marared

I just got a backup bottle of Mead Moon, and the background color of the label is brown, whereas my original bottle - the background color is black to the point that the honeycomb is very hard to pick out. The bottle currently on ebay is also a black label. I was going to ask how often that happened, and it seems from this thread that it's not uncommon at all to get slightly different labels.

Frimp from a few weeks ago. This doesn't smell like smoke or ashes or anything burnt, at least not on me; it smells like old pine or one of those other particularly fragrant trees/shrubs. It smells like I took a walk through wet woods hours ago, pushing branches out of my way, and the sap/resin left behind on my skin has dried and faded. I understand the Comet cleanser reference, although it doesn't quite have that same overwhelming chemical smack.

Freebie imp, and this one has a huge throw -- I opened the box and went "hooooooly jasminehoneysuckledragonsblood" (not being entirely sure which it was). It immediately reminded me of Ladon, without the apple. If there are spices in this, I can't really smell them, because the flowers are so overpoweringly sweet, almost to the point of cloying. It's a very pretty smell, but it's way too strong and way too flowery to actually wear.

Bottle: totally lavender, but the herby lavender rather than the floral lavender, which is generally softer and gentler. On me: I am assuming that's Dorian that I smell, because there's not a trace of Snake Oil that I can pick up - of course, it being fresh, that may not be the case in two months, but right now it's mostly sweet (but not syrupy sweet) lavender tea with a gentle background of vanilla. This is very interesting. Into the aging box with this one...

08: This unfortunately does not work on my skin. It starts out nice enough - lots of sugar, fruity syrup, fun to sniff. It progresses into burnt sugar after a little while, but still tasty. After about fifteen minutes, it goes SOUR. Like, ewgetitoffme sour. I tend to avoid super-sugary scents, but don't have much BPAL-sugary experience, so this was kind of an experiment, and I think I shall continue avoiding it!

There's rose in this? Huh. I can't smell it at all, which is a first for any blend with rose in it. All I can smell is a light floral and the sandalwood - no tobacco, no chocolate, no resin, no rose, maybe a bit of frankincense. Yeah, the frankincense starts ripening after a bit. Sweet and pretty. Oops - THERE'S the rose. Took a few minutes for that to come out. The other notes hold it down and keep it from becoming overwhelming on my skin, though, as rose is wont to do.

Just as an FYI, Fearful Pleasures should be on the caution list for anyone with spice sensitivities. I do not generally have any issues with the oils (other than breakouts on my neck), but I found that FP caused a burny sensation inside my elbow that was slightly uncomfortable and stingy for a good five or ten minutes. It seems to be okay on my wrists, but be careful with more delicate skin!

Frimp from the lab. The musk and the spices are very good, but as usual, I amp the rose to immense proportions and that's ALL I can smell - even two hours later, there's a persistent cloud of rose stamping down everything else that might lurk in the blend.

For all the notes in this, all I got right off the bat was pumpkin and strawberry, which was kinda neat. Once it had time to dry, my skin has started pumping up the rose over the pumpkin, and now it's just strawberry rose. I can sort of pick up the red musk as well. It's no surprise that the fig can't fight its way through all the stronger scents, but it's odd that I can't smell the jasmine, which is usually heady enough to announce itself. It's definitely an interesting scent, and I kinda like it, but I don't think I like it enough to keep. I'll check it again in a few weeks, though.

Right off the bat, it smelled like carrot cake to me - carrot and sweet molasses and maple. As it dries, the carrot is less prominent and less sweet. The molasses/maple went to the background, and I now get the hay and the chaff -- in short, it turns into slightly sweet grains, kind of a good maple & brown sugar oatmeal just out of the pot. There's almost no wood in this that I can detect.

This is the one I was most looking forward to out of the bottles I ordered, not only from the description, but from the early reviews as well. It's a lovely strong cider with lots of spicy personality in the bottle -- it makes my mouth water. Fortunately, the wood/smoke behind it brings me back to my senses before I drink the damn thing. It's just such a delightful nummy scent. I want candles with this!

In the bottle and freshly applied, it's got kind of a scented laundry detergent aroma about it. As it starts drying, it's got more of a leafy and smoky smell to it, with the apples far in the background. Ten minutes later, it's still leaves and smoke. Very definitely a great representation of late autumn.

I say it everywhere else - Dionysia is pure sex on me. It reaches out and invites your nose to bury itself in my cleavage. Hetairae puts some swish in my walk, too...

This obviously is one of those blends that's going to have to sit quietly for a few months to really reach its prime, but it's pretty nice fresh from the lab, too. It's a spicy musk with a bit of not-too-sweet vanilla lying underneath, but there is absolutely no fruit whatsoever in the bottle OR on my skin, and if it hasn't shown up by now, it's not going to. This is kind of what I was expecting from Snake Oil. I'm definitely going to have to revisit this in a few months - while I'm disappointed that I can't smell the plum, it still has lots of potential. (My card? The Chariot.)

