Thorne

I looooooove this scent. Love love love. Yes, it's strong, and sharp, and almost chemical-esque. You can taste this scent in the back of your throat, if you use too much, or snort it up too quickly. It's a fire scent, a burning scent, hot ash and billows of smoke from damp logs thrown on an outdoor fire. I definitely get a whiff of vetiver, sage, and maybe cedar - all of which I love. This is not a timid scent, or a sweet scent. It's stong and bright and warm, and it makes me feel strong and bright and warm wearing it.

This is the exact smell of hot, sunbaked leather on me. It's eerie - I feel like I should have an expensive leather jacket on, basking in the sun or something - it's that hot. It's actually warm on my wrist, too. If I get my nose right up on my wrist, I get a little flash of sweet dragon's blood through the hot leather, but it's faint. This also has a hint of a smoky, salty scent to it, which adds to the heat, since it makes me think of clean sweat drying on skin. I like this very much, even though it is not a perfumey perfume. It's unexpected and different from anything else I have, and I think it would be absolutely delicious on a guy (or the right type of woman - the kind who can wear leather pants and make you whimper). I don't know that I'll wear this often, but I'm glad I got the 5 ml.

This smells so yummy I want to tip the bottle up and drink it (...I won't. Probably.) Sweet, creamy buttery milk! (But not sour like actual buttermilk.) Delicious, and STRONG. I tried my new Dragon's Hide on one arm and Chaste Moon on the other, and I can't smell the Dragon's Hide at all (and you all know how strong dragon's blood can be). Every time I move, I get a waft of sweetness from my wrist. This is the most perfect warm spring day scent. As it dries and mellows, I'm getting a hint of light, sweet florals - it's all so sweet! But not overpowering or cloying. Like, I love March Hare, but sometimes it knocks me back with the sweetness. Not Chaste Moon, it's just hovering in a delicious cloud around me. I'm going to be sniffing myself and moaning quietly for the rest of the day.

Sweet, sweet, sweet floral! I get super strong honeysuckle at first, which mellows into a charming rose nectar scent. My mother looooooves this one, and I might have to get her a big bottle. It also reminds me of my grandmother, because she loved hummingbirds, so that just adds to the sweet, happy feeling it gave me when I wore it.

This was my first favorite oil! It's so complex and twisty, but the combination of scents just works, magically. It's warm and sharp and sweet, all at once, in turns. I really get the fig, cypress, and ginger notes that come out on my skin, and I love it.

Oh man, is the patchouli in this one strong. Knock you out at five paces strong. It was too much for me the first time I tried it, and I love patchouli! I didn't get any apricot at all, just patchouli patchouli, and more patchouli. I waited a couple weeks and tried it again, and it was much calmer. Still super strong patchouli at first, but this time, the apricot eventually wafted out, sweet and mellow. This isn't something I could wear every day, but I like it enough to keep it.

Pure plastic fake fruit smell on me, from start to finish. I've tried it twice and had to wash it off both times. Waah!

This is one of my favorites, although when I first tried it, I wasn't sure. It had a really strong burnt/smoky smell combined with perky vanilla when I first tried it on. Thankfully it mellowed into a sweet, spicy, incensey vanilla, which I like a lot better. I've noticed that when I wear Snake Oil, I move a little differently - a little more wiggle, a little more confidence. I could break hearts, wearing this.

I had a really good experience with High John the Conqueror last week, so I'm gonna paraphrase what I wrote about it on the BPAL LJ commmunity: I'm convinced that I got a fantastic grade on a recent presentation about Machiavelli because I wore High John the Conqueror to class. I don't know if it was voodoo stuff or just that I believed it made me more confident, but it worked! High John the Conqueror smells really good to me - sweet and floral and clean. I usually don't care for florals, but this is not overwhelmingly flowery. It's more like a soapy, clean, fresh smell, with a hint of floral. I can't pick out individual notes, but it does little lemony, maybe. I have horrible stage-fright. Any time I have to talk in front of people, I practically hyperventilate. I've been known to actually vomit from the stress of public speaking before. So it's no small thing to me to be able to get up in front of a class and give an hour long presentation and lead a discussion. Before class, I put on the High John the Conqueror, went over the material one last time, and then just went in and blew it out. It was awesome. I felt calm and centered and totally prepared. I mean, I did do the research and was prepared, but I wasn't nervous about presenting it, which is a big change for me. Like I said, I'm not sure if it was the properties of the oil, or just believing that the oil would help me that did it, but I was totally impressed by it.

I got this one as a freebie from the Lab, and put off trying it, because who wants to smell like dirt and trees? Well...me, apparently. Hee. I love this scent. It's sharp and ..well, the word that comes to mind is poky - like sharp pine needles jabbing into your skin. It's not uncomfortable, but it's a little unsettling at first. And patchouli, there's lots of patchouli upfront. It reminds me of the woods in Kentucky where I grew up, big pine trees and oak trees and all kinds of trees all around me, with fresh dirt underfoot and leafmold just off the paths with all kinds of things growing in it. I get a really strong sense of nostalgia with this scent, which I did not expect. I also think it's a grounding scent, for whoever mentioned it earlier in the thread. As a Gemini, sometimes I really need a little help keeping my feet on the ground, and Burial is just the perfume to do it.

Ha! I'm so stealing that phrase. And I agree, Lust is awesome. I didn't get the sweetness that a lot of other people seem to get - this is just straight up spicy and sexy on me. Very much patchouli-esque, so much so that I can barely make out the other scents at first. After the patchouli calmed itself down a little, the other elements began to come forward, and now it's a gorgeous cloud of sensuous, warm, incensey scents. Very strong, and very long lasting. I really like this one, and it's going on the big bottle list.

I got this as a freebie imp from the Labbies, and ieeeeeeeeeeeeeee I love it so much. SO MUCH. The first impression I had was of sweet, super-strong oranges or tangerines - sugared bright orangey fruit. Then the cloves pop out. And the scent kind of bounces back and forth between the two all day. It mellows into a dreamy kind of summery, spicy sweet blend as time passes. I can almost taste this scent, it's so strong and jucy. I only need to apply a teeny bit for it to last for hours. Must have a big bottle!

I really, really wanted to love Spooky. It smells so yummy in the bottle, and everyone seemed to enjoy it so much. But then I tried it on, and...well, it wasn't pretty. The mint was really nice at first, bright and sharp and sweet. I wasn't sure I wanted to smell quite so foody, but it was a drastic change from my usual scent choices, so it was cool. And then the mint vanished, completely, and was replaced by this...smell. And not a good smell. It was buttery on the surface, which was kind of novel, but the undertones were kind of burnt plasticky fake butter smelling. Like scorched buttery popcorn flavoring. And it made me really queasy. I thought, "Ok, maybe I can just wait it out." But it lasted for hours. *sob* It finally, finally faded into a very faint minty cookie kind of scent, but that middle drydown portion was so painful. I'm going to give it another try in a couple days, but if it repeats the queasy-making drydown scent on my skin, I'm going to have to swap Spooky out.

Oh, Persephone. If you were an actual girl, I'd try to keep you in Hades too. I love love love this scent. In the imp, I wasn't sure - it smelled like an overripe rose, a rose just on the verge of losing all its petals and decaying. But then I tried it on, and now I'm in love with my own smell. It's kind of sad. Sweet and fruity and juicy and lush perfect rose petals. Yum!