ephemera

I placed my Strawberry Moon order on 5/11 and rec'd the CnS yesterday that it was actually shipping yesterday. They must be working through 5/11 then, because no CnS for me and I ordered the same day.

Wow. Just... wow. I have long looked at this scent and though, I need to try that. It's going to be awesome and then got imps of it and somehow never tried it. I pulled it out of my imp box this morning on a whim and finally tried it. Fresh the bergamot and neroli are very up-front, but not overpowering. The musk is subtle, the sandalwood is barely there. The amber is warming the bergamot up, keeping it from being a harsh, green scent. After a while the amber and musk and sandalwood rise to the top and the neroli and bergamot fades underneath, but they're still there. This is a lovely, warm scent that's fresh without being green. It's definitely a unisex scent, but I am wearing this one and feeling good. I feel confident and powerful but not masculine. I'm definitely a fan. I might need a bottle of this!!

... Deep cocoa laced with patchouli, leather armor, ritual incense, and a touch of Xochiquetzal’s flowers. At first application this is a heady cocoa mixture with a strange undernote to it. As it starts to dry the patchouli rockets to the top of the heap, climbing over the cocoa note and just flat-out burying any leather armor, ritual incense or anything else that got in the way. A bit later on, I can smell what I think is the incense and the flowers, but they're starting to be overshadowed by my dreaded nemesis: Leather.

Usually leather amps on my skin like whoa, and I generally don't like anything with rose in it. So I approached Whip with hesitation. Turns out that it's pretty much just straight, undiluted tea rose on my skin. The leather can't even make it through. Not my scent at all.

I joined a decant circle for a lot of the Gaiman scents for many of the same reasons - several scents they had simply don't sound appealing. I was surprised that Tristran was fairly good on me (and you mentioned being concerned about dust, but I didn't get dust from this really) and discovered that Crowley isn't fond of me, really, but is very, VERY enamored of my husband. You may be able to find a decant circle going if you wanted to try a couple without committing to a bottle, or get the imp pack Twitch mentioned. Edited to add link to LJ decant circle: http://community.livejournal.com/bpalmarke...ce/2661531.html This is NOT my decant circle and I can't vouch for the seller one way or another, but it's a thought!

I'd give it another few days before you start being concerned. Sometimes the CnS system isn't working well (I got one the other day - two days AFTER I got the package from a swap!). If you don't hear anything Fridayish, maybe then send a quick inquiry?

This is a morpher on me at first. It rapidly switches from licorice to vanilla to licorice-vanilla-vetiver and to… men's cologne? Yep. Even after about an hour this smells just like cheap men's cologne on me. All the Velvet scents I thought would work aren't, how odd.

Oh my god, the sweet, it slays me. This is like being wrapped up in a giant pouf of cotton candy with a side of fruity sugar water. This is 14 years old in a vial. I'm oddly drawn to it, though I'm a little leery of wearing it out in public for fear of being mistaken for a theater concession stand. I keep sniffing at my hand though, and I'm finding myself wondering if buying a bottle for the artwork and for nights alone playing with My Little Pony is a bad thing...

Oddly enough, on me this smells exactly like Aroma Sanctum's Pirate blend, which is described as having nutmeg, allspice, precious woods and leather. Sadly, Pirate doesn't really work on me - after a while I find myself vaguely headachey. After a while the scent is essentially unchanged, except now I can discern that the cedar is out and is apparently riding the smoke. It's a dry, harsh blend. Not for me.

I somehow doubt that I would have photos of any bottles you don't, TwilightEyes! *lol*

I usually save her new spreadsheet under a different name, copy the new data and paste it into my own spreadsheet. That way I keep all of my notes but get the new content as well.

This may actually be my summer scent. I tried this one a whim because tea and green scents don't usually work, but I thought the honey musk might mellow it. It absolutely does. This smells like a hot summer evening, with the slight breeze that moves heavy air, sluggish with the scent of a thousand flowers in the dark. The vanilla and the honey musk keep this from turning sharp on my skin, and the blackberry leaf, green tea leaf and fae spices help to keep this summery. This may be a bottle scent!

This smells - on my skin - like cheap, generic drug-store perfume. How very, very odd.

