Invidiana

Hmmm....Black Pearl layered with a bit of....Bliss? Velvet? Might yield something in that neighborhood. Of course you are sorely tempting me to buy that tea now. ETA: Goblin might be a good one to try experimenting with too.

LE/DISC/RARE Whatever I can get (have tried or own some and know I love them) Egyptian Amber SN** Lughnasadh*** The Candy Butcher Proto The Confectionary proto Unseelie** Sniffies only Dark Chocolate Pumpkin King*** Nocturnus Venom SNs I haven't tried yet (have tried or own: Ambergris, Egyptian Amber, Florentine Iris, Frankincence, Sweet Pea, White Musk) TRADING POST Jonathan's Coffee House Atmo The Witch's Candy and Gingerbread Cottage Atmo*** Sojourn Down the Midway Atmo** GC (imps or bottles, I'll take it all!) Aeval Akuma Alice Anne Bonny Belle Epoque Black Annis Blood Blood Countess Bon Vivant Dana O'Shee Deadly Nightshade Honey Depraved Dirty Dragon's Milk Drink Me Eclipse Eden Evil Glasgow Goblin Gomorrah Grand Guignol Grog Half-Elf Halfling Hecate Hellcat Hell's Belle Hollywood Babylon How Doth the Little Crocodile Intrigue Jailbait Kabuki Kill-Devil La Petite Mort Lawful Neutral Paladin Pele Persephone Port-Au-Prince Queen Alice Redoul Honey Sed Non Satiata Skuld Sudha Segara The Bow & Crown of Conquest The Red Queen The Witch's Repast Uruk Whip Unimpables (prefer bottles but will take imps too) Arachne of Lydia Bette Noir Captain Cully Dawn: Maiden Dawn: Mother Grendel: Avenger Grendel: Mastermind Hunter Kaidan Lady Amalthea Molly Grue Mommy Fortuna Night's Bridge The Butterfly The East The Lilac Wood The Magdalena The Midnight Carnival The Ninth Cage Victoria Witchblade

BLUE MOON 2009: ELIZABETH'S CREATION The spirit of the full moon is capricious, intense and passionate, yet still distant, aloof and cold. Luna herself governs glamours, bewitchments and dream-work, innocent wonder, transient pleasure and delight, the Moment, impulse, mystery and veils. The Blue Moon is one of her rarest manifestations, and this scent is formulated to encapsulate her most complex and profound nature: Mugwort, for psychic sensitivity... Calea Zacatechichi, for divination through dreams... Orchid and frankincense, for complexity, wisdom and noscere... ... with a potent lunar-charged, oneirongenic blend of blue musk, exquisite woods, moonflower, Madagascan ylang ylang, Florentine iris, Greek cypress, green tea absolute, palmarosa, cucumber, Clary sage, lavender, lemon balm, and passion fruit. This year, we have two interpretations of Blue Moon: one created by Brian Constantine, the other by Elizabeth Barrial. This is Elizabeth's moon. First time I'm the first. I love blue musk, and this is a soft yet mysterious blue musk blend that doesn't disappoint! Not masculine at all. The musk just wraps it in a gauzy haze and the woods (I'm guessing some kind of sandalwood has to be in there) warm it up. Delicate moonflower weaves in and out with the other florals. I get a hint of the cypress, very appropriately wintry since it's an evergreen. I was a little afraid of the lavender and lemon balm togther but they are extremely subtle. I'm not getting any cucumber at all *sigh of relief* but I don't tend to amp it anyhow. The passion fruit comes out just a little at the end for a pleasant sweet surprise. Complex and enigmatic; beautifully done, Beth!

I can't really identify the individual flowers in this, but I can say that it is downright gorgeous and also very calming. There is a slight dewiness and a slight greenness backing all the fresh and lovely florals, and there is something of a floral-honey feel to the scent as a whole. Even with the windows closed, with this sprayed in my room it feels as if fragrant breezes are wafting in.

This is like a bit of a darker, smokier version of The Lights of Men's Lives captured in a spray. It really does bring to mind a room filled with beeswax candles that have just been blown out, leaving behind smoky shadows with a honeyed undertone from the wax. I think spraying this on my shirt and wearing Lights of Men's Lives on my skin should be fantastic.

I adore this. Tiare is only my favorite floral on earth, and mix that with lots of creamy vanilla and a hint of coconut, and I'm in paradise. It's not a sunscreen smell to me at all, more like a vanillaed monoi scent. Whenever I wear this to work people pass me just to inhale it. Amazing. Did I mention it literally lasts from one wash to the other?

