Sailor Neptune X Sailor Uranus
Glossier’s You is a scent I really had no intention of ever buying, but then my curiosity got the best of me. A minor point: I hate this bottle, it’s dreadful. It looks like a small pink blandly Cronenbergian lump of quivering flesh. I can, however, get over that, because as it turns out and much to my surprise...I act...
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a mysterious meditation
Thanatopsis from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is a meditation upon death inspired by William Cullen Bryant’s poem, and a deep, solemn earthen scent containing pine, juniper and musk. A green-ness so lush and concentrated that it is nearly a syrup, growing in mysterious realms alongside venerable woods and breathless darkn...
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mean girl juice
As intrigued as I was by the idea of a fragrance inspired by the lore of the phoenix, this is less a solitary mythical firebird and more a gaggle of mean girls cackling at a sick burn. It’s the sort of ambery raspberry-smoky rose that I’m already disinclined to like, because I don’t love fruity florals, but there is so...
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a witch’s birthday cake glazed with goth tears
With notes of black frankincense and cedar, tonka and balsam, carrot seed and amber musk, you already know Gurjun Balsam is going to smell like a witch’s birthday cake glazed with goth tears. It’s running away to bake spiced, honeyed witchly loaves in a wildly enchanted cottage in the middle of a mystic midnight forest...
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real doll uncanny valley vibes
I know better than this, but I purchased a bottle of Fantomas from Nasomatto without having sampled it first, and I'm surprised to say...I actually rather enjoy it? It reminds me of ELdO's Ghost In The Shell, that bit of speculative lactonic peach, but I then realized what I was smelling in Fantomas was more along the...
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a mysterious meditation
Thanatopsis from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is a meditation upon death inspired by William Cullen Bryant’s poem, and a deep, solemn earthen scent containing pine, juniper and musk. A green-ness so lush and concentrated that it is nearly a syrup, growing in mysterious realms alongside venerable woods and breathless darkn...
Read review →
you cannot lie to the moon
The wild goddess of the hunt peeling citrus in a mossy starlit clearing, an unlit Baies candle wafting blackcurrant and dewy rose from her pocket. In another pocket (cargo pants, lots of pockets): crushed mint, pale green sparks, cold mineral facets. Retinal ghosts when you close your eyes after staring at something br...
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orange creamsicles & Newman ginger-Os,
Tibetan Mountain Temple does not smell like my idea of a blend prepared in accordance with centuries-old traditional Tibetan Buddhist methods to accompany prayer offerings or spiritual purification rituals. But what do I know! This is more like the snack aisle in a tourist shop *next* to the monastery but the only thin...
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The raspberry has Chuck Bass's face
An underripe raspberry swimming in an oversized leather jacket, smoking the wrong end of a cigarette. The raspberry has Chuck Bass's face. The shadow it casts is an equally scrawny and pitiful rose. The rose has no face, and yet it is screaming, white noise, static, a broken radio. The jacket sleeves hang past invisibl...
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Sailor Neptune X Sailor Uranus
Glossier’s You is a scent I really had no intention of ever buying, but then my curiosity got the best of me. A minor point: I hate this bottle, it’s dreadful. It looks like a small pink blandly Cronenbergian lump of quivering flesh. I can, however, get over that, because as it turns out and much to my surprise...I act...
Read review →
It’s weird but it works
Whiskey 1969 from Thin Wild Mercury is a heady, provocative combination of woodsy, musky oakmoss and a strange, smoky sort of umami. Like a broth of spiced loamy lichen wildness and leather and dark soy sauce, that’s also a little nutty and boozy. It’s a weird story to tell, even weirder to see typed out like this, but...
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real doll uncanny valley vibes
I know better than this, but I purchased a bottle of Fantomas from Nasomatto without having sampled it first, and I'm surprised to say...I actually rather enjoy it? It reminds me of ELdO's Ghost In The Shell, that bit of speculative lactonic peach, but I then realized what I was smelling in Fantomas was more along the...
Read review →