smell a day

Snake Oil with vetiver, black coconut, vanilla, and opoponax.

First sniff: Spicy!

Wet on skin: There’s a spicy and creamy coconut vanilla thing going on here. I love spicy vanilla! This is a little skin tingling on me, likely because I just got out of the shower so hopefully it won’t bother me too much on my regular skin. It’s pleasant and spicy and not too terribly masculine on my skin, despite the vetiver.

Drydown: The tingling dissipated and now I smell like a sexy vanilla coconut snake oil…thing. The patchouli in snake oil isn’t nearly as strong as I’m used to in other snake blends. This is smooth and rich, easily a unisex scent. I really like it!

California Summergoth: sweet patchouli, sugar cane, cotton candy, golden amber, honeysuckle nectar, and vanilla ice cream.

First sniff: Sour?

Wet on skin: It’s almost balsamic in its sourness, with maybe a little chewy patchouli in the background? Not what I expected, so far.

Drydown: This is a nice and sweetened patch but I definitely expected more sweetness than this. I’m not getting much of any of the sugary notes here, except as supporting characters to all of the patch. It’s nice, but this one is a lot more vegetal than I thought it might be!

A creamy coagulation of clove bud and goat's milk.

First sniff: This smells crazy. It’s funky goats milk but not the usual interpretation I’m used to.

Wet on skin: The clove comes out very quickly on skin. It’s a dry realistic kind of clove that reminds me of sniffing the tin of ground cloves when I’m baking. The goats milk now smells much more like a creamy honey with just a hint of funk, much more inoffensive than I expected. This is nice but maybe simpler than I hoped it would be.

Drydown: This is a simple clove and caramelized milk scent. I think testing this in the middle of a ninety degree heatwave has me liking it less than I would normally. In colder weather, I imagine this would be a comforting sweet treat!

First sniff: Fresh and indelible greenness, with powdery cocoa absolute.

Wet on skin: This is sweet, but it’s also giving tomato. The cocoa here is shockingly subdued, letting the tomato leaf take center stage. This is weird, but also mouthwatering somehow?

Drydown: The chocolate note is so gentle! It’s mostly a fresh and super delicious cocoa note but with a zingy greenness to it. I love this. I have nothing like it. It’s crazy.

The ephemeral romance, the fleeting affair: frankincense and blackcurrant, caramelized black amber, and motia attar.

First sniff: This is white floral gone very mature, with something almost tobacco-esque flitting around.

Wet on skin: There’s something caramel about this that isn’t particularly sweet. It’s almost fig adjacent in the way that it’s dry and dark smelling. I’m not getting anything really fruity going on, or incensey for that matter. Based on the combination of notes I’d say this would be a sure winner for me, and yet- not so much so far.

Drydown: This softened into something much more gentle, a subtle jasmine-vanilla-amber that is nicely feminine but not nearly as interesting as the description lets on. I never get any currant or frankincense on my skin. I tried the 2026 version of this and I have a bottle of one that is from something like 2012 that I wonder if I will like more than this.

Blue cotton candy, crystalline white flowers, and moonlit white musk.

First sniff: Yeah, that’s cotton candy alright.

Wet on skin: There’s a distinctly mouthwatering candy blueness to this scent that I really really like, despite its obvious kind of juvenile scent energy. I’m interested to see how this dries down.

Drydown: This softens to a distinctly luminous blue scent that I really really like. Not so sweet that I feel like I rubbed sugar on my skin, but still very much caramelized cotton candy. The white florals don’t really come out on my skin, and I almost wish they did.

Thick slices of coconut-frosted coconut cake dunked in a vat of Snake Oil.

First sniff: Rich root beer-y vanilla.

Wet on skin: The snake oil base is really noticeable with not a whole ton of coconut. It’s incensey in a way that’s almost powdery, not as sweet as I expected.

Drydown: The coconut came out STRONG with a buttery edge that some BPALs have that I don’t really like, hopefully that fades soon. The sillage of this is appealing but maybe a little too salty-buttery for me. Coconut is such a hard note because I love a sugared coconut but this is maybe too much “cake” for me.

If she ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy: dragon’s blood resin, red benzoin, Tahitian vanilla flower, pink lotus, and sugared cream

First sniff: Buttery cream and bubblegum, which I’m guessing is the lotus

Wet on skin: Sweet aquatic lotus with a buttery cream note a lot like the one I didn’t like in Kyphi and Sweet Cream that I tried a little while ago. There’s spicy dragons blood hovering around that reminds me of Arcana Cursing The Bishop, and also just a tiny tiny touch of bug spray which frequently signals a scent I end up really liking, but we will see.

Drydown: The scent of this is lovely when it’s wafting around but the scent close to my wrist is still a little bug spray. I like this, but I’m still not entirely sure if I want a full bottle of this one.

Chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, sticky with labdanum and duly chilled with a whisper of clove smoke.

