Zorra

I tried Vice before, but in those days chocolate notes immediately went to plastic on me. The good news is: it doesn't do that any more. Hormonal changes can do good. However: the other two notes smell like sweet candy on me. I am not sure if they are both doing it, or just the orange blossom. I have learned by experience that although orange blossom and neroli should be just different names for the same thing, that orange blossom is a candy note on me, and neroli usually is true neroli. So I am deeply suspecting the orange blossom for the candy sweetness, but I would not be surprised if the cherry happily joined in. I might have washed it off, but my cat was sitting ion me so I endured the candy longer than I normally would. And fortunately it does get softer. After an hour the notes have found each other and the result is really nice. However, I don't think I'll wear it often because of the hour of candy before it gets to this stage.

I had never heard of Schrödinger's cat until it appeared in a Dutch book for older children or YA. It appears in a world where those who exist but logically cannot exist fins a place. Plus some visitors from the regular world, who pop in and out when they find the right door at the right time. Even in that world, Schrödinger's cat one moment is there, and the next it isn't. Or as it is referred to in the book: he or she or it, because even that is not certain about this cat. Of course I had to try the scent. It took me a while to get an imp and I did not like it. I don't remember why I didn't like it but I didn't and I put it with my other imps and didn't wear it again. Until today. Because of the Tournement of Underdogs and the fact that I really would love to love this cat (and it has cute bottle art too!) I am trying it again and this time I love it. When I just put it on I thought I rather liked it, it was minty, a bit fruity, a bit floral, something woody underneath. But when it warmed on my skin it got better and better! There are moment when I can smell the chocolate and I am happy to say it doesn't go to plastic - I have been avoiding chocolate notes for that reason but this chocolate behaves on me now. True to the nature of the cat it is hard to say what I am smelling each moment, one moment I think it's the citrus notes, but then I smell flowers, the chocolate and mint are sometimes there and a moment later I wonder if they still are. None of the notes are loud, they are all there but they aren't fighting or screaming. Imagine Schrödinger's cat in a place where there is no time, sleeping on the bench in the kitchen, but when you look again it isn't there and you wonder if you have seen it. that is how it smells to me. (But if you haven't read the book you may imagine it in its box with the fatal vial.) ETA: Reading some of the other reviews I think what I did not like before may have been that some notes DID scream at first. So if that is why you don't like it: allow it to age a little. It will stop screaming.

I was on vacation in the south of Spain when I touched the pod of a plant I had never seen before and it exploded in a spurt of wet... well, just that really, wet. Which was quite amazing given the fact that the summer in that area is hot and dry, unless you go to the ocean you don't see a lot of wet. I made some photos and once home searched what plant it could have been. It was then that I discovered that Squirting Cucumber wasn't just a funny name, it's a real plant! I immediately dug up my imp of Squirting Cucumber and realized that I not only liked the image that I now had with the name, I liked the scent as well. I soon bought myself a bottle. This really is a lovely summer scent. It's green, and it smells fresh, but it also has a slight sweetness underneath that is (to me) reminiscent of vanilla. Now I am not saying it's a vanilla scent, but it certainly has a softness you would not expect from the description. I really think Squirting Cucumber deserves more love than it has been getting. I hope it will win more than one round in the Tournament of Underdogs!

Pomegranate. Perhaps the pomegranate is less sweet because somewhere there are these other notes, perhaps, but I don't smell either ink or oudh - and I am especially sorry about the oudh. I have some oudh scents that I love and I was hoping to add one to them. I even waited for I don't remember how long to allow it to show more notes. But it's still just a lot of pomegranate. This sigil is not complex at all on my skin.

I rediscovered this one yesterday. I remembered it as night-blooming jasmine, and I was shocked when I got a rather strong dirt note. (I am not the greatest fan of dirt notes.) But when dry it really feels like nocturnal crossroads. I do not often get images with scents, but this one shows me a crossroads under a dark moonlit sky, the night is neither cold nor warm, there is moisture in the air and there are choices to be made (after all, these are crossroads). I have several imps of this. When those are gone, I think I'll get myself a bottle.

