Diana

I can't believe I haven't reviewed this... d'oh! This is one of my top 5 scents, too!

This is like smelling a pitcher of ice cold, sugary sweet tea and a plate of sugar-coated lemon cookies sitting on a table, with a light breeze coming in through a window. It is sweet, and my overuse of the word "sugar" might have you believe that your teeth will fall out if you indulge in this scent, but it's a soft, cool sweetness. Underneath it all is the white musk, which has a (yes, this word again) sweet, almost creamy, skin-like softness to it.

This is just gorgeous. Everyone compliments me when I wear it. And I've gone through almost an entire 10mL bottle in a year (I admit it, I'm a slatherer), even with over 200 other oils to choose from. This is just a classic, and one of my default, no-nonsense scents.

The first 10 imps of this that I'd get from the Lab or in swaps, I couldn't get rid of fast enough. For a good year and a few months, this to me was nothing but the scent of bandaids. Yes, plastic bandaids. Not even the fun ones with the little cartoon characters, or the glow-in-the-dark kind, either.

Then I just decided, oh hell, and put some on, and mixed some together with Sin and Bengal. Well, I'll be damned. It *does* smell like leather. It's actually quite nice, too. I bought a 5mL to use as a basenote to layer with other scents, but this would do fine by me all on its own.

This is a scent that is quintessential autumn.

It is very pumpkin-y. Like the scent of jack-o-lanterns that have sat outside all night, their orange flesh warmed by candles. When we were little, I'd always sprinkle the lid with cinnamon, and stick cloves into the underside so it would all warm up and have a nice spiced scent. This reminds me of that so much, but even richer. This scent has a definite "buttery" aspect to it. And unfortunately, my skin eats clove, so it's not exactly the same. But this is definitely like a jack-o-lantern in a bottle to me.

edit: grammar

In the bottle: Whoa. Sweet.

Wet: Almost overwhemlingly sweet from the honey & vanilla & dragon's blood.

Drydown: The dragon's blood calms down and turns softer & more powdery and resiny rather than fruity/floral. The vanilla & honey mixture stay fairly sweet, but turn a bit more creamy with wear. It's very yummy smelling. It's not what I'd consider "foody," but if you're not a fan of the sweeter variety of vanilla blends (like Regan), you should probably give this one a miss.

This is my favorite Ars Draconis blend.

in the bottle/wet: it's sweet; you can really pick up on the "fruity" notes from the dragon's blood

drydown: omfg wow! the fruity-sweetness from the dragon's blood dies down a little bit, and turns into the soft powdery-sweetness that matches so well with musk.

If you like heady, musky, sweet clouds of musky aroma, this is amaaaaaaazing. I am positive that one of the "five deep musks" is RED musk, which is my absolute favorite variety. (If you like Scherezade, you really should give this a try).

In the bottle: it's dry & powdery smelling

Wet: subtle, powdery. It smells of amber, really.

Drydown: still subtle, powdery. Like amber + dry herbs (or bark? I guess?).

I don't really get a lot of "woodsy" or "green" out of this at all. The musk must be a pretty light one, or maybe it needs time to age a bit? Musk usually stands out on me really well, and I'm only barely detecting it. This is a lot softer than what I expected. It smells almost like an amber oil that I bought ages ago to mix with other oils to make my own scent, one which I wore constantly.

It's ... pretty.

I was expected something heavier, boozier, wilder, scarier. But my Old Man is tricky one to explain, as is this scent. And no, he's not an Orisha.

One caveat: I had to put on a LOT to get any kind of throw off of this (which makes me glad I got a 10mL off the bat).

tiny fixing edits.

Has anyone the chance to compare The Pit & The Pendulum to Sin, Scherezade and Lust? It reminds me so much of one of those, but I don't have the imps here and I'm not sure if it is different enough to give me a reason to stock up on it as long as it's available.

 

Please help me find differences/similarities! I have the impression that The Pit is somehow more smooth and little less woody/more syrupy than any of the GC blends, but I definitely need some help there

P&tP isn't really like any of those, to my delicate noseholes, at least. It's more of a flat out resin with just a touch of a woodsy note to it. I think it's most like Midnight Mass out of any oil, I've tried. I am not sure how it compares to Cathedral, though, since it's been a while since I've tried that.

To me, Scherezade is more of a red musk/saffron cloud, and Sin & Lust are heavier on patchouli and spice notes, not very resiny, either.

I also can see the similarites between Al-Azif & Mightnight Mass, which were two of my favorite LEs.

This though, it's more heavy, the resin seems to me a bit woodsy, and has an almost earthy quality to it as well. It's like someone threw a bit of greenery in the mix. It's got a rounded sweetness to it, from frankincense or something similar, but not "sweet" in the sugary context.

If you like heavy, resinous incense smells, you'll love this.

