Gateau

Two, Five & Seven is definitely worth a try. It's a blend of many kinds of roses, with a bit of grass, and I find that at first whiff it smells sweet like rose candy. Then it becomes a full bouquet of fresh roses, that smells to me like walking through a wet garden full of all rose types, rather than sniffing a bouquet of cut roses.

I love Jezebel, but I don't get a lot of rose out of it. I find it very well balanced with the honey and sandalwood notes.

Wet I get lots of honey, plus Snake Oil. From drydown for the next couple of hours I might as well be wearing pure Snake Oil, which wins the award for greatest turnaround in my tastes, as I started put wrinkling my nose and now love it enough to weather the initial harsh phases. Two hours after applying, I now have a mellow Snake Oil with rich but subtle honey (the richnes is probably from the multiple honeys) enhancing Snake Oil's vanilla notes.

I'm not sure I would need this and Snake Oil bottles, but since I only have imps of both, I think I'll go for Womb Furie.

So much to love here--herby lavender, Snake Oil, Dorian, and all together it blends these strong scents into something comforting and appropriate to celebrate a baby. I realize that what I love about it is that when it first goes on my skin it's a dead ringer for that staple of my young womanhood, Love's Baby Soft. But then the richness and sexiness of Snake Oil comes out, and the overall scent is pure joyous motherhood to me -- the sweetness of cuddling your baby, the milkiness and softness of nursing, and the soft sexiness of being someone who has brought forth life. It all ends up musky and vanilla and softly herby. Love it, hopefully I can locate more of it.

Imp -- sweet almond. Clear oil.

Wet -- this is a dead ringer for an almond-honey face scrub my mom bought me when I was a teenager and absolutely loved. Crushed almonds, honey, and a cereal base.

Dry -- This stays true to the creamy almond-honey-cereal scent it had wet, but as it fades it does get a Play-Doh note. Unlike other scents that make me complain of Play-Doh-iness, though, this captures what makes that stuff to appealing to so many people.

Not a lot of throw on this, but it did stick around for several hours in a close-to-skin way. I was a little nervous based on many of the reviews, but at least on me it lasts a reasonable amount of time.

From the listed notes, I was expecting something intensely incensy-sandalwoody-spicy with lots of musky warmth. To my surprise, it's a very light fragrance, requiring up-close huffing, and it's more floral on me than anything else. It smells like hand lotion in a creamy, perfumey way. I don't make out any spice at all, and no sandalwood (which often reads as cinnamon on my skin).

After a few hours it actually gets creamier, sweeter, more vanilla, and gains strength, but it still gives me a heavy lotion feel that reaches the back of my throat.

I don't think this is a good scent for me, but it might be good for layering.

P.S., this is a fresh imp from the Lab. I think I have something more aged around the house and will sample that too, in case age make a significant difference.

I finally cracked into this one.

Very dark brown soap that smells heavily of chocolate. It lathers very nicely and leaves my skin feeling soft. After the first use I uncovered teeny bits of espresso beans which give it a nice light exfoliating effect. Because the bar is so dark brown, the rivulets of soapy water that run down my skin and into the drain look like I'm rubbing mud on myself. Not pretty.

Scentwise, I get mostly chocolate with a bit of coffee and hardly can detect any gingerbread. Left out in the soap dish, it scents the whole upstairs of my house with a slightly dusty chocolate note, sort of like cocoa powder. It's not a great, rich chocolate, actually.

I'd give this a 3 of 5, I think. I'll enjoy it while I use it, but I don't need more.

I love the rich, woody fig and sandalwood scent this gives my hair. It's heady without being too heavy, and it lasts a really long time. Days.

Not sure the gloss itself is the greatest thing for my very thick, curly hair. It doesn't control frizz. If underapplied it doesn't do much at all, and if overapplied it just weighs down my hair. I tried using it as a substitute for all other styling products, and it left my hair soft but fairly unmanageable, so I went to spraying it on my hands and scrunching in. I think it's better for me as a scent than a glossing product, and the least it comes into contact with my products the better.

I'm experimenting with going silicone-free right now, so not using it at all. I miss the fragrance, though. It's a much better vehicle for scenting the hair than any other method I've found so far.

I get a wonderful balance of coffee, chocolate, and apple pastry with this. I've taken to keeping my decant in my office, because it really cheers things up and makes it a comfortable place to hang out. It's welcoming but not at all sexy, which feels right. Need full bottle.

A perfumey floral with a vanilla underpinning. Unfortunately there is a sort of astringent note that goes rather nail polish remover-like on my skin.

More Luper win!

The honey and vanilla don't jump out at me at first -- this is more ambery and incensy in a way I have come to associate with Snake Oil and its various blends. There is a touch of floral perfume at first that lends a bit of edge As that smoky sharpness wears down, this becomes the most delicious rich warm vanilla honey scent, with the beeswax holding it all together. It's not foodie per se, but it feels nourishing, sort of like a cup of warm honeyed milk. This is what i want my skin to smell like Yet another requiring backups!

