plainjean

Eh. Rosy, lemony dish soap. With a little lychee and magnolia in the background, but they're barely there. After a bit, something’s going a bit sour, though I’m not sure what. Whatever it is, it reminds me of the smell of green stems of flowers. When you break them? Yeah, I'm not feeling it.

Floral, bergamot-y soap. It's really dry-smelling on me, and I'm just not digging it.

Exactly what the description says. Crunchy green apples, sugary coating, candy sprinkles. There's also some caramel in the mix, too. The butter isn’t buttery. Really, it just smells like a combination of sugar, butter, and vanilla in a mixing bowl. There is no butter smell, but you know the butter’s there, holding everything together. And on the outside of this sugary shell? Brightly colored sprinkles. I don’t get a candy corn scent, per se, which is fine with me since I don’t really like the smell of candy corn. I didn’t think I was going to need a bottle of this, because of the butter and the candy corn, but now..oy. I don’t know how I can NOT get one! It's delicious!

Whoa. Okay, so, when I chose this one to try, I didn’t look at its name or its notes; I just grabbed it out of a bag full of decants. I would NOT have thought that his was magnolia and peaches! It’s honeyed, that’s for sure..but it’s not overtly peach or overtly magnolia. It reminds me a bit of both Belle Vinu and Les Bijoux, which makes sense, because those are other peach scents that don’t smell like peaches to me. In a weird way, I'm getting sort of a Bastet feel, though it's not spicy at all. Overall, it's a gorgeous scent, but I think I might stick with one of those other non-peach peaches, since they're more accessible.

In the vial, it smelled like this Indian temple incense oil I have. Wet, somehow this is mixing to smell like some sort of cooking spice. After it dries, it becomes a soft and powdery rose incense. Nice enough, but not too terribly unique.

Thank you to the lovely dixiehellcat for sending me these decants! 2008 version I get a mixture of coconut and vanilla, with maaaaybe a little bit of sweet mint in the background. I think I'm getting a bit of creamy white floral, as well, but I can't quite place which flower it is that I'm smelling. 2009 version This smells very different from the 2008 version. Where '08 had coconut snow, the '09 has clean, linen-y snow with a little vanilla, a little sweet mint, and again, white florals. It's weird, I'm also getting something really..crisp. Like almonds, but not. Or apples, without an obvious apple scent. Just that crispness that accompanies apples. Both scents do smell chilly, and I love them both, for different reasons! Hopefully Snow White will make another return this year so I can get a bottle!

Oak, tonka, vanilla, white sandalwood, lily of the valley, white ginger, amber, and apricot. On me, this is pure Antikythera. Very much oak, tonka, and vanilla. I don't get anything other than those three notes. It's beautiful, but I already own The Antikythera Mechanism. Edited to add scent description.

...Verbena? It’s bizarre, I smell verbena. And sugar-coated lime. And a little bit of really clean musk. It reminds me very much of Luna Moth, just more..rounded, and more grown-up.

HAZELNUT! But really, really good hazelnut. Hazelnut and myrrh and sandalwood. It's so rich and creamy and delicious. It's insanely foodie, but it's really nice!

:wub2: I think I amp cardamom, because this? It smells almost EXACTLY like my beloved Gypsy Moth! The honey in this isn't your traditional honey. This is sweet and sugary, like a really good honeyed tea without the tea. Honey with lemon. The cardamom adds a bit of smokiness, and the cubeb adds something that registers to my nose as a tart and slightly minty undertone. Overall, this is pure love.

This is absolutely wonderful! And to think: it was one of the Retail Only Salons that I thought I was going to like the least. On me, it's mostly gardenia, but tempered by honeycomb and red currant, and creamy vanilla. It reminds me of something from my childhood, but I can't quite place it. It's a very creamy and soft floral on me, rather than being powdery like so many other florals I've tried.

Lady Lilith, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Climbing rose, vanilla cream, vanilla flower, white tea, mandarin, red and white musks, opium poppy, Parma violet, and opoponax. Let me preface this by saying that I normally don't do florals. I've been trying to branch out, though, and try more things. The first time I tried this, I wasn't feeling it. It was too floral for me. It's funny how much one's tastes can change in a few weeks, haha. I've been craving interesting florals lately, and I think Lady Lilith definitely falls into that category. It's a very pretty, soft scent, with a mix of opium poppy, violet, red musk, and rose coming out first. Usually opium poppy doesn't work on me, but I think it's working here. I get a little mandarin and white tea in the background, but they're just barely there. Not getting much vanilla overall, which makes me a little sad. It's a powdery scent, but powdery in a good way. It reminds me of sun-warmed flowers. Odd as it seems, I am getting the comparisons to Mme Moriarty. It's like that scent, but with the patchouli replaced by flowers. Edited to add scent description.

Pine, mostly. Very, very medicinal pine (possibly caused by lavender?) and some evergreen, with a bit of what I believe is verbena. Hrm. It was interesting to try a prototype, but this really wasn't my thing.

