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I feel bad for not writing up every single thing I smell on paper, because thanks to generosity of Work Friend I'm smelling about ten things a week, but I'm now two full sets behind on my notes.
However:
Does every single Le Labo scent smell like a fire? Specifically, a green wood fire? Because that is what I am getting from Santal and Patchouli and even Vetyver. I like it, but it seems like going the long way around to smell like woodsmoke.
ETA: Okay, I'm going to expound: Le Labo Patchouli 24 smells like burning plastic, or, specifically in my sense memory, a cooking fire that's been burning all night on a mix of woods, some not very well-dried, and a plastic soda bag put on it to burn up, with the sugary underlay of sweetened coffee boiling. It's very near a perfect sense-memory smell, actually, though not a nice one, except for a layer of artificial lightness - I suspect that this is the minty element in the birch - that interrupts it. But for the most part: gasoline and burning plastic. Wow.
Le Labo Vetyver 46 is a nicer fire, though the wood is still a little too green: it's at least less of a trash fire than Patchouli is, and you can smell that there's probably fresh air outside. If the first one is a cookfire in a house, the second one is a cook fire in a cabin on the Appalachian Trail, maybe - but there's still a little reek of detergenty brightness that distracts me, and a tarry plastic that hits the back of my throat. Each of these are also shortcuts to headacheville for me.
Le Labo Santal is, at the end of the sensory assault of the first two, pleasant to the point of sweetness. There's a note that I'd call raiseny, kind of papery (is that the papyrus?), and the cardamom actually comes through clear, which is rare for me and spices. A third headache-maker! These actually only got full reviews because I usually keep my test strips in a bag in a drawer, but they were making my desk smell like a tire fire so I had to throw them out.
The only other real find of the group was Jo Malone Vanilla and Anise. I don't know that I'd wear it, but it smells like the absolute clearest most sparkling soda, like what 7-Up would taste like if it was marketed to expensive coffeeshops for $5 a bottle. I'm not sure that I want to smell like up-marketed 7-Up, but on the other hand I'm curious about what this would do on skin, and it's heady in a weird pleasant way instead of an enjoy-the-scent-headache way.
However:
Does every single Le Labo scent smell like a fire? Specifically, a green wood fire? Because that is what I am getting from Santal and Patchouli and even Vetyver. I like it, but it seems like going the long way around to smell like woodsmoke.
ETA: Okay, I'm going to expound: Le Labo Patchouli 24 smells like burning plastic, or, specifically in my sense memory, a cooking fire that's been burning all night on a mix of woods, some not very well-dried, and a plastic soda bag put on it to burn up, with the sugary underlay of sweetened coffee boiling. It's very near a perfect sense-memory smell, actually, though not a nice one, except for a layer of artificial lightness - I suspect that this is the minty element in the birch - that interrupts it. But for the most part: gasoline and burning plastic. Wow.
Le Labo Vetyver 46 is a nicer fire, though the wood is still a little too green: it's at least less of a trash fire than Patchouli is, and you can smell that there's probably fresh air outside. If the first one is a cookfire in a house, the second one is a cook fire in a cabin on the Appalachian Trail, maybe - but there's still a little reek of detergenty brightness that distracts me, and a tarry plastic that hits the back of my throat. Each of these are also shortcuts to headacheville for me.
Le Labo Santal is, at the end of the sensory assault of the first two, pleasant to the point of sweetness. There's a note that I'd call raiseny, kind of papery (is that the papyrus?), and the cardamom actually comes through clear, which is rare for me and spices. A third headache-maker! These actually only got full reviews because I usually keep my test strips in a bag in a drawer, but they were making my desk smell like a tire fire so I had to throw them out.
The only other real find of the group was Jo Malone Vanilla and Anise. I don't know that I'd wear it, but it smells like the absolute clearest most sparkling soda, like what 7-Up would taste like if it was marketed to expensive coffeeshops for $5 a bottle. I'm not sure that I want to smell like up-marketed 7-Up, but on the other hand I'm curious about what this would do on skin, and it's heady in a weird pleasant way instead of an enjoy-the-scent-headache way.
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None of the Le Labos I've tried are at all fire-tinged. (Labdanum 18, the Jasmine one, Ambrette, and the orange blossom one.)
*butting in*
Andy Tauer's Lonestar Memories is also heavy on the creosote, IIRC. And Jovoy's Private Label is post-apocalyptic bubbling asphalt and peppermints.
(And my beloved Comme des Garcons Tea definitely has some burning plastic going on.)
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