Dream, I wanted to love you, but you cloyed the hell out of me. First it was almost all really strong lavender, then really intense powdery rose and lavender, and even when those finally settled down somewhat after half an hour they still didn't allow the other notes to come through enough and turn this to the calming scent I was hoping for. It just remains a piercingly powdery rose-lavender soap. Kind of ironic how Nightmare is the only one in this collection that actually calms me.

Vanilla laundry. Boober, I think I love you. When something is supposed to smell soapy and is in a completely different universe from my aunt's guest soaps, I'm all over it. Linden can sometimes go sharp or lemony on me, but not here. It just keeps contributing to the fresh and clean feel. For a moment I'm in the washroom with a great big bundle of fluffy white towels rolling out of the dryer and the smell fo sweet pink soap lingering in the air. Heavenly.

Mokey was my favorite Fraggle as a kid, both for her awesome lilac-and-mint coloring and her far-out poetic way of speaking. This deifnitely does her justice! It's a light, clean floral that makes me think of a bunch of purple flowers mixed with violet candy, and is somehow strangely calming. Fortunately I don't amp the orris above all else in this one like I did with Black Opal. I can see how this could go soapy on some people, but fortunately it just comes off fresh on me and reminds me a bit of a now-discontinued fabric softener I used to huff like mad. I swear this is a compliment!

YUM. This is as deep as Uncle Matt thinks he is, and somehow still lighthearted in all its delicious foodiness. I'd say the fig and vanilla are the most prominent notes on me, followed by a dark and earthy chocolate. I wouldn't say this is a chocolate-dominated scent, but you can tell there is a cacao note in there adding to its body. The pear and quince that sweeten it up just enough but not too much. Sometimes I've had bad luck with pear notes going cloyingly sweet, but gladly not in this case. It must be the type of pear that likes me, like that one in The Vine. Winner!

This is red alright--sweet, tangy red fruits that remind me of things like Sweettarts and all the red varieties of Starbursts. It's red fruit candy that's kept from being cloying by the zing of natural sourness from the fruit as well as a bit of a snap from the pink pepper, then made a little more grown up with the pink musk. I had to refrain from licking it off.

I initially "wembled" on this one because pineapple sometimes doesn't play nice with my skin, but Wembley seems to like me. It's a tropical explosion onf pineapple and banana wet, with a hint of mint. As it dries down the mint disappears and I slowly end up amping the delicious honey above the tang of the pineapple and creamy banana, so I get a gentle fruity honey cooled by soft white musk. Tropical honey! I'm so glad I sprang for a bottle.

This is like a creamsicle rolled in citrus Sour Patch Kids. It's more tangy citrus at first, and settles down into a delicious smooth creamsicle-like scent with cool vanilla, though with a little more variety than the traditional creamsicle becuase of the three types of citrus. This is one of those rare foody ones you can actually wear in the heat. Like everyone else, I need to keep reminding myself I can't drink it.

I waffled on this in the beginning because of the rosemary, but it turns out that barely makes an appearance at all. This is the scent of somber evening flowers towards the end of summer, chill winds hanging in the air, cool seaspray and frost just beginning to crystallize. There really is something "silvery" about this as mentioned previously, I'm taking it from the ambergris especially though I have a feeling the davana and frost notes also contribute to that feel. This is surprisingly beautiful and refereshing in a really unique way. I'm so glad I risked a bottle.

Half the notes made me cross my fingers they'd be victorious, and the other half, well....unfortunately that was the half that ended up winning. To my nose this is all bitter GERANIUM wet followed closely by tomato leaf and pimento. It's only the drydown that I get some lovely beeswax and honey in the background, but sadly not enough to take over the geranium and tomato leaf of death. Reminds me a lot of Jerusalem Cherry Honey, actually, that same standing-in-a-tomato-patch scent. Fans of that type of stuff will love this, but it's not really my thing.

I had high hopes for this, and the sparkle of citrus at the beginning helped contribute to that, but unfortunately I just amp the petitgrain too much to enjoy it. I think this scent would have worked well on me without it; bright, sunny citrus perfect for summer. However, the extent to which I ended up amping the petitgrain just gave it a bitter herbal edge that was hard to ignore.

Here comes the deathly kind of lemon to haunt me again. I tend to amp lemon peel notes as opposed to the juice and I definitely do here. I think, however, it's the cilantro that really does me in. I don't like to eat it or smell it, and unforunately it just doesn't go away. I can pick up traces of the other notes but the lemon and cilantro are just too kitchen-prep for me.