ETA it's a year later and this has aged so well. That floral edge is softer now, and that sense of honeyed milk has deepened and become more blended.

In the bottle--cool floral, with musky tinge

Wet--I get an initial blast of the fruity aquatic snow note familiar from Yellow Snowballs. It's not something I love, so I'm a little nervous.

Dry--The snowy note subsides, or perhaps melts away, and the florals come out. I have mixed experience with the Lab's tuberose, often finding it to be just another sweet floral. Not so here--I think the peach musk adds that rich exotic muskiness I associate with tuberose and love it for. Although there's a certain fruitiness to this blend, I don't pick out any peach in particular. It's really a lovely, well-blended tuberose.

Another success--3 out of 3 Lupers so far are total win!

This smelled really bubblegummy to me when wet. Once it dried, I got more of the Butter Rum Lifesaver thing, but definitely more butter than rum to my nose. Not really for me.

Peony is one of the loveliest smells in the garden, and here it's beautifully smooth and balanced with vanilla orchid. Peony can sometimes get a soapy edge -- a gorgeous expensive soap, but still -- but not here. It's spring in a bottle.

Another fan of The Vine!

In the bottle: juicy sweet pear and honey

Wet: This is how I wish pears tasted all the time. Sweet, juicy, ripe. It smells like the pear in the "Fancy Fruits" Lifesavers, the ones that had blackberry and apple too. Under the pear is lovely honey.

Dry: The pear, honey, and vanilla cream all blend seamlessly. I don't get any of the plastic I sometimes get in cream notes, and no powderiness from the honey. The only downside is it's a little faint, so I'll want to slather a bit. This has backup bottle(s) written all over it. So glad I ordered unsniffed.

I ate EVERYTHING when I was pregnant with my first, and he's a champion picky eater (though at 10 he's starting to show some improvement FINALLY). I think they do it just to drive us nuts.

I was coming here with the same question -- my 1/13 order for various GCs and a bunch of Lupers is still showing "awaiting shipment," though I've been seeing people reporting CnS already. So not to worry?

UPDATED TO ADD: Just got my CnS, so anyone else wondering the same thing, do not worry!

I don't know why it took me so long to get around to trying Jezebel, but now that I have it's a definite keeper and will soon be a bottle purchase.

It starts out with a blast of unmistakable orange blossom, honey, and rose. But amazingly I don't amp this rose, and the orange blossom doesn't take over either, which it often does on me. The other two notes can be iffy on me too -- sometimes honey makes me feel queasy, and some sandalwoods are equally bothersome. But in this one they all blend together into a harmonious whole where I can pick out each note if I try to, but mostly I just enjoy their balance.

Once dry I get a powdery scent, but it's a wonderful powder, that makes me think of really expensive bath products, not a granny's underwear drawer or a baby. It's as if you shaved and powdered some very fine sandalwood and scented it with the florals and honey.

This is a great one in the warm floral category. The sandalwood adds a certain spiciness without going into the spice cabinet.

Second the Hermia recommendation. I get an almost gingerbready level of sweet warm spice from the pink peppercorn. It has good throw and lasts a long time, too.

To you too!

Really, it's a good thing that we have no intention of having a fourth, because I shudder to imagine what another pregnancy would be like. Another rotten thing was that all the foods and flavors I'd found comforting in my previous pregnancies left a disgusting taste in my mouth with this baby.

I had progressively worse smell aversions with each pregnancy. With this last one, there are soaps, hair gels, and cleansers that I still can't stand the smell of, and the baby just had his birthday. Though since I'm still nursing maybe it's hormonal. I couldn't tolerate any perfume at all, but once he was about 6 months I could get back into it, and that's when I found my way to BPAL.

What bicyclette said!

Schrodinger's Cat is a very strange mix of notes that still ends up working.

Can't believe I never reviewed this, what with being a Midsummer Nights Dream obsessive and all.

In the imp--pear and other fruits, sweet flowers

Wet--juicy grape and pear, mostly just sweet floral and fruit

Dry--the fruits all blend, the flowers are white and clean but aromatic. And the whole thing shimmers with something crystalline (a pale musk?) and represents dew and moonlight. After awhile a muskiness emerges to temper some of the white grape sweetness. Overall it's like a very expensive melon or ose very elegant sugared fruits on a fancy alfresco luncheon table.

In all, just what the description says. I'm not sure it's strictly Titania to me, who I imagine would have something more serious, dangerous, and regal going on, but it's definitely fairylike.

Good thing I like it since I spilled 1/3 imp on my desk!

This smells like I got motor oil on my hands at the gas station while drinking ginger ale. That fizzy ginger ale from Polynesian Pop is impressively real, but the industrial scents make me feel ill.

I was so excited to try this, and it started out wonderfully rich and toffee-like, but as I wore it I got a strong leafy tobacco, oaky Scotch, cologne sort of vibe. Looks like I'm not alone in that.