ephemera

The woman who owns Aroma Sanctum rubs a scent, but she has a specific reason for it. Your body heat helps to change the scent of the oils on your skin, so if you rub your wrists together you're heating the skin and the oils, and that can jump the scent forward in time, so to speak. She does it all the time when she's creating a new perfume for me because she wants to test how it smells after the initial wetness, when it more accurately smells like it will on you. I rub a bit, personally. The dry of a scent is about 95% of how it's going to smell on me, and I'd rather get to it. (I also tend to flip the bottle over my wrist.)

Here it is. When I can't find something I usually choose one word from the name, search by "title of post" only and then have it search within reviews only. Gives you less the scroll through.

This smelled like Midway Lite on me, from start to finish. Yummy, though not bottle-worthy.

It's a very yummy chocolate note for me, although musks don't love me or I them, so I can't help there. But BPAL's cocoa and chocolate notes have always smelled lovely on me. My husband thinks that White Chocolate and Strawberries smells just like warm fondue and fresh strawberries.

Too floral. I barely smelled anything except the flowers in this, mixed with something that smelled a bit like decay. Not at all my thing.

An apple scent that likes me! This is such a fantastic autumn scent on me, and it smells precisely like it's described. The throw is very, very light, sadly, but I'm thinking of buying a bottle so that frequent re-application is less of an issue.

This one was too smoke-in-your-eyes with musk on me. I could smell the potential of greatness, but unfortunately it just didn't work on my skin. I may have to try this one out on my husband, though.

I tend to look for any scent via Cntl+F, but it might make more sense to find and replace some to match the new review set up. I'm just happy you still do this spreadsheet so faithfully!!

L'Autumno (the bath oil and the perfume, layered) is a great autumn scent for me.

For whatever reason, all I get from this is roses. I don't see rose in the description, but everyone else has mentioned rose as well - maybe something is rose that is called something else? It's a shame, because had I known there was rose I'd have left this bottle on the shelf. Rose & me are not good friends.

This was just awful for me from the first sniff. I was hopeful for it, but the decant leaked a little in transit and the smell immediately made me nauseous.

Sighanne, my fairy godmother, sent me a bottle of this after I helpfully told her, "I like foody! Oh, and if that fails, pretty label art." This is a warm scent, it smells like unsalted butter heating in the sun, sitting by an open window by an herb garden. It doesn't sound like anything I'd ever wear, but I keep. on. sniffing... I really think I like this. What a completely unusual, out of the ordinary scent!

This is… weird. That's a good word for it. Odd, too. I've not tried anything with star anise before, but I went into this not expecting too much, since I don't care for licorice. I wanted to give this a shot though, because it just sounded so unusual. In the vial this is lightly sweet and tangy, but on my skin this is like star anise and cherry blossom had a mad affair together and kicked sandalwood out of the house in order to get loud without embarassing anyone. Instead of the usual layering of scents, I swear this scent exists on a pendulum. One huff bring licorice, the next cherry blossoms. I can't quite decide how I feel about this, but damned if it isn't weird. *grin*

At first blush, this is a bright, but not overpowering citrus. I smell lemon - but not cleaning product lemon. Lemon rind mixed with orange juice, with an undertone of fresh greenery and a grounding of a very light, very mild spice. I'm praying this stays the same through the drydown, because right now this is fantastic. Unfortunately, after a fairly short amount of time, this turns into cheap men's cologne on me. This one could be good for a scent locket, though.

I did a google search to see if I could help and came up with this link here..?

This smells like a dry and powerful men's cologne on me. I can't pinpoint any notes in it, because something in this amps to high heaven and all I can smell is the mishmash.

This smelled like a very odd combination of cheap bubblegum and some sort of sweet floral. I got no lavendar from this at all, and actually had to wash it off post-haste.

In the bottle, this is complex and wine and dark undergrowth. On my skin? Soapy soap soap, with a side of soap!

This is nommilicious. This is such a sticky, sweet, nummy caramelized treat, with Macintosh apple warming up underneath the hot caramel. I can't stop inhaling at my skin. I can't type well with my nose at the back of my hand.

Oh, I so wanted to love this. Satsuma? Amber? It should have been a heavenly scent for me. In the bottle this is quite good. It is a fall scent, sort of a costume party scent with wind and spice and citrus. After a devastatingly short time on my skin, this just gets soapy on me. Maybe this will be a locket scent?

This starts off as a light incense with something glowing beneath it. I sat there and huffed at my arm in a state of bliss, pray for no change. Woe! After about 5 minutes the glowing, warm scent left and I was left with stale smoke - slightly cigarette-like.

Scents with pine and juniper and "dirt" scents don't often work on me. This was no exception, sadly. It's got a really interesting mix of notes. There's something almost minty in it, and it smells fresh without smelling too green. Sadly, it just isn't my thing.

I was gifted the bottle of this with a tiny bit of testable oil left in it. I hadn't really jumped on any of the Phoenix scents when they were out. This one was very dark, almost masculine on my skin. It never got down to individual notes, but it became a mish-mash of grundy scents on my skin that I wound up having to wash off quickly.

I got this unsniffed thanks to a very sweet forumite who went to the trunk show. I confess, I was hoping against hope for something similar to Hearth 2004, which I adored. (Hearth 2005 , not so much.) In the bottle this is balsam. On my skin it's definitely mostly balsam still, with some extra greenery underneath. I'm not smelling a lot of anything but being in the middle of a quiet airless fir copse, warmed by the sun. I'm crap at picking notes out generally, so don't expect too much here! After a while there's a sweet, faint note that peeks out from underneath the trees, but I can't quite pinpoint it. This may be better as a room scent than a wear scent for me, but it's very nice.

You know, I wish I hadn't been on hiatus from the thread when I got married, because you know I have NO idea which BPAL I wore? I was in such a daze..!