AnArtfuldodger

I get a really rich dark bittersweet chocolate with a hint of espresso, and not much gingerbread. It is DIVINE and I want so much more than this wee imp! AHHH! Luckily a tiny bit goes a long way and the stay and throw are both quite good. Very rich scent.

2010:

Egg Nog was, once, one of my FAVORITE blends. However, I think my skin chemistry is changing as I age! On me, this is dairy dairy dairy heavy heavy cream and just a bare hint of rum. It's very heavy and almost cloying on me.

It's yummy, definitely, but it's almost TOO close to perfect in terms of matching the scent of real egg nog! I ended up rehoming my bottle, but I want to reiterate that it really does smell yummy...just....TOO yummy!

Herr Drosselmeyer (2010), where have you BEEN all my life?!?!?!?!?

I was really not expecting this to work on me. I like pipe smoke, but I don't like smelling like an actual...puff of smoke. I'm not a huge fan of leather. I love linen. I was so iffy, I just got a half imp's worth of a decant!

I WAS SO WRONG. This is lovely. Gorgeous. I am in awe.

So okay:

Wet in imp: wet wood (heh heh), a musky sort of scent of slightly damp leather, a sweet tang somewhere in there

Wet on wrist: the wood really comes out to play, but this isn't a cedar-chest sort of wood scent, this is really a calm wood scent. Calm and old. The leather is so well behaved, I barely believe it's leather in there at all! The pipe smoke is so gentlemanly and polite, it doesn't overpower the other scents, it just sits there quietly in its big metaphorical arm chair.

On the drydown: same as wet above. It's a very...adult scent. It's not sweet as in "sweets" but sweet as in "ah, this has been aged well" -- does that make sense?

I am in love.

If you like this, you might also like: Shadwell

PS, I'm not getting any lemon in this at all.

Wet, this was leathery snake oil.

On the drydown, this is snake oil.

I think musk-y scents ALL turn to that snake oil scent on me. Silly skin chemistry!

I can't really place this scent -- it's good, very rich and.....thick (in scent, not the oil consistency itself). Like porridge. It almost smells to me like a thick, almost-chewy raisin bread. Yeasty. I like it, though I'm glad I got just a half-bottle from a decant circle since I don't think I'd wear this a ton. Nice though, very unique. To me, it's not really FOODIE, it just happens to resemble a foodish scent. I don't really get clove from this, but something a bit heavier and nuttier.

I hoarded and hoarded and HOARDED my 2007 bottle, let me tell you Internets, and in 2008, I mourned for a lack of GP, and 2009 I mourned for a lack of new BP, and 2010 THERE WAS MUCH REJOICING.

2010:

Warm, cozy gingerbread spiced with nutmeg, clove and cinnamon.

In the bottle: clove and cinnamon and nutmeg, right on the money

Wet on wrist (and hair, and neck, and arm...): Same, quite heavy on the nutmeg and cinnamon, definitely quite spicy!

On the drydown: Same, spicy and warm and delicious and I just want to cuddle up with this all the cold long winter.

In the bottle: sweet sweetness

Wet on wrist: For a moment, it went plastic, and my heart dropped, because in the bottle it was divine, but I held onto hope and didn't wash it off, and...

On the drydown: the plastic scent is gone and in its place is the scent of a cheesecake crust, and fruity strawberry-peach-ness! My husband described it as "fruit smash".

How do I explain the joy this scent invokes? I got pulled over today on my way to work (expired tag, DMV error since I totally paid that sucker dammit!) and I am right now just GLEEFUL because I SMELL DELICIOUS. (Alas, the scent was not enough to win over the officer, but ya can't win 'em all.)

Cookies and a bit of cinnamon. It definitely smells warm and tasty (YUM), though it doesn't last super-long on my skin. Seems like somebody got bugs from eating cookies in bed!

In the bottle: root beer! This is sassafras all the way.

Wet on wrist: Still pretty true to the root beer scent, although it's quiet soft, not an in-your-face sort of scent, and I get a little hint of something else below the surface. Can't define anything other than root beer though.

That's pretty much how it stays on me. low-medium throw, lasts pretty long

Wet on wrist: Teatime in Roswell, but....pinker.

On the drydown: This very quickly dries down on me to a faintly strawberry tea scent, but slowly......it changes and it also sort of smells like a dentist's office where they have those flavored toothpastes, and one of them is bubblegum and one's strawberry and the room sort of smells like a mix of those + the dentisty things. It's sort of like plastic strawberries on me after about an hour. I *am* on my Time O' The Month right now, so it may be that my skin chemistry will change next week, but for now...love the idea and I'm a huge fan of Teatime in Roswell, but something in this isn't playing nicely with me. On the bright side, I was scared of those imaginary flowers, but they do seem to be just that: so faint or perhaps entirely not there!

