marared

I've never smelled anything even remotely equivalent to SNOW either... that sharp tang to the air that's almost *dry* despite all the moisture. (one of my favorite things to do in winter when I'm standing with a group of people is to look up at the sky and say, "Huh, snow clouds" - and watch how many people look up and nod, and how many people go huhwhat? Mostly only effective in the south.)

Swank is a fizzy pomegranate martini. Very yummy.

Thirding Penumbra - about the only purple scent that I really like, too.

Wow, yum. This makes me want to run to Starbucks for a Pumpkin Spice latte - initially, there isn't a whole lot of pumpkin, mostly just nutty coffee, but it starts picking up pretty quickly and ... no, this isn't something I can wear, sadly. I think it's the hazelnut that makes it turn weird, and it's actually giving me a headache now....

No nyquil here, just sweet cherry syrup, the kind that you put on snow cones. It's a little too loudly CHERRY to wear on its own, but I think this is going to be a great *layering* scent, with the other fruity blends or, even better, chocolate. mmm. Must test this with Boomslang and Velvet and Shub Nig and ....

Azaroles, nuts, and apple blossoms with red apple pulp, mulberry, blackberry, and pomegranate juice. Yummy cider, the kind where other types of fruit are mashed up along with the apple. I smell no nuts or flowers, just lots of sweet, tart fall fruits. This is more what I had hoped for from Pinwheel, really. I can see where it would turn to acetone on some people, and I was afraid it would do the same with me as I haven't had much luck with the mostly-fruit blends lately, but no, this has stayed nice and gently sweet and true on my skin. Yum.

Languid, melancholy fire: red musk, purple orchid, frankincense, smoky vanilla, Styrian herbs, peru balsam, tonka, Zanzibar clove, and patchouli. This is much smokier than I expected, and I'm beginning to think that clove is an amp note for me. It's not bad, but it's overwhelming - it's eating up all the other notes except the frankincense and patchouli. This is the sort of thing that I'd wear with a ridiculously low cut dress, preferably in red - it's not a daily scent by any stretch. It's too intense. Use up the decant, yes - bottle, no.

Mostly this is fruity red wine and honey, with a gentle background of vanilla. And it's strong like WHOA - a very little dab lasts forever. Massive throw, massive staying power - one of those oils that requires two or three arm scrubs when it's time to go to bed because it's so strong. I'd call this an expensive cousin of Blood Kiss, in that boozy fruity family that's sweet but not foody-sweet. I was afraid of the cinnamon, which is frequently a bad-amp note (Red Hots), but it plays along perfectly with the other spices. The bottle was totally worth it.

Pretty much the same thing everyone else has said: it's a creamier, softer Fearful Pleasure. It's a lovely relaxing scent, and the creamy aspect slowly gets stronger on the skin - the spices are very mild and fade under the apple milk. Being that milky notes are not great on me (they're not bad, but they don't do anything spectacular), I don't need a bottle, but I think I'll get good use out of the two decants.

I'm one of those people on whom pumpkin smells like butter. Even in the bottle it smelled like butter - spiced butter! On me, though, the peach quickly came out to play - I originally thought it was apple, due to the light fruit aroma and spices, but no, that's peach, and a somewhat muskier peach that I'm accustomed to from bpal. It tried to go sour for a while, but happily didn't quite turn. This is another one where if I get the bottle, it's going in the aging box first.

Oddly enough, I had never tried Dorian until this evening. It was about 95% what I expected from the notes given, but it was a little more cologney than I thought it would be. It has virtually no throw - it sticks close to my skin and is barely noticeable. The cream is the most noticeable, with a vague hint of citrus in the background, and it smells quite tasty, but I can't convince myself of whether or not to get a bottle. If I do, it'll g straight into the aging box...

I think this pretty much clinches orris root as a death note for me - everything I've ever tried with it turns to soap. This blend is all rose soap, and nothing else. Well, maybe a little bit of neroli - but rose and orris root are stomping over them all, even the patchouli, which normally stands out pretty well on my skin.

This is a citrussy amber scent. Very warm and yellow - almost closer to foodie than floral, strangely enough. It puts me in mind of fresh yellow cake that isn't too sweet, with some citrus zest in it somewhere. Not very strong, not much throw. I'm definitely going to enjoy the imp, but I don't think I need a bottle.

