marared

I got this as a lab frimp a while ago, but it's been sitting in my box for a few weeks. It smells like an 800 calorie sweet chocolatey coffee in the imp, but on my skin? Ew, no. It's not precisely *sour*, as sugar notes are wont to turn on my skin, but it's ... hm. Burnt? In fact, this is exactly what Dark Chocolate & Pepper Smoked Caramel does on my skin after a few minutes. I had blamed the pepper, due to the smoky/ashy smell it picks up after a few minutes, but now I wonder if it was the *caramel* - a previously unrealized death note.

LXVI (66) An *extremely* full bottle, all the way up to the second twist at the top of the neck. I'm not familiar with Penitence proper, so I can't compare it against the base, but the short version is that this smells like really good incense. I can't pick out anything except the resins. I think there must be some wood in it from the scent in the bottle ... now that it's dried down a little bit on my wrist, there is definitely a little wood and ... there's a flower peeking out. What is that? It's not rose or jasmine, that I can tell, but it's a heavy floral like that, but it doesn't stand out very much because it's pinned down under all that resin and wood (which is a good thing). I kinda like this, but I need to sit on it for a while and see how it ages. Edit: ...deodorant?

CLXXXI (181) In the bottle: strawberry! Reminds me a lot of Pumpkin V, very sweet but not quite so cloying. On my skin: buttery strawberry. Perfect for a sunshiney spring day like today. After a couple minutes it's not quite so sweet or buttery and ... suddenly disappears from my skin altogether, except for a very faint hint of amber. Huh. Edit: changed my mind. It's not strawberry. It's cherry, perhaps mixed with something else, but it's a darker fruit than strawberry. Still intensely buttery and fruity on first application. Second edit: with a heavier application, it dries down to a sweet amber that's very reminiscent of Khrysee (although it's very different when wet) and lasts for quite a while.

Yummy. Extremely reminiscent of Embalming Fluid, but a lot stronger on the citrus and a very noticeable whack of ginger. I think I'm going to switch out EF for this on my bottle wishlist, as I always wished EF was stronger - this is a great summery scent.

Lab frimp that's loud and tropical! Initially, the apple stands out loud and clear, almost to the exclusion of everything else - after a few minutes I start picking up a pina colada mix with the pineapple/coconut and a leetle banana. (The banana gets stronger and the apple starts fading after about ten minutes.) I'd sure like to drink it, but I'm not so fond of the *smell* of coconut and sugar, so I think this is going to end up in the swap pile.

The *only* time I have ever had a bee wimble its way over to me on the basis of scent (at least, I thought that's what it was at the time), I was wearing Secret Crush from Victoria's Secret. Dang thing wouldn't leave me alone.

Mild citrus. I don't think I could pick out the mandarin and the lime not knowing they were there, but definitely citrus. There's no bitter undertone that I expected from the neroli, and I really can't detect the tea either. It's just a gentle fruity floral that's heavier on the fruit than the floral. It's nice, but it doesn't really excite me that much.

I was a little afraid of this scent due to the rose, which I usually amp beyond tolerance, but surprisingly it's behaving, and what I get out of Symmakhia is a gentle floral vanilla pear. I think this is a great spring and early-summer scent - it's very tasty. I don't think I like it enough to splurge on a bottle, but I think I'll get good use out of the imp for as long as I have it.

Ech, no - something with this REALLY doesn't agree with my chemistry. This was almost ammoniatic upon first application, and it's calmed down a bit to sweetly rotten flowers. It's not as bad in the imp, but it's pretty vile on my skin. :/

It smells wonderful in the imp, very strong on the honey. On my wrist, it started out more musky, and I was afraid for a minute that something would go sour or soapy, and it's still sort of waffling between the two, but the honey has started to amp up a bit. Alas, after ten minutes it's still trying to be soapy... I wonder if it's the ambergris? Hm....

It started out pretty soapy right off the bat. Something in this doesn't agree with my chemistry; I would have thought this had alcohol in it for the sour note that comes up after ten minutes. As it is, I think cedar is the troublemaker, or possibly the woodmoss. Off to the swap pile...

I smell the plum and rice most strongly - what immediately comes to mind is that plum wine I had once from some Asian-owned liquor store on New Year's Eve. It's nice, but not as mind-bendingly yummy as I hoped.

Wow. Khrysee and I will never be best friends due to the amber, but I am enamored of her charms and will hold a girlcrush on her from a distance. It's a *gorgeous* blend - sweeter in the bottle than it is on my wrist. It doesn't have excessive throw, but it has a great deal of staying power - after eight hours through two handwashes and an application of Villainess lotion, it's still quite noticeable on my wrists. It's very yum, very sensual, *very* adult. Maybe something I'd put in an oil warmer if I had a visitor...

