septima_pica

Gaueko. Also, seconded for Hand of Glory.

Wet this is all sugary melons and chile powder like a Mexican fruit stand, with a bit of dusty tobacco appearing on the dry-down like someone standing nearby smoking on a cigar. Then something horrible happens and it goes icky baby powder grossness for a half-hour or so. When that finally poofs away, I'm left with the same players but with their places exchanged: sweet honeyed tobacco is at the forefront, melons keeping it moist, and chiles in the background subtly threatening to cause a sneezing fit. This is an extremely interesting and not at all unpleasant scent; I'm glad I tried it; but unfortunately, I don't know when I'd ever find myself wearing it. And the sneezy chiles put me on edge.

At first: Masala chai all over the place. Without milk. So far this is avoiding the "potpourri" territory. 5 minutes: Starting to stray that direction. Cardamom is not coming out at all, this is 100% clove and black pepper and carnation now. If I could crossbreed this with Laudanum I'd have the perfect spice scent. Was hoping for some patchouli in there though, and so far none at all. 10 minutes: Now it's getting familiar. I think I've smelt this somewhere else in the catalogue -- one I haven't tested for a long time. Straying a little too close to craft shop right now...and then back again... 30 minutes: Only the fixative is left! That was weird. It's really really faint now; I have to work to find it. When I do, it's a touch of patchouli and masala chai again -- this would be good at about 4x its current throw, so that I could smell it without mashing my nose into my arm. It was nice meeting you, ma'am; pity you can't stay. 1:30: Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.

The challenge here is whether skin musk will mean powder...usually happens around 15 to 30 minutes in. Immediately: Smells like pine tar! Once it dries down, some other sweet stuff is evident. This is a good start. 5 minutes: Almost fruity. Not sure what causes that. The resins keep it from getting too sweet, though, especially that bitter pine tar. 10 minutes: Here's the tobacco and the honey. Everything else seems to be sitting on the vanilla quite effectively; it's present but not annoyingly plastic like it is in so many other blends. Lots of resin is good for me. Well, I guess I knew that already. I wouldn't call it sexy, exactly, but it's certainly very good. 30 minutes: Well, damn, I like this a lot. It's a very unique combination, the bitter resins with the sweet honey and vanilla, and the tobacco in between. I can smell the baby powder musk trying to get out from behind the other notes. We'll see if it manages to escape. 1:30: Aw. It's vanilla and musk now; all the lovely resin and pitch, as well as the honey, has dropped down below those two notes. Nice, but not really interesting anymore. I think I'll try layering Antikythera Mechanism with Dracul and see if it achieves a similar effect. At least it never went nasty powdery, I guess.

Cleopatra Testing Poisons. What an incredibly dressy scent. ETA: Ooops. Sorry, I didn't see that you'd already posted the list of things you have...I'm still wearing Cleopatra Testing Poisons next time I need to dress up, though.)

Aw, crap. This is gorgeous. And here I was trying to avoid needing to hoard more CD other than Bezoar...can the Wunderkammer become GC please? Please? Anyhow. Beautiful soft leather, like the leather in Hand of Glory, but with deep green things behind it. There might be some of the palm note from Moai and Caliban in here, something spicy and bright, and a whole heap of other things that I can't parse except to say YUM. Pepper? Cilantro? Green coconut? I'm lost, folks. Overall, it's disturbingly evocative of a shrunken head. It's also really, really pleasant, though; soft and dusty like most of the Wunderkammer, dark, calm, and totally nonsexual in a good way. Definitely an adventurer's scent. Interestingly, it's one of the only scents I've had that smelled exactly the same in the bottle and on my skin. Wonder what's up with that.

This is right between Brimstone and Caliban. It's got the acrid smoke from Brimstone and the sweet soft palm from Caliban, and the resulting scent is soft, wet, smoky, and surprisingly lovely. Not getting the cologney masculine things other posters describe at all -- in fact, by the time this dries down to its final state it's quite mellow and not human-smelling at all. I got it 'cause I'm a geology dork, and I'm not disappointed. That volcanic sulphur is there for sure. When I visited Hawai'i this spring, there was a smoke plume from Kilauea settling down over the desert, and then it rained -- this here is remarkably close to the smell of wet volcanic ash. I'm glad I grabbed this decant.

Caliban is a really neat blend -- wine like Nosferatu, soft palm like Moai (and apparently Havana), and salty aquatic. On me it went pretty flat department-store aquatic cologne, but on Kalirren it's really a very lovely and unique sea scent.

Damn, Nia, that's it exactly. Why couldn't I think of that?

Absolutely gorgeous overwhelming osmanthus tea. Mmmmm. Osmanthus, for anyone who doesn't know, is a teeny yellow flower which is often added to teas just as jasmine is. It's got a strong, almost fruity aroma, reminiscent of pineapple or maybe peach, with a little bit of the acrid herbal smell of daylily. Here it's backed up by a really pure raw white honey, plus some mellow greenish things. I assume these are the ti leaf and sugarcane but if you'd asked me without the description I might have said it was bamboo or pandan. Hibiscus never shows itself. Warm, cheerful, apricot-fuzz-coloured, a bit sexy. Quite lovely. I don't know if I'll ever wear it much, but I like it.

