teza

In the vial and wet on my skin, it is incredibly rich, juicy sweetness; it is fruity, without being distinctive, for all that it smells very familiar. It stays that way for quite a while, all plumplumplummaybeahintoffloral. I went out to lunch and when I got back it was softer and much more floral. It is wonderfully delicate and light, the jasmine very soft. (this is a good thing. i'm not horribly fond of jasmine.) It isn't as 'white' as most of the other florals I like (I can't believe I would ever type that sentence! I thought I hated florals. ), but rather more of a light pinkish-purple: lavendar, almost. Apparently y'all know exACTly what I mean. The musk is dry and warm and keeps everything together beautifully. Mmmm, I love musky-floral-citrus-fruity scents. This one is definately a keeper.

So, I uh, giggled a bit trying this on because I see Cordelia and I immediately think Buffy/AtS-style Cordy. That association ASIDE.... The cedar scared me, but I decided to give it a try anyway. After all, it had lilac and lemon and green tea and musk! What could go wrong? Well, the cedar and the lilac and osmanthus, apparently. The cedar is definately present when it is wet: it is sharp and green and sharp and green and sharply green. And cedar. That changes the instant it starts to dry on my skin, but the first BAM of cedar scares me. ;p The florals in this are far too strong for me. It is a rich, strong floral scent. Very feminine. It seems predominately lilac with a touch of the other florals at the moment. I know from Whitechapel that lilac dies on me after an hour, but unless this lilac fades quickly, this one's a swapper too. .... As it turns out, the lilac did NOT fade. It remained sweet and, as my darling little sister said, gross and old lady'ish. I guess I'll agree with the old lady'ish'ness, but at least it's an old lady with MONEH.

I desperately wanted to love this with all the love in my loving little heart. Love, do you hear me? Love! But in the end, it reminds me of a Kali Jr. A simpler, less complex Kali. In the vial and wet on my skin, Kali and Athens both have the same sharp honeyed wine scent. UNLIKE, Kali, though, It stays rich and golden on my skin, with a faint hint of florals around the pungent honey. It pretty much stays there, too. Unfortunately, I'm not so fond of the honey so Kali tops this for me. Athens is too strong and too sweet.

The ghostly White Women of the Scottish highlands. They seduce unwary travelers by night with their unearthly beauty and mesmerizing dancing. They engage their victims in a wild, hypnotic dance, and once they reach exhaustion, the demonesses exsanguinate their partners with their vampiric kiss. Talk about a quick courtship. Grapefruit, white tea, apple blossom and ginger. Grapefruit! Ginger! Love! Unfortunately the grapefruit doesn't come out as strongly grapefruit as the note in Cheshire Cat. This is sharper than Embalming Fluid, which I LOVE pairing it with, and not as sweet. (which is good. e.f. needs something to cut back the sweet it hits you with, at first.) I wish the ginger was a little stronger, too. :/ There are a lot of similarities between this and Embalming Fluid, only I think of this as the cousin with a slightly dryer, sharper sense of humor.

Mmmm. I love pairing this with Baobhan Sith on days I don't wear Queen of Diamonds or try a new scent. Seperating it from Baobhan Sith is hard, so I have to go back to my first written review of this: Oh, sweet, sweet lemon. This is beautiful. It is citrus that blossoms before fading and becoming part of the whole: something sweet and soft and clean and faintly herbal-floral. The musks just make this oogy-happy. On further consideration, that isn't very helpful. It starts of sweet -- like a candy lemon drop, only subtly different. It is DEFINATELY sweet on application, though, and faintly astringent as said above. The citrus eventually fades and a few hours later I sniff my wrists or catch a waft of scent of dry, warm, soft green as the musk, aloe and tea blend wonderfully. I'ma gonna get a 10ml of THIS and a 10ml of Baobhan Sith and a 20ml bottle and pray I don't spill as I pour and roll in happy citrus sweet mellow goodness.

I was really hoping this would work. I mean, sloth? SO ME! But vetiver? SO NOT ME! It sort of stung my skin -- it felt prickly. :/ Cinnamon, ginger -- I don't react to either of those. I suppose I'm allergic to vetiver. I'll have to keep an eye out for it in other scents. It was a really sharp, bitter green while it was wet in the vial and on my skin and then it got rubbing-alcoholed-off. Sorry, Sloth. I hardly knew ye.

I'm not a HUGE fan of patchouli or ylang-ylang, but I had to order this based on the others. (hee) Oddly enough, it reminded me a lot of Snake Oil and Scherezade. It was a fruitier, sans-vanilla snake oil. The myrrh is strongest and the dry, warm musk keeps everything together. When I first tried this, I thought this might actually be a patchouli scent I like. Then along comes Coiled Serpent and itsmywuboftheweek so this has been suplanted. ;p (but, mmmm. the way it lingers so warm on my wrist.)