Tested a bit of Coldie's bottle. Szepasszony is too cold of a scent to be comparable to this (nor does Sze have a citrus drive to it); this is much warmer, like Lightning or Tempest but not with quite so much ozone. It's got a very smooth background that's vaguely vanilla, but not quite. I liked it, but I don't hafta have it.

Coldfire had a bottle of this with her the other night, so I skin tested it as long as I was sitting there. It's a sweeter leather than I'm accustomed to from other blends, and for some reason I get a coconut vibe from it (and she did too, after it had been on my skin for a few minutes). Not like tropical coconut, or the coconut in Snake Charmer, but kind of a dilute coconut oil, if that makes sense. Not my thing overall, though.

Interestingly, this is one of the very few rose blends where the rose doesn't get amped up to intolerable levels. I think Moroccan rose specifically might be the factor here; I had tried a Body Shop Moroccan rose that was also very nice on me. It plays nicely with the myrrh, but that's really all I smell in the end - rose and myrrh.

I smell woody patchouli, mostly, sitting on top of an orange. I can't pick out the carnation, and I'm not familiar enough with ambergris as a scent to find it either. The patchouli dies down after a couple of minutes, though, and stays close to the skin. I think this is something where I'll keep the imp and finish it off, because my skin kinda likes it, but it's not quite awesome enough to justify a bottle.

Loud sweet clove - first application is all clove clove clove. I immediately thought of Winter of Our Discontent when I first sniffed it, although this isn't nearly as bitter. Aaaaaand, a couple minutes into drydown, there's the violets. Oh, soapy violets, you overwhelm everything in your path. No tonka, no incense, just violets beating up on the clove.

This is Hunger's slutty sister, I think. This is the *dirtiest* patchouli I've ever smelled - every other lab patchouli that I've tried has generally been far more refined and smooth and mellow, where this is leafy and earthy and it'll clobber you in the head with a spiked heel in a dark alley if you look at it the wrong way. It's overpowering the ginger (the redheaded tarty sidekick) and the orange blossom has practically no chance. My skin likes patchouli, though - it doesn't really *amp* it too badly, but it does get played up a lot in my chemistry. It also *does* have a resemblance to Snake Oil, with a faint play-doh aspect under it all that I also get from SO at the wrong time of month.

I looooove my Fearful Pleasure. There isn't much in the way of autumn here though - it hits the 90s through September, and it's November or December before I really even have to start wearing a light jacket. Won't stop me from my smoky appley goodness though.

I have no idea the age of the bottle I bought, as it was on ebay, but enough people said it aged well and I love honey and blackberry, so I gave it a go. I get the buttered popcorn impression, although it's not something that would have occurred to me on my own. I barely smell the blackberries, but the vanilla bean is definitely in there, as is the tea (and strangely enough, the tea is far more noticeable on my right wrist than it is on my left - they're almost two entirely different scents!), but the primary impression is of honey. But not the super-sweet sticky syrupy honey - it's very ... natural. Like a honeycomb instead of drizzled honey. I like this a lot. Not as much throw as I would like, but just an excuse to slather, right?

It's LE and gone, but Host of the Air should still be easy enough to get, and that's one of the greenest things I've ever smelled.

I wore B&BW's Jasmine Vanilla to a number of shows in the past. It always put noses in my cleavage without fail. I haven't been to a show recently, though, and no idea what BPAL I'd wear. I'm considering my options for the weekend-long power metal festival in early October. Patchouli loooves me, but I think those blends might be a little overwhelming for such close (and overheated) quarters. I'm almost definitely bringing Morocco, and it's the right time of year for Fearful Pleasure as well. Maybe Love's Philosophy too.

Berry Moon, it does not love me. *sad* The bottle is a blast of berry-sweet honey and I got all excited, because the lab's honey typically is very good with my skin chemistry and I was totally going to nom myself. Except... there is some note that doesn't quite agree with me, and I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's the summer musk - I amp musk a fair bit, although musk usually likes me as well. Whatever it is, it turns almost to a BO funk that holds down the berries - I can smell them under it all, trying to come out and play, but they can't get past the funk. Owing to the fact that it's just past my ladytime, I'm going to give it another couple tests over the next few weeks, because even Penumbra went kinda rank on me earlier this week, and maybe my chemistry is just unusually out of whack this time. I hope so, because I LOVE HONEY AND RASPBERRY AND MUSK AND I WANT THIS TO WORK DAMMIT. *ahem*

10mL of Dionysia and Morocco, oh yeah... *bats eyelashes in the lab's general direction*