khazakant

Try Amsterdam - it smells like wet, fresh flowers.

This is a really interesting scent and hard to pin down. It's almost floral, but it's resinous. It's almost feminine, but it's androgynous. It's almost clean, but it's earthy and herbal. The lab's hemlock note is strong (I always really liked that note, it reminds me a bit of burying my nose into the pet rat I had as a teenager, a furry little smell). I bought this mostly for the concept, but I'm very happy I have a bottle, it's a winner.

I'm dying for a replacement for Hemlock Honey. (The Wild Honeysuckle is almost close, but it's not anywhere near as intense or boozy and I miss that summer-heat kind of feel.) Suggestions?

The honeysuckle that grows wild (or feral?) in my area is thick and boozy and intense and smells almost exactly like the much-missed (by me, anyway) Hemlock Honey (quite often I had someone tell me I smelled like honeysuckle when I wore it). I've been hoping for a honeysuckle soliflore since the Apiary got discontinued. This is pretty close, to the extent that it smells like a weak, watery version of the real thing. Might resemble some other species of honeysuckle more closely, but compared to what I'm used to, it doesn't have the sweetness or the heat. It's a well-done scent, but for me, a little disappointing.

I'll give it a try. In no particular order: Aphrogene Vechernyaya Dorian Hemlock Honey Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills (Also sort of want to give honorary mention to Possets Tidal Wave, since I wear that so constantly.)

I like Hymn to Pan for such business. Very crisp, clear-thinking, almost severe. For some reason it reminds me of the color ice blue.

Try Aphrogenes, if you can find a bottle. (It's a Luper from the Ode to Aprodite collection. I think it means 'foam born.') Orris root, iris, white honey, white sandalwood, coconut, and cherry blossom. It doesn't smell exactly like the ocean - at best it's quite a bit like sunscreen and there's something a bit salty about it in the background - but it smells like how the scent of the ocean feels, if that makes any sense. It's uncanny.

For Molly Weasley, maybe Calaveras - I remember that being a buttery, bright, foody scent, but also a little preternatural and with a hint of pepper and smoke. Good for a kitchen-witch. I was thinking about Artemiy Burakh earlier (from the game Pathologic) since the game was so kind as to have a character comment on what he smells like (burning leaves and autumn earth, it stuck in my mind). Now I'm curious about his counterpart, Daniel Dankovsky. Hard to describe Dankovsky since he's so complicated, and the game is so complicated, but - he's an elegant, youthful, beautiful medical researcher from the capital (the game kinda sorta takes place in an alternate reality version of pre-revolutionary Russia, but also kinda sorta doesn't, basically, he's urbane and a little Westernized) who founded an experimental thanatological laboratory researching a way to end death. VERY intense (to an extent that's slightly terrifying). He thinks of himself as clever, cold, logical, and a man of principle, and he's wrong on every count. He's overly emotional, easily hurt, and easily led by anger and viciousness, but also easily led by dreams and love. (He's a little childlike, in a way.) Not saying he's not tough as nails and a dangerous man, because he is by necessity - the game takes place in a plague-ravaged settlement on the steppe - and I always got the feeling that by Day 11 he gets a cold, sick pleasure out of killing, but all the same, beneath the self-righteous cutthroat amorality he's a dreamer who's in a lot of pain.

I was playing a game recently and one of the characters is mentioned to smell like autumn earth and the smoke that comes from burning leaves. It stuck in my mind a little and now I would like a fragrance that's something like this. I guess it would be smoke, earth, and leaves all at once. Is there a single scent like this, or evocative of this, or maybe suggestions for layering? Thanks for the help.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions so far. Is there anything in the GC I should try, or wait and see what's there when the Halloweenies go up?

All of BPAL's roses hate me. AAAALL of them. Rose otto, rose attar, white rose ... If they even get near me they instantly turn whatever fragrance they're in into a combination citronella candle/Philly cheesesteak. It breaks my little heart because I love roses, I grow them. I haven't found a solution myself other than just wearing rose fragrances from other companies (small consolation) so I'm just posting to give solidarity.

It is a lot like Fledgling Raptor Moon, which I didn't like much because a lot of BPAL's scents tend to be a little too dry and musty on me. This one is a little strange to describe, it's like a dry scent that doesn't turn into dust on me, but stays sweet and ... I'm not sure what the word I want to use here is. Not "juicy" or "wet" or anything exactly, more like it maintains depth. It has very little throw on me and there's something kind of vague and haunting about it. It stays on my skin, but it has this quality, as if it's somehow not entirely there and I keep suddenly thinking for some reason that it's disappeared. As someone of NDN ancestry I find it very moving ... the St. Lawrence Iroquoians were completely wiped out by the 17th century and their languages are extinct.

I kinda fell for a straight guy (I maintain that he is seriously in the closet because he has more pairs of shoes than anyone I've met in my entire life). Don't really want to recall the whole embarrassing story but to sum it up, it Did Not End Well. I'm marinating in Hemlock Honey right now (which is my go-to blend for just about everything) and I feel much better. It's heady and warm and sexy. It's hard to feel like a sad sack wearing a thing like this.

