sarada

It's been awhile since i tried this but I have been thinking lately about Baba Yaga so I wanted to write my thoughts about the scent...I always write a review in my head for scents but I don't always get them onto a computer right away!

Since I peeked at the reviews before trying it I already had the idea of pineapple established in my head when I tried Baba Yaga. I do like fruity scents though they only work for me if there's a strong incense component in them as well -- Baba Yaga is one of the deeper fruity scents, with an almost honeyed quality to it, but the golden pineapple fragrance is most prominent. When it dries down a muskier note does emerge.

But all in all I can't seem to equate Baba Yaga with this kind of sunny, golden scent -- I would think she would be very smokey and dark, maybe with a bite of pepper. I'm assuming there are some aspects of her mythology that I'm not familiar with, that relate to this fragrance but it's coming across a lot like Forbidden Fruit or another golden fruity scent, to me. I wish I knew what the ingredients were!

My bottle of Cold Moon arrived very, very cold indeed, as it was under 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) while it sat outside in my mailbox all day! Cold temperatures suit this oil beautifully as when I opened it (and my bottle has a broken lip, but that's another story) it truly smelled, and FELT like frozen flowers lying on a bed of snow.

Florals and me only get along under very specific circumstances....but one of those is in icy/snowy blends. I LOVE Beth's winter blends. They are beyond description, as I just fumble for words to describe how perfectly she captures the COLD, and the subtle way that it expresses itself in scent. I wish I knew what the "breezes" were that manifest in many of these blends.

It has some of the round, green scent that I detect in Skadi and Dublin (without the pine in Skadi), but it is frozen deep in a block of ice. There's a slight sweet juiciness to the smell that makes it less smooth and muskily-mintily cold than Ice Queen...once the scent thaws on your skin it begins to blossom into early spring flowers.

Strangely enough, this and other snow/ice smells remain very strong on me for a long time. Florals without that icy quality tend to fade right away. This stays on strong and warms on my skin over a period of several hours, growing in strength, and changing from ice blue to a pale green and finally to a warm yellow-green as the ferns and flowers emerge from a block of ice.

I am sad that I lost some of this oil in a breakage that occured in transit, as when I received it, it was leaking and a small piece of the lip was broken. But I seem to be able to keep it together and hopefully can re-bottle it somehow before any evaporates. This is my favorite Lunacy Blend so far, though I have only tried three.

Urd....Uuuuuuurdddd....try Urd!

It's the best, most dry, dark, incense smell I've yet encountered!

It's my new faaaaavorite.

I read the description of this to a friend and they said, "Sounds like a Hobbit head shop!"

So I concur -- it does! It combines bright green outdoor scents with something underground and full of strange herbs, bubbling oils and smoke.

In the bottle I get a lot of the mossy qualities -- that Zombi moss, yes, graveyard greenery. It's one of those magnificently complex dark florals that the lab excels at, that combines earth, and mossy greenery, with a sophisticated swirl of indefinable incenses. The combination of so many floral and green notes with the pungent dirt and smoke scents could be a little overwhelming for some -- and like a big idiot I SPILLED this, and the resulting overabundance of fragrance gave me a slight headache. But I still smell fabulous! As it dries down it becomes something like what I would consider the "generic BPAL smell" with a mixture of flowers, herbs and greenery seen through a thin veil of incense smoke.

I will have to wait for my full bottle to arrive now, but it should arrive just in time for spring, which seems to me like a great time to wear this lovely scent!

ETA: Ack, this turns out to be one of the only scents that gives me a headache. Maybe there is jasmine in it, that seems to spell headaches with me a lot of the time. Alas!

Urd is one of those life-changing scents for me, I think.

This is something that I have been looking for, for a long, long time.

You know that feeling when you walk into an old incense shop or headshop, that has been there for a long, long time, and years or even decades of incense smoke have saturated themselves into the walls, and everything is infused with a thick mixture of every type of incense? You get this waft of scent that just pours out of the store, and clings to you after you leave.

