starfish327

I live near a brick and morter location for a really, really good spice store. would you use cooking spices and if you would, what would you need? (it's penzey's if you want to google it). i just realized i never actually answered the question. i use a ton of pumpkin pie spice, i love their chili 9000 and i love their salt free blends, pretty much any of them. i really want to try their cinnamons. hey swap partner...could you use a new mug? i'm set on traditional mugs but if you could find a clear travel mug with a lid i'd love you forever. Is there any sort of regional food/drink/treat you miss or have always wanted to try? bbq and hot sauces. a friend in nz sent me some habenaro kiwi sauce one year that was epic.

Do you like knitted goods? If so, what would you like, what colors, and do you have any sensitivites or preference when it comes to type of yarn (ex: wool: yay or nay? do you prefer machine washable materials? do you not care?)? any fiber is good except mohair. i don't really care about washibility, all of my handspuns need to be handwashed anyway. colors run to the autumnal . Are you crafty? Do you like to make things? i knit and i'm a handspinner. i like those little craft kits you get at michael's too. Do you wear hair clips, barrettes, etc? my hair is really fine/thin and i gave up on trying to find stuff that will stay in it. Alcohol- yay or nay? yes- just not tequila Do you wear earrings/have pierced ears? nope! Colors- if it shows up on a tree in october I'll like it. My favorite color currently is a rusty orange that blackberry refers to as inferno. I'm a fan of jewel tones. Dried fruit- I eat it but it's not something I normally think about buying. -Would you enjoy a novelty scarf? i love sheep and penguins! i also really love some of the skull/bone cables that are floating around ravelry right now. my original desire for school was epidemiology and i would still love something bio/genetics related. If so, at what level? as long as i can actually wear it, i don't really mind. -Delicate, tough, or it doesn't matter? As in how often do you plan to use it and how rough are those circumstances of use? delicate is okay, though tough would probably see more use. i'm not exactly gentle with my stuff though i can be if necessary (i have handspun alpaca scarves in my collection). Anyone have colors/fabrics they would HATE for me to use in case I start early and don't wait for my person & their info sheet? ...i'm actually a red heart fan. but i'm not really big into the novelty yarns right now unless they're part of a wider project (eyelash, pompoms, things like that). and i'm allergic to mohair. -What scarf-types do you like? exs: Cowl (either the scrunched down kinds... or the tall ones that shield your neck while you wear a jacket), no. they make me look like i have no neck. hooded scarves, sure. there's a couple i like on ravelry shawls, YES. i have a small shawl army. poncho-like, probably not skinny (or wide) and wider than skinnier long (or short) normal scarves, longer than shorter wrap, ...i'm not sure what a wrap scarf even is, but i don't have a lot of sleep right now... fashion types (like necklace-like, or shawlettes), a shawlette more than a necklace type moebius?? more than a cowl what kind of non-knitted scarves/wraps do you like? Length? Style? i like pretty much everything, especially multicolored prints. fleece would definitely get used. how do you feel about ruffles/pick ups? if they're relatively small. otherwise i feel like i look like a walking christmas tree skirt. what are your least favorite colors? ...i actually don't think that i don't have a least favorite, though i don't do a lot of pastels.

Greed. It was straight up polish dill pickle to me.

cernunnos. oh my gods how much i've fallen in love with cernunnos. it's what i wanted yule to be.

in the imp: something sharp...and then...meat?...and then nothing wet: immediately a blast of sharp citrus. much better. i like the lab's citrus notes as general rule. i'm going to guess that it's something close to blood orange. dry:...there's got to be orris or violet in this, and my chemistry must have shifted, because while i identify the note, it's not going horrible dirty skin on me like normal. this is the second blend this week where it hasn't done that. the longer it's on, the more the citrus burns off and leaves a vanilla/violet. the violet's threatening to go sour but something in there is keeping it in check. the sugar comes out a lot more and it keeps shifting between sugar/herbal and the vanilla/violet. it's a lot prettier than i remember last summer. i remember not liking it enough to not want to write a review but for whatever reason my decant was still in my box. either the year's aging or my rather severe shift in eating habits has aided this one, a lot.

this is a very strange blend on me. it's very definitely high, sharp, and white, but there's something earthy and fruity grounding it as well. it goes on very very painfully sharp and aggressive, and almost overly strong but the longer it's on the more it mellows and grounds. there's a certain sweetness that comes forward and helps to control the florals. the florals actually don't feel like florals, though the more i wear it and the more i think about it this does feel a lot like grief. however there's a certain woody-ness and a certain...fluffiness? that isn't there with grief. i can defintely see both the commerical perfume and shampoo aspects of this blend but it's a lot less off-putting for me that most of the blends that do that. it's a very loud blend though, i'll have to use it sparingly. i will also say that this is a blend that shouldn't work on my skin, at all. there's at least 3 major death notes in this for me- the white musk, the violet, and the cedar. primrose is also really hit or miss on me.