I so wanted to love this! I need a new sleepy-time scent and I thought this might be it as I love both lavendar and bergamot. Admittedly, lavendar on me isn't as impressive… This just - poof. Faded. I applied it and it was gone moments later. Same thing happened again. I guess it's just not strong enough. Ah well.

Now this is a weird blend. In the bottle I don't think I like it. It's too - dirty. Maybe the "grey" cake the description mentions. (Interesting note, my Sida-cat smelled the bottle and immediately after sat down to wash herself frantically - maybe it smelled dirty on her, too? ) After a little while on my skin the dirty greyness fades away and now I can smell the pink cake, the strawberries! I can't exactly smell the grapefuit but I can smell a lightness to the strawberry that I don't usually get, so I think that's it. Dry it smells like bright strawberries, a splash of the almost-but-not-quite-grapefruit and cream. I'm very glad I got a bottle of this!

This is for the Beaver'versary edition. In the imp and on my skin at first this is very sweet. I can smell cupcakes and frosting. No cheesecake. During the drydown I get some cheesecake going, along with a slightly sour note that's almost - spicy? WTH? This is a really interesting blend, and it smells relatively good, but I don't know if this is a "me" blend. I think I'd like it better if it hadn't gotten that slightly sour tang to it. I'm glad I got to try it, though!

I was gifted with a sniffie of this, and I can't make up my mind on it. One of the one hand is smells almost exactly like Yankee Candle's Vanilla Sandalwood candle line, which I like quite a bit. On the other hand this blend - and possibly because it was a prototype so all the bugs haven't been worked out - this smells a little too department-store-perfume to m, at least for the greater portion of the drydown. Once this gets through the drydown and is actually dry on my skin, the common perfume portion seems to vanish and this gets much more creamy and sexy and not as in-your-face. I like it, I think I'll keep an eye out for it, but this doesn't have to be my End All, Be All scent. (Phew!)

Hawthorn, fig, myrrh, carnation, toasted almond, red and green apple, patchouli, wood smoke, and Indian musk. I got a decant of this scent and I'm in luuurve. In the bottle and fresh on my skin the green apple comes rioting out, riding on the back of the spices and creating such a yummy, autumn-evening smell that I'm almost okay with the fact that spring is still. not. here. Later on, during the drydown, my skin wipes the apple out for the most part and the spices are much more prevalent. I love both incarnations of this scent, and would love to get more of it so I could wear some in the scent locket for apple goodness and some on my skin for the warm spice.

This starts out as a very bright, fizzy orange - I almost expect to see bubbles on my skin from the fizz of it! It's a very fun scent for a while, though it dries to a sweeter orange than I think I'd care for. Might be a good locket scent though.

I was curious about this one, and since it came to me as a frimp let's give it a go! Who wouldn't want to smell like a frumious bandersnatch? Turns out, me. This isn't unpleasant exactly - I love the idea of it (what exactly is bandersnatch musk?) and the execution was great. I was hopeful because musk and carnations and crysanthemum are all good blends, but that plum is kind of taking this from a "me" scent and turning it into a "someone else" scent. It's a shame too, because I would love to buy a bottle of this just to have!

This was a complete surprise to me. For some reason I had always thought of Vice as a masculine scent, and didn't read the scent description carefully enough. I rec'd this as a frimp from the lab, and gave it a shot tonight. The scents in this are so melded together that I would never be able to pick out the different notes. This smells like a sweet, succulent dessert of some kind. It's not sicky sweet on my skin, but the cherry and orange mixed with the chocolate is just divine. I keep huffing my wrist!

I really, really should have known better. Dragon's Blood hates me in everything except Dragon's Milk, and for some reason when I got this as a frimp I thought, "Why not?" and dabbed it on. Then spent the next 5 minutes scrubbing it off. Whoops.

I'm always leery of "green" scents, but this one seemed to have fir which doesn't always hate me on impact. The fir is deep and resinous in this, and oddly comforting for a scent about the nighttime hag. It's rather nice, but I don't think it's a "me" scent exactly. I'll keep the imp, though.

This scent stays apple-y and sweet with a hint of musk for a while, but after about an hour it gets to smelling like an overripe, soft apple with bad spots. Not one for me.