I'm afraid there is just way too much juniper and cypress here for me. Surprisingly not much cucumber comes out, but it might be because I amp the juniper and musk the most. I actually like the musk, and while I can do hints of juniper or cypress here and there I just can't wear something this dominant in those notes. I had hope for the orchid, but can barely smell it. Oh well.

I was really hoping the coffee, coconut, opium and tobacco flower would end up being the primary players here, but unfortunately the first thing I get is a blast of lemongrass and cedar. These do fade gradually on the drydown, and I can pick out the other notes here and there but my favorite ones don't end up coming out as strongly as I'd like and the lemongrass/cedar dominance that remains is just impossible to ignore. I really do want to give it one more shot though.

Carnation is another one of those notes that can be hit or miss on me, but this one is absolutely perfect. It smells exactly, exactly like a fresh-picked carnation, a bit stronger than the white and pink ones I'm used to, but an absolute dead ringer for the flower. I could swear there's even a bit of dewiness to it. Since fresh carnations also remind me of that old-fashioned Christmas candy that comes in all different colors, that was one of the first things I thought sniffing it. Floral but not cloying, a touch sweet, a touch spicy, and a huge surprise. I'm glad I took the chance!

I haven't always had the best realtionship with apple blossom. Sometimes it's worked, sometimes it hasn't. I turned Eve v5 into cheap cloying floral soap, but got on very well with Valse Finale et Apotheose. Naturally I hoped this would be like the apple blossom in the latter, and it was. This is the perfect fresh, clean floral. It's a bit more appley wet, reminding me a bit of the Suave apple shampoo I used to use in junior high, but quickly dries down to a cool floral skin scent. The clean aspect isn't the floral guest soap I got in Eve v5, just fresh and clean like just-washed skin and the scent of spring flowers on a cool breeze. It's perfect for warmer weaterh as well as those days I don't feel like wearing anything heavy. I am so glad Beth is bringing single notes back, and can't wait to see what's next!

I second the Weeping Branches Moon comparison, and I'll add that it's a cousin to Hanami and Sakura spray as well, except with tuberose instead of cherry blossom. Wisteria and tuberose are the first notes to make themselves evident, and what was unmistakably honey, which reminded me of the Honey hair gloss; this must be one of the honeys from there. It's a lighter honey to my nose rather than the really thick dark type, but really pretty all the same. The wisteria, honey and tuberose are really at the forefront of this on my skin, with whispers of jasmine backed softly by the wood and moss. Much love to my wonderful Anime Expo fairy for grabbing a bottle of this for me.

Before I start my onlaught of proto reviews, I must thank my incredible Cobwebs angel who was able to pick them up for me. I really don't think it's possible to thank you enough. While the notes for the released Katharina are white musk, apricot and orange blossom, I would say the proto is mostly white musk and orange blossom and a testament to soft, sweet femininity. It's full of that lovely BPAL white musk which gives it a certain freshness and cleanness though not in a soapy way. The orange blosom is not sharp or soapy but gentle, sweet and springlike. There is a trace of floral apricot grounding it, but this isn't something with a strong apricot note at the forefront like March Hare or Depravity. This apricot remind me more of pressing my nose to the skin of a fresh apricot and smelling the sweet fruit rather than a candied apricot scent. Overall this scent is lovely and perfect for spring, like draping yourself in sheet of soft chiffon laden with orange blossoms.

This one is an unsung hero(ine?) of BPAL the orchid family: Lune Noire: black orchid, jonquil, white pear, white amber, gardenia, olibanum, champaca, sweet clove, tonka, oakmoss, and blue musk. If it likes your skin, it is truly an otherworldly scent. Also, Beth's Black Moon from last year: Black Moon: black orchid, motia attar, mugwort, English pear, jonquil, violet leaf, myrrh, opoponax, crystal musk, ylang ylang, and 5-year aged patchouli. I know the myrrh and resins may make it sound heavy, but they're more of a mysterious veil in the backdrop. It's a much more ethereal scent than the note listing might suggest.

I love this. I adore this. I had a hard time doing much more than swooning when I tried it on my wrist. It's a bit more rosy wet, but still like the petals of the most voluptous Damask roses doused in smooth vanilla cream--and drying down on the skin, the cream seems to soak through the rose even more, making this an interplay of sweet creamy innocence shot through with a pulsating crimson heart. It's a scent of red intermingling with white but was clearly not intended to be a "pink" scent. Guilelessness and corruption in a bottle. Amazing.