the two that come to mind are dana o'shea and cake smash. cake smash on me was way too sweet/cloying but it's definitely cake and it seems to behave better on other people. that and i just don't like smelling like a cake. dana o'shea was much lighter and less intense, but it's more milk and grains though it does have a sweet vanilla feel to it.

crawdad and white rabbit are nothing alike on my skin but it may just be my chemistry. white rabbit went weird spoiled milk on me, and crawdad smelled like blueberries and bug spray.

i think that there's a resin thread, but faunalia was pretty much a frank single note on me.

yep. i was coming to suggest cernunnos. yes, they have their own threads just for that!

periodically there are blends that just shouldn't work, and almost don't get tested because all of the notes just shouldn't work. they almost never work. even with blends where rose doesn't go rancid on me, i tend to just not like it, and dirt's really hit or miss. i'm not familiar with moss as a note but it sounds green and green and i don't play well together. except that zombi works, and it works in a really big way. the only downside is that it is a fairly potent blend and i always forget that when i first apply it. oops. in the imp it's very much classic bpal rose and dirt. on the skin it starts to alternate what's amping and when, so that sometimes the rose is forward and sometimes the dirt's forward. there is definitely a green element there in the background. there's a public rose garden in buffalo where a lot of people get married. it's next to one of my favorite sections of my favorite parks in the city. this smells like that- it smells like late season rose garden where things are starting to wind down.

chesire moon is a very...masculine pink. it does meet the mental image in my head of the chesire cat. in the imp it's a weird jumble of 'sweet'. i don't really get an impression out of it other than 'sweet' and 'weird'. it starts out the skin in a similar chaos of scents though i do start to get the floral. and pink. but not girly pink or even mature pink, this is...a very masculine pink. i didn't realize that pink had a gender until this blend. by dry down it's started to shift towards a gender neutral though it does remind me of a bath and body work's blend that i wore a long, long, long time ago. the florals start coming forward but the sugar and the red fruits i'm starting to get out of it keep it in line. it is vaguely bubble gum but i like to smell like candy so it's not a bad thing. my only concern with this blend is that i'm not certain that moodwise it's something that i'd want to wear all the time. it kind of reminds me of a...tiefling. for some reason this blend makes me want to play dungeons and dragons but since i am in fact a gamer that's not entirely a bad thing either. either way i'm keeping it.

in the imp this was extremely sharp, a touch sour...and familiar. but i couldn't place it. on skin this morphed into a mismash of all my worst notes- rose, sharp white florals, and what i read as white musk but what i think now may have been the sandlewood. i'm not surprised on reading violet in the note list since this also bordered on skin sour. and fuzzy red wallpaper. this blend was exceptionally familiar but i couldn't place why, and i couldn't figure out why the mental association that i kept getting was fuzzy red wallpaper until it finally hit me as i was laying in bed that i reminded me of the bathroom of my parent's house when we moved in, circa 1990. prior to that point it had never occured to me that wallpaper came in fire engine red and fuzzy but it was this monstrousity of flocked red stripes and smooth white sections. my parents kept a bowl of rather dusty sad looking hand soaps in a bowl on the sink and the combination of staid floral hand soap and fuzzy red wallpaper strikes me as ridiculous in retrospect. fortunately both the soap and the wallpaper are long gone.

i didn't realize samhain even had it as a listed note, though in retrospect i guess it probably does. though it's not really an autumn scent per se, i love the caterpillar in autumn, along with the coiled serpent. i'm a big fan of samhain, samhainophobia, pumpkin I (the one with the brown musk), chimera, and raven moon.

Ekhidna came to mind for me... dark, earthy, spicy, and kinda smoky & fall leafy, lol. The drydown is more resinous/incensey, but I do think it has a feel that's similar to Samhain. i love ekhidna, but unless it's changed with a year's aging i don't get the same feel from it. they're still dark blends but i get a more...primal feel from ekhidna.

(i can't find a review that i've written for this one so i'm assuming that i haven't reviewed it yet) 2010 version i've developed this weird obsession with smelling like gingerbread. i'm not certain what it is about heavily spiced baked goods that have caused it to become my holy grail in fall and winter scents but the past 18 months have been spent searching everywhere for a scent that'll meet my needs. i haven't tried any of the gingerbread poppet scents but i was willing to try a half decant with the idea in the back of my mind that i was going to automatically need to rush out and get a bottle, budget be damned. unfortunately the poppet didn't bake through in the oven and i had a glob of eggy, bready, vaguely ginger smelling mess on my wrist. i put the imp away hoping that it was a combination of age and stress that did it; we had totaled the front of my car the week my decants came in and everything was smelling weird. i pulled the imp out today...and discovered that not only had the blend stayed just as raw, it invited play doh over for the party and they both have somehow managed to go stale at the same time. i'm certain on the right person this would be a beautiful blend and i may try even older versions, but right now i smelled like i rolled in the gingerbread batter bowl and then just wandered around for awhile.