Hey! Could anyone name some blends that contain Egyptian Amber? I sniffed an imp of it at a Meet n' Sniff today, and sweet baby Jesus, it's sublime.

From the good ol' search engine:

Carnaval Noir

Snake Charmer

Sensual, sibilant, sexual and hypnotic: Arabian musk and exotic spices slinking through Egyptian amber, enticing vanilla, and a serpentine blend of black plum, labdanum, ambrette, benzoin and black coconut.

Wanderlust

Hollywood Babylon

The essence of innocence shattered: glittering Egyptian amber and heliotrope, infused with the sweetness of strawberry and vanilla - dragged into debauch by lusty red musk and a dribble of black cherry.

Other than the Single Note, looks like these are the only other two. Unless Beth just didn't quantify amber with "Egyptian" in some of the descriptions.

So, what I need are recommendations for scents that are either very clean or soft and sandalwoody. Her current favorite scents are Philosophy Pure Grace, something called Breathe (which smells fantastic on her!), and the sandalwood roller oil from the Gap. She also likes herbal notes, I think because they have that "fresh" scent.

Berenice is a great clean scent. It's an LE, but you can get still get it.

Other "clean" "fresh/herbal" or "soft" scents:

Apothecary

Dirty

Tempest

Embalming Fluid

Kumiho

The Dormouse

Neo-Tokyo

Vinland

Utrennyaya

Euterpe

Aizen-Myoo

Morocco

White Rabbit

Alice

Kitsune-Tsuki

Midnight

Zephyr

Sudha Segara

Dorian

Fae

Sandalwood-base:

Tushnamatay

Namaste

Velvet

Cathedral (+ deeper resins)

Kuang-Shi (+ orange)

Fire of Love

hope that helps!

hello, um, if there's another topic like this feel FREE to merge it.

there might be a "similarity" thread somewhere in the recommendation section. I can't remember right now, though, since I should be in bed.

Ok. here goes. Someone was so kind as to frimp me a decanted impfull of Red Lantern. Problem is I can't get enough of it's smoky caramel goodness and it's an LE.

Would anyone know about any other scents similar to the caramel scent found in Red Lantern?

I think Midway is similar, but that was also an LE. But it's a bit sweeter.

Perversion seems to be kind of in the same vein as Red Lantern as well, but I think that's owing more to the coconut than anything else. But it might be worth a shot.

Gluttony also has a caramel type note to it, but it's also much sweeter and stickier smelling when compared to Red Lantern, which has that dry base note.

I also adore pink phoenix, it's my sweet femme girly scent.

There aren't too many non-LE strawberries either. I think Hollywood Babylon has some similarities, but it's a bit heavier and less silly than Pink Phoenix.

Or you could try Bon Vivant, which is a strawberry-champagne scent.

The other closest thing is Strawberry Moon, which is probably a lot harder to find than Pink Phoenix.

Hope that helps!

Soft milky sweetness, with just a touch of almond. It's not a heavy scent, but really soft, and comforting. It is a barely there, almost 2nd skin type scent.

This isn't my typical choice of perfume, but I must say this would be insanely amazing as a linen spray. It's so cozy and soft, I bet it would just be dreamy in bed. No pun intended.

Sin, Lust, Scherezade, Zombi

In the general catalog, I'll reiterate & add: Jester or Lurid (red currant candy) Lolita (lollipops), Bliss (if you also <3 chocolate), Inferno or Wrath (red hots), Gluttony (caramel), Dorian (sugared lemons), Kabuki (spicy cherry syrup), Akuma (sweet fruitiness), Hellcat (dessert), Lady Macbeth or Bewitched or Dragon's Heart (fruity-berry juice), Hollywood Babylon (vanilla-strawberry), Bordello (almond-plum), Horn of Plenty (cherry jolly ranchers)

now my teeth hurt.

I love dark, musky scents. They tend to be strong in their own right, so smoke won't really detract from their oomphy sex power.

My favorite is Scherezade by a long shot.

This is my Maestrom shocking surprise. I bought the whole series, because I couldn't decide on anything. This is one of the ones I thought I'd dislike & have to unload on someone later.

Lilies are usually something that I dislike wearing. They're usually too floral for my tastes, and sometimes remind me of funerary flowers (yes, take my goth card away).

Putting this on, though, it is light, clean, refreshing, pretty, and totally awesome. It reminds me of some washing detergent that people use in Europe (which sounds like a totally weird correlation, but I always loved the smell of peoples' laundry when visiting abroad... I'm a freak).

It is like a clean, sweet hug. It lasts very nicely too, with good throw. I may also have to say that so far this has been my favorite in the set. Backups definitely required.

Wet, this was a blast of dry woods... very much patchouli & sandalwood. Mmm pencil-shaving-licous.