This scent is so somber, as quiet and heady as a forest but also clean and forthright and innocent. I keep thinking of the phrase "the cusp of womanhood" and the portrait of the folklore character by Ivan Bilibin...if I could just point to the painting and say "It smells like that" I would be happier. *laughs* I'm male and although I gave up a long time ago on only masculine and unisex scents (the idea that something smells "manlier" than anything else is really pretty stupid if you think about it) my natural inclination is usually towards more traditionally manly blends. But Vasilissa is still always in my top ten. There's something extremely compelling about this - the pink musk is just hypnotic, and the sandalwood and myrrh give it an understated but solid base, somewhere between woody and resinous, but not as overbearing as you think when you hear that - almost "pragmatic." It blends perfectly with the sweeter star jasmine and musk although I initially amp the myrrh and sandalwood before drydown. I would definitely recommend it to a guy. This'll be one of the few imps to make it to a 5ml (unfortunately I'm not made of money!) when I get around to placing my next order.

It wouldn't be the strangest thing that's ever happened (some people's chemistry just goes wild with some notes) but Hollywood Babylon smells like a sweet red lollipop to me, very far removed from autumn leaves. Maybe it's something with a similar name, like House of Night?

I was frimped this scent and I love it so, so much. I'm tearing through the imp at breakneck speed, I can't get enough of it. At first application there's the hemlock - it is kind of a strange, dry-light-musky-herbal scent, not entirely appealing...but then the honey comes out and mixes with it, and it's a beautiful honey, thick, heavy, sexy, amazing. And the musky scent blends into it perfectly, it becomes kind of a light skin musk helping the honey scent mesh with your natural, animalistic body odor. But in kind of a light, airy way - this is really an unusual blend. I love this to death. This'll be a bottle as soon as finances afford. (Also, I've been experimenting with layering it with Dorian. It's incredible.)

I'm a little disappointed that they didn't have a Montreal scent in the Wanderlust collection ... I've never been, but my partner lives there right now so I'm always wondering about it. I might get to visit him soon - what kind of scent would go well with/reminds you of the city?

There aren't too many scents in the general collection with carnation ... you can always pick up a sample pack of six of them. I'd go for Bathsheba, Morocco, and Horreur Sympathique at least. Several scents from the Mad Tea Party collection also have carnation. I think Queen Alice and The Caterpillar might be worth a look.

Oh yikes, this smells exactly like a vodka gimlet on me. Unfortunately I'm on the wagon so this is going to have to come off, haha.

It's not Tombeur, although Tombeur is a very good scent in its own way. The last time I had on Opium was years ago - might have been Opium pour Homme, too - but I remember liking it because it smelled exactly like Russian Orthodox church incense. I'd try Midnight Mass (it's in the LEs), which I like for the exact same reason.

Anyone have any recommendations for Quicksilver Phoenix, Halloween in San Francisco, and Infernal Lover? Fortunately Quicksilver Phoenix at least can be found on eBay and the swaps section a lot, but I really like these scents and am totally abusing my collection. To contribute, Hellhound on my Trail smelled a lot like Q5 over at TAL to me during drydown, at least according to my skin chemistry . Q5 is a lot more pungent and herbal... (at least initially) it's something like Hellhound rubbed into dry grass. After drydown though, I can barely tell the difference. I put a dab on each wrist just to check and see if I was remembering right and they are pretty much identical.

I can smell the sandalwood, the incense, the rose, but oddly enough, the net effect here seems to be ... violet. This really smells a lot like a less in-your-face Ultraviolet. It's sort of violet with a hint of dry, clean, almost aquatic florals in the background somewhere. I think a lot of that effect might be my skin trying to turn the lab's rose note into that musty citronella scent, AGAIN...especially because after drydown it just turns into rose puke on me. Sad. Was a very pretty unisex scent.

It's very fruity and golden...golden to the point of being orange. It's like pretentious orange juice that wants to grow up to be church incense. Yecch.

God, this is a strange one. What is in here? Patchouli, bergamot, grapefruit, blood? I'm getting a very strong aquatic feeling from it, a darker aquatic, and if I had to describe it would be Dorian watching on the shore as The Sea Foams Blood. This is an overcast beach in autumn. Melancholy, beautiful.

(This is the 2010 edition.) My first whiff I thought: sweet leather. Although I don't think it actually contains the lab's leather note, which hates me personally and wants me to die; after a split-second I realized that it brought up just the image of an old brown leather jacket or a suede jacket, with the elbows rubbed shiny. Strong, folksy, unisex but almost paternal, with a very subtle silver line. (My father wore a jacket like that.) It's a warm scent somewhere between earthy and spicy with a very distant hint of autumn fruit and a generous coating of dry leaves across it. The absolute perfect autumn scent, and it's a perfect autumn scent in a way that doesn't make me smell like a Yankee Candle, either. I'm in love. My one issue with it is that my skin throws the leafy note (I'm assuming the mullein) and although it's very well-behaved in this blend I amp patchouli. Whereas the other notes tend to stay close to my skin. I'm leaning back and typing and I can smell just the mullein and patchouli on the other end of my arm. On their own like that I smell a bit like I have a two-pack a day habit. >_< But I did put on a bit much, the notes stayed very close to my skin at first so I dabbed on a bit more. A minor flaw. I'll run it by my kid brother (my official go-to for when I'm not sure if my scent is being as good to the folks around me as it is to me) and see if he thinks I smell foul. UPDATE: The mullein and patchouli revolt was merely temporary and consequentially I have passed the Aleksander test. Also, There's something really comforting about it, and it reminds me of the Halloween season back around when I was a kid and was closer to my parents ... Is it just me, or has everyone been getting very different impressions of how it smells based on what they like or remember best about the season?