That is Urd.

In the bottle, it is a mixture of sweetness and incense, kind of similar to Lust actually -- it has the same dry, incensy quality about it but I think that the muscadine gives it a bit more of a buoyant, sweet quality. Once on my wrists, a magical transformation takes place, and I feel as though I have been steeped in incense since the 1960s. It gets deep into my skin and settles there, and it burns like a hundred sticks of nag champa and patchouli, getting slightly lighter as several hours elapse. It evokes dark, smoke-stained red velvet curtains and hand-woven tapestries piled up with colorful cushions.

This is definitely one of my holy grails, as a devout incense lover who wants to smell like a headshop. The patchouli lends a dry, earthy quality and the champa does not become too overpowering -- but you definitely need to be a fan of those scents to be a serious Urd-wearer!

I can't believe I didn't just order a 5 ml right when I read the description but hopefully I can keep from SPILLING this until my bottle comes. I ordered one within a minute of putting it on my skin. This goes on my "Please Please Please Don't Ever Stop Making This And If You Do I'll Pay You $100 A Bottle Just To Make It For Me!!!!" list!

ETA: Just had to say, ten hours after I applied this behind the ears today it is STILL going strong, and clinging to my hair in a most wonderful way!

When I first smelled Alecto, I was completely overwhelmed with wooded bliss -- this is the most strong, pure and perfect cedary fragrances I have encountered. It reminds me of the little blocks of pure cedar incense that I have. It also reminds me of Yggdrasil, but not quite as light and airy -- they must share a simliar cedar note, but it is darker in Alecto, helped along I suppose by the undercurrrent of vetiver which I cannot smell in the bottle. I think that the sweetness that comes out later in some people, must be the vetiver, which has a very creamy, sweet-earth kind of quality to it.

The second time I wore this, my chemistry must have been off because after a little while the olive leaf was the main thing coming through and it smelled just like I had spilled olive oil on myself. I took it off my big bottle list, thinking that while I liked it in the bottle, I didn't want to smell like olive oil.

But it didn't do that again -- it reminded a strong, green cedar scent on me every time after and I graduated to a big bottle after all! I can see where if I approach it from a different viewpoint and think about a kitchen instead of a forest, that I can imagine herbs suspended in tall bottles of olive oil, and bunches of greenery hanging from the rafters in a clean kitchen paneled with pale wood. Outside, perhaps, cedar trees and raspberries are growing near the window. But the main impression I get is that clean, foresty smell that makes Yggdrasil one of my favorites -- it comes across just different enough in this to warrant bottles of both!

Tree lovers rejoice!

The scents used in this perfume create this wonderful visual tapestry for me when I see them all written down side by side. It's like looking into a sample box of multi-colored Indian incense cones. The colors that come to mind when I think about this combination make me almost insane with joy -- a little rainbow of scented cones line up in my mind.

In the vial, it's overwhelmingly lemongrass though and although I like that scent to a degree it's a bit much. But I put it on to see what develops.

Yes, lemongrass for awhile, but then all of the little incense cones pop their heads out! Now it's a small, ornately carved wooden box full of little red, purple, yellow, green and brown incense cones. Just like the sampler boxes I used to buy! I can smell the sandalwood and rose coming out -- just a wisp of green jasmine winding through, and a memory of some dark, resinous build-up in an incense burner.

Oh this is nice. I want more. The lemongrass phase is worth getting through for this incredible blossoming of scent. It's truly an Indian incense store in a bottle.

Wow. I might have to get both anyway because I definitely love Medea enough to get a bottle (it smells more like the incensy part of QoS on me) but you have definitely sold me on buying Blood Countess unsniffed. Penance hasn't steered me wrong yet!

Can we put these in IVs yet? The whole purple fruit family of scents is just SO incredible.

