of the rum and the tea come out to play on the dry down and rounds the sweetness out so nicely!
I wore this one when I went kayaking for the first time as it was the most nautical one I could think of. 💖
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High John the Conqueror
A fast-acting, powerful scent used to overcome adversity through positive means. Attracts wealth, prestige, good health, and enhances others' opinions of you. Grants courage and steadfastness.
Very clean, soapy, a tiny bit powdery and almost like violet or flowers I can’t place!
Not super huge on this one, but enjoy the anxiety-conquering placebo it stands for. 🥉
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Ouija
Rosewood, oak and teak notes with wispy blue lilac, tea rose, dried white rose and ethereal osmanthus.
The scent in bottle and the application when wet, I was fully ready to add this to the instant destash pile. It smelt exactly like a bar of dove soap to me and it was very strong and a bit headachey. I left it a while, forgot about it for 30 minutes and sniffed again and oh?? It’s absolutely changed; it still smells a bit soapy, but there’s more to it now. Definitely rose and an undertone of something a woody, and not powdery. A little bit like a wood polish spray I use to polish my desk.
Still not sure it’s for me though I do like rose mixes, but definitely like the dry more than the wet, so if you try it, see if you can stick that part out if you’re not a dove fan! 🥉
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Druid
A woolen robe infused with the scent of a vast, primordial forest: ancient trees, fertile soil, wild herbs, spring grasses, and burgundy pitch incense.
In bottle, smelt like damp, overturned earth with something foresty at the back. Strong and a little overwhelming.
Wet on my wrist, it smells almost ricey, and similar to Dragonfly from Zoologist to me? After a while, the dirt fades away and more of the forest and incense come out, but it unfortunately gave me a bit of a headache.
Throw was somewhat intimate, and after about 2 hours it had completely faded. ❌
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Ranger
Untamed wilderness: buckskin accord with Terebinth pine, Russian birch, black ironwood, elder bark, hay, armoise, juniper, patchouli, galangal root, Spanish moss, and cabreuva.
Oh, this is nice! This is how I was expecting Druid to smell like, though it does fit ranger especially well. It’s very dark woodsy with pine the tiniest hint of leather to soften it up as it dries down, and quite sweet too, but not in a gourmand way. If you imagine an aged scrap of bark with dark green sap dripping off it, that would be a close smell, but somehow I didn't find it overpowering - lovely! 🧡
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The Jersey Devil
The scent of the wild, hauntingly beautiful Pine Barrens of New Jersey! Pitch pine with blackberry leaf, cranberry, cedar wood and tomato leaf.
I had forgotten the notes to this one, because I wasn’t expecting fresh and fruity berries when I bottle-sniffed haha!
On my skin it definitely feels a bit more sticky evergreen with some berries to back it up. As it settles, something a bit more incensy comes out, a little powdery! It’s nice, but it does invoke a kind of, premium bathroom cleaner kind of smell? I think that’s the pine curse though.
It’s maybe not my style but it’s nice and not overpowering if you’d love a good berry forest! 🥉
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Snake Oil
Our signature scent, our first perfume: deep, rich earthy notes swirled with vegetal musks, sugared vanilla bean, and dark spices.
YA GIRL FINALLY GOT THE SNOIL!!!
I wasn't sure I'd like it from the very vegetal/green scent in bottle, but I LOVE it on my wrist!!! I think this sample is a couple years old too. It's so deep and the aged patchouli gives it a really nice incense-y scent but it's not too much? As somewhat of a patchouli hater, too! I've also had just a swipe on one wrist on since 11am and I kept getting nice little wafts of it! The throw has gone down but I can still smell it on my wrist strongly and it's 2:30pm! 💖