(Octopod) You know, I could write a review of this, but Uploaded Lobster has done it for me. We both read that review (among the others, of course) when I arranged a swap for this. Today it came and I tried it on. Bitter herbs like the ones in Poisoned Apple came flying off like bats out of hell, two minutes later they were gone, and then -- "Head," I said, proffering my arm to Kalirren. "Head," he confirmed. I love it.

Yeah, like the Hebrew one except a little more forward and much softer. Maybe you could even elide it and say it like a "British-accent" missing r sound. THe American one would be gross. Haha, if I'd known you spoke Hebrew I'd have referred to that in the first place though...

In the bottle, it smells exactly like the description. Unfortunately, on my skin, this is a pleasant violet scent but there is absolutely nothing else going on. No mint, none of that mushroomy Death Cap note I was hoping for. Pity, really. I agree with the poster that says it's cucumbery -- almost like bath products really. Also agree about Baobhan Sith, where unfortunately all the things that I wasn't hoping for also came out. I think I'll stick with Zombi for my swampy florals, although I can certainly see the appeal of this one -- I'm just not sufficiently keen on violets, I think.

Absolute smoky beeswaxy evil awesomeness for the first half-hour -- and then it's powder. There must be black musk in here somewhere. Kalirren still likes it on me though, so I won't swap quite yet. Maybe I'll try layering with No. 93 Engine to get the beeswax back? ETA: OK, I was about to swap this away when I suddenly remembered that I'd been on my period when I first tested it. I'm wearing it again today and it's miles better -- the unfortunate powder stays in the background and gives that glorious beeswax note some room. Smoky, leathery, sandalwoody candles. Whew. (I still don't get any of the nutmeg or saltpetre, though. Maybe I'll try it with Laudanum?

Octopod: I was hoping for a nice pungent grapefruit and ginger scent, but this unfortunately brings out the other two notes. This is mostly apple blossom on me, with some tea, and maybe a tiiiiiiny bit of grapefruit peel in there somewhere. Bah. It's nice, but not what I was looking for. I should try The Apothecary again, and maybe Spider as well. Or maybe...er...wait a week.

Kalirren: There's got to be civet in this. Civet and patchouli (both of which don't work on me) are the most notable thing here, unfortunately. The other notes weave in and out -- now they're here, now they're gone -- jasmine, rose, and wine. The wine is light and sour in comparison to the wine in Lilith. We expected this to be a lot more like Lilith, but it's completely different despite the similarity in listed notes. Octopod: A flash of the same light wine from Nosferatu as it dries down. Then, it's civet and jasmine, with maybe some lurking patchouli somewhere in there. An hour later -- civet and jasmine. It's not my standard Screaming Jasmine Doom though; is "night-blooming" a different species, I wonder? I realize that "civet and jasmine" is pretty much most people's nightmare scent, but this is actually good in this case. Amazing the number of different ways this turns out on people's skin, from reading these reviews...

Phobos. It's 100% lemon drops on me for the first ten minutes and then it's lemongrass. Not like lemon curd at all though.

Wet, lemon drops. Dry, 100% lemongrass. Nothing else is even perceptible.

Ouch. French is really not good for English-speaker-friendly phonetics. Belle Époque is roughly "bell eh-poke" but L'Heure Verte is really hard to transliterate because it's got that gargly French "r" in it. Roughly, "loor vairt". However, both the "r" sounds are the guttural "r" like you never find in English, almost like an "h" or very soft "k" in the back of your throat. Sorry I can't be more useful here.

DarkBeauty28, I'd suggest the following: Nocnitsa, Baneberry, Glasgow. ETA: Also, Ile de la Tortue dries down very similar to Chloe.

Prague is a really nice wet sweet floral. Crossroads and Peitho, too; the former is bubbly-sweet with moss behind it and very interesting, the latter is rich vanilla florals. And Black Lotus is good if lotus isn't bubblegum on you. (Sweet florals are some of Kalirren's favourites too.)

Sybaris and sybarite both have the accent on the first syllable. SIB-uh-ris, SIB-uh-ritt. And Antikythera = An-tee-KITH-er-uh. I think you're right about Aeaea = eye-AY-uh. Also, Fuit = FOOeet, roughly, all smooshed together into one syllable. I expect that Aelopile = AY-low-pile is a reasonable Anglicised way to pronounce it, but the last syllable would have a more Greek vowel in the original -- maybe "AY-low-peel" rather than "-pile"?

eloiseattheplaza: if you can wear myrrh, try Athens maybe? It's got less of the grape note, but it's still there, and the honey is spectacular. (It's also a very strong oil, for fair warning. Not for slathering.)

4th of July scent? Agnes Nutter, for the fireworks, of course!

You know, I never thought this through before, but the Lab is all vegan, so I bet I could wear the dairy notes without trouble. (I'm very allergic to milk.) There was, however, something in The Buggre Alle This Bible that gave me a bit of contact dermatitis. Not sure what it was; maybe I'm just allergic to monotheism.