A friend sent me a lot of decants from her bottles and this was one of them. From the decant it smelled rather light, perhaps something floral, I couldn't quite make out what it was because it was so light but it seemed pleasant so I put some on. While it warmed on my skin for a moment there was the sandalwood that I see mentioned a lot, but then it got sweeter and sweeter and I realized it was turning into almost a single note of very sweet lotus. The lab's lotus note is too sweet for me, so I am afraid it wouldn't work for meditation at all. But among the too sweet for me scents this one is still quite nice. ETA: In fact I do like this, I really like it. The first lotus heavy scent that I like.

I obtained this scent a couple of years ago but still several years after it was released. I am not sure if I would have liked it fresh, but I loved it by the time I laid my hands on it. It starts off as a citrus scent with a moon note balancing the citrus. But soon it is indeed a rainbow, one that is rooted in agarwood. It is a favorite scent for me on gloomy days because it brightens them up for me.

A few days ago I discovered a set of Travalogue decants most of which I had not tried because they arrived after the scents were no longer available and together with decants of scents that still were available for a short time. It is a consolation that even if I had tried them right away I still would not have been able to get a bottle of this. This scent is divine! It starts out as strong oudh with a hint of jasmine, then the jasmine gets stronger and the oudh goes a bit down and they are both of equal strength. But there is something slightly resinous sweet in the background that balances this couple that could otherwise have been rather piercing. It must be the brocade note which doesn't exactly smell like Antique Lace, but to me it feels like it if that makes sense. I hope I'll find a bottle of this, somewhere.

Oudh. I smell oudh, first it's rather poopy and overwhelming but that is only for a short time. Then it behaves and is a good oudh. But there is something odd here, I smell a lemony note, not lemon peel, not a herbal lemon, if it were stronger it could get really horrible like a cleaning product, but it behaves, like the oudh. And that's it. I do not get any patchouli or vetiver (unless there is a vetiver variety that smells lemony) and I am beginning to doubt if I know what labdanum smells like. Whatever I called labdanum before I don't smell in this blend. I don't smell Snake Oil either, but I do not smell Snake Oil in any of the recent spring snake oil blends. Not the Snake Oil I know as Snake Oil, not the Snake Oil I smell in the Snake Pit scents. There is a note that is in all of the Spring Serpents and I came back to Snake's Shadow because I wondered if it would have the same note. I cannot really tell because the oudh is so strong, but it could be. I wonder if Beth has created a Spring variation of Snake Oil. Edit to add: an hour later the lemony note has rolled back into the Snake's Shadow. Now this does smell shadowy. The oudh has softened. There is no Snake Oil, but I think I can smell the spring variation of snake oil which to me is completely different. I do not smell patchouli, nor vetiver, nor labdanum, but together they may be making the oudh shadowy.

As with the other Spring Serpents, there is no Snake Oil in this blend that I can smell. There is a note that is in all of the spring serpents, it just doesn't smell like snake oil. The blends do not look as if there is snake oil in them either, they are all transparent and lack the dark snake oil color. However, this is a gorgeous scent, and until I change my mind it is my favorite of the spring serpents. The vetiver makes the spring 'snake oil' note a lot better and the lemon, which in this blend is more woody than citrusy (but not a herbal lemon! It does seem to be a real lemon lemon) makes it a gorgeous, warm woody lemon scent. It makes me feel as if I am resting in a grove of lemon trees on a warm summer afternoon.

Reading the reviews that say it gets more like a dusty cellar when dry I think perhaps I should try this again. It was such a sweet scent, like cherry cola or something like that, so completely not what i expected, that I washed it off. It is now almost an houf after washing it off and I still smell the cherry cola.

I fell in love with Tiger Lily (of which a friend had sent me an imp) when it was already discontinued. In my search for something similar I found Al-Araaf. Fortunately for me this is mostly lilies on me, I don't do well with the lab's honey note. Compared to still available lily scents Al-Araaf is softer and creamier. It comes closest to Black Lily but Black Lily is darker.

The first time I tried this I thought I smelled neroli, plus the rosy sandalwood. It was very pretty so I added a bit more and then I got a lot of geranium. The rosy sandalwood got mosly covered by it. But only for - oh I'm not sure how lomg, an hour perhaps? Then the sandalwood returned, a vaguely rosy sandalwood. The geranium has melted into the background even allowing the elemi and frankincense to show up. This is very beautiful! I was wondering why I had not heard more about it, but reading the other reviews it seems to be very different on different people.