I am the same way -- with me it's because I can barely smell anything unless I stick it right up my nose, so I like things that create a huge cloud of fragrance around me. Spellbound could stop traffic, I think, for me! And as a plus, I love it. Samhain as well, a little goes a long way. Venom is also incredibly strong and reminiscent of the perfume Poison to boot.

Also, putting them in my hair rather than on my skin seems to help me, personally. I have really long hair so there are lots of opportunities to let it float around me like a scented cloud!

Oddly enough, people always say they can smell what I'm wearing, even when I can't, though. Usually when I go into work people say "I knew you were here, I could smell you" or something to that effect. And I hope that they mean it nicely!

Thanks to everyone's advice here, now I have tried Medea and it smells just like Queen of Spades on the drydown! In the bottle, however, the Queen is much more purple-plum-berry.

So my next question is...how do Medea and Blood Countess compare to each other? Are they similar? Are they different enough that I should just order a bottle of each? I think Medea will cover my Queen of Spades need but if Blood Countess is stronger in the plum department I might have to get both!

Eek!

Thus continues my quest for the deep dark woods. The Jabberwocky poem has been a favorite of mine since childhood and I always assumed that the words and creatures in it were real...at any rate, almost every Mad Tea Party blend has captured my heart and imagination in some way and this is one I've been looking forward to.

With pine and eucalyptus figuring so prominently I figured this would be a lot like Loup Garou. And it is in the bottle, as others have said with eucalyptus dominating. I like it though -- it's much stronger than any other I've sniffed, but I am still digging it.

When I put it on, it does marvelous things. The eucalyptus burns off immediately and I mostly have pine. Pine, pine, pine! This does indeed smell like the deep dark woods. The orange is still waiting in the wings...it does tame the pine a bit, and take the edge off it. After a little while, it incorporates nicely into the blend. Orange does tame the piney beast and ride around on its back. After an hour or so they are playing together happily and I really like it. Piney woodsy scents and citrus are both things that I like, and I don't really have any medicinal or cleaning fluid associations with this, because it does not smell artificial at all. I feel as though I have just rubbed pine needles and resin from a pine tree on my arms, and then some freshly peeled orange rind. The scent lingers for awhile, not too strong, but I think it would hang around longer in my hair.

This will work well at any time of year I think, as it is very refreshing and stimulating, and would be like a cool splash of water on the face in the summer...or like a mischievous Christmas tree, in the winter. I imagine it would work great in other forms as well -- in the bath, a room oil, or whatnot. But I think I like it best on my skin!

This is a lovely blend for spring/summer and I hope people will give it a try! I was very intrigued by the ingredients and the description made me think of a bright spring green color...sort of the color of a praying mantis, actually!

This smells incredibly fresh and clean in the bottle. Like when you've left your laundry hanging in the sun all day, over lush green grass and dandelions, and all of the scents of late spring/early summer are hanging crisply in the air.

All of the ingredients come together beautifully -- you have the golden morning sun shining down on a day with no humidity -- that's the amber, and perhaps the neroli. The green grass and herb garden sigh lazily in the sunlight -- a crisp, invigorating bouquet. And the ground below gives it an earthy base to keep it from being too wispy and ethereal -- there's the patchouli and golden musk.

Very clean, green and sunny, but that touch of resin, patchouli and musk makes it very appealing to me because it keeps it strong on my skin and keeps it from turning soapy and dissipating. Grab this one for the spring and summer!!

I love, love, love this.

It's odd that it's clear in the bottle because in my mind it's the deepest plum/red color with just a hint of dark brown. Although I am not a wine drinker I love the lab's wine scents and I don't care if they give me a Breathalyzer test when I'm wearing it in the car, I adore this blend. I can only wear it on overcast, rainy days with a bit of a chill in the air for some reason, though. It is not a sunny scent, and that is just fine!