i'm just curious since i have plenty and plan on getting more, what would a gc stand in be for samhain? i'm drawing a blank on what would be similar other than other weenies.

cherries and vetiver, which would be wonderful if there was a third note in there to balance it out. it's a similar cherry to the one in bloody mary, at least with my skin chemistry (though i think that it's actually the same almond that's in hecate the longer that it's on the skin) and the smoky vetiver reminds me a lot of st. john's eve. it's just a weird blend with my chemistry, but i still haven't figured out if i like it-even with 3 or 4 wearings. i think that the bigger issue for me that is that it makes me feel a little weird which is probably not a good thing for a conjure bag blend. i'll stick to high john when i need a money pull. it's probably more of a personal association for me but this blend makes me feel more like being thankful for what i already have than attracting more of something and i don't want to be putting up blocks.

this is such a bizarre blend on my skin. it starts out with a burst of...skin so soft. my grandmother used to use skin so soft as a bug repellant. this took me straight back to summer as a first grader. it then shifts into watermelon gum. it then cycles through something vaguely herbal/spicy, the skin so soft, and a blast of fruit stripe gum. as it's on longer though it does shift into something more herbal and fruity and less skin so soft. i'm guessing the ginger and tea are interacting with the squash to make that weird chemical impression to me. i do like the blend and i'm going to hang on to my decant, for novelty if nothing else.

if starbursts moved into the liquor/wine flavored catagory, this would be the champagne burst. it's really nice. it's not a champagne note, but i get a sweet white wine feel from the blend. i love the lab's wine notes, but most of them are really heavy and in your face booze on me. this isn't that dominant. under the wine/wine like note there's a jumble of really sweet, juicy fruits. the general impression is red, but it's red the way that a bag of life savers or starbursts are red- a pile of things with an overarching feel of red but no one single fruit coming forward the most. i do really like this one, which was unexpected. it reminds me a lot of mason and jenkin's port jelly, but i can't wear that one to work because it's too obviously wine. this one i can get away with because it's much more subtle but very much has the same feel to me.

this is amazing. that is all. it's a very green, masculine scent but it doesn't overpower me. it verges on the soapy but it pulls back enoguh to make it wearable (and it may just still be travel shocked). it is very indictive of 'forests', and it reminds me of late summer. i find this one very wearable, and i normally can't do herbs or woods, especially not herbs and woods together. there's a slightly spiced edge to it, though i'm not sure where it's coming from. i'm also normally allergic to basil but this works well on me. i'm not getting any reaction from this.

i need to let this one settle a little more, but this is my initial impression. in the imp: very sweet, with a hint of spice and vague greenery or florals. not as intense as i had feared it may be. wet: i get a lot of jumbled fruit and florals. it's a little chaotic and intense at this point (but it could be travel shock as well). it does smell like fall to me, and of the lunacies i've tried this may be the only one that works other than raven moon (and crow moon on odd days). dry: it morphs a lot on dry down. i amp the mulling spices and the cloves, which sit on top of something that smells faintly aquatic. i think it's the lily and the greenery working together. periodically i get hints of the fruit. it's a strange mixture but it's not unpleasant. and it does remind me of late fall. i'm going to need to give this one more time to rest, but i think that this one will be a keeper.

I thought I had reviewed this one but apparently not. This is a heavy, dark blend on my skin but it's not so heavy I can't wear it to work. The first few minutes that I apply it, the blend's quite harsh on my skin. Myrrh doesn't always play well with my chemistry. After a few minutes though it becomes a smooth, vanilla and dark musk that's quite comforting. and does remind of a bird, which i love because i really like birds.

i think that my yule decants were travel shocked when i first tested them, because on the second wearing of this blend i'm finally getting what everyone else was talking about. in the imp, this is very foody. i don't normally do foody but i liked the scent description. wet: wow. this is really spicy, orangy food with a hit of cake in the background. i like it though. i like really spice heavy blends and this is very close to gingerbread at this stage. there's a definite bready note here, but in a good way. i've never actually smelled a plum pudding but i have a mental image that this would be close. dry: this actually keeps getting better. the spice starts amping forward even more, and the citrus sticks around. the bread note settles down into cake, and i almost feel like this has a brown musk vibe (and i wish there were more brown musk blends, so this is a good thing). i have a feeling though that it's a nut note though because it reminds me of some of the pumpkin patch blends. yay, now i have to go through and retest all of my yules (this is not a bad thing lol).

2010 in the decant: i actually don't get anything in the decant. i thought i had picked up another blend initially. wet: sweet resins, without any incense. i'm actually disappointed because i love heavy, rich incense blends. dry: still predominately sweet resins, but there's smoke lurking in the background. i get a hint of incense/spice as well, but this is still primarily a resin blend on me with a hint of cedar.