rawgirl75

When I first got my bottle fresh from the mailbox, the rose note was strongly forward. But soon after a few days or so of settling the rose note stepped down and now it's subtlely there but hangs around in the background. I will add to what the others have said that this scent has a 'classic bpal' smell, reminding me of the smell of my bpal stash in the early days (circa 2007). I have no idea why (because they don't smell alike), but somehow it kinda reminds me of my memory of Kubla Khan (which I don't own anymore). I stopped by my bestie's house today to drop off some snacks and asked her to sniff me. She sniffed and her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and said "Wow! What is THAT?!"😍 "Oh it's called The Serpent in the Roses" 😁 So of course I then needed to immediately go home and order another backup bottle - which I just did. 😉

I'm going to give this one more chance in a few weeks to see if I get anything else other than creamy sweet cardamom coffee, because this scent is just too gourmand for my preference. Where's the dry woods?

As soon as I tested out my decant for a lunch date, my best friend insisted I upgrade to a bottle. On me, it's a skin-but-better scent. Going on wet, it smells powdery and rooty, but that quickly fades and then this blooms on my skin to something that smells like fuzzy warm sweet cashmere. The wooly sweater notes or cashmere notes of other blends have gone afoul with my chemistry, so I'm so pleased to find my own snuggly comfort scent. I don't get smoke (hmm.. okay maybe it's 'dusty'?), nor peanut butter from this. My only concern is "Should I have bought multiple bottles?" Gender neutral. If myrrh is your jam (it certainly is mine!), then don't miss your chance to try this.

I've never been to the south, but these sound nice: Jazz Funeral Hell's Belle Josie Orgy with Nine Women

I decided tonight to randomly test this blindly from my frimp stash. Sniffing the vial, it smelled clean and fresh so I just went for full skin test. I immediately noticed the white musk and juicy lime - yum. But as it dried a pretty floral note came out and became the star player. I proceeded to wash it off immediately because something about that flower note disturbed me, but I couldn't identify what it was. And then I came to the forum and found it was lilac. I have an aversion to lilacs from childhood, so no surprise there. Very pretty but very lilac. Not for me.

Beautiful crisp clean white floral with a touch of brightness and sweetness from the neroli. While I do smell the scent of lemon, this doesn't react on me like lemon oil does. It's a simple floral with no lemon pledge. Very very pretty. If you loved the lemon flower note in Carnival Diabolique, you will love this duet too.

After a year of constant chemistry fails on all my blind bottle purchases, I am relieved that Smut 2021 is a winner. Although I'm not new to Smut, it's been many years since I last purchased it and it's formula does vary from year to year. My bottle of 2006 is too strong for daily wear, my 2011 is almost empty, and my beloved 2012 cherry amaretto version is too rare to use up. (I have only decants of '07, '08, '13, etc). I was afraid that buying this years version would be problematic as Snake Smut was one of those recent catastrophes. Fortunately I was worried for nothing. I sniffed 2021 alongside my 2011 and both are quite similar (with 2021 obviously having that usual slightly plastic-y note of fresh Smut that goes away with age). It's still yummy fresh anyways and by next year it will be totally amazing. (This year does not smell wine/port like some other years. No honey or brown sugar either.) Super happy with my purchase. 😍

I'd previously avoided Bright Red Dildo because honey notes usually overwhelm and drown out every scent I test with it. BUT WOWZERS! I sure was missing out all these years - Bright Red Dildo is stunning and I've been wearing it regularly for weeks now. It definitely reminds me a bit of Snake Skin (which I also love). The leather here is soft and comforting, and I think the honey is similar to the one in Door. The honey note does still amp on me (as expected) but BRD smells so good that I just don't care. I've upgraded to full bottle. No contest.

Well gosh darn. I love several SO variants. I love Smut. I'm obsessed with leather notes these days. This was supposed to be a guaranteed win. And yet something has turned very VERY wrong on me with this. All I get is a blast of single note angry powdery cardamom. I can't wash this off fast enough. Total chemistry fail. I guess I'll cellar this bottle for a year or more and try again later. So disappointed. EDIT: a few months of aging and now Snake Smut is incredible and I love it!

The Witch/Strega is another reminder for me that perfumes need time to settle down from postal-shock. I didn't care for it at all when I'd first smelled it straight from the mailbox. The initial blast of oud then was way in my face and the beeswax note was all over the place. I'd initially thought I made a mistake blind-ordering this, but.... What a HUGE difference a little bit of aging/settling makes for this blend. The scent in the bottle now has calmed down significantly. It's still a little bit odd when wet, but as it dries down, it really comes together and that hint of beeswax gives it a nice touch of sweetness. I totally love this now and am wondering if I should find another bottle. Edit: Months later, this has moved to possible swap pile. Honey notes are problematic for me (over-amping), and it looks like this one isn't an exception.

I'm getting that gorgeous golden amber note from Jacob's Ladder but without the olive note that made JL not work for me. The Lion was also too much for me (caused migraines) but all these lovely deep resins in IWJAC keep everything in check. I told my boss I "smell like a black cat having a snooze in a sunbeam". This perfume also triggers a strong scent memory of the smell of a former Wiccan shop that used to be in my city 20 years ago that closed down. The memory is so strong, I can't bear not to order more of this. I really wish it didn't fade so fast on me, however. Freshly applied it's so yummy, then it shortly disappears for awhile, then it comes back faintly hovering around me in an amber and resin cloud for a couple of hours and then it's completely gone again. It lasts a long time on my clothes though. I might need to find a locket...

I'm really torn right now. I'm not a fan of vanilla heavy scents usually, and this is heavy on the vanilla. But on the other hand it's also in the same family of slightly floral pretty feminine scents like The Girl, Black Lace (but way lighter and brighter), Ava (but less floral), and Zorya P - and I have and love those. This reminds me of when I tried Black Lace for the first time (when it was first released and hadn't aged at all). At the time, I was feeling 'meh' about the scent and thought "It's okay enough but not something I need" but then 18 months later I retested it and BL had aged into the most incredible blend and I needed eleventy billion bottles of it. Flickering Lights Fluttering Curtains is giving me those deja vu feelings (of what happened with BL). I think this is going to be highly sought after by everyone once aging smooths out that white amber note. edit: it's probably closest to a creamy smoked vanilla Antique Lace, but my memory of AL is from a long time ago.

YES!!! This is exactly what I was hoping it would be: something less sweet than Dorian, with the best parts of Theodosius. Bottle upgrade! (darn. never mind that. see below) Edit: I was wrong about it being less sweet than Dorian. It appears to be a different kind of vanilla, a very marshmallow-fluff type vanilla. This failed my slather test - too sweet for me.

A strong, clean and fresh, lavender fougere cologne for the first hour or so. Then that took a backseat to the dark resins, a touch of motor oil, a sprinkle of sawdust, and some metal, which got stronger with time. Unisex. I am a little heartbroken because I picked this up because I love lavenders, Schwarzer Mond, light woods, Streets of Detroit, and sometimes a bit of metal. What I didn't expect was the fougere note, which reminds me of one of those CK colognes that was popular in my youth which I didn't like.

ACK! GET IT OFF ME! I apparently amp clove. The clove note stomped all over everything else. All I could smell was CLOVE, some red roses, and the barest hint of black musk. It smelled great in the imp, so if you love clove you'll probably adore this.