



In honor of the autumnal equinox I am sharing my first fall/Halloween themed haul of the season- this one is from Sugar and Spite First off, please just take a moment to soak in the glorious packaging. I actually hesitated here, it was so damn pretty and I hated to tear it up. Then I pushed that pesky feeling aside and tore into it like a kiddie on Christmas. The theme/branding for all of this is just stunning, it really is. I can tell there was so much effort put into making it all work together seamlessly. There were wax seals, themed cards, even a homemade honeysuckle green tea lolly.













I ordered a 3 sample set of the Halloween scents- I chose Diabolique, Grimoire, and Babylon. It came wrapped in a super cute box, and would have been great for gift-giving. The sample sizes were larger than what's typical; for reference, about half the size of a Darling Clandestine Bitsy vial. I also ordered a body milk in Diabolique and a lip balm in Bite Me (caramel apple)! I got an extra lip balm in Bad Wolf (Apricot Brandy) as a freebie, which was a nice surprise.









I am really fond of Sugar and Spite's body milk formula, which comes in a 4 oz glass pump container. It's much lighter/ silkier than others I've tried like Haus of Gloi's Pumpkin Butter or Solstice Scents' Ganache. It's not nearly as thick and soaks in really quickly, and the scent comes through clear and strong, but isn't overpowering. I like the more potent creams, but sometimes I just don't need the heavy-duty moisturization, so these hit the spot for that.

Diabolique



Orange blossoms dripping with sticky black honey, warm gingerbread, 3 vanillas, tea leaves and aloeswood









I admit I'm a little biased with this one. There was really no possible way for me to not like this, it was a done deal from the start. It's basically a list of some of my all-time favorite notes, and Lysa has my favorite versions of some of them (her tea and honey notes work marvelously for me). So this is really sweet, some might think it's way too sweet, but with the tea and wood notes it straddles that fine line perfectly for me. It's hard for me to find any one note that dominates- I get the slightly smoky tea, ooey-gooey honey, some cinnamon from the gingerbread. It's hard for me to pick out the orange blossom, but I think I can get a very faint whiff of it on cold sniff. No doubt this is a luxurious indulgence, but man, I really do love this one.





Grimoire



Ancient dusty spices, fire, smoke, charred wood, and turned earth.





This is for the smoke lovers out there! It's very intensely smokey, and has a charred, smoldering feel to it. It smells pretty much like its name- like a huge, dusty book you might find in the restricted section of a certain library, one full of sooty fingerprints on the smudged, brittle pages, spatterings of potions from when it got too close to the cauldron fire. A force to be reckoned with.





Babylon





Wood, twisted roots, damp earth, resin, incense smoke, red musk, oud and a waft of blood red cranberries





This has a similar feel to Grimoire in that it has that smoky quality, and I think I can pick up a touch of licorice though it's not in the note list. Perhaps that's what creates the "twisted roots and damp earth" impression. It's more incensey too- I can definitely get the red musk. I don't really smell the cranberries. Squarely unisex. Hell, I think all of them could be unisex, even Diabolique, which is admittedly sweet and foodie but that tea note is also a formidable player.











