Victory

Most of the notes in Wanton are calssified in my mind as: AVOID!!! but today I was picking through my imp collection and landed on Wanton, so I tried it anyway. There is a bit of an off-note on first application, but when the oil begins to dry, it fades away and leaves the rose alone to unfold on my skin. Patchouli and sandalwood tend to take over any blend on my skin, but maybe because this imp is more than a year old, they have mellowed. Rose tends to be a note that my nose just can't "see," so I'm really happy to see it here- maybe this an aging thing or maybe it is just the particular rose note. Whatever the reason, Wanton is a balanced woody-rosy scent that surprises me with how lovely it is. I'm not a rose person, but I have been reaching for rosier oils recently so I will keep this within reach. Thanks to the lab for the frimp!

For 95% of the day, my mind's going at 300 miles an hour, and even in my baths I'm stressing about things, but during my Quietude bath I was calm and relaxed. I even found myself almost going to sleep and curling up in my bath tub- for me, that's almost a coma (I don't sleep well). It was such a pleasant bath.

Thanks to macabre_fae for sending this imp along in a swap, because I'd have never thought to try it otherwise, but I am glad that I did. In the vial, Dragon Moon smells really fresh and interesting. On me, it's somehow very, very sweet. I like sweet blends, but this gets near the teeth-gritting sweetness level but doesn't quiiiite reach it. A couple of hours later it backs down to a clean, fragile, soothing smell. I like it.

The Ecstasy of Passion is a bit of a miracle scent. Red musk and I usually have to stay at the far ends of our corners because it smells like rabid peanut butter on me (Smut and Sed Non Satiata come to mind), and while Passion sometimes flirts in that direction, the other notes hold the red musk in place. Thank heavens. It's such a sexy blend on me, all incensy and spicy with that whiff of decadent, smoldering vanilla. Oh yeah. This is much more Snake Oil than Smut on me, I think, and while I'm not an ardent admirer of either, I love my Passion. The goblins in the Trading Post must love me.

I could have sworn I'd reviewed Eat Me, because I'd come into the thread to edit my review. Oh well. The first time I wore Eat Me, I only smelled the currants and thought it was too close to Lampades for me, but oh, I was wrong. It's scrumptious cake with just a waft of the berry/currant and almost an incensy smell. It's not incense- but it makes me think of it. Eat Me is a real comfort scent for me now, and I'm going to snag a bottle in my next order.

Freshly applied, Fae smells like peaches with a kick of bergamot, but almost immediately it starts to waft... mosquito repellent. Strange, I've tried and liked everything but oakmoss, so Fae ought to work. When I smushed my nose to my hand, I got a delicate, sweet scent and mosquito repellent. Same thing happened last night. I'm hoping that it's just that I've got my period because I don't remember Fae smelling like this before, although maybe that's why this was at the bottom of my imp box. Regardless, Fae's gone in a half hour.

I don't get much grape from this (and if there were ever a person who loves grape and fake grape, it's me), which was a bit of a surprise. The florals come out on my skin, but they're very restrained, probably by the other notes. Thankfully, the myrrh stays hidden for the most part, and Purple Phoenix stays a somber muted floral. I hesitate to classify it like that, though, because it's not just floral, but the purple bird doesn't seem to fit any other category. It's a deep purple, not the bright and loud purple I expected, but it's verynice nonetheless.

In the solid boom form, the TKO boom had a lot of smell, and I was i n heaven. I had set it on my bedside table to smell it as I went to bed and awoke. When I dropped it into the tub, the boom fizzed a quarter circuit around the tub, releasing a white film (presumably the shea oil and coconut milk). I got in, stretched out, and thought, "Where's the scent?" My TKO boom had no scent in the water. I tried putting my nose just over the surface, raising up, moving around, but there was no scent in the water. What a disappointment. I will say that I enjoyed how slick the water became and how soft it made my skin, but... No scent in the water.

Wait, what? This has frankincense? And I'm not getting a headache? Amazing. I've got my mother's year old imp on, and maybe that's what's mellowed the frankincense.

 

Antony is much nicer than I was expecting. It's sort of golden and musky, but occasionally there's a flash of green-ness. I think it's the basil, but maybe sage and the grass. It's masculine, but I think very wearable for women. I agree with Brianne- while Vicomte de Valmont is more of a preppy guy, Antony is a man tromping around in the woods.

Tisiphone really surprised me. When I saw it in my mother's imp collection, I picked it up to check the notes before trying it on, and the mention of black patchouli was almost enough to scare me off. I tried it anyway, and it's nothing like what I'd thought. I don't smell any patchouli, and the ylang ylang and neroli don't stand out. All I can smell is oleander, and it reminds me of Hell's Belle in feel. A thick, heady, strong floral, which I actually enjoyed (I'm really not a floral girl)! I'll enjoy Tisiphone while I'm visiting my folks, but I won't seek it out- as nice as the oleander is in this, I really am not a floral lover.

For as great a foodie-lover as I am, Drink Me really doesn't appeal to me. My nose can't figure out what it's smelling, and it doesn't like it. In the imp, I smelled cake, but on my skin I'm not sure what it is. I can't smell any cherry or pineapple or butterscotch. It's a sweet but dry scent. I much prefer Eat Me, so I'll stick with that.

Hmm, what an interesting oil. When I first applied I got a screaming blast of herbal-ness that I'm not a huge fan of- it reminds me of the Belladonna blast of green. But as it dries down, it gets interesting. When I put my wrist to my nose, there's this lemony note that's really nice. It's not lemon, I don't think, it's probably in the same family. When it's farther from my nose, it's sharper and more plant-y.

