Little Bird

First on, Ahathoor smells like an edible carnation dessert. Perhaps like a carnation smothered in lemon meringue and a dollop of whipped cream, only not that sickeningly sweet or heavy. In the drydown the sweet vanilla and lemon candy smell lessens considerably and the blend takes on a drier herbal edge. I can definitely smell sage (a scent that I'm not fond of) and I think a bit of cedar wood. Very dry and dusty at the end. It's a medium strength blend with decent throw. I don't think that this is very 'me' though. I can't imagine wearing Ahathoor as a perfume.

Hades actually disappointed me. I was thinking it would smell dark and incensey, maybe a bit woodsy. It smells like light perfumey florals. I keep picturing white blooms laying listlessly on a gray tombstone in a cemetary of nothing. You know those cemetaries that are not... pretty or done up at all? The grass is barely even growing on the scorched earth. There are no smells. No trees. Just these damned white flowers sitting here, entirely out of place and you feel like they're mocking you. Umm... yeah. Something about Hades actually makes me feel angry. I keep picturing those white flowers on my father's tombstone and it makes me feel violent. I want to pick them up and tear them to shreds. I want to make them cease to exist. Very odd. The floral smell isn't bothering me like florals usually do, but this blend is making me so emotional.

Ra is a very lovely scent. It's not one that I'm fanatical over, but I definitely like and appreciate it. It starts off smelling like sweet green grass and bergamot. Very springy and relaxing. Then the green smell fades and it begins to smell of light lavender and amber. The amber goes softly powdery, but not in a bad way. Very light and pretty. It only lasts about an hour on my skin though.

Obviously, if you don't like florals you should stay away from this scent. If you don't like jasmine, you should stay away from this scent. I told myself that and it still didn't stop me from trying Eos. I never listen to common sense. I am fond of honeysuckle if it is very light. It's a strong, perfumey honeysuckle in Eos though. The overwhelming honeysuckle is also coupled with an overwhelmingly strong jasmine. This is headache inducing jasmine at its best (worst?). It's so strong and smoky that it actually started to make me feel dizzy. Another blend where the jasmine and florals just went way too strong on me and made me sick. I can't even explain how awful this is. It is FLORAL. The loud kind of floral that makes me prejudice against all florals. Boo on you, jasmine.

Succor was a rather light scent on me. It started off smelling like goldeny olive oil and then slowly takes on a smokier quality. It doesn't smell like woodsmoke though, more like the soft scented smoke of incense. And then after about fifteen minutes the entire blend turns into baby powder on my skin. It is VERY light though. I can barely smell anything at all, not that it was strong in the first place. This is a scent that really sinks into my skin and disappears.

My friend decanted an imp of The Star for me and told me that it is 'key lime pie in a bottle'. I love lime (the smell and taste of it), so I was pretty excited to try this. Then I read over the reviews here and realized that lots of people were comparing it to Spooky. Spooky didn't work on me, so I'm a bit worried. Mint usually doesn't work on me either... There was no need to worry. This isn't the key lime pie fragrance that others have described, but it isn't bad either. I'm not getting any lime at all, or even any coconut, but there is a sweet, creamy mintiness here, along with a sort of herbal tea smell. Peppermint patties, minus the chocolate, perhaps. Cool, minty, somehow foodie, and kind of herbal. I'm not crazy about this, but it isn't awful.

Lilith is one of the most bitter fruity scents that I have ever tried. First on all I can think of is sour thick dark grape juice. That kind of grape juice that is almost syrupy. Very sour. A boozy hint comes out after a few minutes, along with what smells like pepper. Normally I like the smell of pepper, but not mixed with boozy grape juice. This is a great example of red wine not working with my skin chemistry. After about a half hour the grape and pepper calms down a bit and is more playful. It reminds me more of jolly ranchers at this point. Then the rose starts coming out... soapy rose and grape jolly ranchers. Lilith just smells so weird on me. Weird in a bad way. The entire time that I was wearing it, I just keep thinking to myself that this fragrance should not exist. I'm going to make some of my friends try this to see if it's as bad on them as it is on me. I'm abusive like that.

Brings a rush of good luck, lifts the spirit, and helps alleviate depression. I liked Has No Hanna for the first five or ten minutes that it was on. It smelled like rich vanilla and golden spicy ylang ylang. Ylang ylang often goes a bit metallic on me, so that twang was in there as well. I liked it though. Then a hyper musky floral starts to come out (jasmine?) and this is STRONG. Not just a floral headache, a floral bleeding migraine. The vanilla and even the ylang ylang are gone. Brutally murdered. It's amazing to me how something could start out so lovely and turn into such pain (ha, this scent is like my first boyfriend).