For a few seconds there was more than just jasmine. Then for an hour: straight jasmine and nothing else. After that hour something else gets a chance, I think it's the balsam. I would have liked to smell some of the other notes as well, but my skin seems to have eaten them.

To me this smells like Cheshire Cat with something lemony added (not lemon rind, not a herbal lemon note, but something lemony). I think what reminds me of Cheshire Cat is grapefruit and lavender and perhaps chamomile and some musk. I see mint mentioned in other reviews, and indeed that may be there also but only a hint of it, not at all a overpowering mint, not on me.

I get the lab's apple note with a bit of snake oil, no gardenia or plumeria at all. I am sorry about that, I was so curious to smell the combination of fruits and flowers in this one. Edit two years later: This has changed a lot over time! More Snake Oil, and the flowers have managed to come out as well. There is a lot less fruit now than there was two years ago. Perhaps the fruit notes are more volatile and have escaped the blend? Whatever it is, I like this snake a lot better now.

I am going to give this more time, but two weeks after my bottle arrived it still smells like candy. I think it's the mandarin note, but it doesn't smell like mandarin at all, it smells like artificial mandarin candy. I love mandarin in scents, but this is still so horrible on me I have to wash it off. ETA: OK, after I washed it off the remains weren't so bad, so I put it back on but much less than I usually wear. The screaming of the mandarin might be its collaboration with lavender. With less on my skin I am getting something wood, the pine perhaps? I really want to love this one, so I am giving it time.

I found a box with old decants and this was one of them. There was an initial lemon blast but it lasted less than a minute and the second time I applied it was no longer there. What I get is a slightly lemony evergreen and floral combination with a powdery undertone. If I had know it would age to this, I would probably have bought a bottle.

I bought this scent a year after it was available from the lab, so it has had some time to age. It is a dry cocoa on me with sadly no cinnamon that I can detect. I like cinnamon, I would have loved it to be there. There is more in this scent, something that went men's cologne on me when I tried the scent too soon after it traveled from the UK to the Netherlands. After a 3 weeks rest it has settled and no longer jumps at me, but it definitely does 'something' to the cocoa, lightens it a bit I think.

There hadn't been any reviews when I ordered this or the mentioning of tobacco and sweetness might have made me not order. Fortunately this is neither like tobacco on me (which goes very yucky) nor is it very sweet. There is an initial hint of loukhoum that I like, but it soon dies in only one note that remains and that is one I do not like. No fig, no vanilla, no amber, not even patchouli (although it may be below the part I don't like), and after that short moment when it was wet: no loukhoum. I must be amping something because there are more scents that are doing this to me. I'll give this one some time to age and hope for the best. (I could stop amping whatever it is, couldn't I?)

I dug up the imp again, it's a very aged imp by now. Is that why I am smelling... dragon blood? Vetiver, myrrh, (musk too I think) and dragon blood. It's great, but if I would buy a bottle would it smell like this?

I bought a partial bottle of this and got it last week. At first it was just ambergris with a tiny bit of fruitiness at the start, so I left it for a week to rest. Now it gives me a swirl of autumn leaves for about a second, after which it's straight ambergris again. I don't want just ambergris, I like complicated scents. Am I amping the ambergris so badly that it kills all the rest?

This is so strange: it started out as smoky vetiver and then I thought: do I smell mint? And now, after a couple of hours, it's mint with a woodsy undertone. No orange, no ylang ylang (which I both love) and no patchouli, unless that is the woodsy undertone. But mint? Later it was less minty again. I reapplied to see if I would get more of the other notes, but I don't. Smokey vetiver with a hint of mint, no orange, no ylang-ylang, no patchouli. ETA: After testing a few scents I came back to this one and this time I suddenly realized I did smell patchouli mixed with the vetiver. And a bit of orange on top of that. I may have to put this on a list for my next order.

I got a decant from this when it was new and I didn't care much for it. Today I went through a box of old decants and tried it again. I really really like it now. It must be the ageing, it may have been sharper before, I don't know. Now it's a fresh grassy scent to me with a soft amberlike note way in the back. A bit floral, but more grass than flowers. There has been a bit of rain but that is over now and it only made the scents fresher. Something like that. ETA: Argh, that didn't last long. After a few hours it started to scream 'aquatic' at me. So that's why I never wore it after the first test.