stonechiper

Dry sunny meadow grass, sweet wildflowers and that distinctive powdery musky smell of a dog cavorting there. Amazingly evocative, and a wonderful memorial to a dear one. If you loved Beltane I would give this a try.

Quick question: I have a bottle of Samhain from a swap. The bottle is cobalt blue. The label is paper (i.e. not laminated), with "Samhain" on it, and a picture of a woman in a red dress with the moon behind her and a bat beside her. I can post a pic when I get back from my lecture later.

 

What year is this bottle from? It has no year on the label.

 

ETA: It smells very "aged".

I have the same bottle and it's 2005.

I work circ desk at a library and have gotten several compliments on Phoenix. Libraries tend to be dry/cold enviroments so I tend to pick something slightly aquatic or subtly spicy, and Phoenix has both those elements.

Thank you stonechiper!

 

The label of Tamamo-no-mae is absolutely wonderful. It's even more beautiful than I expected. It's maybe my favourite label so far.

 

I still haven't got my bottle of Tamamo-no-mae, but I think I have to keep it because of the label art even if I don't like the scent. (Although after reading the reviews I think I'll love the oil itself too.)

Ditto, my sinuses are acting up today so I haven't been able to reall smell this yet but the bottle is gorgeous! I wish the trading post would do a shirt!

Does anyone have pics of Blue Moon '07 and Tamamo-no-mae? I'm still waiting for a CnS, so it will take some time before I can smell them, but maybe I could see the labels sooner? (I'm so curious!)

I'm usually loathed to post pics of labels as my camera and my skills are rudimentary, but Tamamo no mae......

I rarely write reviews but the Dogs Playing Poker series in general and Pinched with Four Aces in particular need bumping up!

One of the great things about BPAL for me (aside from the divinely crafted scents) is learning about such diverse things. When I see a scent description and an unfamilar component, I love looking it up to find out what kind of a smell it could be and the meaning it could be suggesting. With the Salon scents I find it almost mandatory that I do a little research on the artist and painting being interpeted.

C. M. Coolidge's series of paintings are icons of kitch, often the used as the punch line for jokes about "fine art". However they are also some of the most recognized (and copied) images in the art world. Recently 2 of the dogs playing poker series went up for auction expected to bring in around 50,000. Instead they sold for 590,000. I know this really has nothing to do with what Pinched with Four aces smells like, but like Coolidge's paintings themselves, one shouldn't be quick to judge these scents as jokes. IMHO they rank up there with some of the Lab's finest creations.

OK, now that I've dispensed with that ultra dramatic introduction, perhaps I can actually review the scent?

Yes.

When reading the description one does does not expect sweet and foody, but when I open the bottle I smell sugarry butterscotch.

Honestly, it smells like Monsterbait:Underpants to me not only at first sniff, but upon initial application.

I know Beth doesn't list every note in a blend, but this has me perplexed.

I think it may be the tobacco, but I've had tobacco blends before and this is far far sweeter, more caramel. I look up Maduro tobacco and learn that this type of leaf is cured in the sun for much longer than a regular tobacco leaf, which greatly increases the sugar content to create a very sweet flavorfull cigar.

The sticky sweetness is melded with dry coffee, cinammon and woods which must be what my nose on casual sniff associates with Underpants, Beaver Moon, or Misk U. When I put my nose to my wrist I smell that unmistakeable dry smell of a cigar wrapper, the tang of the cinammon bark and bite of fiberous woods. I don't really get a coffee smell, but I do get husk.

As it dries down I'm left with occasional wafts of that sweet smell, the sillage caused at least one of my companions to wonder if someone had been smoking a pipe in the room earlier. Then as that fades it leaves me with a dry woodsy smell. This scent seems such a perfect way to paint the picture in scent. It starts off as if you were in the middle of the game and there long enough to pick up the smell of your oppents cigar, the polished wood of the poker table. As the police storm in, a mug of coffee spiked with whisky falls over spilling on the chips and soaks into the mat. You escape into the night and know you need to walk the smell of the game off you, but it never quite leaves you and you can't help but feel lucky that the cops broke it up before you lost your shirt.

I'm a big fan of scent as a mnemonic device and as a sensory experience and this is a great one! This is not something you wear to create allure or to get compliments. It's for creating a mood and an expericence. To feel and appear slightly mysterious and secrective. You've been up to something, but they can't and you won't tell.

Sorry for the crappy pic quality, but I had to post as I love this and its label

I would love to see what the label for Intergalactic looks like **bats eyelashes**

I second that!

For anyone missing the City In the Sea LE, Cthulu smells almost identical to me, except for the lack of violet.

I've been using Grapeseed Oil as a carrier, and for the most part it works fine, esp with stronger scents. However, when I mixed it with Snake Oil I found that the

two don't mix (literally). I wonder if a different carrier would help. I'm not too concerned, I like the cool lava lamp like effect and all, but sometimes the mixture comes out snake oil and sometimes it comes out SNAKE OIL

In the bottle

leather, patchouli, musk

when applied

leather, not new leather mind you,

but the well worn leather of the ex-lovers jacket that you've hidden in the back of

your closet and sworn you don't have.

Ginger and Red Musk penetrate the ends of the sleeves.

On drydown

here comes vanilla dragged through patchouli, giving

the scent a Snake Oil like feel, the flowers are there too,

like innocence lost but not forgotten,

sharp magnolia, sweet honeysuckle, and (if I'm correct that

Queen Elizabeth root is also known as Orris root)

a shy violet that binds it together.

This is what Iris would smell like wearing Travis Bickle's jacket (if it were leather that is)

Post review comments:

I've been wearing this off and on since my initial review. I mixed aboout an imps worth with a little grapseed oil in a rollerball. Patchouli tends to be very overpowering on me drowning out other scents. For some reason diluting the oils tends to brighten up musky resinous blends for me. Trick 1 only seems to get better with age. A leathery Snake Oil spicy musk. The drydown is divine to me. Leather and spice with a touch of vanilla

Fans of Red Phoenix, Shub, Smut, Snake Oil and Count Dracula would probably love this now, maybe even more after aging

My first review, please be kind

DCCCIII (803) or as I call it D thriple C three!

Super short review = orangey rose

In the bottle this is a sharp citrus like orange rind, with a sweet tart smell and something green in the background.

On this is orange, but a really tangy orange, which may be blood orange as it reminds me of Kunstkammer.

The green smell makes itself known as rose, which is the note I avoid at all costs, but when mixed with the citrus, it gives it more of of a green stem of the rose smell which makes it a bit more palatable.

There is also a slightly soapy floral scent in the background that I can't quite place, perhaps a lily of some kind, it reminds me of lily of the valley anyway. But it morphs from time to time and I think I smell something like lavender as well.

I also sense some kind of amber or light musk on the drydown as it becomes lightly powdery and stays close to the skin.