The cemetery dirt smell that is in this, Zombi and some other blends brings a very specific image to mind of a graveyard in a 1930s film...the dirt wafts up with the wine in the bottle, as if you just uncapped a bottle that had been covered with dust and half-buried in damp earth for decades. Uncapping the bottle, you get a breath of musty, dusty wine and soil, and then the overwhelming, heady aroma of a vintage wine. When I apply it to my wrists, the wine takes hold and is interwoven with powdery berry scents and a whisper of rose (that's probably how my mind interprets the herbs). However when I apply it behind my ears, my hair catches it and the scent stays true to that first waft of dirt and wine in the bottle -- I love both the initial and drydown scent, but I REALLY love having that zombie earth smell clinging to my hair all day. I feel like I just crawled out of the mauseoleum. It's wonderful.

I'm still hoarding imps of this because it's kind of a once or twice a month scent for me -- those spectacularly grey days, or darkest nights, where I want to feel like I'm out looking for a limb to gnaw on.

Spectacular. All of the vampiric scents are spectacular. I want all of them in bottles eventually so I can just line them up, look at them and uncap them and sniff them all day long.

Thanks to this thread I am thinking of buying bottles of several scents unsniffed, to get in time for the first tender buds of spring. I'm thinking of Envy, Phantasm, Baobahn Sith and Szepasszony (it's too late at night for me to check the spelling but I think I got it right...)...thinking of upgrading to a bottle of Shanghai....definitely need to buy a vat of Dublin.

The description of Amsterdam cries out to me with spring and I feel like I want to try that, too. Does anyone find that to be springy? (I see that adjective come up a lot in the reviews for this one!) This is all a big change from my usual wallowing in dark scents but I desperately want some fresh, GREEN smells for those first days in spring. Grassy, herbal, tea, lime, etc. I might go mad if I don't get some.

Anyway, I should write up what I have to trade and post this in "Wanted" or "Swaps"....but yeah, thanks to these suggestions I definitely have an agenda for the spring!

This is pretty much the perfect resin scent. I'm not sure how weak my sense of scent is though because I cannot tell the difference between the three fabulous super-resin scents I've tried, Anne Bonny, Cathedral and Penitence! They all smell exactly the same to me, and I LOVE them but I cannot possibly decide which is my favorite.

This is reminiscent of church incense -- frankincense and sandalwood predominantly, though patchouli might be adding some strength to this. Anne Bonny is slightly stronger than Cathedral and not as dry, and it also lasts longer and stays true to its in-the-bottle scent for longer, on me. I think that if I had tried all of these resin scents before buying a bottle I would have gone with Anne Bonny instead of Cathedral, for the extra strength and darkness that she imparts. Nothing boozy in this to me, but then again I am pretty much blinded by the resins and that is all that I can smell...and all that I want to smell! When I start to run low on Cathedral, I will replace it with Anne Bonny I think!

ETA: I have decided which is my favorite, and it is Anne Bonny! Now that I have a full bottle and not just an imp I can really slather it on and get the full effect, and WOW. The patchouli is really coming out strong now and the frankincense doesn't fade like it does in Cathedral. This is my favorite in that scent family, for sure. And one of my top five overall.

Omen is just like Burial, to me, and Burial is one of my very favorites. The juniper is sharp and piney --greenery buried beneath layers of moss and dirt. There is a rosey scent which must also be how my nose interprets the juniper, but it's not as rosey as Burial. Burial has the strange tendency, after some time, to turn into a smell resembling nail polish remover on me, which is the only strike against it. Omen does not turn into nail polish remover. It stays mossy, dirty, piney and woody. A hint of dried, dusty herbs and flowers hung from the rafters. These are a few of my favorite things! I fear that since it is SO much like Burial and some of the other mossy scents that Omen may become lost and forgotten...but I think I will buy a bottle, for when I run out of Burial...this may replace it as my favorite moss scent, because it stays true even after it's been on for awhile.

But what IS the Omen? I see someone who has wandered too far into the forest and fallen off the main path into a dark, overgrown hollow thick with mosses and vines. A pitch black crow flies in her path and a strange wind rises from the depth of the forest, carrying the warm breath of decay. That's just the kind of thing that I like!

