Indefatigable

This is very odd. I know that rose doesn't work on me; it usually turns into baby powder. So if you like rose, don't take my advice. This smells like Twizzlers, both on me and in the bottle. I'm assuming it's the wine note, because I haven't tried anything else with a wine note in it, and neither rose nor dragon's blood does exactly this on me.

In the vial: roses. On me: er, roses! Not powder! Huh. Maybe the lilac too. Drying down: lilac and baby powder. Aah well. Got my hopes up, that one. Into the swap it goes.

In the vial: leather and sweet citrus. Very neat combination. On me: Leather and citrus are still apparent. I'm guessing this floral note is the orchid. I really like it. There's something sweeter and fresher behind it which is probably the tea and mint. Yep, definitely tea. Fantastic, I've never had a tea scent before that really worked! The tea usually gets buried behind other stuff. Drydown: none of the notes are hiding, they're all there in equal parts, and the overall effect is very cool, sophisticated, and energetic. This is something to wear with a power suit. This goes on the list of bottles to buy!

In the vial: flowers, herbs, musk. Funny, I usually can't smell musk until it hits my skin. On me: the herbs pop right out initially, and then die back. I'm getting lots of musk and some heady flowers. None of the sweet floral (e.g. jasmine) that's supposed to be in here is really apparent. One of the floral notes is a bit soapy, but not unpleasantly so, especially with the musk behind it. Drying down: yup, musk and flowers. (I really do love BPAL's white musk.) This is a good one -- a deeper, greener scent than my other favourite musk blend, Katharina. The astronomy geek in me is going *squee* right now.

In the vial: grapefruit candy. There's a tart citrus note with a sweetish, almost vanilla-y overlay. Wet: mmm, grapefruit. Or grapefruit zest, it's a little bitter. Lots of sweet floral comes out very fast as it dries. Wisteria and jasmine are two of my favourite real flowers to have in a garden, and they're lovely with the citrus. I wish I could get a little bit more of the tea and ginger. I can't really find them. Dry: this is turning into a sweet floral with grapefruit in the background to keep it fresh. Mmmmmaybe there's some tea in there too. This is definitely a keeper -- I'm still hunting for a tea blend that smells like tea, but I found my citrus.

Man... I wished this one would work on me, but no dice, I think. In the vial it was a lovely sharp green herbal, piney and damp like a forest. On me, everything but the musk faded very quickly. I never got the berries or the tea. Maybe there was a bit of berry, because the musk was sweetish and powdery for a bit, but that went away. All that's left is musk. (It's a nice musk, mind -- I'll look for other things with this dark musk note in them.) I also put it on the collar of my bathrobe to see if it did anything different when it dried somewhere other than my skin. It started out herbal, went soapy, and now it's a rather candyish berry with a bit of musk underneath. Not big on this one.

This is so complex in the vial that I can't identify any one single note -- it's a jungle of flowers and wood and fruit. Once it hits my skin, it goes all flowery with just a hint of something else more complex -- the wood keeps it sexy and the fruit sweetens it a little. There's such a little bit of rose that even my skin doesn't amp it, so it isn't really going powdery. It's a heady, warm summer evening floral. There's a hint of something that reminds me of incense, that smells like a church, but it's not too solemn -- it's like a joyful prayer to life itself. Okay, I have no idea where that came from, I never say things like that. It's just getting more complex as it dries, with the flowers and the fruit both coming out equally (ooh, I think I can definitely get plum out of there now), and the wood staying in the background to darken it. This is a keeper.

I'm loving All Night Long and Wrath. Both have lots of cinnamon and some pepper and cloves.

*reads description* Mmmm, grapefruit and tea... that would do it, yeah. I'm starting to think Phantom Queen might be a good SAD blend. I'm one of those people who doesn't see a battle goddess in that one at all. It's more like a sunny spring meadow before the armies get there.

Um... I opened the vial and suddenly got drowned in syrupy cherries and booze. It's like one of those ads for candy where someone eats the product and then gets splashed with 'flavour' out of nowhere. I could not get past this. I tried putting it on my wrist and I got the same thing, maybe with some spices or wood in the background somewhere, but the boozy notes were just way too intense for me.

In the vial: a grassy, dewy floral. On me: the florals are dominating the herbs, but it's still very sweet and fresh. I think the apple blossom is the one that's coming out on top. Dry: this is sweet without being sharp, with a very real and natural flowering-plant scent. There's none of the cloying soapiness or powder that I usually get from florals. Definitely a keeper.

In the bottle: apples! How appropriate for Eris. On me: um... Jolly Rancher green apple candies. Drying down: the apple fades back and some floral comes out, but eventually it all melts into an amorphous, sweet, chalky marshmallow. Dangit.

In the vial, this is one of the most beautiful florals I've ever sniffed, soft and feminine but made solemn and poignant by lavender. On my skin, it's baby powder and soap. I think this will be the one that finally makes me buy a poison locket, so that I can have perfume near me without it being on me.

In the vial: cloves with a biting sweetness of some kind. On me: cloves cloves cloves. And then... mint? I wish I hadn't looked at the rest of this thread, because then I wouldn't have identified this odd scent combination as 'root beer'. Fortunately it doesn't stay root beer for very long -- in the length of time it took to type that sentence, the mint warmed up and faded back. Now it's just a sweet, mysterious, smoky spice blend. I've seen this listed as a men's scent, but nothing about it is really striking me as masculine or feminine. It's clean and androgynous, not sexy but invigorating. Maybe I shouldn't have put it on before bed, because it might keep me awake! Maybe I'll keep it around for wake-me-up aromatherapy purposes. Mrrr... unfortunately, as it dries it's going a bit powdery, and that makes the mint come out and smell like toothpaste. If this was a warmer scent it would work, but there's an icy note that is doing weird things. Aah well.

Mm, I would love some tea scents. I have my eye on Kumiho. I got a decant of Dragon Moon, and while I can smell the tea in the vial, it gets buried in the dragon's blood once it hits my skin. Whatever I get with tea in it must not have rose, vanilla, or (I suspect) resin.