Argentwolf

A wee bit of clove and anise, which mingle enough to make a kind of root-beer-and-aftershave sort of aroma. Which is not nearly as awesome as it sounds.

Aha! Those who are pegging the caraway as rye bread nailed it, to a point. It's got a sweet, licoricey sort of undernote to it. Alas, it's very, very faint...

 

...and is hidden under a huge pile of rust and burnt rubber.

 

So, if you want to smell like cleaning your garage or living in an abandoned building, here, take my imp and go nuts.

First whiff: Golden, slightly smokey/delightfully musky/with a very, very faint hint of booze

Second whiff: Slightly sweeter -- definitely smelling the quince and mandarin more.

Third whiff: Erm, soured fruit, with a faint note of liquor...but not in the good way.

 

I really, really wanted to like this and have it work on me, but all it does is give me a tantalizing glimpse of what could have been before turning into spoiled fruit unpleasantness on me. Meh!

Rather nutty and warm -- I don't get any berries from this at all. It reminds me kind of like dry cereal...whereas Gunpowder was more warm, moist oatmeal. It was fun to try, at least.

I guess I mostly get ozone and lemony lemongrass. It's not anything that stands out too terribly, for me.

Man, this one is *not* for me. The peppermint and coconut meld together to create a really nauseating scent, like Dimetapp cough syrup. There's a faint hint of dry chalky cocoa behind it, but mostly it's just that weird, gross syrupy scent. Eeek.

I really wanted to like this one, because I don't run into pear a whole lot as a component, and when it works it's really divine. However, this one didn't click with me. The pear and moonflower were almost sickeningly sweet and cloying, and eventually succumbed to the fate of all the phoenixes on me, turning into generic cologne and fading away.

 

I do give it major props for giving an aura of sweet, gleaming silver -- so themewise, it captured the aura of silver quite well.

A pretty, cheerful orange-lemon blend that also smells (to me) like fresh flowers.

Manly cologne that starts off with a hint of lavender and herbs. Fades away pretty quickly.

I mostly get creamy fruit, so yeah, it's somewhat like Agape. I can't quite identify what fruit I think I'm smelling...I think it's more like cherries, or oranges. Nice and fun, if rather faint.

I didn't have much material to test, so this one sort of got lost in the shuffle. I'm rather regretting it now, as it's pretty yummy-smelling. As many others have noted, it has a slightly-buttery almond pastry feel. I'm not getting a lot of fruit, though there is a very sweet aspect to it, so I wouldn't put it past the cherry to be present right now. It's throwing pretty well just from the tiny dab I put on. This turned out to be my favorite of Mother Shub's creations.

Unfortunately the decant I had of this had leaked, so I didn't have much to test. What I can sniff smells like chocolate at first, then gets a sweet berry note to it. It seems to be a scent that stays fairly close to the skin, but appears to last for a decent long while.

I don't get a nutty vibe from this...it mostly smells like spicy baked goods, like cookies or bread. Unfortunately, the sugary side of it is what causes it to smell off to me...there's just a barest hint of toasted plastic to it. And that's a shame, given its subtle throw and very hardy staying power. Ah well.

I actually do get straight up lettuce leaf from this! It's so weird. It does do well in evoking lead, as it has a dull gray, soft, almost smokey sort of aura to it. Unfortunately, like almost all the phoenixes, it quickly turns to generic cologne and then fades away.

When I first tried this, I got a spiced plum smell mixed with something like oats...like a warm fruit/oat bread. It wasn't bad, but wasn't great, either. And now, I'm getting boozy spiced prune wine. And wish I could drink it.

 

I don't recall it having much throw or staying power, though, so it's probably for the best that I didn't get more than this decant.

To me, this is a smokey scent -- like smokey musk. There is a bit of herbalness...the sweet basil lurking just beneath -- but for the most part I seem to get black pepper, smoke, and dust, and if the dragon's blood is there it's acting like incense for once, instead of being ultra-sweet as it usually manifests for me. This is a manly scent, but one that I don't mind wearing...I think I can decently rock it. Smoke, stone, and iron -- very fitting for this phoenix! My favorite of the Anniversary scents.