This is one of the lightest blends that I've tried, actually! Expecting unfathomably dark woods, I thought it would be something like Umbra or Malediction, but Incantation is very much like a masculine cologne, brilliantly yellow-white in my mind. Masculine, yet ethereal, somehow. A scent for male fae, perhaps? Or a white-robed enchanter? The drop of lemon rind seems to dominate, and turns the sandalwood into something very airy. It makes me think of something you would wear in a very upscale restaurant, a formal and refined perfume, but it is in fact very "perfumey" and not earthy or woody as I expected. I actually like it best after it's been on for awhile, and the lemony light scent has burned off a bit, letting the other scents warm up. But it never quite deepens to the dark wood that I was hoping for. I will continue to look for a darker sandalwood but I can see wearing this to a very formal occasion.

I wore Ice Queen all day today and I don't think it had anything in common with Cathode -- I didn't even catch any mint from the Queen! But I love her -- and I liked Cathode too!

I should probably try Szepasszony!

Having just gotten some wonderful swaps from some lovely forumites, a couple of similarities occur to me...

Anne Bonny comes off just like Cathedral on me...a little stronger. I will definitely order it when I run low on Cathedral, as I can't live without this resiny smell and this is just a bit stronger than Cathedral....but not different enough to warrant me getting more immediately. I really like that it's stronger though. I should've ordered this one first!

Sin is turning out like Spellbound does...without the roses, but still, very similar. I might need more...yes, yes, I think I need more.

And Jabberwocky is turning out almost like Loup Garou, though a little stronger with the eucalyptus. I'm waiting to see if the orange comes out. I'm lovin' it, as they say!

And as I mentioned on another thread, I definitely agree with the Dublin=Skadi theory! Well it's a bit different, less pine perhaps, but I definitely see the similarity.

So the question is...if something smells just like another scent that you have (and like), do you still buy it? I'm thinking I'll wait until I start to run low...but who knows!

I just tried Dublin, and yes.....it's almost Skadi!

I think I will get some mileage out of Skadi but I will probably place an order for Dublin anyway just so I have insurance!

Now I just have to get my hands on some Blood Countess in hopes that I'll get Queen of Spades out of it.

I received this as a gift -- I hadn't bought it myself because I thought it would be too similar to Skadi and decided to just get one of them. Well I am very, VERY glad that I wound up with a bottle, because I wouldn't want to be without this! It is also completely unlike any other blend I have tried, though it is definitely in the icy category, without being minty.

There should be an entire subcategory for these kinda of cold/icy scents. I don't know how, but this does put forth the impression of ice. Not the snow-covered pine trees of Skadi, but the dry, smooth sheen of a frozen pond. Usually, in order to feel icy something has to have a minty or piney core but this accomplishes it mainly with this wonderful light musk and the faint whisper of spruce, that feels both dry and icy, and WARM at the same time. Not the warmth of heat or light, but the warmth you get when you're bundled up, maybe with some furry animal friends, and the air around you is all crisp and clean but you're toasty and warm inside.

I normally don't like florals except rose, but I like the flowers in this blend. I imagine they are white, and covered with frost, peeking out of a bank of snow. I agree with reviews that have suggested that there might be melon in this -- that could be that crisp, aquatic fruity note underneath -- and bergamot, which would account for the very slight citrusy warmth.

Don't pass this one by if you think it will be too much like the other Yule blends...this stands on its own.

ETA: How did I not smell mint in this before? Perhaps it's had a couple of months to develop, but I definitely now get frosted mint and musk with a hint of aquatic fruit (melon, maybe a touch of grapefruit or bergamot?). I'm so glad the mint is coming out now!

As a summer scent: the mint and spruce are very strong, but still crisp and refreshing. This reminds me of winter when I smell it and is helping to cool me off in the summer heat. I'm really getting a strong evergreen forest scent from this now, the warm weather really brings that out but the mint is super strong as well...how strange that it didn't come out when I wore it in the winter!

