Alaeidrel

I use Rogue when I need to be really hard and able to withstand negative emotion - something about the leather and rosin makes it a 'cruel' scent to me. (There's an image in my head of this scent that's of Pike's Place Market in Seattle after it's closed, all cold tile and old wood with a grey, enveloping sky out the windows over the turbulent ocean). When I need to be empowered and kick serious ass, it's Dragon's Heart.

Oh my god. This smells like a bottle of really expensive vanilla musk I inherited from my grandmother. There's no honey notes on me, which is absolutely fine because they tend to be too sweet for my preference. At this point I'm just huffing my wrist and nearly drooling. Such a keeper, may need a bottle.

The gin is the first thing that hits me here. In the bottle and wet the only thing I smell is spicy, boozy juniper berries, which is absolutely fantastic. It takes a lot of drydown for me to start picking up the fruit notes, and I'm still getting mostly tangerines. This is classy and subtle and absolutely delicious - far better than I expected.

This starts off ridiculously sweet and medicinal on me. Not the sickly-sweet of cough syrup, but that bitter astringent liquid they give you when you're really sick, combined with bubble-gum. It's absolutely nauseating wet. Once it dries, though, it's a subtle sweet spice with a hint of almonds. There's not much in the way of wine, but the spices come through nicely. It's very mild and still a little too sweet for what I'd hoped. It's very much a pink smell, rather than the dark crimson I was hoping for. And yet I still really like it. Not what I expected, but really nice for winter. I do have to layer it on, though, because it doesn't have much throw. Edit: after reading through the aging thread, I'm going to give it some indirect sunlight and hope it helps cut the sweetness down.

In the imp: woodsy and spicy, promising. Wet: flowers? Dry: endless baby powder with a weird hint of violet. I was really hoping to love this one. :/ The baby powder is so strong I'm tasting it on top of the tea I'm drinking. Ick.