First sniff: This really does smell just like an ice cream sandwich.

Wet on skin: Sniffing close to my wrist I get a little bit of a chocolaty wafer note, and further away I’m getting a strong wallop of strawberry and vanilla ice creams. It’s distinctly ice creamy. I typically don’t care for chocolate scents, but the chocolate here is way in the background. Based on the color of the oil here I would guess that there’s no cocoa absolute in this blend.

Drydown: The clove and laubdanum come out in full force very quickly on my skin. The strawberry note is very subtle here after being so loud and lovely in the wet application. It veers a little dusty and woody, in a way that reminds me of a wood shop. The strawberry is still noticeable from far away, but the clove smoke is the most obvious note. I will need to wait and see.

Rich and Deep Silly fruits, and Nag Champa.

First sniff: The fruits definitely smell silly, but I’m not sure what fruits they are, exactly. It’s very red smelling, but not exactly candy watermelon or strawberry to my nose.

Wet on skin: The nag champa comes right out on this one. It’s sweet pink candy incense, more noticeably strawberry now. The nag champa note here is really good, delicate and rich but not too strong that it overwhelms the fruitiness. This is a great summer incense!

Drydown: This fades from a candy strawberry incense to a much gentler and drier kind of nag champa. I love the way this wears on me, but I fear it won’t be terribly long lasting. I’m excited to have this one as a summer scent!

No notes listed.

First sniff: This one is deeply floral and vaguely lotiony.

Wet on skin: This reminds me of lilies, despite not having lilies listed. I’m not getting any berry or any sugar either for that manner.

Drydown: This is a floral-berry that’s very sweet and lotiony. The sugar finally comes out at this stage and adds a raw powdered sugar sweetness to the blackberry and lily vibes.

Guava, orange peel, white pepper, spun sugar and apple blossom.

First sniff: Tutti fruity apple and candy orange.

Wet on skin: Sugar and apple blossom, verging on vitamin.

Drydown: The orange peel is vitaminy, and then the spun sugar is hovering around the edges. I’m not getting a lot of pink pepper, disappointingly. This reminds me of Jailbait, only I like this much less. The candy is too artificial and I’m disappointed in the spun sugar note not smelling caramelized enough.

A heady swish of black velvet patchouli, ambre noir, silken musk, and bourbon vanilla.

First sniff: This one smells like Carmex to me, which I hate. Medicinal and vanilla.

Wet on skin: Still that kind of petroleum jelly vanilla that I don’t like, with a spiced edge underneath that isn’t hitting for me at all. It’s maybe the patchouli mixing with vanilla into something I really don’t like. The carmex smell dissipates a little, but not nearly enough.

Drydown: I love the black patchouli note here, but the vanilla scent is grossing me out a little. It’s the “dad” note that I’ve mentioned not liking a million times. The spicy silky notes are lovely, and if this was not vanillaed I would probably really like it. There’s just something in here that isn’t agreeing with my nose. I’ll give it another half hour before I really make a call on this one, but I can’t imagine sitting through this opening.

First sniff: This is a clean, powdery honey scent.

Wet on skin: There’s a tartness from the lemon accompanying a dry powdery honey and a nice aquatic salty note. This reminds my a lot of In the Hallway of a Brothel, plus sea salt. I’m not typically a salty scent enjoyer, but this is very fresh and blue smelling. Deeply unisex. I came for honey and it’s lightly noticeable, but not overpowering.

Drydown: The salt recedes just a bit and the honey is more prominent, but this is still definitely an aquatic type of scent.

Black musk, blackened saffron, lemon peel, and vetiver draped over thick honey.

First sniff: powdery, but not unpleasant.

Wet on skin: Powdery honey, with a tinge of lemon underneath. This is perfumy but not overpowering. I’ve been wary of musk notes recently because they frequently end up smelling like baby powder on my skin and this one is turning that direction, too.

Drydown: Powdery, sweet honey. I’m maybe getting the vetiver if I sniff really hard, but this is mainly a light and sweet honey scent.

Amber-illuminated roasted chestnut, cardamom, caramel, and allspice.

First sniff: Caramel, heavy and sticky, like the one in Mother Shrubs Squamous Sea Salt Caramel Cookies.

Wet on skin: A heavy roasty-toasty kind of spice that edges on a chestnut I don’t particularly love.

Drydown: The caramel here disappears quickly, with just a lingering trace of it enveloping all of the spicy stuff.

White musk, watermelon, pineapple, whipped cream, and lemongrass.

First sniff: Juicy fake watermelon candy. Delicious, but artificial.

Wet on skin: Oh, this smells like GUM. Exactly like candy watermelon, transparent like jolly ranchers sticking in your teeth.

Drydown: There’s a little tempering of the fake candy scent here that’s turning a bit creamy. It’s still very much a watermelon candy scent on my skin.