First on this smells like a sharper and more burnt version of Brimstone. It was almost offensively strong and acrid. In the drydown this smells like a mixture between Dragon's Eye and Brimstone. Dragon's blood, water, the smell of cooled ashes, and an almost herby sweetness. It's... definitely not me. Interesting, but I don't want to smell like this.

Wow, this is a very musky citrus. It has a sort of sparkling quality. I keep thinking of that sparkling fruit flavored water that my mother always used to buy. I get more oakmoss in the drydown, but it is overall rather a fresh/citrus scent. It's light too, disappears after about a half hour on my skin. I was happy to snag a decant of this one, but I definitely (thankfully) don't feel the need to have a full bottle.

First on this is clove and something oddly herbal. It's reminding me of cooking spices. Then it is all clove for about ten minutes and I am finding it rather pleasant... until the jasmine starts to creep in. Anyone who has read any of my jasmine reviews will be sick of hearing me talk about how overpowering jasmine is and how it gives me a headache. Same boring rant applies here. People may also recall that I am not fond of dragon's blood. Wolf's Heart is jasmine and dragon's blood on me in the drydown. You can imagine the hell of having two of my least favorite scents conspiring against me. They are a formidable pair. This is strong and sickening sweet (floral-sweet, I hate that) on me. I practically scrubbed my arm bloody trying to wash it off.

The lavender here never stood a chance against the musk and florals. Not on my skin. First on, this is all powdery rose and light musk. Then the jasmine completely takes over and that's all I can smell for hours until this fades. I think that jasmine might actually be pretty if it were ever light on me, and I could actually smell other notes with it. It just never seems to work out that with my skin chemistry. It gets very strong and smoky. Overpowering jasmine.

I always hesitate in reviewing any single notes. I feel like the scents are pretty self explanatory and since they're not widely available anymore... I dunno. I guess that I generally just don't have a lot to say where single notes are concerned. I digress. I like the smell of true honeysuckle flowers, but honeysuckle perfume never manages to work out on me. It always smells too strong and perfumey to the point of giving me a headache. Floral perfumes are not my friends. That said, honeysuckle single note does start out that way on me. Perfumey and horribly strong/smoky, actually reminding me more of jasmine in the beginning. In the drydown this takes a lovely turn though. It truly smells like real honeysuckle flowers. It gets considerably lighter and in my mind I keep thinking that it smells like sunshine. Definitely a happy, bright floral. Sweet and playful. This is one of the few floral scents that doesn't give me a pounding headache. Very pretty, a floral that I could actually wear from time to time.

I wanted to try Queen Mab because it has black orchid in it (one of the few florals that I love)... sadly, I don't smell any black orchid in this. First on this is musky jasmine. My skin amps it up to overwhelming proportions. After a few minutes the rose starts to come out and go soapy. The overall result was nauseating to me. Jasmine is such a strong floral to me, paired with the musk it was a pure migraine.

In the bottle I thought that I would love this. It smelled like peppery patchouli, a combination that I adore. Actually, I adore anything with patchouli, but I digress. On me it smells like ash though. Like the charred wood and ash from a campfire that has recently been rained on. Cold and burnt. It starts to sweeten a bit (amber?) and then suddenly the sweetness turns sickening. It smells like feces and I'm having flashbacks of czernobog. The drydown on this is just so bad. I smell like a rained out campfire with a pile of poo next to it. I have to scrub this off before class or risk alarming my peers.

Snake Charmer is the only CN scent that I haven't tried thus far. I held off on buying a bottle because I don't like Snake Oil and that's what everyone compared it to. But I finally got a lovely decant from the even lovelier slugbait (who sends out some of the nicest swap packages that I've ever had the pleasure of receiving ). First on my skin... yep, this smells exactly like Snake Oil. A not quite so heavy version of Snake Oil. After a few minutes, snake oil and gummi bears? Something about this is making me feel sort of dizzy, like I'm about to get an awful nosebleed. It's almost like I accidentally breathed some pepper up my nose. And that's the cycle that it goes in for me: Snake Oil light to Snake Oil with gummi bears to Snake Oil with pepper. All in all I'm glad that I took everyone's advice and didn't get a bottle. I think that I'm in the minority with not liking Snake Oil or Snake Charmer though.