Dry... this just faded bit by bit, keeping true to its notes, and was gone. Fairly quickly (less than 4 hours), which was surprising, since these notes usually last a very long time on me.

I like it, but I will probably have to test how well it lasts before I'd commit to a whole bottle. Then again, I love sandalwood + patchouli, but I think Sin is my #1 undefeated scent in this category.

I'm another that got wintergreen!

On application, it's minty, cool, sweet.
As it dries, the wintergreen note softens, and there is an undercurrant of fresh air. I have no idea what these notes are but it's it's like a soft breeze of vaguely floral notes, cool and clean smelling.

I really like it, wintergreen & all. And FWIW, I tried very hard to recall what this reminded me, so I looked up at my wall o' perfume, and there it was. This is almost exactly like Dior Hypnotic Poison on me. Hot.

Wet: very sweet almonds. a hint of "spice," whatever they may be.

Initial dry: the honey starts to peek out. It's very strong, almost noxious at first, but it mellows as it dries more. The almonds provide a nice extra layer of sweetness to it.

Drydown: Powdery sweet honey & almonds. The spice notes are very low-key and add just a touch of depth to it. It is very yummy. It does seem similar to Bastet, which I prefer, but this is a nice, close skin sweetness.

Sometimes I love dragon's blood in a blend, sometimes I don't. This one? I don't think I liked it too much.

This goes on smelling like a overripe/slightly rotten-fruit Coppertone. I have NO idea why it smells even remotely like Coppertone, but there you have it.

The dragon's blood gives off kind of a weird fruity-tangy scent. In this instance, while wet, I don't really like it that much. After about 3 minutes after the initial application, I get a brief rush of cinnamon, then I'm back to the fruity note. For some reason, there is only ONE blend that has clove in it that has ever even remotely smelled of cloves (March Hare)... I don't get it here either. Pepper? very vaguely, but this is almost 100% straight up DB on me.

After wearing it all day, the dragon's blood finally stops being so slightly-off fruit and starts to become a milder powdery scent. I like this stage a lot, but it took 6 hours to get there, and none of the fun spices really showed up on me. I think I'll have to give this one a miss, sadly.

This reminds me a LOT of Cerberus. Yum, Cerberus.

This goes on a heady, chocolately-fig, deep, earthy blend, but not quite as heavy as Cerberus. It stays that way all through the day. The woodsy notes tend to stay as base notes way off in the background. It's definitely an interesting blend, and pretty. Very comforting and warm.

I like this a lot, but it's way less complex (and to me less interesting) than my beloved Cerberus. If the day ever comes when I run out, then I will come running to this blend with some lemons in hand.

Wet: very obvious & strong dragon's blood. It's very sickly sweet.

Initial dry: the cherry comes out to play, taking over as the main component; juicy & wet & sweet. there's a tiny bit of a metallic tang to it, and the dragon's blood moves to the background.

dry: metallic cherry. i really like bpal's cherry note, so this is happy-making. i almost never pick up on the clove note in bpal blends, and this scent is no exception.

hours & hours later: the cherry has faded, there's a bit of the resiny dragon's blood & myrrh, but they're faint and not overpoweringly sweet.

Nothing quite compares to Fée, sadly. This is one LE that I really wish would be rereleased, if even for 5 minutes. It is SO amazing, it makes me weep with pure joy.

Yes, there is a touch of that honeydew goodness in Fruit Moon, but it is totally overshadowed by the 324098 other fruit notes in that blend.

Yemeya also has a fruity-melon type of aroma to it, but it is more watermelon than cantalope/honeydew, and there is also a touch of some floral notes to it as well.

This is something I would generally shy away from, since past experiences with iris have always ended with someone in tears and someone else not speaking to me for months at a time.

Anyway. I got an imp of this in a swap, and as I sniffed the little dipper wand, a bit got on my nose. And it smelled nice and non-offensive and vaguely coconutty, so I bravely decided to try wearing this today.

Putting it on, there's the IRIS. It is very floral-perfumey-loud, yet somehow, it's softer and less grating than I have come to expect with iris blends.

Wearing/drydown: the iris softens, the white musk and other floral notes make for a delicate, slightly creamy, sweet, pretty combination. Color me surprised. I actually LIKE this! I usually canNOT wear anything with iris, but now I feel like I should try other things out again. Maybe it's just growing on me, like vetiver did.

Now I just have to conquer aquatic notes, and I WILL RULE THE WORLD!

In review, this is nice! Even if you're not a big fan of iris, you might be surprised with this one!

I had really high hopes for this one. Sadly, it was not what I envisioned at all.

Wet: jasmine & apple.

Dry: jasmine and less apple.

This is predominantly jasmine on me. I don't get sandalwood, musk, quince, citron, myrrh or thyme. You know, all the notes I wanted to smell.

I like jasmine ok, but it usually takes over any blend I wear and gives me a headache.