Sweet, smoky and sensually wicked. A thick, steamy scent, truly sinister in its voluptuous sexuality. The perfume of a demon's favored consort, or of the devil herself. Oleander with wet, sweet mandarin, lush magnolia, a rush of deep musk and a touch of spice. At first, it is all sharp, sweet spice that cuts at the back of your throat. It slowly mellows and loses the edge, being sweeter and more herbal without any pronounced floral notes. A soapy floral begins to come up as it continues to dry and the sharp incense scent has faded to blend with the background. It is still present, but no longer overpowering. It's turning rather soapy on me, though. This is the first time a scent has done that on my skin. It smells like sweet floral soap. Damn. I wonder if that's the magnolia doing that. It was working to be a really nice scent before it went all soapy. I didn't get a hint of the mandarin, unless it was adding to the initial sharp sweetness. Into the swaps!

I was worried about this one and put it off, because of the sharp, acrid smell of the scent in the vial. Like all other scents, it immediately sweetened on my skin and turned into something like sweet sandlewood. It tended not to morph like some of the other scents tend to do, which is good. I liked it as is. I didn't like it WAY much, and it'll probably go to swaps, but it was a lot softer and drier than I expected. It turned into a mellow, herby-floral dry wood scent. Then I tried Coiled Serpent and this one definately got stuck in the swap bag. ;p (poor thing)

This one worried me in the vial. It was bitterly sharp and acridly green. It doesn't go sweet, though, unlike a lot of scents. If there isn't sandalwood or something of the sort in this, I'll bite my tongue off. Maybe musk. Everyone keeps saying patchoulipatchoulipatchouli but I get none of the usual patchouli scent that I loathe so. And if there's vetiver in this, I'm astonished. The other blend I tried that DEF. had vetiver in it made my skin react in a bad way. There seems to be a light hint of spices -- although that could be the redhots I'm eating. Hee. It is warm and dry and just wonderfully nummy. I can definately picture a dry, warm serpent wrapped in a tight coil. It is wonderfully comforting in a way that is completely different than Sea of Glass.

Wet, in the vial and on my skin: It reminded right off something I knew that I knew -- something chemical and craftsy. Glue? Paint? AH-HAH! Nailpolish! Once the glee of figuring it out faded, I started praying for a change. Drydown: It slowly turned sharper and greener and began to evoke other images. Dry: It smells like a church. It smells like Palm Sunday or Ash Wednesday or maybe one of the peculiar Church-type incenses. It is very boy. It is very boy on Palm Sunday. I feel like I should wear it to church. I like it, but since SOMEONE (coughcoughmagikfanficcoughcough) wants to try it, I'll be sending my imp on. I like other things better. There's just too damn much happy-scent.

Masquerade. ;p That's all I got: patchouli.

I don't know if any of you have smelled Cool Water for women; I have a bit of it -- It was one of the few perfumes I used pre-BPAL. -- and this smells very similar. It isn't dead on, but it is damn close. Hurricane is a major wet scent: very aquatic, slightly salty, tangy, slightly bitter and warm under the wetness, and it a very subtle sweetness that could just be a product of my skin. God. Wet scents are so hard to describe. I like it, but I already have Cool Water to last me. ;p I'll probably swap this -- although maybe not. Aaaah. I like it a lot, but I really don't need that much of it.

In the vial and wet on my skin it smells sharply, sweetly of mint. The sweet really came with a spearmint burst when I put it on my skin and at first I was worried that I was going to walk around smelling like a stick of gum. It soon mellows out, though, become at once more sweet and less sugary. The sweet then fades away as it dries completey, leaving a hint of tangled mints over a richer, green core. There is something subtly bitter that makes it almost pungent close up without transcending that border. It merely makes it -- well, more intriguing to me. I really like this. It is not a scent that I would wear every day, I think, but I'm keeping it around unless I spy a really, really good trade.

Clever me, I wasn't sure what was in this when I put it on this morning. I wondered at the reddish hue, thinking, 'Dragon's blood? Naaah.' Wet: In the vial and wet on my skin, it is sharp, bitter, spicy. I can't smell anything sweet; that's why I decided it probably wasn't dragon's blood. Also, it didn't immediately transform into candy on my skin like most other blends with DB have. But lo -- I check on the reviews and I find I was tricked. Drydown, drying: Why, hello, cinnamon. So when it says 'spices' it means cinnamon, eh? How... nice. Now, I like cinnamon -- I do. On my FOOD. Not on me. Others like the way this smells on me but I'm afraid I'm not a big fan of it. It's a sharp, faintly bitter cinnamon with a softer core of something vaguely sweet. It's almost sour, with that combination of sweet and bitter. I think I can smell the vetiver at first, but it quickly fades under the overwhelming cinnamon. This one will go into my 'foist on the helpless' pile, as it's rather nice -- just not on me, not for me.