I can smell the currant straight off on fresh application, but it disappears pretty quickly into a nice warm amber musk over a meadow. I have to ask, though, what the difference is between dragon's blood and daemonorops? The only other blend I have with it is Ladon, so I'm not familiar enough with the scent to pick it up. It's not nearly as sexual/passionate as the description and the bottle image imply, but it's really nice. I just wish it had a little more throw.

Wow, a rose that ALMOST works on me! It's arguing with the orange blossom and the orange blossom is winning, but only just barely. I do love me the orange blossom, but this is just a little too much rose. Maybe I'll save it for the Renaissance Faire this fall! And as I remarked with regard to Bess, I never smell the rosemary in any of these blends - either it's drowned out too easily by other scents, or my skin sucks it up.

Decant. Whack o' cherry right out of the imp, and then it turns into Red Hots candy and stays there. Verbena doesn't stand a chance. It's even stamping out the patchouli, and that's tough to do. I am going to assume at this point that cinnamon must be another note that my skin likes to amp, because I had the same experience with Bakeneko - all that goodness just turned into HELLO CINNAMON BABY. It also itches just a tiny bit, which is the first time I've had any kind of skin reaction to an oil. It's pretty insignificant, but it's there. I'm glad I didn't go for the whole bottle...

I got this as a freebie. When I popped the cap, I wrinkled my nose at the sour smell, which almost reminded me of the unpleasantness of Queen Alice, and wondered if it had wine in it. Went to look up the notes, and yep, it's got booze. I bravely tried it on my arm, prepared to wash it off in a hurry and ... Rose and mint. A very well behaved rose and mint, come to that. It's almost like one of those after-dinner mints you get in some restaurants, at least on fresh application. It gets a little more orange-blossom as it dries, but the mint lingers. Oddly, I never smell the rosemary in any of the blends that contain them. Which is probably not a bad thing, since I can only tolerate rosemary the herb in very small quantities.

It's funny how most people think of New York State as an industrial metropolis all over, when most of the state is ... farmland. Following the Thruway? Buffalo, cows, Rochester, cows, Syracuse, cows, Utica, cows, Albany, cows, Poughkeepsie... okay, more like mountains and river there, and then you get NYC. But there's a whoooole lotta farm country. That said, I'm not sure myself what silage smells like from experience - because, you know, cows.

This is a lovely warm nutty smell - it's almost like really good maple syrup over walnuts, or maybe candied walnuts - just not quite so *sweet*. I can't quite call it a favorite, but it's definitely a keeper for the time being, as it's a warm scent that's a little different from my usual.

The Phantom Calliope? Having finally got a decant - this definitely ain't it. I think the cocoa butter must be crucial to the scent, in the end...

The Phantom Calliope? A few months later I actually see this response. lol. That's one of the scents I have been considering, but the reviews mostly seem to point out the cherry, and I'm afraid of the patchouli - at least in terms of trying to match the scent. And it's not impable, so I'm waffling on whether to buy a bottle and hope I like it even if it's not at all like YSTW... Just give Bordello a try! The description of Bordello terrifies me - as much as I love the Lab's plum, the amaretto/almond and booze are two of my biggest scent-dislikes. I think what I'm looking for - having gone and sniffed what remains of my YSTW bar again - is a scent that's predominantly fruity - black currant with an undercurrent of chocolate and bergamot. If Marianne had cocoa notes, that might almost do the trick. Yeah. Black currant, bergamot, and cocoa! *flutters eyelashes at the Labbies*

Frimp. It was nice in the imp - a vaguely floral, vaguely vanilla mix - but unfortunately, it smells a bit like a scented plastic doll on my skin. I'm going to stuff it away to try in a few more weeks...

Frimp from the lab - I'm glad, because I've been interested in trying an appley scent and hadn't settled on a place to start. This is pretty much all apple blossom and hyacinth, with an underpinning of ... well, I've never sniffed dragon blood resin, so I'm not sure if it's that or the musk, or if the two have blended so seamlessly I can't tell them apart. I actually like this very much, despite it being more floral than I would normally enjoy. Hell of a throw, too.

Given that this is very dark with lots of patchouli, it's a given that I'm going to have to revisit this in a few weeks for a better idea of what this is REALLY going to smell like. What this smells like to me right now is of hot smoke and ashes - but of the productive variety. It smells very much like the air in a reconstructed 18th/19th century village or plantation, where people actively engage in jobs of the time like smithing, woodworking, etc, and many of them have open flames -- this reminds me of the sooty smell of people working hard in an older time. Except now that I've written that, there's a flower trying to push its way through...