Vice opens blaringly sharp (what IS that?), but then as it begins to dry down, the orange blossom pokes its head out nicely, and then it becomes a smooth scent. Bordello makes me think of satin, and this is smooth like that, but not satiny. Maybe... freshly paved road smooth? Anyway, I'm not sure what that smoothness-inducing scent is. It doesn't smell like chocolate to me, but not like black cherry, either. I guess it's a combination! It's a nice oil.

Vanilla? Sweet pea? Amber? SIGN ME UP! .... Or maybe not. This is a delicate, childlike, sweet scent that's very pretty, but I feel like I should be wearing a foofy pink dress and playing with a tea set. Sometimes I get that feeling when I wear Alice- like I'm too old to wear the oil- I'm not sure why. I think this would be a nice scent to wear when you feel like you're going to cry because it is so sweet and cuddly. As it dries down, the sweet pea tames itself and the vanilla perks up, which for me is a godsend because although I love sweet pea in other blends, it's too much here, and because the Lab's vanilla never shows up on my skin. I'm going back and forth on whether or not I like it. More than I thought I would when I first applied the oil, but not enough. I'm not sure this is an oil I'd wear very often.

I waffle on how much I like this scent. It's not what I thought it would be. I love the spicy apple that peek through the dark notes- it smells like an apple cider, though it's a different one than in Punkie Night. But sometimes it smells like cleaning liquid or a baked potato, or O. Don't get me wrong, I love O. But if I wanted to be wearing O, I would wear O. I think this is an oil that I should only wear on selected days of the month.

If I hadn't gotten this as a frimp, I'd never have smelled Ephemera. I'm just not a floral girl. But I like this. I really smell the muguet (which may be because my mother had a lily of the valley perfume I would sniff occasionally). It's a whitish scent to me and soft. Ephemera is definitely a different scent experience for me- not one I'd wear often, but I'm glad to have the imp.

The first time I wore Punkie Night, I had hours and hours of glorious tart green apples- I could even smell the tree as the fruit came off of it. Since then, the cider has come on faster and faster tile there's only a minute or so of pure apple. But the cider is oh so lovely. It's perfectly spiced and warm. This is really lovely.

I admit I was quite concerned when I tried this imp out. Pennyroyal? Man, that's the stuff we put on my dogs to scare off lice and other boogly-wooglies. Black musk? I'm just finally admitting I like any musks, and those are pale. So I was surprised that once the blast of pennyroyal wore off I smelled like.... an old lady, as my mother bluntly told me. Maybe the Mad Hatter is really Queen Elizabeth II?

When Eris is wet, it's melony! Yum. It dries down to alternations between the florals and spices. My nose insists there's pepper in these "Martial spices" but I could be wrong. I tend not to be a floral lover, but these aren't bothering me. It's a nice, warm weather scent.

Lemon! Lemon! Lemon! Gone!

 

Amazing. No incense to be found!

At first, Nero was really horrible. Bitter, sickly sweet, obnoxious. I liked Nero better after it dried down into an incensy blend, but this is still not for me. But I'm glad to have gotten the chance to try it, because you just never know.

I just tried my mother's beloved, six month old frimp, so I don't know how it smelled fresh vs aged. But this is much lovelier than I would have expected. It's an evergreen, but not pine tree-ish. After a little bit, it got a little powdery, but I don't see it as a flaw. The berries are very, very subtle. They smell like berries on trees, not berries that you eat.

 

Yes Trees isn't something I would buy for myself, but it was a pleasant surprise for me.

I took this frimp on the plane with me a couple of weeks ago, and something happened to the cap that made it spill over all my other imps. It's a lucky thing, in some way, because otherwise I would never have given it a chance. This is vetivert, not the vetiver that I loathe. At first I didn't care for the scent at all, but since it's been surrounding me for a week, it's grown on me. I don't think of it as dirty or bad-hippie. Maybe a mysterious hippie. It's all right, is what it is. I'm glad I tried it.

When HGM first goes on, there's a fruity, melon-ish scent, which is lovely, but it soon moves to becoming a green aloe-y fragrance. I'm sad to miss out on the vanilla and ginger, and even the grapefruit, but I'm ecstatic the sandalwood isn't screaming its fool head off on my skin. People are right- this is lovely, and wonderful for summer.

CXIII (113): The first time I wore this has been different from the subsequent wearings. The first time, I was first blasted with some citrus- but not orange, lime, lemon, or grapefruit. My mom and I tried to come up with other possibilities. Kumquat? Pumelo? Tumelo? Who the hell knows! I have not tried the tweedles, so maybe it's something in one of them. But then about a half hour afterward, it was all spiced cloves. In subsequent wearings, this has been clove, with or without spice. This is the first time I've gotten a good "look" at the BPAL clove note, and it's nice. This bottle reminds me of the oranges that I press cloves into during the Christmas season.

 

CXIV (114): I've had a REALLY hard time with this one. There's something almost yeasty in the bottle, and faint on the skin. The first time I wore this, I got a really high note, surrounded by a lower note. Helpful, huh? But high as in high in my nose, not as in sweet or sharp. Subsequently, I've decided that this is a floral blend. I THINK I caught some rose (the BPAL rose notes have almost universally been an olfactory blind spot for me- I can't smell them), and something paler. I've been thinking of it as a bride's bouquet- lovely, but not distracting from her on her big day. I'm not sure about this one.