This is a really gorgeous, creamy, fruity scent. Utterly laden with pink and orange goodness; I get a lot of images of a sunlit room redolent with the smell of flowers and a freshly-ordered fruit basket. So very yummy! It has a little bit of throw, and lasts quite a while even under the rigors of things like washing one's hands during cooking and such.

I get lots of spicy carnation. In fact, it alternates between spicy and creamy, to the point where I'd be pretty convinced that there is honey in this blend -- and a nice, sweet honey at that. For some reason, I wasn't liking this very much at all when I was testing it...there was a weird edge to it that I found off-putting. Now that it has had time to settle, it smells much nicer. Alas that I should discover this after it has been taken back to the graveyard of discontinued scents! I guess I will just hold onto my decant, then, and see how it ages...

I get sweet, slightly lemony florals from this...and then it poofs away and dissipates. Even hard huffing at my skin doesn't seem to reveal much! Which is puzzling, because a couple of people commented on it smelling nice...so I'm wondering what they hell they were smelling! I suppose I'll hang onto my decant for a while, but it seemed pointless to buy a bottle of something I can't even smell.

To me, this is a spicy aquatic floral. The camellia is sweet and light and fresh, given punch by the peppers. The first time I wore this, it actually seemed to irritate my nose a bit with its peppery spiciness, so I gave up on it. Now that I am revisiting it to review it, it's behaving itself better, so this may age decently. For all its spiciness, it does not have a lot of throw, and seems to wear off after a few hours.

Honestly, it smells like the chocolate scratch and sniff stickers I used to go wild over as a kid...dusted with a bit of cinnamon. This is a scent that stays close to the skin, and lasts for a decent amount of time. It's fun.

At first, this starts out as a bright, light citrus, made sweet by rose. Alas, in the end, it morphs into generic cologne. Not much throw, but it lasts a long time...I just don't fancy smelling like generic cologne. Into the trade box with you!

For me, this doesn't register as either 'chocolate' or 'tobacco' right away...it actually smelled like vanilla. A real sultry vanilla, the dark black of vanilla extract without the alcoholic edge to it. But that's just my nose being silly. Close up, I can definitely get the cacao, which is unlike any chocolate scent I've smelled heretofore...and the tobacco melds so nicely with it, that to me it becomes a dark, creamy, sensuous scent. And it lasts. All day long, and then some. I was actually on the fence about it for the longest time, but I realized that every time I put my coat on I was smelling the redolant aroma of the Troupe and *smiling* because of it...and so I came to my senses and ordered some. This is probably the most awesome of the 2009 Yule scents, and I'm *so* glad that I ordered a bottle!

Sort of funny...I got an imp of this in a swap from one person, and then a bottle in another swap, and for a while I thought I might have been lucky enough to have both versions of Libra, since they smelled so different!

 

In the bottle, it's a very sweet scent...fruit scents dominate, with florals sitting very humbly in the background. For a while I thought it was very sweet apple I might be smelling, but research revealed that the bottle is the 2007 version. So, I get to smell the sweet cherry and currant and plum, and it's suuuuuper nice there.

 

On my skin (and in the imp), however, things switch places. The fruit quickly retreats, and rose shoulders its way forward, with carnation acting as its adoring sidekick.

 

Thankfully, this version of rose isn't the kind that turns into MUA HA HA DIE on me, but it's still Rose Liek Whoa. It comes juuuust short of getting crazy a lot of the time...which, come to think of it, describes me rather well, too.

 

While not the sweet light fruity blend that I think I would have adored, this is still a pretty scent...not one for every day wear, but definitely one worth hanging onto and breaking out when I feel like basking in the wonderfulness that is Libra. (And we are quite wonderful, yes. *preen*)

Hmm, this is interesting. It smells like hot, smooth, black stones, with a hint of smokey charcoal (like that found in Brimstone)...and yet there's also an aquatic side to it as well, as if those stones make up the beach on a lonely island, or perhaps they're part of some natural jungle hot-springs spa. Some nice imagery there, if not as vivid as many others enjoy through this scent. This scent sticks close to the skin, and wears off after a few hours.