In decant: PUMPKIN SPICE AND COFFEE IT'S SWEET OH MY!

Wet on wrist: oooooohhhhhhh my gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood. A nutty, sweet spiced scent mingled with coffee, but not sharp coffee, no no, this is a warm hold-a-mug-between-both-hands-while-curled-on-the-couch coffee, it's warm and comforting, and the nuts and spice scents mingle so perfectly. I am in awe.

On the drydown: Stays true to the above

Also, a tiny little bit lasted ALL DAY on me. I dabbed a smidge on my wrist in the morning, went and went shopping and driving around all day, and after dinner and a brisk walk, I sniffed my wrist at the end of the day and it was still there. And it's such a comforting scent that this could really work for me all through the fall and all through the winter, it's not like PUMPKIN PUMPKIN PUMPKIN, but rather warm comforting coffee and spices and small hint of pumpkin, which is perfect. I had my husband sniff my wrist without me telling him what the scent was, and his guess was "Pie?" (he's a self-proclaimed failure at note recognition and he said what made him think pie was the spices....it's definitely not coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee -- much lighter on the coffee than Misk.U.)

I don't normally do multiple bottles anymore (aside from Dorian) because a lot of time aging tend to change the way they smell on me so I gave myself and my wallet a stern talking-to about hoarding unnecessarily, but this may be an exception. I think I will order 2.

In the decant: SUGAR RUSH

Wet on wrist: sugary cereal, specifically the Addams Family cereal I used to eat as a kid (appropriate for a Halloweenie, I s'pose!).

On the drydown: Yup, still sweet Addams Family cereal.

Ahh, I see other reviewers saying crunchberries. Yep, I get that crunchberry sensation too.

In the decant: HONEY!

On my wrist: Honey, which then softens to floral -- gardenia? Gardenia and honey, very soft and feminine.

Drydown: This didn't really work for me -- a lot of florals tend to smell the same to me, so it's sort of just standard floral with a hint of honey....if you like honey and florals, I say go for it! I was hoping it'd be a little more herbal and sweet than floral and sweet, but hey, at least now I know! I'll try to rehome the wee decant fellow. (I'm really bad at picking out florals so my gardenia reference could be totally, totally just me!)

In the bottle: Soft coconut

Wet on wrist: A soft, cool coconut -- pretty simple

On the drydown: This softens down so I can get a feel for the other notes along with the coconut -- it's quite soft, but pleasant -- low medium throw.

3:45 pm: This stuff is still going strong!

2010

In the bottle: HELLLOOOOOOOOO incense!

Wet on wrist: Incense incense in-cense incense incense in-cense *hums*

On the drydown: My skin just amps the incense, so any of the currant cake notes get quite lost. It's pretty, but a little overpowering for me personally.

In the imp: vaguely fizzy

Wet on wrist: I get an ever-so-slightly fizzy sensation of a scent, and a hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiint of orange. This is super, super light; no throw so far

On the drydown: Alas, it's just so light, I can't really get a good feel for the scent. I was hoping my skin would love this, but it seems like it's not meant to be.

In the imp: APPLE!

Wet on wrist: Apple apple apple! Love it! It's not a tart apple, it's sort of like an aged apple that's been sitting in the tree a long time, until it's mushy and warm. Yet it doesn't seem like a fall blend the way Lamb's Wool does, it's a warm apple, but it's still light!

On the drydown: It stays pretty true to just being a warm-yet-summery apple on me. It's sort of a slightly darker apple (maybe that's the "ash" thing going on there). Pretty good staying power, medium-low throw.

For those who want a good straight-up GC apple scent, this is it! It's much warmer than SGA, cooler than Lambs Wool though.

Edit: reading other reviews, it may be that my skin chemistry amps the apple and nothing else, since like I said....I get apple, and that's almost entirely it, whereas it seems other folks have sensed other scents entirely here! Me, I just get apple!

In the bottle: HONEY HONEY HONEY TOMATO PLANT HONEY

Wet on wrist: Very heavy on the vegetable garden tomato vine smell, and the honey seeps in at the edges. Very similar to Planting Moon, minus the dirt

On the drydown: Alas, it fades very quickly on me, and after about 10 minutes, my wrist smells faintly of honey.

460:

In the bottle: Aquatic!