This is a review for a fairly new lab imp of Shub. All the reviews that say "evil gingerbread" are dead on. Indirectly sniffing it, it's spicy, tangy (in the way that only good gingerbread can be) gingerbread with a bit of what smells to me like orange zest or lemon zest, but when I sniff my wrist closely I get a dusty, woody sort of incense mixed with the gingerbread.

Syrupy blackberry with ouzo and iced black tea on me. Only getting a little bit of rum, though. For me, it's more like really good blackberry candy than blackberry booze. I might need a bottle of this, to add some variety in my scents!

You know, I didn't think I was going to like this. In fact, I'd never even thought about trying it before I got it as a frimp with a forum sale. But, wow! Aeval surprised me! It's very clean-smelling, with a bit of creamy sweetness underneath the cleanness. This morning I was ready to write off sage as a note that Just. Doesn't. Work. but this changed my mind! Finally, sage that doesn't make a scent smell like turkey! Overall, it's really pretty and really fresh, but complex in a way that fresh scents usually aren't. I've been searching for a good pale musk blend, and this just might be it.

First off, yay! Finally a dark blend WITHOUT vetiver! Anyway. This is spectacular. Spicy and warm, a little musky, a tiny bit sweet, resinous, way sexy and kind of scary..everything is completely balanced and so perfect. Overall, it's masculine, but not so masculine that a woman couldn't wear it. I know I'm going to wear it! In fact, a 5 ml might find its way into my next lab order.

Hm. I like it at first, when it's mostly blackberry wine. But then it starts blending with the apple and the hops and the sage and it just gets really dry and kind of sour. Oh, Mabon! I was so sure you were going to work on me! But instead you turn into weird blackberry and sage turkey stuffing, turkey and all. I just don't think I can do these blackberry and sage scents. The same thing happened with Bewitched. Alas!

Strooooong lavender. I'm not the biggest fan of lavender, but I'm a bit ill, so I wanted to see if this would work to clear my head a bit. And does it ever! All I get is lavender, and a bit of bergamot and florals in the background. This is much, much too lavender-floral for me, but I might keep the imp around for times when my head is in a fog. ETA: Aaaaand, it has already faded into a vague, powdery floral.

Oooh. This is wonderful! On me, it smells very similar to Fairy Wine. It's sweet and sticky, but it has a nice greenness to it, too. Like Fairy Wine, it is a bit fruity, but not in a cloying, headache-inducing way. It's sparkling, but dark.. I think I may need to get a bottle of this. ETA: Two hours later, Deadly Nightshade Honey has dried down to be identical to Fairy Wine.

Hm. Very sweet, sticky, orange blossom honey. With a huge red rose plopped down in the middle of the puddle of honey. It's pretty, but a bit..bland? Not quite the right word, but it seems very safe to me. Which is kind of funny, considering the inspiration. ETA: After a little while, it's turned into the honey from O (which turned into rancid baby powder/wipes on me) and rose.

Sigh. I wanted to love this. I want a pirate scent that works on me! But Jolly Roger, sadly, is not the pirate scent for me. From start to finish, it was a pine-y "ocean" scent. Like one of those Sea Breeze or Ocean Mist air fresheners. I get a faint, faint, faint hint of leather, way in the background. Maybe if this had more leather, less pine (and more other wood), and less ocean, it'd work on me. Alas. Onto the next!

In the decant, this is very much red musk and black leather. It has that cold feeling of new leather that my beloved worn leathers don't have. On, it's still black leather, but it's a very peppery and spicy black leather, slathered in sticky (from the honey) red musk with just a hint of the smoky vanilla. Not too much patchouli, thank goodness. It is masculine, in a way, but not overly so. And it's definitely sexy. It might just be me, but I totally see this as what Spike from Buffy would smell like. I might have to get a bottle just because of that association, haha. ETA: I wore it again last night and..hrm. I had conflicting feelings. Sometimes I loved it, but then other times it was too sweet for me. I think I'll have to try it a few more times before I decide if I love it or not.

Ever since I realized that leather worked really well on me, I've been seeking out leather blends. Some haven't been so great, but Sara Pezzini? I really, really love Sara Pezzini. In the vial it's smoky honey and soft, worn leather. On the skin, it's very much the same, and the honey doesn't go rancid, which is awesome. It definitely has a very vintage feel to it, but not in an "old" sort of way. It's a clean scent, but a..dirty clean. That doesn't really make sense, but that's the only way I can think of to describe it. Anyway, yes. I love it and will most definitely be getting a bottle at some point. ETA: After a day of wearing Sara Pezzini: It's barely there anymore, but occasionally I do get wafts of the most beautiful, honeyed skin scent.

This is absolutely stunning. In the bottle, I get mostly the mandarin and the vanilla. On the skin, though, it's a beautiful musky, faintly citrusy, creamy honeyed tea. The rose seems to be a single tea rose, wafting about in the background. It's the quintessential Victorian drawing room, bottled. Though it is extremely similar to Dorian, I feel like they complement each other beautifully, rather than compete with one another to be the best vanilla-and-tea-and-musk scent. A million thanks to my wonderful Sibyl angel. ETA: By the end of the day, I think I caught a faint whiff of cognac. It was very, very light though. Barely perceptible.