I got Fae specifically with spring in mind and now I am thinking that Mantis would be a good one, too.

Anything with Green Tea in it seems very springy to me as well! It reminds me of tender greenery on a crisp but not too warm day in the rain.

The notes in this sounded so deliciously appetizing I started craving peaches before ever smelling it. Imp is like the dark twin of Fae -- the same wonderful peach note (REAL peach, not that awful fake scratch and sniff kind of peach!), but instead of being carried up on gossamer wings, Imp is playing in the dirt. The sweetness of the peach and amber are brought down to earth by the musk and patchouli, and it has that absolutely edible -- but NOT overly foody -- quality that I love in Depraved.

I would have to flip a coin to decide whether I want a full bottle of this, or Depraved. This one is a bit more complex and subtle, with amber weaving golden strands through the darkened peach. It is a bit on the sweet side for me -- I like how the patchouli comes more to the forefront in its cousin, Depraved. Imp may be playing in the dirt but his radiance burns through the darkness and glows with a soft light.

Very tasty -- it hangs around on my skin for a good few hours, and I wonder if maybe I might be attracting bees if I were to wear this outside in warm weather.

I've been wanting to try this, as the rose/sandalwood/patchouli thing is always a favorite for me and I'd like to try everything with that combo in there somewhere.

Palmarosa is a wonderful thing -- I first discovered it in an Airs incense about 10 years ago and have sought out good versions of it ever since. That's the main note that I get from this, sniffing it in an imp. I don't know why, but I can NEVER smell patchouli in any blend where it does not figure as the main note. Patchouli always gets eaten up, and serves as a sort of deepening, darkening agent in most blends. I wind up loving them, but the patchouli itself never hits me with that waft of "Here There Be Hippies" that I am expecting.

So, as this develops on me the main things that stick out are what I take to be attar of rose, combining nicely with palmarosa to create a slightly powdery rose blend with a woody base. The different scents seem to compartmentalize, so in one breath it's all powdery rose and in the next it's all sticky sweet sandalwood-tinged rose. It stays sweetly rose with a hint of sandal for quite some time, and it stuck around for awhile. I wouldn't mind having more of this, but there are so many rosy scents I don't know if I could really choose which one to concentrate my attention on, since I seem to be happy with Zombi as my (dead, withered) rose of choice!

What a fascinating scent! I would have never tried this on my own because I have a horror of coffee and usually run past that aisle in the store to get to the tea without having to smell any coffee (I know, I'm weird)...but I got an imp from a friend as part of a freebie bonanza (thank you!!!) and I dripped a drop on my hand while I was sniffing it. So I figured, let's see how it turns out on me!

In the vial it smelled like...not coffee....but toasted, puffed rice!! Or like a package of puffed rice cakes. Maybe that's how my mind interprets coffee, I dunno, but I thought that was worth mentioning! Then as it hit my skin it became sweet -- like sweetened cereal of some sort, blossoming into a crisp honeyed scent in milk. It stays sweet for quite some time though I'm not getting any of the florals, here...it's a very grainy scent for me. The florals mainly manifest themselves as a hint of a powdery scent. If there is jasmine, it's not very prominent on me...then again I just tested Venom on my other hand, which is super-powerful jasmine...so my head might just not be on right about florals today.

Some time later -- several hours -- it's mainly a vanilla scent with a wisp of powdery floral and a vague memory of that toasted rice smell. I'm not a fan of vanilla but you know, the lab's vanilla are so much better than anyone else's, that I always wind up liking them just a bit more than I expected. Wish I could get some roses out of it, but I am really surprised by how this turned out on me. I don't think I'd buy a bottle but I think I'll use this when I'm in a weird mood! The moral of the story for me is: don't be afraid of the lab's coffee scents if you don't like coffee...they might surprise you!