Wet on wrist: Reminds me of a candle store on the beach

On the drydown: Clean laundry with a hint of sweet-saltiness, almost like saltwater taffy, but in a clean clean fresh way

400:

In the bottle: Reminds me of Closet

Wet on wrist: Slightly less cloying than Closet, more real-fruit-ish...meringue! Meringue! ... Is this a lemon-raspberry-ish meringue?

On the drydown: This is a real morpher on me. The real fruit meringue is fading away fast and is being replaced by plastic.

471:

In the bottle: SUPER FOODIE

Wet on wrist: Buttercream? Frosting?

On the drydown: Plastic. I am striking out here!

424:

In the bottle: Cleaning chemicals (I said a straight-up "Yikes!" to myself in my otherwise empty apartment...)

Wet on wrist: Floral....wait no, it's morphing to.......................CHOCOLATE?? That's a super-weird morph!

On the drydown: The flowers and chocolate morph yet again to......cedar-tobacco-chocolate. It's sort of a cross between Velvet Bandito and Wulric. Comforting like Wulric, but a little dusty and tobacco-y like Bandito. Allllllrighty then! (LOL, the one I thought would work the least well on me turned out to be the best of the 4!)

In the bottle: BERRIES!!!

Wet on wrist: Creamy juicy dark berries. Boysenberry-esque.

On the drydown: Nicely sweet and foodie. Low throw, and doesn't late very long on me, though.

In the bottle: super foodie. Very very buttery cake, sort of like Eat Me but a little less of the sugar-zing.

Wet on wrist: A medium-heavy foodie cake, less sugary, more bread, but definitely *sweet* bread.

On the drydown: Ahh, there's the hint of cucumber. It sort of wafts between buttery-sweet biscuits and aloe. I like it. It's not too heavy, so it's a good springtime foodie scent that's ever so cool. I'm wondering if the sweetness of the biscuits that I'm detecting is the tea seeping in.

Anyway, as a foodie, I like it!

In the bottle: That is some FIERCE musk

Wet on wrist: This is really more like "sticky on wrist" because this bottle I got is a sticky blend, so sticky that when applied with a toothpick to my wrist, it smeared and I still can't get some of the dirt-like streaks to go away completely! But anyway (I'm not complaining here, I've just never had that happen before), wet/sticky on wrist, the black musk makes itself very well known. This is no fragile dainty perfume here, this is HOLY TITS perfume. Musk musk musk tobacco musk. Very heady. It wants to be smelled.

On the drydown: I'm a little scared of this perfume at this point. But, it's ever so slowly settling down. Well, sort of. The tobacco and cacao are mingling with the musk which is begrudgingly letting them come out to play, and slowly the tobacco fades, and seems more incense than tobacco. But the musk is definitely still the mistress of ceremonies here.

I'm going to leave this on for the evening and see how things progress from here. I'm definitely keeping it for aging purposes, because I think this will age beautifully. I don't think at this point I'm thinking multiple bottles, but this is very interesting.

(For personal chemistry reference, I'm a general foodie, and the only musk scent that's ever really worked on me has been Dorian which is my ME scent, but chocolate/cacao/tobacco scents are a go for me mostly, so this is a strange blend of maybe/yes/no scents.)

Edited to add conversation from last night:

[Grew up Catholic] Fiance: You smell like church

Me: *LOL*

Fiance: What?

Me: Your church smelled like the black temple burlesque troop?

Fiance: *LOL*

Me: Well, temple....church.....okay

FIrst I got a burst of sugary fruits, sort of like a bowl of glazed fruit.

Next came a burst of lime.

After that, it got thicker in that a caramel undertone appeared, anchoring the fruit.

Then it was back to sweet and almost floral.

It's a real morpher. Medium throw and staying power.

On me, this is a very light aquatic floral soap. Very clean and fresh, and a little is all you need. Very sweet and pretty and sort of reminds me of Dove soap.

In the bottle: fizzy tangerine cream with a spike of floral

Wet on wrist: It smells fizzy, and slightly orange, and the ambergris is doing herbal woodsy patchoulie things on me (?). Huh.

On the drydown: This is a morpher. The weird woodsy patchoulie thing has simmered down (I'm not sure what that was all about, but whatevs), KI'm not getting the spike of floral, and...is that bubblegum? And slowly it's becoming that nice orange cream that people are raving about. It's very faint on my skin though and has a very low throw. But, when I sniff my wrist, yum!

After about two hours, the floral/herbal/woodsy is once again mingling with the orange-y scent...not sure this will work on me now. :-/ This is definitely a morpher!