Starts off as an airy, cool, crystalline lavender and white musk type of fragrance. Dries down to a slightly smoky, heady jasmine that's vanilla-sweet, with a hint of that airy, cool, almost minty lavender in the background. Actually very pretty. Reminds me of a less sharp/sour LUSH's Flying Fox, with some lavender lightening the whole thing up.

The Queen of Hearts doesn't work with me at all. She is very hateful. First on this smells like cherry cough syrup and a sharp musky floral. In the drydown this smells like dish soap and baby powder. Lily and I are old enemies. Needless to say, this will be going to my swap pile.

First on, Baghdad is so sharp that it actually threw me into a sneezing fit. Sharp tickling rose with a hint of candied orange peel. It then quickly morphs into sharp tickling roses and STRONG baby powder. I think that this is the first perfume that has gotten this reaction out of me. Sneezing and watering eyes. It's like I'm allergic to Baghdad. Sad because I actually like the rose note here. It's just agitating me in odd ways. It's probably the amber that turns to baby powder on my skin, as it often does. I'll probably be swapping my imp. The combination of sneezing, watery eyes, and baby powder is more than I can handle.

First sniff. Smells spicy, slinky, and exotic. Something about this strikes me as smelling almond-ish, but I normally hate almond, and this is mouthwateringly good. Also perhaps a bit dragons blood-ish smelling, but I also normally hate dragon's blood. I should hate this, but I don't. 5 minutes after application. I am *so* glad that I gave this scent a try and some time to drydown a bit. It has an almost indulgent oily almond/dragon's blood scent in the background, but there is a lovely spice and honey scent coating it now. Half hour later. This just keeps getting better. Sacred Whore of Babylon has dried down into a mouthwatering honeyed vanilla with an unknown exotic spice mingling in it. I love this. It's definitely a 10 ml purchase. It has a lot of throw too. It's almost foodie, but not quite, and very spicy and sexy. I'm going to go through my imp of this one very quickly.

I haven't really liked any of the Funereal Oils, so my hopes weren't high for Danse Macabre. I think that it's my favorite blend in this category thus far though. It's very heady and dark on me, like peppery pine resin and black soil. It stays pretty true to that first impression for hours too. Dark spicy earth and resins. I can actually picture this as the scent of "flute-wielding skeleton leading a procession of dancers to their graves". Unfortunately, that scent is very not me. Danse Macabre has decent throw and lasted a good 6-7 hours. I'll probably end up swapping my imp though. It's just one of those perfumes that feel like they belong on someone else.

The Red Queen smells like black cherry kool-aid powder (tart, dry and artificial cherry) mixed with pencil shavings. It starts off heavy on the cherry and light on the pencil shavings, and dries down to tons of pencil shavings and a hint of cherry kool-aid powder. It's similar to the woods in Velvet, except this has cherry instead of chocolate. Desk full of pencil shavings...

I expected this to be a very dark, heavy, earthy blend thanks to the vetiver, woods, and 'burnt' sandalwood. I was surprised to find that this is actually very breezy. I don't get darkness or burnt notes from it at all. On me, Incantation smells exactly like being in a park on a cool summer's day. Very breezy. You're laying on a soft, clean cotton blanket in the cool green grass, underneath the shade of a huge leafy oak tree. The woodsiness is of that great tree, there is a slight twinge of greenery, and the overall smell is very clean and breezy. It has a very lazy feel to it. I am in love with this. It's a strong perfume with lots of throw too. 'Entrancing' is a perfect describing word for it. It makes me feel calm and happy, but also a bit seductive. Lovely I definitely want a big bottle of this one.

Edit to review the 2016 version of this. I'm not getting juniper berry or patchouli from this anymore. I do get a lovely, sweet myrrh and a dusty, sour, sharp oakmoss. The oakmoss takes over in the drydown, unfortunately. I also keep smelling something that reminds me of bpal's "dusty clove" note. A strangely spicy, dry, dusty/powdery moss with an edge of soapiness. Smells like an old fashioned aldehyde and chypre moss. Too powdery, too dry, too sour, too soapy... warm and stuffy, old smelling fragrance...

This smells like something that I hate. Dragon's blood? Only not as strong as dragon's blood usually is on me, more musky and cold. There is also a definite smell of dish soap here too. It's already giving me a headache and I've only had it on for about five minutes. After about 15 minutes I am starting to smell coconut... but it is a bad sort of fake-coconut. Coconut scented tanning lotion type of coconut. And it's all mixed in with that awful musky dish soap smell. I washed this off not too long after that observation. Blood Pearl is mostly soapy floral on me in the drydown, with strong hints of bitter musk. This is going straight into my swap pile.