Apparently I never reviewed this, although I got a decant several months ago. Whatever's in it, it smells GOOD on me - a very warm and comforting mix of spice, floral, and musk. The ginger is very snappy, but the mums balance it out so that neither overpowers the blend, and the musk is sexy without being in-your-face about it. I'd reeeally like a bottle of this...

Ohhhh man this is yum. It's pretty heavy on the caramel when it's fresh out of the bottle, but the pepper very quickly tames the sweetness and keeps it from turning foody. The caramel comes back into play ten or fifteen minutes into the drydown, but it's just walking-past-the-chocolate-shop sweet rather than diabetic-coma-inducing sweet. I don't get the booze that some other people are smelling (thankfully!) but it does have a bit of a gourmand-coffee aroma to it. Not much throw, although the bottle is still a bit cold from the mail truck, and that may change when it settles. I wonder how this would layer with Boomslang? Hmmm... Further edit to note that after a couple hours, it dries to pretty much straight-up pepper. Even further edit: nope, doesn't work on me in the end, and I think the culprit must actually be the *caramel*, due to a nearly identical drydown with Gluttony - kinda burnt and ashy. It was so good to start, but I can't keep it.

I'm going to concur that this is a blend that needs to age - right now it's fresh and sharp spices, with virtually no chocolate or brown sugar that I can detect right now. It's all ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; it smells like when you're about to make pumpkin pie or gingerbread cookies, and you blend the relevant spices off in their own little bowl first. About ten minutes into the drydown, the tonka starts sweetening things up a bit, but it's still too dry and sharp to wear right now. Into the aging jar it goes! What it reminds me of at the moment is a combination of Bakeneko and Red Moon, even though none of them have notes in common that I can see.

I didn't look at the notes before I chose this, just remembered it coming up as a popular scent. I smelled the cocoa right away, and the metallic tang of blood behind it all, but it's been overwhelmed by the rum and particularly the wine - I'm amazed it doesn't go sour on me (must just be only certain booze notes), but the wine is really too strong - major throw for just one little swipe of the wand. In fact, it reminds me a rather lot of Blood Kiss, which I like, but can also get in your face. This one's destined for the swap box, I think.

This initially smells to me like those after-dinner mint candies that are very powdery on your tongue - it's a nice fresh pale mint, but not cold and biting. The herbal background gets stronger as it dries, and the black musk is marching in like Darth Vader looming over Princess Leia, and turns it into a bitter mint that ... isn't bad, but isn't a suitable perfume for moi.

This was spicy plum goodness right out of the imp, but it's dried to craftstore plum soap. I still like it, but I liked it better in the imp.

I was curious to try this - honey isn't precisely one of my amp notes, but it agrees very well with my chemistry. O doesn't really call to mind any bodily fluids, let alone sex, but it does remind me strongly of a (much) less sweet, less boozy Mead Moon. It's a nice mellow scent that's sexy, but not "you will take me now on the nearest horizontal surface or vertical I don't care" sexy. I'd blame the amber; we are pretty apathetic to one another.

Newly applied, it's fruity lilac and a bit of leather. It was very nose-wrinklingly acrid right out of the imp, like it's probably lab fresh and needs some time to sit and age. Once it's been on my skin for a while, it becomes a lot more leathery, a lot more masculine, with just a bit of plum and lilac. It's pretty interesting, but leather and I move in entirely different circles - we don't disagree, but we aren't meant for each other.

Hm. This one morphs a little bit. It started out fruity and powdery amber - where the fruit came from, I don't know, might be the carnation. Either way, it smells kind of like old chewing gum to start. After ten or fifteen minutes, though, the fruit impression evaporates, the vanilla musk comes out, and the powder hangs in the background. It's nice, but it's not anything I need to have in a bottle.

This started out very spicy-figgy, but it loses the fig as it dries, and it's picked up something that I don't like very much. I want to point my finger at the amber, but I don't think it's the amber alone; possibly the myrrh is the other culprit. Whatever it is, Aeronwen starts out nummy but turns to powdered carpet deodorizer on my skin. Not BAD, but not something I really want to smell.

This is probably the spiciest thing I've tried from BPAL - the overall impression is of black tea and a whole lot of black pepper and clove. I can't even pick out the *patchouli* (let alone the carnation), which is unusual. It also doesn't have a whole lot of throw - it loses most of its kick within about ten or fifteen minutes and subsides to spicy tea. I'm glad I went with a decant instead of a bottle, because while I do like it, it's a little too dry for my tastes. I like warm and spicy, but on my skin I think it really needs a dab of fruit to balance it out.

Decant! I was well aware ahead of time that this wasn't going to work on my skin - sugar notes never do - but I love pomegranate, so I wanted to give it a sniff. I'd never be able to pick it out specifically as pomegranate or currant, let alone the pear, but it is definitely super-sugary red/purple candy in the imp. On my skin, it doesn't turn sour as sugar often does, but it definitely smells a bit stale. It doesn't have a lot of throw, but it's very strong regardless; it's overwhelming every other test on my arm within six inches.